DURHAM, N.C. — As the college sports landscape shook to its foundation core around him, Jon Scheyer attracted the nation's No.1 recruiting haul in the Class of 2022 to Duke and he's well on his way to another top class for next year.
The Blue Devils new basketball coach did so even as Duke, like every school around the country, grappled with revolutionary shifts in the NCAA's guidelines.
Spawned by action from state legislatures and the federal courts, college athletes are now allowed to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL) via third-party marketing deals and have access to educational-based payments approaching $6,000 a year from schools.
It's up to each school to set their own policies for these new opportunities, which means coaches like Scheyer and his staff receive questions from recruits and their families that weren't on their minds even one year ago.
Still, Duke pushes something that predates all the changes.
"Part of the reason you come to Duke, and the biggest thing is, there's no bigger stage than Duke basketball," Scheyer said. "There just isn't. The opportunity to do it on this stage, you can't simulate that. Now we do need to continue to push to put our players in a position to profit off of that, where they can, or what their value is. But that stage, you can't simulate that."
A world-renowned education and having every men's basketball game televised nationally are certainly strong selling points. But, the fact is, Duke is still coming to grips with both NIL and the educational payments that are now allowed via the Supreme Court's decision in NCAA v. Alston last June.
According to research by ESPN, only 22 of the 130 Football Bowl Subdivision schools took advantage of the Alston ruling with plans to pay their athletes $5,980 per year for academic achievement. Just three are ACC schools — North Carolina, Clemson and Miami.
What Duke is doing
Duke established an educational rights working group last year to address how it should proceed with Alston payments. While examining the legal decisions and federal and state policies, the group's meetings included conversations with coaches and athletes as well as Duke Provost Sally Kornbluth.
"The Working Group has focused on identifying principles that might guide a plan with the goal of presenting several options to President (Vince) Price by the end of the semester," according to a report Linda Franzoni, Duke's Athletics Council chair, submitted to the school's Academic Council on April 18.
At its final spring semester meeting last Thursday, the Academic Council voted to accept that report as the working group. While not at a resolution, it continued progressing toward one.
Unlike the Alston payments, Duke has a written interim policy in place for NIL matters. Enacted after NIL compensation became allowable under NCAA rules on July 1, the policy allows Duke athletes to profit from being a social media influencer — making personal appearances to promote a product or services, or appearing in advertisements.
To avoid any pay-for-play situations, the policy states athletes cannot "be provided or offered compensation contingent on initial or continued enrollment at Duke." It also doesn't allow athletes to "be compensated contingent upon a specific athletic performance or achievement."
The policy allowed Duke basketball star Paolo Banchero to sign a deal that made him the first college player to appear in the NBA2K video game series. Wendell Moore, another starting player who helped the Blue Devils reach the Final Four last month, profited from his marketing agreement with Bojangles.
What other ACC schools have done
But, unlike some schools around the country, Duke has yet to form a collective of its boosters for NIL purposes. That puts the school behind its ACC rivals.
Clemson formed TigerImpact, whose stated goal is to "provide student athletes with the opportunity to further develop themselves as part of their education while at Clemson and serve others by providing much needed support to community charities."
Florida State has multiple collectives, including Micconope 1851, which states it "will assist athletes in NIL earning opportunities" with a mission to "go beyond that to help the athletes access successful alumni who can provide educational resources."
North Carolina has the football-centric Heels4Life, which matches athletes with alumni for NIL opportunities. The athletic department as a whole teamed up with The Brandr Group last summer on a group licensing program for Tar Heel athletes.
At Duke, the Athletic Council's NIL Working Group met last fall and in the early spring to review the school's interim policy and decided it should remain as is for the time being.
"There is a possibility N.C. will pass a state law on NIL in the near future, at which point we will not need a university policy," Franzoni, a Duke mechanical engineering professor, wrote in her report to the Academic Council last month.
Meanwhile, Duke's coaches in all sports continue to recruit in an environment where athletes and their families are weighing NIL and Alston payments as a factor in their decisions.
"There have been a lot of different conversations that, five years ago, we weren't having," Scheyer said. "But I think it's gonna be a great thing. It's just a matter of making sure we have the structure in place to put our guys in the best position possible."
Sitting with Scheyer at a press conference at Cameron Indoor Stadium last week, Duke basketball associate head coach Chris Carrawell, while stressing the value of Duke's brand, said he anticipates the school will eventually have a foundation or collective in place for NIL.
"With NIL and everything we do, we want to do it the right way," Carrawell said. "That's why we're gonna take our time and make sure the plan that we have in place is a great plan."
