Name Image Likeness Grants College Athletes the Chance to Make a Profit
Name Image Likeness
On July 1, 2021, the NCAA approved legislation enabling student athletes to monetize their Name Image Likeness (NIL). According to the Washington Post, the NIL ruling enables athletes to make money off of their “social media posts, appearances, sponsorships, autograph sales, endorsement deals and private training classes or camps. Athletes can be paid by local or national businesses in exchange for their promotion.”
The potential profit for these young athletes is limitless. For example, Arizona State men’s basketball player Marcus Bagley is set to earn as much as $287,536. Bagley’s high earning potential can be attributed to his notoriety and social media following. His Instagram followers total over 334,000, making him an attractive athlete for brands to target. These new brand deals and eyes on a college athlete like Bagley bring more pressure and intensified public scrutiny. One mishap online could end his current revenue streams and future professional aspirations.
Maintaining A Positive Online Brand Is Now More Important Than Ever
Maintaining a positive brand image is critical to the success of college athletes profiting from their NIL. One harmful social post could take it all away. Social media posts have already caused college athletes to be penalized in the past. So we know that social media brand protection was already needed. Now it is a necessity.
Complex has composed over a dozen stories of student athletes who got in trouble for their social media posts. Take All-American WR Ryan Spadola from Lehigh University for example. Spadola fell victim to the easy possibility of retweeting something deemed questionably racist. As a result, he was forced to sit out for the FCS playoff game. This dampened both his future professional pursuits and tarnished his school’s reputation. There are even more severe cases of disciplinary actions for social media mishaps. Ask DJ Gardner. Gardner was kicked off the Mississippi State University basketball team for hateful tweets containing profanity.
Protect Your Personal Brand With LifeBrand
Although a large social media following may bring fame and fortune, it also brings an equal amount of risk and responsibility. This is where LifeBrand comes into play. LifeBrand is the leader of social media protection, detection, and education. The company has created technology that privately scans your social media accounts. It then flags any questionable posts from the start of that account. Once the scan completes, users can delete, edit or ignore the flagged posts. Additionally, every flagged post comes with an explanation. This helps the end user understand why the technology chose to flag it. It also encourages them to educate themselves on what about the post is deemed “potentially harmful.”
LifeBrand offers a very simple solution for maintaining a positive reputation online. College athletes can use LifeBrand to remove questionable content and build their brand. This allows them to focus on making the most from their Name Image Likeness.
Click below to try a free LifeBrand scan. It’s an easy solution to protect your own online brand.