There’s a new bellwether in college basketball NIL guarantees.
Great Osobor is transferring from Utah State to Washington and in the process, signed for a package to receive at least $2 million in NIL deals, his agent George Langberg of GSL Sports Group told ESPN’s Jonathan Givony.
This is the largest known guaranteed money deal in college basketball, and there hasn’t been one bigger than this announced publicly in any other college sport either.
Osobor, 21, is from Spain and played high school basketball at Myerscough College in England.
He played his freshman and sophomore years at Montana State before playing for Utah State this past season.
At Utah State, he averaged 17.7 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.
This mammoth deal for Osobor is about what a player would make as an NBA rookie if he were drafted at the end of the first round.
On one level, everyone suspected for decades that many, if not most top-tier college basketball and football recruits were receiving illicit benefits from boosters under the table.
Once the federal government stepped in and determined that the NCAA could not not prohibit players from receiving pay for various marketing opportunities, it became a free-for-all, with a bidding frenzy all over the country compounded with what has effectively become annual free agency.
This agreement with Osobor is yet another step in the process in that it has set a level of market transparency.
It will be fascinating to see how this all goes.
What happens when a coach wants to bench a player for performance or disciplinary reasons, but a high-powered booster spent seven figures on an endorsement deal?
Furthermore, what happens in the marketplace if an NIL collective pays big for a team that underperforms?
In the long run, one suspects that multi-year contracts will become standard, as this system where every player is a free agent every offseason is driving everyone involved with major college sports crazy.