“I don’t want student athletes on our rosters who are only here because we’re paying them,” athletic director John Mack ’00 told The Daily Princetonian in an interview.
Name, image, and likeness (NIL) has been the topic of nationwide discussion since a 2021 Supreme Court ruling. The Court ruled unanimously that the NCAA could not stop payments to student-athletes, thus opening the door for athletes to receive compensation related to their name, image, and likeness.
“The vast majority of student athletes on any campus on any roster are there because it provides an experience to be a student and an athlete at the institution that they chose, not because someone threw tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at them,” Mack said.
Most power-five schools have established NIL collectives, which are permitted under the ruling. Collectives are donor-funded alumni groups that pay student athletes following NCAA rules. Today, top athletes in high-revenue collegiate sports are earning high six-figure deals at most power-conference schools. Some even earn seven figures.
However, NIL will likely continue to evolve in the years to come. Just over a week ago, legislation in Virginia passed allowing schools to pay their student-athletes. This marked a major move as Virginia is now the first state to adopt such a rule. If other states were to follow suit, it could further complicate the world of NIL by introducing direct compensation in addition to such promotional deals.
Given the rapidly evolving collegiate athletics landscape, Princeton fans and athletes are wondering how NIL will impact Ivy League athletics — namely, if the Ivy League will still be an option for top athletes in high-revenue sports like basketball and football.
“While [the money] may turn some potential student athletes away, I think, overwhelmingly, we will continue to find that a large number of really great student athletes find the Princeton student athlete experience really attractive,” Mack said.
Princeton has not lost high-profile athletes in the transfer portal this season, but many other schools have not had the same luck, especially in basketball, the high-revenue sport in which the Ivy League is most successful.
Harvard recently lost star first year guard Malik Mack to Georgetown, where he could profit from a NIL deal. Yale’s star sophomore forward Danny Wolf committed to Michigan last week. The list of transfers includes other Ivy League stars, such as Brown starters Kalu Anya and Nana Owusu-Anane.
Additionally, as top athletes are entering the transfer portal and changing the collegiate landscape at a higher rate than ever before — and the Ivy League has failed to capitalize.
Despite this trend, the University remains adamant about keeping collectives away from Princeton.
“I don’t think we institutionally see [collectives] as a path of success for us,” Mack affirmed. “Largely what collectives across the country have become is just paying kids to be on your roster.”
“It’s been a means to attract kids to your institution, just because you are the highest bidder that is never going to be who we are, is never going to be our philosophy,” he added.
The OpenDorse experiment
Last year, Princeton announced the launch of OpenDorse, a NIL marketplace for students on campus. With the OpenDorse platform, all student athletes are eligible to make a profile. Once the profile has been made, they can view current listings from companies. Depending on the athlete’s prominence, brands may reach out to athletes or vice versa.
Following the launch, the athletic department hosted a Zoom info session for all student athletes. However, attendance at this event was “limited” according to Mudd and Senior Associate Director of Compliance for athletics Greg Busch, who discussed plans to bring OpenDorse back to campus in the fall.
“That’s the time when it’s the start of the year when most student-athletes are just getting here, they’re getting into the swing of things with the new year,” Busch said of the decision to move the info session to the Fall next year as opposed to last year's in the Spring.
University policy makes it clear that the University cannot arrange deals for students, which is commonplace at many other schools. Instead, students must brand themselves with support from OpenDorse videos, which provide tips on how to best brand themselves.
“I think nationally, a lot of student-athletes don’t realize that [building your brand] is part of the NIL enterprises,” Mack said. “You have to do some work on the front end to be a more attractive candidate for a lot of these companies.”
The do-it-yourself approach of Princeton to NIL stands in contrast to other schools like Duke University, which offered a class this Spring on building a brand for yourself through social media.
The process for student athletes
“We want to make sure that we have meaningful opportunities for our student athletes to engage in NIL activities,” Mack said.
Currently, the main restriction the University places on athletes is that they cannot use institutional trademarks, logos, or facilities. According to Busch, these are the only times they would get involved and speak to a student athlete.
