Ryan Day hoping for NIL guardrails in the future

Ryan Day and Ohio State have been perfectly willing to work in the NIL space as it’s become a norm in college athletics to do so. Even still, the Ohio State coach would like to see some set of uniform, common rules and enforcement put in place.

Asked about the possibility of some act of Congress setting the terms for the NIL playing field, Day said he just wants something put in place. But he also acknowledged the difficulties of governing this aspect of college sports – particularly football.

“I think the biggest struggle that a lot of us have, I know that I have is when we’re talking about something like this — and there are other things like this right now in college football — there’s really nothing to compare it to. There’s no benchmark, there’s no precedents for something like this. And that makes it hard, because sometimes you don’t know where you’re going. But I do know that some sort of guardrails, like you’re saying, around this, would certainly help,” Day said.

Day, in calling for some set of better-enforced rules around NIL dealmaking, is echoing the likes of Alabama head coach Nick Saban in calling for some more controls. But Day, like Saban, is also coaching a team full of players with large NIL valuations, and neither has run from that, either.

Ohio State has two players on the 2023 roster ranking in the Top 25 of On3’s NIL 100 and four players in the Top 50. Headlining the group is stud wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., a potential Top 5 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. He holds a $1.3 million NIL valuation, No. 12 among all athletes.

NIL is also one of many ongoing ground shifts in college sports, with conference realignment being another major disruptor. With USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten ahead of the 2024 football season, Day has considered what a 16-team conference might look like.

“I think that there’s so many different discussions that are happening right now of things like that, you know, and it’s like what’s coming next?” Day said on the “Bussin’ with the Boys” podcast in early April. “I think as we just sit here right now, I think we all know things are going to continue to change because of everything that’s going on in America. Right? Whether it’s the NFL, the transfer portal, this conference realignment, we know that there’s going to continue to be lawsuits down the road so things are going to change where it goes. I really don’t know. I do think that the way that college football is right now, there’s nothing really you can compare to it, right? 

“There’s nothing else out there you’d be like, ‘OK, yeah, follow this model,’ because it doesn’t exist. And I think if we can find a way to look more like some of the models that are out there — I mean, obviously the NFL is a model. It’s different because this is collegiate. It’s not professional. But the more we can find something to grab on to say, ‘OK, let’s run college football something like this.'”