The Perceived Impact of the New Rules Regarding Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) in Intercollegiate Sports

New rules allow college athletes to earn significant income from a multitude of activities common among professional athletes. These activities include allowing athletes to profit from the sale of intellectual properties that bear their name, image, or likeness (NIL); additional opportunities include blogs, social media posts, camps, and autograph sessions. Early perceptions of the impact of these new NIL rules have been far from unanimous. A sample of 404 students from five American universities provided feedback regarding their perceptions of nine NIL-related considerations: the impact that the new NIL rules have had on college sports, if the athletes benefit, whether the rules impact recruiting, if they give Power 5 schools an advantage, if boosters and wealthy alumni are given too much power, the extent to which they hope athletes at their school can benefit from the new rules, if the new rules are detrimental to amateur athletics in general, whether they approve of the new rules, and if the new rules run counter to Title IX. The results indicate that students possess a generally favorable perception of the new rules.