Ideal NIL opportunities for several Clemson football players

With the NCAA now supporting NIL payments for student-athletes, there are several Clemson football players that would make a great spokesman for certain products.

If you have no idea what NIL means, simply put, players will soon be able to be compensated to appear in ads for products. Schools are prohibited from bargaining on the student’s behalf and NIL cannot be used to recruit a player to a certain school.

Sure, there are schools like USC, UCLA, or Miami that are in bigger cities where the opportunities will be more likely, but companies like to align themselves with winners and no one gets more publicity in college football that athletes on the better teams.

According to Dennis Dodd of CBS, here are some of the early parameters:

"Endorsement is a genuine payment for use of NIL, not a disguised form of pay for play with contingencies — compensation for participation or inducement in recruiting to select a certain school"

"Endorsement is for genuine use of NIL independent of athletic participation or performance rather than payment for participation or performance"

"Athletes cannot request to be compensated for NIL in situations in which they have no legal right to demand such compensation"

"Regulation of third parties, such as marketing agents and financial advisors"

"Potentially attempting to determine “fair market value” for endorsements in order to ensure they meet within the outlined regulations"

"Potentially limiting categories of promotion to be consistent with NCAA’s membership values (no alcohol, tobacco, sports gambling)"

"Potentially limiting categories of third-party endorsements (athletic shoe and apparel companies) due to a history of “encouraging or facilitating recruiting and other rules infractions”"

"Potentially making changes to acceptable pre-enrollment activities for athletes"

"Potentially ensuring any endorsements do not interfere with the NCAA’s efforts towards diversity, inclusion or gender equality"

"That said, here are a couple of Clemson players that would be great for a couple of national companies to sign a NIL deal with."

Trevor Lawrence

Okay, this one is obvious. He is the most high profile player in the country and hair care companies would love to get his long flowing hair in a commercial. He has already been on record telling us which shampoo and conditioner he uses and there is no doubt that once this becomes a legal rule in college athletics, Lawrence will have plenty of hair care suitors.

Travis Etienne

UPS and Fed-Ex come to mind with Travis because he delivers. Etienne is already the NCAA leader in yards per carry for a career and will end his career by a wide margin the all-time leader in both the Clemson and ACC as the career rushing leader.

Package deliverers that are always on time and show up when you need them, would love to have a kid like Etienne, even if it just a geographical campaign.

Jackson Carman

The big 6’8 Clemson football left tackle does a great job of protecting the blindside of quarterback Trevor Lawrence. A product like Lifelock or any other credit alert and protection services seems to be a great fit for a young man that is tasked with protecting people on a football field.

Offensive Line and defensive lines

In addition to Jackson Carman, what about the rest of the big guys upfront. There are plenty of all you can eat places between Clemson and Anderson, getting these big men to shoot commercials for those places seems like a win/win for both.
Linemen get to eat while local establishments get to be associated with Clemson football players, even if Clemson’s logo is prevented from being shown.

There is still a long way to go before the NIL is ready to go for college athletes, but this is a step in the right direction for all college athletes. None of them will get rich off of this and not all athletes will have opportunities, but at least it is there for them should both parties be interested.