Here’s how much money CCU’s NCAA athletes have made in NIL. What does it mean?

The numbers are in for name, image, and likeness, also known as NIL for Coastal Carolina University players ... sort of. The new approach to help college players get paid is not very transparent, and players can leave with ad campaigns still running.

According to a Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, request filed with the university, Coastal Carolina student-athletes have inked at least 108 NIL deals, with a total reported income of $77,344.

Coastal Carolina athletes signed these deals between June 30, 2021, when the NCAA announced its NIL policy, and Jan. 26, 2024, when The Sun News filed its FOIA request.

While it’s unknown for every Coastal athlete that signed deals or the amount of each specific deal, 108 deals are small, considering how many student-athletes suit up for CCU.

For context, during the 2021-22 fiscal year, CCU had almost 500 student-athletes competing in its 17 sports, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics database. The football team alone suited up 116 players at the start of the 2023 season.

For Coastal football head coach Tim Beck, NIL has created an illusion of a system more glamorous than it is.

Beck, who favors paying players despite the current system limiting the types of recruits he can pursue and creating a constant roster churn that threatens the football program, added that athletes rarely receive the most monetary figures promised in the NIL space.

“People don’t realize what NIL is. It’s not a bag of cash, and they say, ‘Thanks for coming.’ It’s a job,” Beck said in a December 2023 press conference. “I bet you probably 50 percent (of players) don’t ever make the money they say they’re making. I’m almost positive of that. Because I’ve been in that world, (and) I’ve seen it happen.”

The exact amounts each student-athlete made per deal or what was included in “reported income” are unknown. While CCU provided the total number of deals and reported NIL income from them, the university refused to disclose specific deals made by individual athletes, how much each participant made, or if non-cash gifts were included in reported income. Coastal said disclosing athletes’ deals would violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The terms of deals are typically not made public, and while the NCAA requires athletes to disclose deals that exceed $600 in value to their schools, the NCAA doesn’t publish the specifics surrounding individual players’ deals. Despite this, student-athletes are accessing financial opportunities that were once forbidden or provided for through illicit, under-the-table deals. CCU athletes have made deals, some of which were facilitated by CCU’s NIL Collectives.

Former Coastal Carolina athletes reflect on their engagement with NIL. How much did they make?

A few CCU athletes have discussed their experience working in the NIL space. McCall, who declined to elaborate on how much he made in NIL earnings, said he wasn’t as strategic during the mad rush to sign deals after it was first allowed.

“As soon as we got the ball rolling, and not that it was a bad thing, but maybe (I) jumped into some deals that I shouldn’t have,” McCall said. “I wasn’t maximizing my opportunities.”

Former CCU wide receiver and NCAA record holder for most consecutive games with a catch, Sam Pinckney, also signed NIL deals with brands like the coconut drink Vita Coco and promoted it on his social media in Sept. 2023.

Pinckney— who signed with the Carolina Panthers as an undrafted free agent after the 2024 NFL Draft— already used Vita Coco during the offseason to stay hydrated. While we don’t know how much Pinckney made— as he claimed he couldn’t remember, and the NCAA doesn’t require disclosing contract specifics— he spoke positively of his NIL experience.

“It’s kind of cool that you’re kind of preparing for the (professional) level,” Pinckney said during a November 2023 interview.

Former CCU offensive lineman Will McDonald, who graduated in May 2023, said he did a couple of deals. While he declined to disclose specifics on how much he earned, McDonald appeared in a video advertisement with United Roofing, adding he earned little from his NIL experience.

“It wasn’t very much,” McDonald said in a January 2024 interview.

McDonald appeared in the United Roofing advertisement with football players JT Killen, Jacob Proche and Tavyn Jackson.

Their appearance also presents the problem local businesses sometimes face when engaging in NIL. Players can leave through the transfer portal, upending a media campaign and removing some of the value of an athlete’s endorsements.

All four players entered the transfer portal, and Proche and Jackson barely played during the 2023 season. United Roofing did not return a request for comment before publication. Determining how much to pay college athletes is something professionals in the field are still trying to sort out.

Here’s why athlete NIL compensation is a mystery

Richard Southall is a professor and director of the College Sport Research Institute at the University of South Carolina, where he studies subjects like NIL. Southall said NIL evaluations by groups are often “bogus” and that the lack of disclosure benefits universities that are averse to paying players.

For Southall, the current climate of NIL creates an illusion that many believe players receive more in NIL than they actually do, establishing a “Wild West” atmosphere.

“It’s to everybody’s advantage that there isn’t true NIL value,” Southall said. “By and large, college athletes are not generating a great deal of money through name image and likeness. As I’ve told people for three or four years, these are gig economy jobs that, in many cases, are not advantageous to the athletes.”

CCU wants transparency in NIL, but what do they mean?

It took three FOIA requests with Coastal Carolina University to finally receive the total number of deals signed by its student-athletes. Despite CCU’s hesitancy to disclose information regarding NIL, athletic department leaders have publicly called for transparency in paying athletes, and their requests are clear.

They want to know what athletes at other schools are making in NIL.

Some, like former CCU Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics and University Recreation Matt Hogue, argue that sharing information and standardizing NIL practices throughout the NCAA will benefit college athletics.

Hogue—who stepped down from his position as athletic director in April 2024—added that transparency could also assist CCU’s NIL groups in providing competitive offers, which Coastal has struggled to do in the past. Hogue also seemed open to mandating the disclosure of each athlete’s earnings but urged caution and wanted to protect player privacy.

“I’d have to probably give a little more thought about some of that. A national database of what everybody is being paid, I think, sounds good. It makes a lot of sense,” Hogue said in March 2024. “I probably would want to see a framework and think through the pros and cons of that.”

Sharing information could help collectives and brands determine the actual NIL value of student-athletes, Assistant Professor at Troy University, Christopher Corr said in an interview.

Corr studies collegiate athletics, primarily football recruiting in the Southeastern Conference. He said players at schools like CCU in the Group of Five have no clue about their actual value.

For Corr, student-athletes would have more negotiating power and clout to maximize their profitability if schools and the NCAA were transparent about NIL like professional athletes’ salaries.

“We’re limiting the brand value of the university and affecting the brand value of the athlete,” Corr added. “To me, that’s kind of antithetical to a capitalist economy.”

However, lawmakers in Columbia, S.C., are at work making NIL less transparent in the Palmetto state. Currently, South Carolina’s law requires student-athletes to disclose their signed NIL deals to their schools similar to other states.

House bill, H. 4957, was introduced Jan. 25, 2024, where it currently resides.

The proposed bill updates S.C.’s current NIL law by removing language requiring student-athletes to disclose their NIL earning to their schools. If South Carolina adopts the new version, NIL deals will not be subject to a minimum disclosure or public records request.