Kansas football coach Lance Leipold highlights importance of NIL in player retention

LAWRENCE — So much appears to be in flux in college athletics.

There are all the questions around the future of NIL, which comes from athletes being able to earn money from their name, image and likeness. There are the various legal cases that are unfolding, and efforts from lawmakers to have their say. And that is not all.

At the end of February, as Kansas head football coach Lance Leipold discussed his new deal with the Jayhawks, the state of college athletics was discussed. Travis Goff, KU’s director of athletics, was there as well. And here are a few takeaways from what they had to say.

Lance Leipold speaks to the importance of NIL

Leipold noted NIL is extremely important, and that he thinks they’re getting a better grasp of it. Looking around the country, he thinks there’s a hope that they’re trending toward sending setting something up with guardrails.

Leipold added it’s important to have a NIL program that’s consistent and competitive across the country, because that’s what they’ll need to be able to attract the players they want from the high school ranks and transfer portal. He then placed added emphasis only being able to retain players, because at a program like Kansas he thinks it’ll be best to have guys who’ve spent multiple years developing and maintaining the Jayhawks’ culture.

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“Player retention, just like anywhere else, is going to be important,” Leipold said. “Especially when others are out there trying to purchase their services, so to speak.”

Lance Leipold notes they’ll have to keep changing things when it comes to NIL, more

Leipold said it can be easy sometimes when you’re discussing ideas for one subject, like the transfer portal. There can be talks on how many openings there should be, and for how long. But then those ideas have to fit within colleges’ academic calendars, high school athletes’ calendars and the College Football Playoff.

Everything has to flow and work together, Leipold explained, and it’s getting really hard. That doesn’t mean many of the things that are being discussed aren’t good things. That just means they’ll have to keep working at it and making changes.

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“NIL — great for players and families, and it’s life-changing, and hopefully we’ll see great benefits all the way down the line,” Leipold said. “But somewhere also there’s going to be some stories where it doesn’t work out very well, and I hope we can find these right resolutions to our academic calendar, our yearly calendar, recruiting, the portal, all of that, and make this work.”

Travis Goff shares his vision for what KU should do

As Goff talked, he said what they know right now is no one knows precisely where things are going. He noted he didn’t know if that’s good or bad. He added there’s a case that can be made that not being able to specifically articulate the future could be a good thing, because that means they know they’ll need to be adaptable in an industry that’s facing significant change.

Goff highlighted that there are some who’ve adopted the notion a revenue share, or employment agreement with athletes, is in their future and potentially sooner rather than later. If so, the focus would be on how to get that model done in a way that protects and preserves all programs and as many — but hopefully all — of the athletic opportunities that are possible. That, he explained, would be at risk.

Goff also referenced the conversations that have been happening around the College Football Playoff. He referenced the court case with the state of Tennessee that has the NCAA and NIL in the spotlight. As Leipold alluded to, there’s a lot happening at one time.

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“For KU, the best thing we can do most days is to focus on being the best version of ourselves today, and we have incredible confidence that will help position us to compete and continue to compete and aspire to win and represent our institution at the highest levels in wherever the model goes,” Goff said. “That’s how we’re viewing it and how we’re focused today.”

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Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Why does Kansas football coach Lance Leipold think NIL is important?