USC announced its plan to leverage the Name, Image and Likeness landscape in mid-June, linking up with Stay Doubted while launching the Trojan-centric subsidiary BLVD to help student-athletes find profitable NIL opportunities while also soliciting contributions from donors and fans in the form of membership packages.
Well, some in that target donor demographic have been working on their own plan in the meantime, after seeing other college programs across the country utilize so-called NIL collectives to get money to players.
The Los Angeles Times' Ryan Kartje broke the news Tuesday night that a group led by "disenchanted" former Trojans football donor Dale Rech is now planning to launch a collective at USC called, appropriately, "Student Body Right." It will aim to pay all football players who are academically eligible “the equivalent of a base salary" in return for performing community service or charitable work.
Per Kartje's report, this is not wanted by USC officials.
In a statement given to the LA Times, athletic director Mike Bohn said, "USC is not aware of a formal donor-created NIL collective. We ask any donors who would like to support USC’s athletes through NIL to please work with BLVD so that all activities are conducted in compliance with state laws and NCAA rules.”
Nothing about the rollout of NIL in college sports has been smooth, and such is now the situation at USC.
Rech also spoke to TrojanSports.com about the L.A. Times report and said his group, which reportedly includes notable former USC athletics donor Brian Kennedy (whose name is on the Trojans' football practice field), started working the day after USC lost five-star offensive tackle prospect Josh Conerly to Oregon in early April after many projected USC as the favorite in his recruitment following his official visit.
"We were thinking, 'What the heck happened?'" Rech said.
Many USC fans have also wondered -- and vented on social media and message boards -- about how the new realities of NIL have impacted the Trojans' recruiting efforts.
"Two years from now, I don't care if you have Bill Belichick or Vince Lombardi, if we don't get this right we're not going to have players," Rech said. "... At the end of the day, all we want is the same thing. We want to compete for national championships."
Per the LA Times report, Rech reached out to BLVD to inquire about working together and was rebuffed, so he and his group proceeded on their own.
USC football coach Lincoln Riley has been outspoken in his opinions of what NIL has become since the NCAA effectively threw its hands in the air a year ago and told its member institutions to take control of it. With no real oversight or enforcement of any expected guardrails to how money could be distributed to college athletes, NIL -- if it still should be called that -- has become a game-changer in recruiting, which Riley addressed at Pac-12 Media Day two weeks ago.
