NIL Running Near Empty At Some Schools – “No One Has Endless Money,” Says LSU Assistant AD Heath Schroyer

By PIPER HUTCHINSON, Tiger Rag/Louisiana Illuminator

GRAMBLING — Athletics and campus administrators from Louisiana colleges convened last week to tackle one of their biggest challenges: How to deal with the downstream financial effects in the new era of paying student-athletes. 

Since 2021, the NCAA has allowed athletes to monetize their Name, Image and Likeness by inking sponsorship deals. Starting last year, Division I college sports programs were able to pay players directly for NIL deals through revenue sharing.

The problems that accompany these paychecks were the topic of the NIL symposium the Louisiana Board of Regents held Friday at Grambling State University.

Athletics administrators, university officials and others involved with college athletics at Louisiana’s public Division I schools took part in the event, along with representatives from the office of Attorney General Liz Murrill, who has pushed for more state laws to police the expanding NIL space.

Though the challenges are varied — including whether student athletes have the emotional capacity or knowledge to navigate the market — athletics administrators agreed the biggest one is fundamental to all of higher education in Louisiana: There’s never enough money to go around. 

“No one has endless money, whether you’re at LSU or at McNeese,” said Heath Schroyer, LSU’s senior deputy athletics director who was the McNeese athletic director from 2021-25. “We’re all fighting the boogeyman, if you will?” 

LSU Sweetening Pot For Will Wade? McNeese AD Who Hired Wade Is Up For LSU Associate AD Job

Louisiana, which ranks 25th in the U.S. in population, has among the most Division I universities per capita in the nation with 11. That’s one Division I school for every 420,000 residents. 

The state is also next to last in wealth and median household income, leaving it with a limited donor pool to support all of its college sports programs. That pits national powerhouse LSU against 10 smaller, scrappy schools in the hunt for money. 

Louisiana’s 10 non-power conference schools operate on smaller budgets. Their administrators said they need to pay their players to maintain their rosters, on top of already constrained budgets for their athletic departments and schools as a whole. 

Athletics and university administrators from non-power schools interviewed for this article said their budgets for paying players, including third-party deals and direct compensation, range from the low-six figures to low-seven figures. 

Their growing need for athletics donors has not translated to increased fundraising, so colleges are now diverting money from other areas previously covered through philanthropy, such as facility upkeep, to keep their rosters intact, school officials said. 

“Donor fatigue is a real thing,” Grambling athletics director Trayvean Scott said in an interview. “We’ve got what I believe is about 30,000 living alumni nationwide, and so that pull on those donors can create that fatigue.” 

Though it is a big ask to keep those players paid, athletics administrators said they believe it’s worth the investment. 

Schroyer, who was a very successful fund raiser as McNeese’s athletics director for six years before joining LSU’s program in March, said that when the Cowboys’ basketball team made the NCAA Tournament, interest in the university crashed its website. McNeese has earned a spot in the Big Dance the past three seasons. 

“I don’t know if you can put a monetary value on what successful athletics can do to market your university,” Schroyer said. “If you take athletics away from all of the institutions in this state, all those schools, they they can’t survive” 

But symposium participants said problems don’t disappear even when there is money available to pay players. 

Taylor Jacobs, the LSU’s athletic department’s top NIL administrator, said she frequently has to deal with two major problems with student-athletes. For starters, they often have unrealistic expectations about the value of their name, image and likeness. 

“I have more conversations with agents and athletes now, basically saying, ‘You have 10 followers on Instagram, you are quite literally not worth the money you are asking for,’” Jacobs said. 

Once NIL deals are inked, Jacobs said athletes often don’t want to fulfill their end of the contract and show up for the events and photoshoots they are getting paid to attend. 

That issue boils down to emotional capacity, Louisiana Tech athletics director Ryan Ivey said. 

“It is not your God-given right to be here to get paid and to do this, right?,” Ivey said. “If you don’t want to do what you’re supposed to do, that’s fine. Doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you can’t be here because there are thousands of other people that want to do what you’re doing, and they were lined up to do it probably for less.” 

One area where Louisiana is succeeding, speakers agreed, is in protecting players. 

Earlier this year, Louisiana became first in the nation to approve a law requiring NIL agents to register with the state. Authored by Sen. Patrick Connick, R-Marrero, it expands Louisiana’s existing sports agent registry to include anyone who represents student-athletes in NIL sponsorship deals. It also requires agents to pass a background check and complete a training program before they can register with the state attorney general’s office. 

“It is really something that is rare that we get to say here in Louisiana that we’re leading in something,” said David Fleshman, an attorney who specializes in college athletics.