Ohio State has made changes to its name, image and likeness policies.
According to a university release Monday, Ohio State has updated its NIL guidelines to allow for the creation of an NIL Edge Team; an advisory group that can help connect Buckeye student-athletes with NIL opportunities.
“We are updating our NIL guidelines to allow for the creation of the Edge Team to assist in connecting and coordinating NIL activities for our student-athletes,” Carey Hoyt, Ohio State senior associate athletics director and primary administrator for Ohio State’s NIL programs, said in the release.
“Our guidelines were initially created to be restrictive, but now that we have a better understanding of NIL, it’s clear that we can provide more assistance in connecting student-athletes with interested brands. By allowing some OSU staff to interact with the brands and to educate and answer questions, we can eliminate hesitancy from brands, and donors, who were concerned about breaking rules.”
Per the release, a 220 Ohio State student-athletes have engaged in 608 NIL opportunities over the past six months, with a total compensation value of $2.98 million. According to Opendorse, another NIL resource at Ohio State, all three of those numbers rank No. 1 in the country.
"The Department of Athletics was focused primarily on protective education and personal brand management during the initial six months of NIL," the release states. "The ever-changing landscape, including the emergence of donor-led collectives, has created the need to have a dedicated internal team that can directly assist student-athletes as they continue to monitor the NIL landscape."
Ohio State's new NIL guidelines will also designate operations directors from "virtually" all of the university's varsity sports in order to "assist with facilitating a connection for an NIL activity while also educating outside entities on NIL best practices at Ohio State."
More on Ohio State's new NIL guidelines here:
Dept. of Athletics creates "NIL Edge Team" & updates guidelines for student-athletes
— Ohio State Buckeyes (@OhioStAthletics) January 24, 2022
varsity sports will have designated staff to work with NIL requests#GoBucks https://t.co/YzTOEMng7u
