It’s been less than a year since college athletes were approved to make money off their name, image, and likeness, but some NIL deals are already giving the NCAA a reason to crack down: school boosters.

Some alumni head NIL collectives — third-party entities that develop financial opportunities for college athletes — and aren’t supposed to have any relationships with schools or the recruiting process.

But a number of those alumni wear their school colors with perhaps a little too much pride for the NIL landscape.

• Billionaire John Ruiz has deals with more than 100 Miami Hurricane athletes, including a two-year, $800,000 deal with Kansas State transfer Nijel Pack.
• The Clark Field Collective is paying the Texas O-Line $50,000 each. As of January, it hadn’t been ruled an NCAA violation.
• Some outlets report there could be more than 100 collectives total.

Because of the suspected relations between collectives and schools, some college coaches have called for more NIL regulation, including Alabama’s Nick Saban and Georgia’s Kirby Smart.

Change Coming

Saban and Smart could get the requested regulation in the next week. University administrators, part of a task force reviewing NIL, are reportedly putting together additional rules to clarify that boosters’ and booster-led collectives are prohibited from involving themselves in recruiting.

The NCAA considers boosters as a representative arm of athletic departments, and schools that don’t control donor spending could be sanctioned for violating NCAA rules.

The Oakland A’s have been granted approval by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission to build a new waterfront ballpark. 

A potential new ballpark is part of the team’s $12 billion plan — funded by private investment — to build a development that also includes apartment buildings, office spaces, and parks in Oakland’s Howard Terminal area. 

• About $1 billion will go toward a 35,000-seat ballpark — that’s almost half the capacity of the team’s current home, which seats 63,000.
• The project includes a 400-room hotel, 270,000 square feet of retail space, 3,000 housing units, and around $450 million in community benefits.

The A’s desire to build a new stadium comes amid record-low attendance to start the 2022 season, and the process hit a bump in the road in March after the commission’s Seaport Planning Advisory Committee voted 5-4 to maintain the area’s “port use” status. 

There is more work to be done for the A’s as they look to break ground on a new ballpark. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control also needs to grant approval, while final say will go to Alameda County.

Sin City Options

The A’s continue to explore the possibility of moving to Las Vegas, where a potential stadium site includes the famed Vegas Strip. The team could potentially partner with Gaming & Leisure Properties, a real estate investor that owns the Strip’s Tropicana hotel.

As the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Invitational tries to entice more PGA Tour members with its prize purse, the rival series has reportedly sent one-year invites to the top six amateur golfers in the world.

Amateurs are allowed to participate in PGA Tour and DP World Tour tournaments as long as they don’t receive a cash prize. But a spokesperson for LIV, which is backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, told Telegraph Sport that amateurs would be allowed to quickly change their status, clearing the path for winnings. 

Led by retired pro golfer Greg Norman, LIV would “honor the invitations even if they do turn pro, as we do want to restrict opportunity,” according to another insider.

With eight tournaments, the LIV Golf Invitational has a $255 million purse.

• $25 million for the first seven events
• $20 million for individual prizes
• $5 million for the team competition 

The eighth event will award $30 million to the season’s top three players and $50 million for teams in total prize funds. LIV hopes to have 14 global events by 2024.

Tour Troubles

The PGA Tour initially threatened lifetime bans for members who participate in the LIV Golf Series, but later shifted to conditional waivers. Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood requested the releases to play in LIV events, and on Wednesday, Sports Business Journal reported that television production company NEP Group is nearing a deal with LIV.

NEP Group has strong ties to the Tour, producing live content for U.S. sports fans across NBC, CBS, and ESPN.

Some sporting goods retail giants have continued their momentum from the start of the pandemic, while others haven’t been as fortunate — like Big 5 Sporting Goods.

The California-based company reported first-quarter revenue of $242 million, a significant decrease year-over-year from a company-record $272.8 million in Q1 FY2021. Net income for the quarter was $9.1 million, less than half the record $21.5 million recorded during the same quarter the year prior.

The company’s chairman, president, and CEO Steven G. Miller attributed some of the loss to “unfavorable winter weather, Omicron-related challenges, supply chain disruptions, and inflation pressures.”

“As a reminder, sales in the second quarter of fiscal 2021 benefited from strong pent-up demand following an easing of pandemic-related restrictions,” the company noted.

Sporting Good and Bad

Unlike Big 5, other sporting goods retailers have thrived.

• Dick’s Sporting Goods, which has 730 brick-and-mortar locations with another 131 specialty concept stores, reported a 7% year-over-year revenue increase to a record $3.35 billion in the quarter ending Jan. 29, 2022, beating analysts’ estimates of $3.31 billion.
• Academy Sports + Outdoors, which had 259 stores at the end of its fourth quarter, saw net sales increase 13.2% to a record $1.8 billion.

For comparison, Big 5 has 431 operating stores with plans to open four more this year. In Q2, Big 5 expects same-store sales to fall into the high teens — during the same quarter last year, Big 5 reported record sales.