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Syracuse’s 2022 recruiting class is currently ranked 24th in the nation, per 247Sports, the highest ranking for the Orange since 2016, but with one notable absence. Kamari Lands, a 6-foot-8 forward originally committed to Syracuse, later decommitted, citing name, image and likeness as a reason for reopening his commitment. 

Lands eventually announced he would commit to Louisville. 

“I’ve been thinking about this ever since the NIL bill came out,’’ Lands told syracuse.com. “I haven’t had the opportunity to be recruited in that way.”

Syracuse’s recent recruiting record is described as a mixed bag. But the recent passage of NIL has added a new wrinkle to the recruiting mix. In some states like New York, high school athletes are already allowed to profit off of their NIL. Recruits can also consider the size of the market in a city like Syracuse versus another school. Per NCAA rules, schools aren’t allowed to pitch or create any NIL deals for prospective athletes, but with the emergence of private collectives that create NIL opportunities for players, schools like SU now have to contend with a new factor when recruiting. 

“It didn’t have an impact this year … I think it will going forward, but it didn’t early,” head coach Jim Boeheim said. “People will look and see what players have been able to get wherever they are in terms of NIL opportunities, and we’ve yet to see exactly how all the mechanics of NIL will work out going forward. It’s a very gray area right now.”

I would like to thank Coach Boeheim, Coach Mac and @Cuse_MBB for everything they have done. And with that being said I will be reopening my recruitment.

— Kamari Lands (@iso_marii) August 21, 2021

So far, Buddy Boeheim has been Syracuse’s clear front-runner on NIL deals. Other players like Joe Girard III, Sean Tucker and Joey Spallina — a 2022 men’s lacrosse commit — have also profited. The fact that Syracuse doesn’t have a professional sports team helps create more chances for athletes to profit, said Dave Meluni, an assistant teaching professor in the sport management program in Falk College.

Potential recruits like Lands will likely evaluate the NIL deals current players have, Meluni said. A player like Girard, who won a New York state title in football and basketball, could’ve profited a lot in high school if NIL was permissible back then, Buddy said.

But the biggest development in college recruiting might be collectives — private, independent groups that use funds from fans and donors to help create NIL opportunities for players. 

“From a recruiting standpoint, (collectives are) where everything has shifted,” Meluni said. “Because the schools cannot be involved.”

At Texas, a group of alumni, donors and fans created a collective called the Clark Field Collective that helped fund a new organization called Horns with Heart, a nonprofit with the goal of using NIL to help Longhorns athletes promote charitable causes locally. Horns with Heart has already committed to offering $50,000 to every Longhorns offensive lineman — something that could potentially be ruled a recruiting advantage by the NCAA but is an example of how collectives can potentially sway recruits to their schools.

Meluni described collectives as a pseudo-recruiting advantage where athletic departments can’t work with the groups or use them to offer recruits NIL deals. The collectives’ initiatives and spending are likely also on the radar of other potential recruits, Meluni said.

“If there’s a collective worth $10 million, and an athlete can make a million dollars there, clearly that recruiting is (different),” Meluni said.

There are currently 23 collectives, and that number continues to grow. Syracuse, though, is not one of those schools with a collective. Adding one would “certainly be an advantage to SU,” Meluni said, because of the “power” that its alumni have.

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A collective serves as an intermediary between athletes and local businesses, with the key being that the group can’t just hand out scholarships to players — they have to be for some other value. A collective can’t just give players the money for NIL deals — the athletes have to do something that has equal value to their overall compensation, Meluni said. If a player is getting $10,000, for example, there needs to be proof that their advertising or social media value is equal.

The collectives will also help local businesses secure deals at a lower rate than the business previously may have been able to afford. For instance, a collective might approach a local business with a $10,000 deal for a certain athlete, but the business might only pay $2,000, while the collective pitches in the other $8,000. 

The emergence of collectives could also soon shift funds away from schools. Meluni said a lot of donations to schools are tied to tickets, but now, a donor might choose to shift their money to a collective to create branding deals with players.

“You could have a school that’s got a good, strong alumni base … where somebody starts a collective that you could see quickly move up,” Meluni said. “Because they’re getting athletes, because they’re paying those athletes compared to another school.”

For schools, a collective would certainly be a recruiting advantage, Meluni said. While coaches can’t explicitly point to a collective during a recruiting pitch, the existence of one at a certain school could potentially tip the scales.

Increased NIL opportunities also open up a variety of recruiting scenarios. In football and basketball, every player on the roster is on a full scholarship, but in other sports, like lacrosse or baseball, the scholarships can be spread out. Dividing scholarships between players could open up a possibility where a school offers a player a smaller percentage of a scholarship, but then a collective steps in to offer NIL deals that help an athlete make up the remaining chunk of the scholarship. Schools with collectives could then strengthen their programs by spreading out scholarships to a wider range of top-tier players.

The range of possibilities created by NIL is vast. Schools could get stronger through the backing of a collective, but if players aren’t performing the way they’re compensated, that opens up new issues. But as long as the funding continues to flow, collegiate recruiting has a new wrinkle that could determine where the best athletes end up playing.

Published on January 25, 2022 at 11:13 pm

Contact Gaurav: gshetty@syr.edu