Sophomore pole vaulter Tessa Mudd spoke to the ‘Prince’ about her process with NIL at Princeton. She explained that athletes need to fill out a form with information about the company and payment details before they can post and participate in any NIL activity.
“I filled out all my disclosure stuff two weeks ago and I’ve still yet to have it approved,” Mudd noted. “It’s unclear if I can get in trouble for participating or posting anything yet.”
“I feel like there’s not as much of a quick and timely response as there was at the beginning of the year,” Mudd added.
Mudd is a former staff photographer for the ‘Prince.’
In October 2023, Mudd partnered with Firefly Athletics to promote their newest recovery device. Other than receiving free products from Firefly to promote, Mudd has not made any substantial money through NIL.
For different student athletes, the compensation package may vary. Some may only receive free merchandise from the company, while direct payment deals can range anywhere from a hundred dollars to thousands of dollars.
Women’s soccer senior forward Lexi Hiltunen, who has a following of over 130,000 followers on Instagram, has had a much different experience than most Tigers. While Mudd and others needed to do more work on their own, the opportunities came to Hiltunen immediately. These opportunities included partnerships with AlbaBotanica, Target, and Walmart, which can be seen on Hiltunen’s Instagram.
“I think for me, it's a little bit different than most,” Hiltunen noted. “I already had a big social media presence, so I haven’t really had too much of a struggle with [finding deals].”
Football senior quarterback Blake Stenstrom, who has had partnerships with Liquid IV and Rhoback, came across two different types of deals. The first is a set stipend from the company, wherein the stipend is a cut of the sales the athlete can generate through their brand. The second option involves athletes posting coupon codes on their social media.
“It wasn’t a huge priority for me,” Stenstrom said. “They were very boilerplate kind of deals. Just a little opportunity there either to get some free products from a company that I really liked, or make some money promoting a product that I like, as well.”
Tigers on Collectives and NIL
“In an ideal world, that would be the case,” Stenstrom told the ‘Prince’ when asked if he wished Princeton had a collective. Stenstrom viewed the value of a Princeton degree as being more important than potential NIL deals.
“While obviously, everybody would like to get paid money for their time playing football, the value of being at Princeton is far greater than NIL opportunities, at least in [its] current state,” Stenstrom added.
Mudd and Stenstrom agreed that for Princeton to remain competitive and continue to attract top talent, there needs to be more action taken with NIL amongst the Ivy League.
“The only way we’re going to continue getting more competitive is if we have top-tier recruits coming in, and [the current Princeton NIL policy] is definitely something that could push them away,” Mudd noted.
“There’s a lot of potential value out there for starting an NIL collective at Princeton,” Stenstrom said. “Being able to attract more athletes to Princeton will just be great for the athletic reputation of the school and the general experience of the student athletes.”
For Hiltunen, her solution to mending the gap between Princeton and Power Five schools is providing student athletes with a representative in the athletics department to serve as a mentor for athletes pursuing NIL opportunities.
“Princeton should get a specific NIL person to work within the athletic department that can help assist and do deals,” Hiltunen suggested.
The world of NIL is still a new concept and continues to change. As it evolves, the Ivy League will need to make a choice between retaining its stance against NIL collectives or following the national trend of increasing compensation and benefits for student athletes.
“Ultimately, what we want to do is make sure that we’re drawing student athletes who want to be at Princeton for the right reason,” Mack told the ‘Prince.’
“The lifetime value of a Princeton education will almost always exceed NIL opportunities at other institutions,” Mack said. “There will always be a really deep pool of elite student athletes academically and athletically, who value our institutional model and philosophy of the Ivy League student athlete experience.”
Busch added, “We’re the Ivy League, we operate differently, we operate that way for a reason. There might be underlying reasons as to why we’re not doing things that other institutions or other conferences might be doing.”
Those reasons will continue to be a topic of discussion on both a national level and inside the athletics offices of the Ivy League.
Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor and News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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