Matt Leinart on NIL: Get that money while you can

Former USC star quarterback Matt Leinart shared his advice that he would give current college players about chasing NIL deals. The Heisman-winning leader of USC’s offense was one of the biggest stars in college football during his time with the Trojans — making him uniquely qualified to speak about modern stars collecting NIL payments.

Matt Leinart on chasing NIL money

“I was told this in the NFL as a professional, but coaches, everyone [said] make the money while you can,” shared Leinart on The Herd. “Go and make as much money as you can. We all know, that’s simple business — but especially in sports, especially in football where 98 percent of these players aren’t going to make the NFL. I don’t care if you’re a five-star coming out of high school, go make the money that you can because you are not guaranteed that.

“And that’s in anything, but especially sports. So I don’t have a problem with the amount of money, it is what it is. At some point you have to be realistic about expectations about the money that you can earn as a player. Whether that’s a female basketball player or a male tennis player, it doesn’t matter. Go get it. I’m not mad at you, go get it.

The topic then drifted to how Leinart feels about educating kids as they enter college about money, and how NIL provides a great opportunity to give practical advice to athletes about their money. Leinart pointed to how high schools in California are providing financial literacy classes to their students.

“There’s high schools that are doing that because in the state of California it’s legal to make money off your NIL,” explained Leinart. “There’s a lot of states that still haven’t passed that policy and they will. So in my mind, that is the most important thing. Because I’ve been in conversations where people have no clue even how to use a credit card. I didn’t know how to use a credit card when I was 17. Or they don’t know how to form an LLC or any of these things, so the financial literacy courses which I know high schools are starting to do that — colleges are starting to do that.

“When I was in the NFL we had someone come to training camp to talk about financial education. And that was it, it wasn’t a course. We’re obviously grown men and you’re professional and you have your job, but they need to institute that. Because one, kids will get taken advantage of if they don’t, naturally. And two — they’ll spend all their money because they don’t know what to do with it.”