International student athletes in the US losing out on sponsorship
Published 23/04/2024
Caitlin Clark; Zach Edey; Paige Bueckers; Dalton Knecht; Kamilla Cardoso; Nika Mühl.
If you’re in the US, or just an avid basketball fan, these are names that might have appeared in the sports section you read in the morning – at least in the month of March and early April.
They’re some of the best players from both the women’s and men’s National Collegiate Athletics Association March Madness tournament – and half of them are international students.
Students from overseas have been gracing American television sets for multiple years in various sports. They appear in basketball, American football, baseball and tennis.
One congress member estimated that over 25,000 international student athletes participate in NCAA sports across the US – the organisation only counts the first-year student athletes by country – and one student paper calculated around 24,000 across all three Divisions (DI, DII and DIII).
In recent years, after heavy backlash from many players who were getting fed up with the idea of being emblazoned on screen with only pride to show for it – no renumeration whatsoever – schools began to allow students to make money a different way.
Instead of directly paying them, they introduced the idea of Name Image Likeness, where students could get sponsored by certain companies and essentially make money off their name.
However, due to federal law, international students largely cannot take advantage – as they are unable to work off-campus while studying in the US.
Edey, who plays for Purdue University in Indiana, and was named as the best player this year by the bulk of media awards, is aware of the difficulty of changing something so haphazardly woven into law.
“It’s not like I can go film a commercial in West Lafayette… I understand kind of the legal process, it takes a while. It’s not like it’s an NCAA rule, it’s an American law. Anytime you try to go change that, I understand it takes a while,” Edey told the Newark Star-Ledger after one game.
So it begs the question – with so many students now able to try and make some money in some way of their college fame – should the international students be allowed to do so?
UConn, for example, whose men’s team won the NCAA tournament this year, had three international students on their starting roster – the women’s team, which reached the Final Four, had the same.
Caitlin Clark, the star of this year’s women’s tournament, will earn millions of dollars a year after being able to sign a second deal with Nike – she already had one in her prime college athlete days, prior to being drafted.
One problem is that the NIL system itself is not really that simple – at least right now, one lawyer who specialises in the issue tells The PIE News.
“I would say it’s very similar to the way things were on the internet back in the late 90s to the early 2000s – with music sharing and file sharing,” says Zach Terwilliger, a partner of Vinson and Elkin, based in US capital Washington DC.
“We’re in that world with NIL now where people are asking, what are the rules? It’s a bit of a Wild West situation.”
The NCAA put in an interim policy regarding NIL effective July 1, 2021 – but the rules vary by state, and some states have even responded poorly to the NCAA because of it.
Virginia and Tennessee sued the organisation earlier this year for “violating US anti-trust law with its rules controlling compensation”, according to Reuters.
It’s something on individuals minds, he adds. It could only be a matter of time before one individual sues, and there would be a court case.
Athletes can, on occasion, find loopholes to benefit passively. Edey himself is one of them.
After Purdue’s success in the men’s tournament, the Canadian has signed a deal with a company that released trading cards with him on it.
A key part of the deal means that he cannot promote or sign any of the cards, and pictures used on the cards are also taken outside of the US, instead in his home country – essentially meaning there’s no evidence any sort of “work” has been undertaken within the US and in violation of his F-1 visa.
“We’re in that world with NIL now where people are asking, what are the rules?”
Edey also said that he will “try to do some stuff” when’s back home in Canada.
But this is where it could get tricky for international student players – while certain athletes are utilising this loophole and being paid in their home country, and that money is generally going to family members back home, it’s still a minefield.
“You want to make sure you’re not just doing it willy nilly, because you could wind up in a situation where your visa gets revoked and you’re unable to come to the US to do anything,” Terwilliger says, referring to the future possibility of athletes being drafted or participating in US competition.
The issue is going to affect more athletes as time goes by, as NIL develops, more players can get famous from something as trivial as a trading card partnership or even, in the case of one other Purdue athlete, going viral for taking a chair out of the court during a game.
Both senators and members of the US Congress have been thinking about the issue, and want to advocate for these athletes.
In October 2023, senator Pete Ricketts from Nebraska introduced the NIL for International Collegiate Athletes Act, and it has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
A companion bill was introduced in congress on April 15 by North Carolina congresswoman Valerie Foushee and Nebraska congressman Mike Flood. They both argued for a modification of F-1 visas to “allow employment authorisation” for these athletes “who enter into endorsement contracts for the commercial use of their names, images, and likenesses”.
But the other debate this issue sparks is what this means for international students who aren’t division one athletes.
“The NIL constraints are particularly visible, and immigration law and regulations should be modernised for all international students, not only international student athletes,” argues Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance for Higher Education and Immigration.
“The strict limitations on work also are particularly difficult for students whose local currencies can’t compete against the strength of the US dollar, whose families aren’t wealthy, or whose home countries are going through difficult times,” she tells The PIE.
“Immigration regulations should be modernised for all international students, not only international student athletes”
The Naira has made it extremely difficult for Nigerian students paying both student fees and living costs, and Bangladeshi students suffered similar problems through issues with the country’s own currency fluctuation and dwindling forex reserves in the last September intake.
F-1 students can go for OPT and CPT, but that generally does not kick in quick enough for students and only applies to those studying certain subjects.
Despite the study permit cap in Canada and Australia beginning to curb some work rights, the US had been losing out on some interest due to the fact that students are largely unable to fund their study through part-time jobs.
“Our universities and colleges are increasingly seeking to enrol more diverse and talented students from all backgrounds,” Feldblum notes.
“This is why [we] prioritise modernising immigration policy so that all qualified international students, whatever their socioeconomic background.”
For the student athletes, the ever-changing rules and regulations need to develop clarity, Trewilliger posits.
“The bottom line is we need some clarity around the rules. I think many people would like to see international athletes get compensated the same way others do, but it is a negotiation.”
Purdue University, Zach Edey’s college, did not respond to a request for comment.
The post International student athletes in the US losing out on sponsorship appeared first on The PIE News.