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Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

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Abstract

Elite student-athletes at prominent sports schools are locked in a symbiotic relationship with their universities and with society’s consumers of college sports. For most student-athletes, receiving the benefits of a college education and professional development in exchange for providing their skills and services through athletic participation is mutually beneficial. For these student-athletes, their relationship to the university is still, at its core, educational and professional development based. For the rarefied student-athletes in popular sports, more akin to professional athletes, the nature of their relationship to the university is not always educational. For some of these student-athletes, they attend college and play at the collegiate level because that is the route they must take to pursue professional careers. These student-athletes still benefit from educational instruction, but the value of the services that they provide to their institutions and to society is far greater than what they receive. As consumers of college sports, we contribute to this imbalanced symbiosis: college athletics would be much less exciting and competitive if the professional caliber athletes bypassed college sports. Although the mission of a university is to educate students, the significance of the university on society and culture is often tied to its athletic prowess and prestige. For elite student-athletes who contribute to our larger, societal need for competitive college sports and who are in a position, both athletically and developmentally, to play at the professional level, these new bargaining chips created a power shift in this symbiotic relationship. This Article argues that student-athlete, NIL leveraged business ownership and creation is a means to balance the long-term goals and needs of the student-athletes, the universities, and consumers of college sports. First, the promotion of student-athlete business ownership and creation embraces the rights restorative framework benefitting student-athletes. Second, universities can fulfill their educational and development missions and remain financially and athletically competitive. Third, promoting student-athlete business ownership and creation embraces the role of consumers in this symbiotic relationship and can have the larger, spillover effect of contributing to regional economic development in America’s unique college towns.

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