College athletes and soon-to-be college athletes have been waiting for this for a long, long time, and their wait is about to be over. They’re going to be able to get paid through new name, image and likeness rules, so they soon will, in fact, be open for business.
Penn State football recruit Kaden Saunders made that point perfectly clear in a tweet he sent out Sunday evening. It was, essentially, a business move by Saunders, as his message solicited offers from any companies that would like to utilize his services.
This type of message likely will become the new normal for college athletes, and many will say “it’s about time.”
Saunders is a 4-star wide receiver from Ohio who has committed to Penn State for the class of 2022, then reaffirmed that commitment a little over a month ago.
‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/xgxxCXgTZz
— 𝐊𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒 ² (@KSaunders03) June 27, 2021
“According to the NCAA, starting July 1st all student-athletes have been granted permission to capitalize on our name, image, and likeness. When this goes into affect student-athletes are going to be able to brand ourselves and other business and companies. Any local or any companies at all that want to use my social media as a platform to promote, do commercials, etc to brand themselves, my DMs are open business. Message me if interested.”
There are still some things to be worked out with NIL, and there are moving parts in all of this when it comes to exact dates, procedures, protocols and enforcement issues. But the bottom line is, these college athletes and recruits are about to become business people who will be able to market themselves and get paid doing so.
So expect a whole lot more athletes to be sending out similar messages to the one Saunders tweeted Sunday.
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