Ten months after name, image and likeness deals began threatening to tear the fabric of college sports, the NCAA finally tried to put a foot down.
The embattled college sports organization stated last week that booster-funded NIL collectives cannot get involved in recruiting, saying it would review the most severe violations while also acknowledging that βmore work must be done.β
Adam Lazarus and Joey Medina could see it coming.
The Tucson businessmen are running separate organizations intended to facilitate NIL opportunities for current University of Arizona athletes in a manner they say fits the spirit of the rules.
The Friends of Wilbur and Wilma is pooling booster funds to give to UA athletes of all sports who make personal appearances, the vast majority of them for charities. It also assisting businesses who want to hire the athletes.
Meanwhile, the Arizona Assist program is focused solely on menβs basketball, distributing money for players equally via membership dues while marketing merchandise that benefits the player whose name is on it.
βNow youβre starting to see all these all these articles about how now the NCAA is looking at putting a salary cap on this, and theyβre going to start investigating this,β said Medina, general manager of Friends of Wilbur and Wilma. βWe told ourselves and the public that, βHey, when we do this, weβre gonna go best foot forward.β We donβt want to have to pivot and come backwards and say, βIβm sorry, we screwed up.ββ
Medina, a former UA football manager who runs a payroll management firm, said he wouldnβt have agreed to run the Friends of Wilbur and Wilma organization βif itβs done incorrectly.β
But elsewhere, the largely unregulated NIL deals keep spiraling.
Former Salpointe Catholic High School football player Bijan Robinson signed with a Lamborghini dealer near his college home at the University of Texas, while the agent for Miami basketball player Isaiah Wong threatened to have his client transfer if more NIL money was not produced β a statement Wong later backed off on.
And despite strict student visa rules that limit the work international students can do, Kentucky basketball star Oscar Tshiebwe has reportedly gained $2 million in NIL agreements for next season.
Considering that the UA menβs basketball program is comprised mostly of international athletes, that one particularly caught Lazarusβ eyes. Heβs been running Arizona Assist along with two former college athletes, Michael Saffer and Thomas Conran.
βI am very aware of that situation and whatβs going on University of Miami and Alabama and some of these schools,β Lazarus said. βIβm from the SEC. I went to University of Florida and I was friends a lot of football players. I mean, bad (stuff) has been going on for a long time, right? And this is the new evolution of it.
βItβs above board. But we wanted to be so above board that no matter what happens, it allows us to continue our business model and benefit the student-athletes and the fans.β
Both organizations operate independent of the UA. Their philosophies, however, mesh with what UA athletic director Dave Heeke has said about NIL opportunities.
βMany of these kids are getting so many benefits through education and plus-plus-plus, whether thatβs food or other resources, which is good,β Heeke said. βBut somehow we want to do βplusβ (NIL) on top of that. I know that weβll do it the best we can. But weβll also do it appropriately, and if student-athletes or prospects are in this just for the financial compensation, then so be it. Theyβll have to make their own decisions. Thatβs not for us. This is not a bidding war. Itβs not what we do.β
As it is now, UA athletes have the potential to earn at least four- or five-figure money on top of their scholarship packages, which now count stipends to reach the full cost of attendance and, starting in the fall, extra bonuses of $5,980 for every athlete who remains academically eligible.
Through Arizona Assist, UA menβs basketball players get about 80% of dues from membership fees that start at $100 while they can also earn about 80% of any revenue resulting from merchandise sold. The idea, Lazarus said, is to especially help players who arenβt headed for professional riches to capitalize on their short fame at UA.
βThatβs what we like,β Lazarus said. βNot the idea of million-dollar Lamborghini deals and $20 million guarantees. Thatβs just not what weβre doing.β
The Friends of Wilbur and Wilma recently paid all UA football players who participated in a community autograph session enough for each player to take a trip home this summer, Medina said. At the approval of its advisory board, Friends also paid UA quarterback Jordan McCloud $1,500 to make a detailed charity appearance to help him with some family and other financial needs.
The payments, Medina said, were all βquid pro quoβ at rates commensurable for the work performed.
βThey can make $50,000 a year if theyβre engaged, and they have the publicβs eye,β Medina said. βWe have some student-athletes that have 100,000-200,000 (Instagram) followers and theyβre the ones that are that are being requested for appearance and social media posts. If they have that kind of following, itβs no different than the TikTok influencer.
βSo thatβs how weβre treating it. But the engagements weβre doing arenβt these, βLetβs sign an autograph, one football β then you hand it to somebody and all of a sudden youβre gonna get 20 grand.β Thatβs not how weβre doing that.β
But what if some others might be, as the NCAAβs statement implied? How can Arizona stay competitive in recruiting?
