VenuesNow (10/04/22) Muret, Don

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) name, image and likeness (NIL) mandate requires student-athletes to receive financial compensation when their name, image and likeness are used for marketing purposes. In the year since the mandate's rollout, it remains unclear how college venues provide physical spaces where student-athletes can make their own content. Currently such agreements are negotiated between student-athletes and commercial partners, with institutions having no say beyond connecting the two parties. Athletics administrators and their partner designers concur that as some of the biggest recruits and upperclassmen in college sports sign highly lucrative NIL deals with corporate sponsors, they require spaces to create marketing collateral in compliance with these agreements. Ohio State University's Carey Hoyt says there is currently little guidance from the NCAA concerning institutions' NIL allowances, although Clemson University is an exception: the school is constructing the Clemson Athletics Branding Institute as a dedicated NIL space, with plans to build a second facility at the Jervey Athletic Center. "We're going to see more of this specialized type of space that relates to NIL," says Trevor Bechtold with the HOK architectural firm. "A lot of these kids can do it on their phone, limping along with their own assets, but to have physical space as the core network is powerful for a lot of these institutions."

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