Spokane-area ad firms sound off on NCAA decision to allow athletes to earn money from image

The NCAA directed its three divisions to draft rules to allow student-athletes to “benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness” on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

Jeff Sanborn, president of Chapter & Verse, an advertising and design agency with offices in Spokane and Seattle, said he would not be against his clients using student-athletes to promote their brands but that he will advise them to proceed cautiously.

“These are, for all intents and purposes, kids who won’t even be allowed to legally drink for a couple more years,” Sanborn said. “It’s great when you’re associated with that athlete the day that they score 36 points in a game. It’s not so great the day after they get arrested at a party. They’re kids. They’re going to make mistakes.”

As mandated by the NCAA’s governing body, the divisions must have rules in place by January 2021, and parameters have been set. There can be no compensation for athletic performance, the recruitment period must remain separate from these opportunities and there needs to be delineation between collegiate and professional opportunities, the Associated Press reported.

Adam Graves, co-founder and owner of Coeur d’Alene’s Range NW, said he can foresee complications. For instance, the possibility that an athlete could be offered an opportunity with a brand that had values that conflicted with the university.

“I think there’s definitely going to be some rules that get put in play before any money even changes hands would be my guess,” Graves said.

Graves and Sanborn speculated that players would now select schools considering how much money they could make in outside sponsorships.

Rick Hosmer, partner and chief marketing officer of Spokane’s Klundt Hosmer, said he wasn’t always on board with student-athletes making money this way.

“In the past I would have said, no, I don’t think that’s right,” Hosmer said. “But the schools get so much money because of their athletic programs and because of their stars in those athletic programs that they use to promote to make money and bring awareness to their schools.”

Graves said he think it’s mostly going to be major players like Nike signing deals with the athletes – and that it will also create the need for sports agents for college athletes. Sanborn said the field is going to get crowded.

“Boy, it’s going to be messy,” Sanborn said. “What happens at practice now when you’ve got marketing managers and agents and everybody else on the sidelines? That gets messy at an NFL practice. What happens there at a college practice when they see something that’s not to their liking?”

More than anything, Sanborn said that, as a father, he worries student-athletes will be taken advantage of, although he agrees they should be paid.

“If a brand can lift an athlete up, if a brand can give an athlete an opportunity, that’s fantastic,” Sanborn said. “If it’s just about what can they do for us? Then that’s where it stops feeling right, because I still feel again that they’re so young and they’re going to get a lot of bad advice.”