Shead, Wojnarowski weigh in on {dollars} and sense of NIL for school athletes

Jamal Shead graduated from the University of Houston with a school-record 118 wins below his belt, 4 NCAA match appearances to his identify, and recognition because the defensive participant of the yr in his convention two seasons in a row and as Big 12 participant of the yr as a senior.

He additionally left faculty basketball for the NBA with some cash in his pocket and a few invaluable experiences past basketball.

Timing is every little thing. As Shead started his sophomore season with the Cougars, he was lucky that the NCAA had been required to drop its pretext of amateurism and permit pupil athletes to revenue from their promoting their identify, picture and likeness. The NIL period was born.

“It changed things for college athletes,” Shead instructed me simply earlier than placing collectively one of the vital full video games of his rookie season with the Toronto Raptors — 15 factors on 6-of-7 taking pictures, together with three triples on three makes an attempt, together with three assists and a steal — in a aggressive outing in opposition to the league-leading Cleveland Cavaliers Thursday night time. “Lots of people had the chance to become profitable that early, and form of adjustments folks’s lives. You know, it modified mine.

“It helped me help my parents with just travel. They made every single game for four years and, for those last three years, I got to help them with that travel and just help them be there for me. So for me, it helped a lot. And I think for others, people who are from less fortunate backgrounds, it might help even more.”

Shead is scheduled to share a few of his experiences within the still-emerging NIL area when he returns from the Raptors highway journey — they hope to construct on their sturdy displaying in opposition to Cleveland and halt their four-game slide after they go to the Detroit Pistons on Saturday night time — and when he seems on the inaugural Training Ground Summit on Sunday on the University of Toronto.

He’ll be joined by former ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, who’s now the final supervisor of males’s basketball at St. Bonaventure University, together with former Canadian NFLers Tevaughn Campbell and Tevaun Smith.

The convention (free to attend, however requires registration) is geared toward Canadian highschool athletes, their dad and mom and coaches to assist educate them and reply questions in regards to the alternatives and challenges introduced by the NIL market, which has lately been valued at $3 billion.

It’s not all roses. The mixture of NIL and the power of athletes to switch colleges with out having to take a seat out a season as in years previous has made faculty sports activities and whirlwind of fixed participant transactions that put the NBA commerce deadline to disgrace.

“It’s 100 per cent free agency all the time,” stated Wojnarowski. But has additionally given athletes and their households alternatives and management that earlier generations by no means had.

Shead can communicate to it from the athlete’s perspective, whereas Wojnarowski — well-known for his “Woj bomb” breaking information over many years of masking skilled basketball — can share his insights on the NIL panorama from the standpoint of packages making an attempt to boost cash and compete for expertise in a quickly shifting atmosphere the place prime gamers at prime packages are signing offers with sponsors price properly into seven figures, and the place smaller packages have to search out efficiencies to draw and retain gamers.

“I probably wouldn’t be at St. Bonaventure if not for NIL,” stated Wojnarowski, who left a profitable function with ESPN to tackle the problem of operating the boys’s program at his alma mater, a small, non-public Catholic faculty in Olean, New York, about an hour’s drive from the Niagara Falls border crossing. “We’re in a fight. We’re in a fight for our ability to be able to continue to compete at this really high level … in the Atlantic 10 (conference). … I had been working with our collective to raise money to give NIL opportunities to our players … and now it’s, obviously, heightened in the role I have as GM at St Bonaventure. … It’s a challenge, and it’s going to determine whether we can continue to play and compete at this high level.”

For Wojnarowski, the chance to be in entrance of a bunch of aspiring Canadian athletes was too good to cross up. The Bonnies have an extended custom of attracting prime basketball expertise from the GTA and past. Going again to Canadian Olympian Norm Clarke within the Nineteen Eighties, via nationwide workforce star and first-round NBA draft choose Andrew Nicholson, the roots run deep, and Wojnarowski desires to succeed in much more extensively into the Canadian basketball expertise pool and constructing out their NIL technique is a part of it. 

“For a school like Bonaventure, people don’t realize often how unique we are,” stated Wojnarowski, who graduated from St. Bonaventure in 1991 and was volunteering for the sports activities and data division when former Toronto highschool star Radcliffe “Rocky” Llewellyn was gunning for the Atlantic 10 scoring title. “It fluctuates, but we have between 1,900 and 2,000 students. There’s other schools our size, but they don’t play in leagues like the Atlantic 10 … and so it’s a fight for us, and yet we’ve been able to punch up, and to do that we need to be efficient with your resources. And being efficient, to me, is really mining and spending time and being around that Canadian basketball community, because it makes too much sense. Kids in (Southern Ontario) can come to St. Bonaventure, and their families can see them play, they’re close to home. It can be a real win-win.”

As with NIL alternatives, which may present extra than simply greenback worth. For Shead, it was the expertise he gained coping with enterprise companions, sponsors and brokers made the transition to the NBA much less of a shock.

“I think that also is another positive benefit of having, you know, just a little bit of experience (with money),” stated Shead. “And I think that, you know, if you do it the right way, and you have people that are good enough around you that can help you and actually teach you a little bit about money, a little bit about agents and you make the right decisions once you get to that professional level, it makes it less of an adjustment.”

Seeing past the {dollars} and sense is one in every of Wojnarowski’s messages additionally.

It’s arduous to disregard the headlines — incoming BYU freshman AJ Dybansta has signed NIL offers price a reported $7 million, repping manufacturers Nike and Red Bull, earlier than even setting foot on campus, only a style of what he’ll earn because the projected No. 1 choose within the 2026 NBA draft.

But for a whole lot and even hundreds of different athletes, it’s an opportunity to earn cash they won’t ever see in the event that they aren’t among the many small minority who matriculate from faculty athletics to the professional ranks, and likewise an opportunity to construct relationships and develop horizons that may be helpful after commencement, whether or not you find yourself taking part in professionally or not.

“With NIL, yes, there’s money that could be earned at the higher levels, or lots of levels of — in our instance — college basketball, but it’s also a professional development opportunity. It’s a professional growth opportunity,” stated Wojnarowski. “It’s a chance to work with companies, to understand the value that you have and the value you can bring, and how to be a partner in that way … and what I’ve been trying to do in bringing in lots of companies and potential businesses that would have relationships with us is give our players, give our students access to these individuals and get to know those people and keep those relationships — because you’re not going to play forever, the ball is going to stop bouncing sometime … and so I think making young people aware of the opportunities (is valuable). And also money management, and how to grow the relationships, and to have a level of professional development that can come at a pretty young age, you know? And so those will all be some of the things we talk about on Sunday.”

Shead will speak about it having lived it. He’s incomes $1.86 million this season and $1.96 million subsequent season, with a membership possibility for $2.3 million in 2026-27 with the Raptors, which is a pleasant sum of cash for a 22-year-old, however not overwhelming, Shead feels, as a result of he got here to the NBA with a grasp of how the skilled panorama works, because of his expertise at Houston and with NIL.

“I did a good job saving. And I think people at Houston, our NIL people who helped us along the way, did a great job of teaching us about saving money and how to do it the right way,” stated Shead. “So I think it’s just been beneficial.”

His message to athletes and their households on Sunday?

“There’s some good and some bad, but I think that one really positive thing they should understand that you go into college and it’s for free, and you also have a chance to make money while it’s free, while getting an education. That’s a positive, man,” he stated. “You’re literally going to play the sport you love. You’re getting taken care of on a daily basis for free. You’re getting paid every day, and you have a chance to make a lot of money also, while just really learning the game and having a chance to go professional.”