The Ohio State Department of Athletics announced Monday that it will update its name, image and likeness guidelines and introduce the NIL Edge Team, which will work with student-athletes to help find NIL opportunities. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
The Ohio State Department of Athletics announced Monday that it will update its name, image and likeness guidelines and introduce the NIL Edge Team, which will work with student-athletes to help find NIL opportunities.
The Edge Team will serve as an advisory group for Ohio State Athletics and will work directly with companies to aid Ohio State student-athletes in the NIL process, a university release stated. Associate athletics director and primary administrator of NIL programs Carey Hoyt said the updated guidelines and implementation of the Edge Team were due to a better understanding of NIL within the department.
“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,” Hoyt said in the release. “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.”
Among the additional updated guidelines, the release stated that all Ohio State varsity sports will garner the services of an operations director to serve as an intermediate between the teams and brands. These operations directors will also work in educational roles regarding NIL.
According to the release, 220 Buckeye student-athletes have taken part in 608 reported NIL agreements, which have come to a total compensation value of $2.98 million.
“All three figures rank No. 1 nationally, according to Opendorse,” the release stated.
Opendorse “provides technology to the athlete endorsement industry,” according to its website, by offering resources such as education, tracking, disclosing and more.
The NIL Edge Team represents the university’s latest step in providing more benefits to its student-athletes. In late May, Ohio State launched “THE Platform” to educate Buckeye student-athletes on how to take advantage of NIL opportunities.