βI think the type of kid that we get here is a little bit different,β Medina said. βComing into the situation, they are not going to get million-dollar deals. But I think that they come here for a number of different reasons.β
Lazarus said he has never been asked by a recruit or his parents about what Arizona Assist can do if the player becomes a Wildcat, and said heβs made no promises to current players, either.
βWeβre not going to do anything thatβs gonna put us in any sort of weird predicament,β Lazarus said. βIf the players we have agreements with say, βWell, whatβs my guarantee?,β the answer is zero. But if you promote it, you market it, you talk about it, and you give us more ideas β¦ the more of that you do, the more and the more popular you are, the more will sell.β
But since most UA menβs basketball players are international, Arizona Assist has to be mindful of student visa regulations that largely prohibit employment. UA has advised its international athletes that βpassiveβ income, when somebody else markets and does all the work, is OK β but paid appearances are not.
βEspecially with the current roster and even next yearβs roster, we donβt have a lot (of players) to choose from,β Lazarus said. βWe canβt have these kids signing autographs, working or showing up at events in the way that we would like. We talked with a lot of international attorneys.β
UA menβs basketball players have the highest potential to earn from Arizona Assistβs membership fees, which allow fans to access special events and receive discounts on merchandise. Memberships start at $100, 80% of which is distributed equally to the teamβs scholarship players.
Lazarus said some membership organizations elsewhere have models guaranteeing players $100,000 or more and, while he said he wonβt go there, it isnβt difficult to see how that might be possible for a team with a rabid fan base.
Arizona Assists sold 100 memberships over its first three weeks, and Lazarus said heβs been encouraged by the way sales quickly increased in the past few weeks. If the organization can somehow reach 10,000 memberships over a year, Arizona Assist will bring in $1 million β with $800,000, after expenses, for the team to divide equally among its players. That amounts to about $67,000 per player on a team with 12 scholarship athletes.
At Friends of Wilbur and Wilma, Medina says the organization has already raised about $650,000 and dispersed about $250,000 to student-athletes.
Friends of Wilbur and Wilma allows fans to make a one-time contribution to its general fund or any particular sport, or seek assistance to hire an athlete. General donations allow the organization to pay athletes to appear for charities, so the appearances donβt cost the charity anything.
In the big picture, Lazarus said heβs hopeful that the income potential of NIL will eventually factor strongly into the stay-or-go-pro decisions many UA basketball players face in the offseason.
International players Bennedict Mathurin and Christian Koloko have already left UA for good this offseason, while rising junior guard Dalen Terry is testing the NBA Draft.
Terry has benefited from endorsements and merchandise sales since the NIL doors opened last July. But NBA Draft projections now suggest he can at least earn a two-way contract worth about $500,000 next season.
For now, the potential pro dollars likely outweigh another year of potential NIL dollars.
In the future, maybe not. Or at least the equation is a closer call.
βIf you and I are talking hopefully in a year, and we do everything our way, maybe Koloko doesnβt jump as quickly,β Lazarus said. βIf you have something in place thatβs sustainable and measurable and real, I think these guys in the future might have might have a little bit of a hesitation because Tucson loves them.β
But even if NIL winds up helping keep players in college, and somehow is regulated out of recruiting, thereβs always one problem for the schools themselves: Theoretically, at least, every booster dollar that gets funneled to players is one dollar less a booster might give an athletic department.
So far, Medina says the Friends of Wilbur and Wilma has been able to raise money in a way that doesnβt take away from Arizonaβs athletic department, getting donors to βjust step up that slight bit moreβ to create outside NIL opportunities while also supporting the school.
But will boosters keep stepping up more, if the NIL race demands them to?
βOur collectives have been managed very appropriately and effectively to help student-athletes in our programs, but I do believe the bigger conversation is that this is not sustainable,β Heeke said. βFor us to continue to invest in operations, invest in our programs, invest in facilities, invest in retaining coaches and supporting all of our other programs β and structuring these large NIL collectives β itβs just not sustainable.
βAt this point, weβre still getting great support from our people in a variety of areas, but a year of this will really test us.β
Itβs an existential threat to athletic departments. But so is a talent base eroded by a lack of NIL opportunities.
And if either threat materializes, there could also be collateral damage.
βThe biggest thing for us, honestly, is just creating community exposure,β Medina said. βI hate to say this, but if athletics fails, parts of the community start to fail. If thereβs no fans in the stands to advertise to because we canβt deliver a great product, Tucson will still exist, but it just wonβt be the thriving place that it is based on athletics.β