Mega conferences sprawling the country and athletes getting paid to compete are the new normal in college sports. There is arguably no one who has been less affected than international students.
Anyone who follows sports on a semi-regular basis knows the landscape of college athletics has changed more in recent years than at any other point in living memory. What some don’t realize is that international athletes can make virtually no money off their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) compared to their American-born counterparts. But the source of the issue isn’t an NIL rule. It doesn’t actually have to do with the NCAA at all.
The vast majority of international students playing a sport have legal residency in the United States with an F-1 visa. A snag they hit comes from a law saying they can’t partake in employment outside of on-campus work.
The most common method of earning NIL is through active engagements such as posting ads on social media or appearing at events. The U.S. Department of State considers these engagements a violation of its visa regulations.
“It’s frustrating they haven’t changed those rules,” said Matilde Morais, a sophomore from Portugal on the Michigan State women’s tennis team. “We’re here legally. It just makes more sense to get the same opportunity as Americans.”
Passive NIL engagements are the other form of agreements, taking the influence of athletes – say by using them as a character in the popular EA Sports College Football video game – without labor.
The confusion that comes with trying to navigate these new waters is causing many international college athletes to abandon the idea of making money altogether.
Lulu Fulton is a senior from New Zealand on the field hockey team at Michigan State. She says she doesn’t see any benefit to bother with the hassle of earning NIL money with the position she’s in.
“If I was on the basketball or football team it would be a different story,” Fulton said. “But the process is too complicated for such a little payoff when you play field hockey.”
It’s true that football and men’s basketball players are at the forefront of the money-making business of college sports, at least for now.
A number of college football players are making millions of dollars off their NIL. Travis Hunter, a cornerback for Colorado, is worth an estimated $2.4 million. Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers has made $1.9 million in his career.
But take a look at the Michigan State hockey team. They had their best season since winning the national championship in 2007, just won the Big Ten and made their first NCAA tournament appearance in 16 years. Considering the huge turnaround the program has seen under Coach Adam Nightingale, the best returning players could potentially sign new NIL deals, including the many international athletes on the roster like Maxim Štrbák from Slovakia and Artyom Levshunov from Belarus.
Some of the most advanced collective organizations around the country have managed to find ways around the limitations imposed by student visas. One collective at Penn State passively licensed international athletes’ NIL on billboards in their home country of Canada. Partnerships like this can be useful tools for collectives to draw in and keep top international talent, even though they come with extra costs and care involved to ensure that they follow passive licensing laws.
“I mean it kind of sucks to see all the other athletes making some money but I knew what I was doing when I came here,” said Ashton McCulloch, a junior from Canada on the Michigan State men’s golf team. He said he’s still grateful to get benefits because most college students don’t receive as much support.
The kicker when it comes to international athletes and NIL is that it has very little to do with talent. Fulton won two league titles with the Diocesan School for Girls in New Zealand. Morais was a member of the Portuguese Junior National Team and ranked No. 182 on the International Tennis Federation’s list of the world’s top junior players before coming to college. In 2021, McCulloch won the 119th British Columbia Amateur Championship and competed on the Team Canada Junior Squad.
“Obviously it would be nice to make money from playing what I love,” Morais said. “But I chose to come to America to play the best tennis that I can play and try to win.”