The endorsement deals that shape the NCAA Tournaments

DALLAS – Last spring, Isaiah Wong led the University of Miami men’s basketball team to its best season yet, a run to the eighth round of the NCAA Tournament, where it lost to eventual champion Kansas.

Weeks later, Miami added one of the best transfers in the sport, Kansas State sharpshooter Nijel Pack, to form one of the best backcourts in Division I.

That same day, John Ruiz, a Miami alumnus and the CEO of LifeWallet, announced on Twitter that Pack signs a two-year contract with his business worth $800,000 plus a car.

An agent representing Wong, who was also endorsed by LifeWallet, responded by telling ESPN that Wong would switch if he didn’t get a better deal that reflected “he was a team leader of an Elite Eight team.”

Ruiz said he would not renegotiate the deal, and Wong eventually issued a statement himself saying the comments on his behalf were “unauthorized” and that he would not do anything to jeopardize his relationship with LifeWallet of Miami.

The skirmish reflected this new era in college sports, which began in the summer of 2021 after a series of state laws went into effect that made it illegal for the NCAA to ban athletes from monetizing the use of their name, image, and likeness. a category now known as NIL

Overnight, the experience of college athletes changed. Water polo players could advertise summer swim lessons, and stars like Connecticut guard Paige Bueckers or Southern California quarterback Caleb Williams could rake in millions in endorsements.

Ground zero for the endorsement revolution is Miami, where the men’s and women’s basketball teams made their deepest NCAA tournament appearances in program history, and where every stock exchange member of the football team was offered a deal.

The man who pulls it all off is Ruiz, 56, a brash entrepreneur and avid Miami Hurricanes fan, who says he has invested more than $10 million in Miami athletes. Ruiz has straddled the pay-for-play line that prompted an NCAA investigation in one episode and resulted in a brief suspension for the Miami Women’s Basketball Coach. Some people in college sports, such as recently retired Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim, have suggested that Miami simply “bought” players.

“We’ve been trendsetters,” Ruiz said in a recent interview, adding, “Nobody does it like us.”

“I think the goal is to make sure we get a return on investment from a company’s perspective,” Ruiz added. “At the same time, the students got more exposure and no value, because the higher the value the player has, the better it is for us.”

It is still against NCAA rules for athletes to receive money from a school or a booster in exchange for participating in a sport. Miami knows this well, as the school faced sanctions in 2013 after Nevin Shapiro, a superintendent imprisoned for a $900 million Ponzi scheme, told the NCAA he had cash and other gifts given to many Miami athletes. provided.

The wave of state legislation in 2021 allowed athletes to benefit through social media posts, autograph sales, appearances, sponsorships, endorsement deals, and private training or camps. Now many schools have adjoining collectives that pool booster funds and donations designed to arrange deals and endorsements for athletes.

When the athletes sign such deals, they are responsible for a certain number of commercials, social media posts and other requirements. (Wong, Pack, and Miami security guard Jordan Miller wore LifeWallet uniforms in a commercial for their conference tournament.) So the amount of money a player gets depends largely on the size of their social media following.

Often the best players collect the biggest followers, which can make NIL deals look like boosters are openly paying for the best athletes.

Ruiz said that because of Pack and deep runs in both the men’s and women’s tournaments by Miami’s teams, he gained more attention for LifeWallet, generating a “ten-fold” return on his investment in the athletes.

There are others like Ruiz, but they aren’t as outspoken, in part because the presence of boosters often raises the uncomfortable prospect of corruption. Miami benefits from doing business this way, but the athletic department was publicly hesitant to embrace Ruiz.

On Thursday, Savanna Wood, Miami’s executive associate director of branding and marketing strategy, interrupted an interview and told two reporters to “keep the NIL questions out of this” when speaking to Hurricanes players in an open locker room session.

In Kansas City prior to Miami’s eighth game against Texas, Kotie Kimble, an assistant coach, defended the team’s NIL practices by comparing them to the Subway television commercials shot by NBA star Stephen Curry.

“He plays for Golden State. He also works for Subway. So there are two separate deals. The same goes for our players,” Kimble said. “They play for us. We just coach them.”

Jim Larrañaga, the men’s basketball coach, avoided mentioning Ruiz when asked about him in a press conference leading up to the Final Four, and changed the subject to the effectiveness of the transfer portal.

Meanwhile, several Miami players have been open about how much NIL and Ruiz influenced their college careers.

“Having people like him really helps players,” Miami guard Harlond Beverly said of Ruiz. Beverly talked about knowing players who couldn’t afford meals or buy their own clothes in addition to the team’s, before NIL (and Ruiz) came into the picture.

Haley and Hanna Cavinder, twin sisters who signed with the Hurricanes women’s basketball team last summer, are two of the most popular college athletes in any sport, with 4.5 million followers on their shared TikTok account. But the Cavinders were part of an NCAA investigation surrounding a visit to Ruiz’s home before heading to Miami, which led to women’s coach, Katie Meier, suspended for three games.

It is against NCAA rules for unauthorized recruiters to have personal contact off-campus with prospects, and the Cavinders visited Ruiz’s home and ate dinner, according to the NCAA report. While the report never names Ruiz, it calls the person a “booster” and references a photo from his Twitter account of him with the Cavinder family.

Ruiz said he intends to “fight” the report, saying it was factually incorrect and negotiating deals directly with student-athletes does not make him a booster.

The sisters, who have a sponsorship deal with LifeWallet, were unpunished and helped lead Miami to the first round of 8 in the program’s history. They also made one viral video in response to the NCAA sanctions.

“NIL changed my life,” said Haley Cavinder. She added: “I think there are challenges in it because I think there are a lot of people who make you one-dimensional. You must be an influencer; you must be a basketball player. But I think you can be both.”

Dan Hurley, UConn’s men’s basketball coach, said Wong’s public battle with LifeWallet and Ruiz was startling and a realization of how much college sports had changed.

“That created a shock wave, I think, when we saw that and how it played out in public,” Hurley said.

Many coaches have expressed frustration with this new era. Alabama football coach Nick Saban said that Jackson State and Texas A&M bought recruits. Boeheim, Syracuse’s retired coach, said college basketball is in a “horrible spaceover the endorsement deals, accusing Miami, Wake Forest and Pittsburgh of buying teams. He later apologized.

But, in Miami fashion, Larrañaga hasn’t been of that mold. Larrañaga has said that many schools are doing the same things as Miami, but are less open about it. He hopes that at some point a website will be available showing players’ NIL earnings, such as viewing NBA contracts.

“TV makes money, right? The shoe manufacturers make money. The universities make money,” he said, also listing athletic directors and coaches. Larrañaga added, “Well, what’s wrong with that filtering down?”

Billy Witz contributed reporting from Houston, and Noah Weiland from Kansas City, Mo.