Ohio State football: What will OSU do about NIL?

The Ohio State football program will soon have to deal with the name, image, and likeness issue like every other college program in the country. How will they handle it?

Legislation about name, image, and likeness is coming. The Ohio State football program, and programs all over the country for that matter, will soon have to deal with the consequences of such a law. It won’t just be the football program either. All sports will have to figure out what to do.

There are NIL laws already in place in six different states. Most of those laws come into effect on July 1st. A lot of the states that have laws in effect are in SEC country, so they will have a leg on the rest of the country when it comes to figuring this out.

There is legislation introduced into Congress for a national NIL law, but who knows if that will even pass. The question is whether or not Ohio will come up with something before that or if Ohio State decides to take matters into their own hands and figure it out themselves.

How will the Ohio State football program deal with NIL?

NIL probably won’t affect the Ohio State football program very much in terms of recruiting. Most recruits choose big programs like Ohio State anyway regardless of their ability to earn money on their name, image, and likeness. That part won’t affect anything.

What will affect them, as well as Ohio State’s other sports, is how the money will be distributed and how much they are allowed to earn. We don’t know how that will work yet. Ohio State could decide how to handle these issues on their own instead of waiting for a national law.

I am not a lawyer. I do not claim to be. Truly, I have no idea the complexities that go on into making a rule like this. All I know is that Ohio State could set the market for the rest of the Big Ten if they were to introduce their own rule to the conference. They could lead the Big Ten out of the stone age on this issue.

My guess is that they won’t do anything before the state makes their own law or a national law passes. President Kristina Johnson probably won’t do anything until she’s forced to.