ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigating abuses of power, offers a newsletter called Dispatches that provides stories about wrongdoing across the United States. Some highlights from a recent report focus on the involvement of college athletes in Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals, particularly at the University of Illinois (U of I). The report notes significant financial gains for athletes through NIL, but also highlights issues of oversight and accountability.
During a successful season that led the University of Illinois men’s basketball team to the Elite Eight of the 2024 NCAA Tournament, players garnered attention for local endorsements. Despite their ability to profit from NIL deals, the university did not receive any reports of these endorsements, as required by state law.
The Illinois basketball team reported minimal earnings from NIL deals during the 2023-24 season, a stark contrast to the much higher averages reported at other institutions. Documents obtained by the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica reveal a lack of compliance with state reporting requirements by U of I athletes across all sports, contributing to a broader issue of underreporting.
The university’s athletic administrators admit to informing athletes about their responsibilities regarding NIL deals but acknowledge that they have not enforced compliance. They describe the issue as part of a national trend of spotty reporting.
Legislative efforts, such as a law signed by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker in 2021, aim to regulate NIL activities, requiring athletes to report deals to their schools. However, the intended visibility of such deals is not fully realized, according to multiple experts. Records from the university, detailing deals from July 2021 to October 2024, demonstrate a gap in disclosures, which hampers understanding and evaluation of the NIL ecosystem.
Despite suggestions for better transparency and more stringent oversight, issues remain unaddressed both at U of I and across collegiate sports nationwide. A forthcoming $2.8 billion class-action settlement could bring changes, potentially involving schools more directly in NIL negotiations and imposing disclosure requirements on substantial deals.
The Illini men’s basketball team, along with the football team, presents noteworthy cases of reporting failures, bringing to light transactions not disclosed to the university. Athletes’ agreements, including some with lucrative outcomes, remain inadequately documented, contrarily affecting attempts to measure gender disparities in NIL compensation.
Meanwhile, the enforcement of NIL reporting remains a debated topic. The school’s athletic director, Josh Whitman, has argued against public disclosure mandates, citing student privacy concerns as a priority over public interest.
To remedy the compliance issues underscored by the report, accountability measures like those suggested by the House settlement may provide necessary reinforcement of reporting practices at U of I and beyond. Contributing to the data analysis and reporting on these findings were Joe Mahr of the Chicago Tribune and Mariam Elba of ProPublica.
