Marc Smith was relaxing in his basement when he received a notification on his phone. An athlete from his alma mater, Grambling State, had posted on social media that he didn’t have enough food and needed help.
That incident prompted Smith to launch the Icon 1901 Collective in April 2022 to help Grambling athletes get paid endorsement deals at the school best known for legendary football coach Eddie Robinson. Smith kept searching and couldn’t find a single historically black college or university whose collective focused on name, image or likeness compensation, so he expanded Icon 1901 to represent HBCU athletes elsewhere.
“These kids want to be integrated into the NIL field, and many universities don’t have the resources,” Smith said.
Outside of the largest and richest athletic programs, the financial burden of offering robust NIL options to college athletes is a constant problem and is often especially pronounced at HBCUs. The four major HBCU conferences recently agreed to work together to increase the value of HBCUs and send more athletes to the pros, but now there’s a new problem.
The massive $2.8 billion antitrust settlement agreed to by the NCAA and the country’s largest conferences includes the possibility of schools paying their athletes directly as early as 2025. Revenue sharing is a new and huge factor for all schools with modest means, including HBCUs.
“There may be some questions about how they will navigate this, but if past experience is any indication, they will find the will and the path, with alumni coming together to find a way to move these institutions forward,” says J. Kenyatta Cavil, a professor at Texas Southern University and HBCU athletics researcher.
Only a handful of black colleges have NIL collectives that help broker contracts for athletes, but those efforts have grown in the last year or two as alumni banded together and Deion Sanders served as football coach at Jackson State University.
Many HBCU schools don’t rake in nearly as much money from sports as their counterparts in the Championship Subdivision. According to Knight-Newhouse, none of the 64 FCS schools reported less total athletic revenue in 2023 than Mississippi Valley State’s $4.8 million. Eight of the 11 lowest-performing schools were HBCUs.
Alcorn State, which like Grambling and Mississippi Valley is part of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, reported $7.9 million. By comparison, James Madison tops the list with $68 million (excluding the Ivy League universities).
SWAC Commissioner Charles McClelland said he doesn’t know what the sports landscape will look like in the future, but he knows that even the deep-pocketed schools and conferences don’t know and that whatever happens will ultimately affect his league and the rest of the FCS.
Both the SWAC and the Southeastern Conference are based in Birmingham, Alabama, giving McClelland and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey the opportunity to meet and discuss the potential changes.
“One thing he said to me was, ‘Charles, we have the same problems. Maybe at the end of these problems, there’s just a difference of zeros. We’re all in this together,'” McClelland said. “We need to share ideas. And what better opportunity to learn and grow than to share ideas from the Southwestern Athletic Conference perspective with the SEC?”
Prairie View AandM football coach Bubba McDowell said his SWAC program lost a half-dozen top players because of a lack of money. His school didn’t have any, others did. He’s wary of what revenue sharing could do to recruiting and retaining players at HBCUs.
“It’s going to hurt,” McDowell said. “This is what these kids are looking for and what society has done for these young men. I’m not against it. I’ve said from day one, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. We just still haven’t figured out how to do it right.”
McDowell and his SWAC colleagues are realistic. Unless their name is Sanders, who is now in Colorado, the top recruits would probably go elsewhere anyway.
Now they’re also more likely to develop and then lose players who are overlooked or unrecruited by bigger programs out of high school. Alabama State coach Eddie Robinson Jr. (no relation to the former Grambling coach) went from being a walk-on with the Hornets to a second-round NFL draft pick at the same school.
The Hornets’ best receiver, Kisean Johnson, transferred to Western Kentucky after last season.
“We’re still looking for the same type of kid,” Robinson said. “The question is, can we keep them once they develop into that player? That’s the part you don’t like.”
The tradition and passionate fans of HBCUs are undeniable. The Bayou Classic between Grambling and Southern drew nearly 65,000 fans to the Superdome in New Orleans last season. The Magic City Classic between Alabama State and Alabama AandM brought over 52,000 to Legion Field in Birmingham.
“I think once you’re part of the HBCU family, you’re going to go to all those big games and it’s more than just, ‘I drove 2,000 miles away from home, got a big check and then I’m never going back to school,'” Robinson said. “Once you start coming to Alabama State, when you come to the Magic City Classic, you’re going to be 50 years old when you come back to the Magic City Classic. It’s going to be a part of what you do.”
Black colleges aren’t the only ones unsure how to handle the revenue sharing with athletes. Athletic directors below the Power Four leagues are grappling with three major financial issues: less annual money from the NCAA because of the damages portion of the settlement; determining the best options for a limited donor base so their school has a chance to attract athletes on NIL contracts; and figuring out how much they can take on should their school decide to pay athletes.
“In general, FCS football programs have trouble retaining talent because they don’t have established NIL collectives or partners,” said Blake Lawrence, CEO of Opendorse.com, a NIL marketplace. “I think there’s a growing need for these programs in the HBCU and beyond to really answer the question of how do we retain talent by leveraging NIL. That’s going to be a growing need.”
Opendorse works with dozens of schools in all three NCAA divisions that have or want to develop NIL collectives. This group includes HBCUs Jackson State, Delaware State and Howard.
The Icon Collective website states: “For years, Black athletes have built wealth with their skills on the field and some have made history through their universities and on the national level.”
Smith said he and his team are not trying to make HBCU athletes rich. He said his collective represents about 350 athletes from 45 black colleges, just under half of the 107 total, according to the Department of Labor. He said the deals are typically between $500 and $1,000 per athlete and often run 3-6 months.
“We’re not here to make millionaires or give kids free school. I’m here to ease the burden,” Smith said.
His son Jayden signed a $20,000 contract with math tutoring company Mathnasium in October 2023. Jayden Smith plays baseball for Xavier University of Louisiana, an NAIA school, and does things like make promotional videos on YouTube.
Grambling basketball player Jimel Cofer was signed to a contract with the Buffalo Wild Wings after his layup sent the Tigers into overtime in a First Four game of the NCAA Tournament and they eventually beat Montana State. Marc Smith said the contract was worth $5,000.
Krispy Kreme locations in Tallahassee, Florida, have offered a “Dean Dozen” special named after Florida AandM running back Kelvin Dean, who was named offensive MVP at the Celebration Bowl.
Alabama State quarterback Andrew Body, who transferred from Texas Southern, said he received interest from Bowl Subdivision schools during his transfer. Transferring to those schools might have meant zero money, but he said he’s being patient and focused on a potential pro career. “Getting paid in college right now kind of takes away a little bit of your hunger to play.”
“It’s tough to compete with someone (with zero money), but I think what the kids are missing the most is that when they’re on the field doing what they need to do, making connections, generating revenue or whatever,” Body said.
Myles Crawley, Grambling State’s quarterback and preseason SWAC Offensive Player of the Year, said in July that he did not have a NIL contract, but noted that “nothing compares to the HBCU experience.”
“I grew up coaching at HBCUs, so I always said I wanted to start and finish at an HBCU,” Crawley said. “I’m building a culture so the next candidate understands they can make it at an HBCU. The money may be different, but as far as culture goes, there’s nothing like HBCUs.”
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AP College Football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll.
