Outer space was supposed to be the last great frontier.
Not anymore.
Collegiate athletics just created a new frontier.
The NCAA Board of Directors decided Wednesday to officially suspend the NCAA's rules prohibiting student-athletes from selling the rights to their name, image and likeness (NIL).
Some states had already passed laws that went into effect July 1, which allow student-athletes to monetize their NIL, and rather than run into a scenario where NIL was allowed in certain states and not allowed in others, the NCAA decided to suspend its rules, a move that will remain in place until federal legislation or new NCAA rules are adopted.
This means as of Thursday, the NIL machine was open for business across the country.
It's a rock that's been rolling in this direction for some time, so some institutions and athletic departments have been preparing for this.
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A number of Xavier University men's basketball players have already announced plans to start monetizing their NIL with companies over the last 24 hours.
Jack Nunge, a transfer from Iowa, announced that he'll be working with VIDSIG, a video chat platform where anyone can book a live one-on-one video chat with Nunge and depending on the length of the conversation payment varies.
Zach Freemantle announced an account with Cameo, a video-sharing website that features personalized videos from athletes and celebrities that range in price.
Greg Christopher, Xavier's Vice President and Director of Athletics, told The Enquirer on Thursday he agrees with student-athletes having the ability to monetize their NIL.
"Xavier certainly (agrees). And I think I can speak for the Big East Conference," said Christopher. "Xavier's been meeting and discussing this specific issue and its impact for probably close to a year."
Earlier this week, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed an executive order to allow student-athletes in Ohio the ability to profit off their NIL.
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"It helps that we had been talking with Ohio state legislators in the last few weeks as the Ohio bill took shape," said Christopher. "Our framework for student-athletes to work from is patterned off and falls in line with Ohio state law."
Leslie Fields, Xavier's Director of Compliance, emailed all of Xavier's student-athletes earlier this week "as this kind of hit the homestretch and gave them a very detailed step by step – here's where things are and here's the Ohio bill so you've got the brass tacks of the language," said Christopher.
Fields and the compliance office will oversee all things NIL and there's a formal process and certain stipulations that Xavier student-athletes will have to follow when pursuing opportunities, all of which need to meet the letter of Ohio's law.
Xavier's still waiting for a little more clarity on what exactly it's allowed to do as far as helping its student-athletes find and secure endorsement and sponsorship opportunities.
"The language in the Ohio bill, we would like to get a little more clarification as to what we at Xavier are permitted to do," said Christopher. "Because some states have taken a very hands-off approach ... schools cannot lift a finger in any way. The Ohio language is a little more gray and so we do need some clarification."
Companies have popped up recently and are promoting themselves to athletic departments and student-athletes as a third party to help facilitate deals. Xavier's waiting to see where the final goalposts are set on this, but student-athletes are permitted under the Ohio NIL bill to have their own agents or representatives.
It's hard to say right now exactly what the NIL impact will look like long term.
"I do think it'll take two to three years to fully develop," said Christopher. "So it's hard to predict. Because ultimately, regardless of what the laws say, as with so much in our society, the marketplace will determine where things actually end up. And that's what's a little hard to predict.
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"Right now, on July 1, we're just a few hours into this. I think it's great that all student-athletes can monetize their name, image and likeness, and I would say there's a large swath of athletes who may be entrepreneurial and will be able to access what I'll call small or modest levels of income. But there aren't too many Zion Williamsons or Trevor Lawrences in the college space. So those really big deals, I think, are probably going to be few and far between.
"I still believe college athletics, higher education, we're all going to be best served if we can get to a national framework on this from Congress, as opposed to 50 different state approaches. The state approach is what we have today. We'll muddle through it. But at some point in time, it would be nice to have a consistent set of rules that cut across the entire country."
But the Musketeers are adequately situated to handle this.
In 2015, Xavier's men's basketball team started a program called the Fortune 15 Series – Building and Protecting Your Personal Brand, the components of which include character development, media training, personal branding, financial management, classroom etiquette, social media training, career development, alumni engagement, community service, and fan interaction.
It's a program the Musketeers have continued to use as instruction for their players, so there's a blueprint in place to expand this program to the rest of Xavier's student-athlete population.
There will be some novelty and creativity to how student-athletes sign deals and monetize their NIL, and it won't simply center around star players.
"The (Cavinder) twins (who have amassed millions of followers on social media) from Fresno State women's basketball have gotten a lot of attention in the last 24 hours here with their deal with Boost Mobile," said Christopher. "And that's where it's going to be an advantage, student-athletes that have really significant social media followings. And that's why sometimes a lot of people don't realize when they think of social media followings and Xavier, everybody just assumes men's basketball (players) are our student-athletes with the most followers ... but the top handful are not men's basketball players. We've got student-athletes from some of our Olympic sports that have five-figure numbers of followers because they've developed creative, almost entrepreneurial approaches to lessons or tips tied to their sports."
One of the biggest student-athletes at Xavier in terms of followers is men's tennis player Caden Kammerer, who has nearly 40,000 followers on TikTok.
