It started in March, as the dominoes of conference basketball tournaments fell. 

Then the NCAA’s money-maker, March Madness, was wiped from the calendar, causing Division I institutions to receive only $225 million of the $600 million they expected from the NCAA.

Division I officials spent the rest of the year salvaging their revenue-generating seasons in whatever way possible: Football teams played truncated seasons racked with cancellations with few or no fans, and basketball teams are muscling through a similarly dangerous season. Meanwhile, Olympic sports teams remained largely an afterthought.

Between the added costs of safety protocols and losses to major revenue streams like media rights and ticket sales — which made up 29% and 17% of all 2018 FBS revenue, respectively, according to the Knight Commission — athletic departments nationwide hemorrhaged cash this year.

The Fallout

While many well-compensated coaches and athletic directors took pay cuts, athletes and lower-level athletic department employees suffered the most from the pandemic:

• Nationwide, programs large and small let go of athletic department staff, and Power 5 programs like Texas, Texas Tech, and Michigan each eliminated more than 20 positions. 
• NCAA programs cut more than 200 sports, according to a September AP tally, most of which are non-revenue, or Olympic sports, like track and field or swimming.

While dire losses certainly contributed to these cuts, some experts argue that the pandemic served as an excuse to trim positions or teams for which departments lost interest. 

“I’ve heard very intelligent and business-minded people say things like, ‘You never want to squander an opportunity which a crisis could present,’” Irwin Kishner, the co-chair of the sports law group at Herrick Feinstein, told FOS in September. “If not now, when?” 

2021 Outlook: What Will Change, and What Won’t

• The SEC/Disney media deal illustrates that skyrocketing premier college football media rights valuations have been undeterred by COVID-19. 
• Partnership valuations between brands and athletic departments, however, are changing, IEG Global Managing Director Peter Laatz told FOS. Many brands are becoming more interested in how athletic departments can tell their products’ stories, and care less about visibility. 
• While it’s unclear whether Division I departments will stray from their spend-what-they-make revenue model, Division III departments may be forced to overhaul budget strategies in 2021 and beyond.

The first law allowing college athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness is slated to take effect in July 2021.

The NCAA, the federal government and states have been planning for the shift, releasing piles of proposals. And an entire industry has materialized of third-party groups looking to also make money facilitating deals or educating stakeholders on how to complete them.

NIL Certainties and Uncertainties 

The flurry of bills in state and federal circulation, as well as the NCAA’s proposed bylaw alterations, would mostly allow athletes to profit from NIL deals. 

But the proposals vary widely on many details, including:

• Whether, and how much, athletic departments will be able to prohibit certain deals.
• Whether departments or the NCAA can cap how much money an athlete makes.
• Whether athletes could participate in group licensing deals.

What is clear, according to multiple experts who have spoken with FOS, is that there will be a lucrative market for women’s sports athletes and Olympic sports athletes, and that NIL rights will likely elevate their visibility.

2021 Outlook: Broader Payment Question

NIL’s approach has also elevated the fundamental question of whether schools should directly pay college athletes for playing.

The Supreme Court’s hearing of NCAA v. Alston could help settle this debate, as it will review a 9th Circuit Court ruling saying the governing body violated antitrust law by limiting the education-related benefits available to certain athletes.

Here’s what college sports lawyer Mit Winter told FOS could happen based on the Supreme Court’s ruling:

• “Depending on how broad the court’s ruling is, I think there could also be a new wave of litigation aimed at eliminating all of the NCAA’s restrictions on college athlete compensation.”
• “On the other hand, the Court could overrule the 9th Circuit’s decision and college athletes would be limited to the [cost of attendance] scholarships that were allowed before the 9th Circuit’s decision.”

In 2020, athletes nationwide found their voices. 

When police murdered George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Black college athletes like USC sprinter Anna Cockrell organized and submitted action items for athletic departments to combat systemic racism both on and off campus. 

When the college football season approached with little clarity on COVID-19 safety guidelines, Power 5 football players demanded that administrators find ways to let them play safely, and even suggested a college athlete union.

And when college students experienced difficulty registering to vote, women’s sports athletes from Arizona State to Vanderbilt worked to fight voter suppression against young people.

Limitations and Struggles

But players also saw the limits to college athlete activism without a unified voice or professional leverage. 

Perhaps the Pac-12 players’ #WeAreUnited movement illustrates the difficulties with organizing and sticking to activism:

• In August, Pac-12 football players released a statement demanding the conference not only increase safety protocols, but also directly share revenue with athletes. They threatened to strike if those demands weren’t met.
• Despite many pillars of their request being ignored, Pac-12 players did not collectively strike, and instead participated in the conference’s haphazard season.
• A few days later, a group of Power 5 players demanded that they be allowed to play, muddling the Pac-12 players’ original statement and the Power 5 group’s own request for a college athlete union.

Not to mention, athletes are full-time students, and often spend dozens of hours a week on their sport. While professional athletes have unions to organize campaigns, statements, and negotiations, college athletes hardly have time to do the same.

2021 Outlook: What to Advocate For

As NIL approaches and social media voices grow louder, the college athlete platform only stands to grow. But what will athletes use it for? To demand payment? Safer working conditions? Racial justice within programs? That remains to be seen.