Barnhart speaks on athletes making money as UK players position themselves to cash in
A day after an executive order from the Kentucky governor’s office opened the door for amateur athletes across the commonwealth to profit financially while still in school, UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart addressed the new and uncertain path forward for college sports.
Barnhart took questions for half an hour on the coming changes to the NCAA’s longstanding name, image and likeness rules, and it’s clear that it’ll be a while for clear answers to emerge regarding what exactly the college sports landscape will look like in the future.
“A lot of hypotheticals,” Barnhart said in response to the first question, a common reply throughout Friday’s press conference as college administrators, coaches and players are clearly uncertain as they navigate a changing environment that’s coming as a result of NIL reforms.
On Thursday afternoon, Gov. Andy Beshear announced that he had signed an executive order — with support of the state’s top athletic administrators and coaches, as well as leaders in both political parties — that would allow college athletes the ability to make money off of their name, image and likeness while still retaining their eligibility.
Beshear’s order came in response to legislation that will take effect July 1 in six states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas — that would basically override the NCAA’s NIL bylaws and allow college athletes to profit while in school. Similar legislation has passed or is pending in several other states as the NCAA seeks to implement some kind of uniform set of rules that would apply to colleges and their athletes nationwide.
Such reform — in a permanent form, at least — is still likely months away.
In the meantime, UK and other schools will be forced to navigate a situation that is short on guidelines and long on possibilities, especially for the NCAA athletes that will now have lucrative options on the table as early as next week.
Barnhart lauded the work that has been done by Rachel Baker, an executive associate AD at UK with an extensive background in compliance issues, to get the athletic department prepared for the monumental changes that are coming in the near future, but he said several details related to the process of athletes making money while at UK still need to be worked out.
Kentucky’s student-athletes have been educated on the NIL reforms, Barnhart said, and a more detailed plan is likely to be released publicly soon. In a statement Thursday voicing support for Beshear’s executive action — and multiple times during his meeting with reporters Friday — Barnhart pointed to the department’s “Kentucky Road” initiative as a framework for how UK will deal with NIL-related issues.
That program was first announced in 2019, highlighting the ways the university could position its student-athletes for success while they’re on campus and bridge that experience into successful professional lives.
A website accompanying the launch of “Kentucky Road” showcases the university’s resources made available to its athletes and singles out past players who have turned their UK experience into successful careers beyond college — both inside and outside of sports — as well as those who have pursued advanced degrees after their college playing days have ended.
Barnhart said that program could and will be extended to help UK’s athletes maneuver the NIL landscape and maximize their brands and earning potential while still in school.
As far as the particulars of the process, there were few concrete details.
“This is a piece of a bigger puzzle,” Barnhart said. “... All the sudden, we’re in this incredible new landscape and it’s 100 miles per hour. I think finding balance in all of this will be really, really important. And finding a way to walk through this with our young people. I think those who are thoughtful about how they do this have an opportunity to do some really remarkable things that would be uniquely different and would help set them up for life after athletics.”
Kentucky players making money
The process for some UK athletes is expected to happen immediately.
Kentucky nose guard Marquan McCall — a senior on the Wildcats football team and a first-team all-conference preseason player — was among the school’s athletes to put out financial feelers on social media Friday. McCall tweeted a message in support of NIL reforms and added he was “open to any and all opportunities” to promote Kentucky football and his own personal “brand.”
Barnhart noted Friday that the UK athlete with the most expansive social media platform isn’t a men’s basketball or football player. It’s Masai Russell, a multiple All-American performer on the women’s track and field team.
Russell, a health science major entering her senior year for the Wildcats, has 150,000 Instagram followers and more than 300,000 followers on TikTok. Such reach on social media platforms could prove to be incredibly lucrative moving forward as athletes in those positions are looked at for endorsement deals and other possibilities as influencers.
“She works at it,” Barnhart said of Russell’s social media presence. “She works at it — not because she is a tremendous track athlete, which, oh by the way, she is — she works at it because she’s found a way and a vision for what she is trying to do for a life beyond track and field. To be able to put something together for her.
