Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith stands on the field prior to the Buckeyes’ season-opening 49-21 win over Indiana on Aug. 31, 2017 in Bloomington, Indiana. Credit: Colin Hass-Hill | Lantern File
Since its adoption in college athletics, the question of what name, image and likeness truly means continues to persist.
Gary Marcinick, the founder and president of Cohesion Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is partnered with Ohio State, sees NIL as a win-win situation.
“Cohesion Foundation is ultimately serving local charities,” Marcinick said. “We’re able to, through NIL, supply these local charities with Ohio State athletes.”
According to its website, the Cohesion Foundation creates opportunities for student-athletes to connect with charities and market their “mission, purpose and events.” In turn, student-athletes “are compensated for their services through purpose-driven NIL opportunities.”
Football and men’s basketball are among the sporting programs across the country receiving the most focus in the NIL space. In February 2022, athletic director Gene Smith said Ohio State ranked No. 1 nationally in NIL compensation, and a number of student-athletes have at least one NIL activity.
“We’re working with 15 sports,” Marcinick said. “Not just football, not just basketball. Our services go to potentially all 1,000 athletes.”
Marcinick works in Dublin, Ohio, as executive vice president of business development at CI Budros, Ruhlin & Roe, a wealth management firm. He said he leads Cohesion on a volunteer basis alongside his other business in town, purely out of his love for Ohio State, with the ultimate goal of serving local charities and changing public perceptions of NIL.
Generally speaking, NIL is the vehicle that allows student-athletes to profit from their likeness following the NCAA Division I Board of Directors’ approval of the policy in June 2021.
Much has been made of the relationship between NIL and the prospective student space — high school recruits. While speculation of misconduct looms, enticement is expressly prohibited by the NCAA.
“No one’s allowed to use NIL as an enticement,” Marcinick said. “So we get involved with athletes after they’re enrolled.”
Logan Hittle, director of NIL at Ohio State, agreed with Marcinick’s evaluation of the prospective student-athlete space.
“At the end of the day, we do not get engaged in that space,” Hittle said. “Obviously, if a prospective student-athlete comes to campus, we can talk about our Leadership Institute, which provides career and character leadership development opportunities, which is kind of the department that I’m housed in.”
Both internally and externally, Ohio State has minimal involvement in the space of NIL related to prospective student-athletes.
Part of Hittle’s job is to educate collectives like Cohesion about the ever-changing landscape of NIL, he said.
“I interact with our collectives in order to keep them up to date with policy change and any other adjustments in our guidelines or best practices to just make sure that they’re up to date and understand how they can compliantly navigate this landscape,” Hittle said.
Marcinick said he feels NIL awareness will improve going forward, especially because Ohio State is increasingly willing to market its affiliated collectives, which the university was reluctant to do initially.
“It’s taken a lot of people time to become more comfortable with this whole space. Ohio State is a very compliant institution,” Marcinick said. “As they’ve gotten more comfortable with what they can and can’t do, and they observe very closely what we’re doing, I think they really like what they’re seeing.”
NIL might be viewed as a slightly daunting aspect of college athletics, but opinions aside, it is undeniably here to stay. Ohio State must adjust to the changing landscape with innovative ideas for and initiatives, and Cohesion Foundation hopes to be at the forefront of this movement, Marcinick said.
“I think within the next few months, we’re going to introduce some ideas as to how we can scale this further, to take away confusion and engage Buckeye nation,” Marcinick said.
