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Today’s Case

Service academy athletes are ineligible for NIL

I was recently speaking to a friend of mine who works in Air Force Athletics. We were discussing NIL and he mentioned military student-athletes are not eligible for NIL.

Did some further digging on this (of course I believed my friend when he stated this; just wanted to learn more) and discovered that these student-athletes are ineligible for NIL on the basis of:

• They are considered employees at the academies because the government pays for their tuition, housing and fees.

• People in the military (athletes or otherwise) cannot use their standing for personal gain, per federal laws.

Army head football coach Jeff Monken also shared some thoughts:

“I think the academy would be a good place for those people who would want to spend [NIL] money. They’ve got not only a great platform—we’re on national TV about every week—we have great young men who are playing at a high level and winning a lot of football games. They’re going to professionally go on and do great things. They can have a person that goes from being a football player who can represent a product or whatever it is to later as a professional person as well.” [Source]

The Verdict:

• First off: To all service academy student-athletes and members - Thank You for your service.

• I definitely understand the rationale behind why they are not eligible; however, I do feel they should be afforded an opportunity to capitalize on their name, image and likeness while they can.

• While these athletes join the service academies for a higher calling (putting the needs of the country before their own), it does put these programs in tougher situations.

  • Service academies cannot accept transfer players due to academic and service situations; however, they can lose players to the transfer portal

• Interesting note: While athletes at service academies are designated as employees, this is the opposite of what the NCAA and numerous universities are proposing.

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Question of the Day

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Court is adjourned. Go be great!!