Top Reactions to the Great Osobor $2M NIL News

 The NIL news of the week which captured the attention of even casual, non-college sports fans, was the report that Great Osobor committed to Washington to play basketball with a two million dollar NIL deal.

Top Reactions of Great Osobor's Deal

Some of the top reactions to this news:

• ESPN, which only reports on specific NIL news when there are major events, wrote an article that spelled out, “Osobor, the Mountain West Conference Player of the Year, has name, image and likeness agreements in place that will give him the highest-known valuation in college basketball this season, at $2 million, according to a document reviewed by ESPN. His NIL agreements, which include marketing assurances, were negotiated by agent George Langberg of GSL Sports”
• Joe Tipton, founder of Tipton Edits, tweeted the news "$2 million + in NIL and marketing deals are in place for Great Osobor this season, making him the highest-paid known player in college basketball”
• Jeff Goodman, the co-founder of Field of 68, summarized in his tweet “Did Washington overpay? Sure. But some schools have to overpay based on circumstances - part of it also comes down to supply and demand/timing”
• Jason Belzer, the founder of Athlete NIL, cited “this is a ridiculous overpayment for a student-athlete ranked No. 55 on Evan Miya's portal list. He's receiving 4-5x the amount that transfers +/- 15 spots are getting”

Much of the online discourse was focused on if this announcement “reset the market,” meaning would other athletes with Osobor’s status / ranking / resume would start asking for similar guaranteed NIL packages?

Goodman's quote above summarizes well the state of the union in not only college athletics but other industries in life. Sometimes to get talent to your location, you have to overpay. For example, in the technology sector where high powered software engineers normally flock to the likes of the Bay Area to work for Google and Meta and network with other techies, a technology company in, say Charlotte, North Carolina may have to pay more to lure that software engineer to move outside of the traditional powers in software engineering. Find out more about the impact NIL has on the transfer window in this in depth article.

The University of Washington which is not a hotbed for basketball talent, in this case is having to presumably pay a premium to get a solid, but not star, transfer basketball player to come to their program compared to other higher profile basketball schools with a richer basketball history that Osobor could have ended up at Louisville and Texas Tech.

Fans on Twitter cited relevant reasons why this news was leaked the way it was, including

1) Marketing. Osobor's agent is already touting "highest paid player"

2) Agents want to inflate the market. Bigger NIL deals = "bigger commission"

There is no standard that requires exact NIL deal amounts to be publicly released, although there have been some state laws that focus on requiring documentation or protection of these exact NIL deal amounts.  Check out this Twitter thread from February about a bill passed in Utah which exempts college athlete’s NIL agreements submitted to universities from the state’s public records law. Meaning if an athlete is required to disclose their NIL deal to their school, then an outside org couldn't request those records.

One of the first instances of NIL contract amounts getting released (with some presumed accuracy) was when Kansas State basketball transfer Nijel Pack committed to Miami in April 2022 for a reported two year, $800k deal.  This was in the infancy of players transferring for NIL promises, and the $400k/year sent shockwaves into the NIL universe.  Many speculated that the large amount for a solid college player, but not elite level talent, was so that prominent booster John Ruiz and Miami could set the bar for what a transfer would cost.  The unconfirmed hypothesis was that Miami, which would have more sustainable NIL funds than most schools, would cause havoc in the market and force other schools to flush out their Collective funds early and Miami would stand strong in the long-term.

Takeaways

Our biggest takeaways from the Osobor deal news and reactions:

1. Remember that there was a reason that the dollar amount for Osobor’s deal was leaked when most dollar amounts are not released.
2. If you’re not a blue blood and want to become relevant, you likely have to pay a tax to grab talent that would go to a higher profile school for a lower compensation amount.  This is true not just in college basketball, but in all industries.