Warde Manuel details his stance on NIL, collectives, recruiting

Michigan is home to some of the nation's top programs in several sports, and because of the world-class athletes on scholarship at U-M, NIL is a priority for the university's long-term success.

While schools like Alabama, Ohio State, and USC have made splashes in NIL, Michigan's administration believes it's right on track.

"(NIL) is something that I was a proponent of and wanted to have it succeed from the time they talked about it. To have the opportunity and to see some of the things our student-athletes are able to drive in terms of additional incomes for themselves, maybe for their families, from Name, Image and Likeness have been awesome to see," Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said on Jon Jansen's Conq'uring Heroes podcast. "(NIL) is one of those things that we will continue to push. We were the first school to offer jersey sales for our student-athletes in the sport of football. With the M Den, they partnered with our student-athletes to do that. We have two group license arrangements for our student-athletes with Influencer and BrandR. We have The Victors Exchange that our donors and businesses can go on to The Victors Exchange and pair up with our student-athletes. We're the largest in the country with that. For me, that means that our student-athletes have a lot of opportunities."

Manuel, who is responsible for hiring Juwan Howard and Mel Pearson, was hired away from UCONN in 2016 to return to Ann Arbor, where he is a three-time alumnus, a former defensive end for the football team and track runner.

In his eighth year as A.D. in Ann Arbor, Manuel's handled two subject matters that they don't prepare you for when they train for this job: a pandemic and NIL.

He understands the advantageous opportunities NIL provides the university's student-athletes while considering how it reflects on the athlete and U-M.

"It also comes with some of the negatives around influencing and inducing student-athletes and, simply, wanting to pay and put money in somebody's pocket which doesn't have any obligation to do something in return. For me, those are the things that we need to make sure, as we move forward, that these are students who participate in athletics. These are not employees. They're not professionals. We're not giving them scholarships here at Michigan to just play sports. It's about being a student, being an athlete, and being a great person and all that entails. You have to do it all. For me, I'm excited for the opportunities that we have."

While NIL continues to be a tool for schools around the country to establish financial opportunities for prospective student-athletes, schools can't legally promise deals to them. They can let them know about brands or companies they work with and showcase what their current athletes are doing with the opportunities.

The problem is that not every program is following those rules. This NIL stuff started like the wild, wild west, and while Michigan has been thought to be on the sideline, according to the vocal majority, Manuel believes the institution has done the right things, the right way, and built a foundation as one of the best NIL programs in the country.

"It's still against the rules in the NCAA for me to give you a dollar or more to come to the University of Michigan. That's outside of what the scholarship is. That's what I'm saying about inducements. If I'm using something to say I will guarantee you X, I'm going to guarantee them four years. Right now, just in the cost of attendance and scholarship funds, I'm probably around $80,000-plus for an out-of-state student. I'll guarantee you $320,000 in education for the next four years in support. That's not accounting for anything else. That's strictly scholarship dollars, the cost of attendance. I'll guarantee you $320,000. That's what we guarantee. I don't need additional inducements because that's against the rules. I can only give you my perspective on the way to move forward, that we will move forward," Manuel said. "Once somebody gets here, if there are collectives that are helpful in securing them jobs and different things that they do and the collectives pay them and everything is above board, I have no complaints. No control. Nothing that I have in place. I would welcome that level after they get here. For a student-athlete to come and say, Mr. Manuel, this collective promised me X numbers of dollars, and they haven't come through with the money yet. That's where I have an issue because that level of inducement is not what we do."

According to JDSupra, the term "collective," which generally means a cooperative enterprise, has no particular legal significance. NIL collectives are simply business entities that supporters of a school's athletic teams (not the schools themselves) form under state laws to generate and pool revenue, which the collectives use to fund NIL opportunities for college athletes at particular schools who opt-in and avail themselves of the collective's help and efforts to monetize their NIL.

Michigan has three collectives, according to BusinessOfCollegeSports.com: MGoDAO (a Decentralized Autonomous Organization that plans to sell college-themed NFTs), Stadium & Main (an online platform to book Michigan S.A.'s for videos, etc.), and recently launched, The Champions Circle, an incentive-based NIL program.

Manuel believes there's a misconception about what "collective" means and how it's utilized.

"If collective means pooling money together and giving people money for just being a student-athlete at Michigan, I'm against it. If collective means providing opportunities and resources and pooling them all together, providing them to student-athletes and ensuring that they are doing something for that benefit, there's nothing I can do to stop it, and I'm supportive of collectives that do things the right way. We are not in the inducement business here. I can't say anybody else has or has not. I let the general public and things that are out there in the general public be what it is. That's not what it should be about. That's not what a collective should be. A collective should be to put resources together. Be it jobs, be it opportunities for social media, signing, whatever people want to do," Manuel said, "and in order to participate in that and in order to receive anything, you should have to do something for that just like anybody else. I'm excited for those opportunities for our student-athletes to have. I think, just today, the NCAA came out with some clarifications about what they're doing, and they're still doing work on things, and they're focused on inducements that are not involved in these kinds of things."

"For me, they're not employees. They are students who participate in athletics."

To read everything Manuel said on the podcast, click here.

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