“That’s the kind of thoughtfulness it will take for us to be able to ... help them be able to help themselves find their way to these spots.”
On Friday afternoon, the University of Louisville released a series of guidelines outlining its approach to the NIL landscape. The detailed plan included a wide range of resources that will be made available to the school’s student-athletes and noted that Cardinals players had also already been offered education on NIL issues throughout the month of June.
Initiatives related to U of L’s “eLevate” program include a pilot NIL law clinic and a sports administration elective class — “NIL in College Sports” — that will be offered in the fall semester, as well as various other forms of ongoing education for players and their families.
U of L Associate Athletic Director Matt Banker is leading the athletic department in NIL-related matters, and the university already has an NIL working group that includes personnel from the school’s sport administration program and law school.
Barnhart implied that Baker, who came to Kentucky in 2013 from a high-level position within the NCAA, would oversee UK’s NIL-related initiatives, envisioning such a department as an offshoot of the school’s compliance office.
Recruiting in the NIL landscape
Obviously, the Kentucky men’s basketball program — one of the top brands in all of college sports — could stand to benefit greatly from the NIL reforms, something that UK Coach John Calipari has already acknowledged in recent weeks.
The implications NIL could have for Kentucky basketball recruiting are clear, but it’s not yet evident to what extent college programs will be able to sell themselves to high school prospects in the future.
There appear to be no clear rules on the subject, for now, and college coaches are already using NIL possibilities to try and sweeten their recruiting pitches.
Keyonte George — a major Kentucky target and the No. 1 shooting guard in the 2022 class — told the New York Times that, on a recruiting trip to Texas earlier this month, Longhorns Coach Chris Beard highlighted the local presence of TikTok and Dell computers, two companies with ties to the Austin area. George, who is expected to visit UK in the coming days, told the newspaper that he expected to hear similar pitches on his other recruiting visits.
Kathy Drysdale, the mother of top basketball recruit Dereck Lively, told the New York Times that Calipari informed them of Beshear’s plans to issue the executive order related to NIL during a campus visit last week and highlighted how Lively’s social media following could increase if he came to UK, due to the program’s rabid, robust and far-reaching fan base.
Barnhart stressed Friday that he hoped high school athletes wouldn’t make recruiting decisions with a sole focus on their NIL prospects, instead concentrating on the academic possibilities, coaches, facilities and other avenues for personal and professional growth that UK has to offer.
He did say that, thanks to Beshear’s executive order, they could start talking more about NIL possibilities with their more immediate recruiting targets. But there is a limit to those conversations.
“We now have an opportunity to say, ‘We can help you with that. And we can show you what that looks like and how you can best use the pathway forward.’ But that is not part of our recruiting piece, in terms of, ‘These are the deals that you have.’ That’s not part of this conversation,” Barnhart said.
The UK athletics director also expressed a hope and expectation for more wide-ranging and uniform legislation on NIL issues — either from the NCAA or through federal law — and identified the makeup of the current reforms taking place as a “bridge” to that time.
In the meantime, there will be more confusion and uncertainty.
Just a few minutes before Barnhart spoke Friday, the National Association of Basketball Coaches released a statement on NIL that highlighted that confusion.
“The approaching name, image and likeness era will bring with it a rules modernization that we believe is in the best interests of our student-athletes,” the statement said. “Regrettably, the current climate of disparate state legislation, federal intervention and uncertainty surrounding NCAA NIL policy has led to marked confusion among coaches, administrators and, most importantly, student-athletes and their families.
“In order to prepare student-athletes to navigate and ultimately succeed in this space, we must first have the ability to equip them with timely, accurate information and guidance. With myriad state laws poised to go into effect, we urge the executives charged with overseeing college athletics to adopt a spirit of collaboration and reaffirm a commitment to providing direction, definition and leadership on this topic. As coaches, we stand willing and ready to assist with these efforts in support of our student-athletes and the overall health of our sport.”
This story was originally published June 25, 2021 at 4:17 PM.
