Like many CEOs, I love sports. As a young adult, I played basketball, baseball, and soccer as a kid, overachieved in golf and tennis (for my talent level, anyway), and became a fervent skydiver in college. Now, I am passionate about skiing and scuba diving. Competing in sports taught me to stretch past my mental and physical comfort zones, work in teams, and learn from failure. Talk about transferable skills.

Business leaders often say they like to hire athletes. Generally, athletes who played high-level sports, particularly in college, possess many traits that define success. They set ambitious goals, drive themselves and others, process time efficiently, and accept coaching. Athletes compete, collaborate, correct, and improve. Most importantly, they have mastered an essential tool for success. 

"As an athlete, you're disciplined," Intel's Rick Echevarria said in an International Olympic Committee webinar. "You understand how to perform under pressure. And you must learn and adjust – to competitions, venues, and potentially to new techniques and technology."

Leaders who build and manage teams understand how accomplished (and job-qualified) athletes can strengthen those teams. Today's athletes now convey another potential asset. They are signing deals, building brands, and starting businesses through a platform known as Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). This has opened financial opportunities for athletes while strengthening their workplace value. According to the NCAA's 2023 figures, 91 percent of Division I athletes earned degrees, but only 2 percent will play professional sports. Those who don't go pro can capitalize on NIL now and in the future.

So, what is Name, Image, and Likeness, and how could it enhance a resume? Let's go beyond the money to address the business skills behind NIL.

What Is Name, Image, and Likeness?

Professional athletes earn money via two primary platforms: team contracts and endorsements. Top-end Division I athletes receive scholarships (essentially their contract with the school), but the National Collegiate Athletic Association long forbade them from earning money otherwise. That changed in 2021, when states authored legislation, and the NCAA adopted its first policy, permitting amateur athletes to monetize their names, images, and likenesses. 

As a result, college athletes could endorse companies, make personal appearances, charge fees for instruction at camps and clinics, and even sell products. Have you tried the special edition Marvin Harrison Jr. Hot Honey BBQ potato chips, a NIL deal signed by the All-American wide receiver who played at Ohio State?

NIL has become a controversial issue in college sports, prompting Congress to conduct multiple hearings. But those concerns revolve primarily around regulation, recruiting violations, and the inherent debate surrounding "pay-for-play" at the highest levels of college athletics — namely Division I football and basketball. For the majority of the NCAA's 480,000 athletes, NIL means learning how to make money. According to U.S. Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, college athletes signed deals worth nearly $1 billion in the first year of NIL. Many college athletes are capitalizing on NIL, and business leaders should be paying attention.

Why NIL Is Good for Business

With the ability to monetize themselves, athletes accept new responsibilities. They learn to negotiate deals, produce deliverables, pitch their brands to investors and customers, and optimize their position in the marketplace. Athletes are conducting real-time education in financial literacy, contract law, marketing, investing, and product development. They also learn about taxes. For many athletes, NIL represents the best business internship a college student could experience.

Few college athletes in football and basketball earn seven figures through NIL. The average Division I athlete made $3,711 during the initiative's first year, according to Inside Higher Ed. The overwhelming majority of athletes don't earn life-changing money. They make enough to mitigate loan debt, afford a car on campus, or save for a home down payment. Crucially, though, they're preparing for a future outside of sports by leveraging sports in other ways.

One critical component of NIL is the "quid-pro-quo" requirement. NIL deals are conditioned on athletes providing a product or service to get paid — just like a business. Athletes who launch apparel brands must learn about sourcing goods, pricing, distribution, and inventory. Athletes with corporate endorsement deals often make public appearances, speaking to customers and vendors. Athletes building businesses quickly develop action plans for impressing investors. They also develop a sense for scam artists and bad-faith actors.

Athletes might understand brand strategy as well as any MBA in the market, because they're becoming experts at self-branding. Many college athletes generate their primary revenue streams by activating deals through social media. They master content production by creating videos, hosting podcasts, and managing engagement analytics. As Williams, the Texas Representative, told the House Committee on Small Business, NIL has "opened up fantastic new opportunities for entrepreneurial college athletes…"

"This not only allows these students to earn money, it also teaches them valuable business lessons that they can utilize after their time playing college sports," Williams said. "Whether it be negotiating contracts, navigating regulations, or being exposed to paying taxes for the first time, all of these skills are extremely valuable as we build up a new generation of entrepreneurs."

The Case for Hiring Athletes

Leaders often continue to play sports late into life. Sound body, sound mind, right? As a result, they seek team members who understand teams, define motivation internally, focus on success, and learn constantly. Of course, people who don't play sports possess these skills. But those who do, particularly in college, have demonstrated an aptitude for deploying them successfully. And as Echevarria noted, athletes also have cultivated the self-discipline, patience, and resilience that drive long-term success. In fact, they thrive on discipline.

Now, athletes have another avenue to demonstrate that success. Name, Image, and Likeness expands beyond money. Athletes can leverage these opportunities to make themselves assets for any company. Leaders who think NIL is ruining college sports should look closer. They might find their next VP of Brand Strategy.