Jim Boeheim believes NIL is good for NCAA basketball by helping more teams compete

It seems only the bad parts of NIL have been highlighted lately, so Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim served up a reminder of the positive impact it can have. During an interview with Forbes, Boeheim said the promise of NIL money has led many players who would have gone pro to come back for another year of college.

He pointed to two of his ACC foes — Miami and North Carolina — as evidence.

“By the NIL, guys at Carolina, guys at Miami, guys at these schools are coming back because they’re making more money than they make in the G League,” Boeheim said. “So it wasn’t meant to do that but college teams this year, several, are going to be a lot stronger than they would have been because of NIL.” 

UNC returns four starters from this past season after losing in the national championship game to Kansas. That includes star big man Armando Bacot, who has an NIL valuation of $127,000 according to On3, the 14th highest of any college basketball player. That is much more money than he would have earned in the NBA G League, where the maximum salary is $37,000. The minimum salary in the NBA starts from $925,000.

Bacot was later quoted in a podcast as saying he would have “leaned more towards leaving” school if not for the NIL.

At Miami, Nijel Pack, who recently transferred from Kansas State, reportedly signed an NIL deal worth $800,000 over two years plus a car. That led current Miami guard Isaiah Wong to threaten a transfer unless he was compensated similarly. He ultimately ended up staying at the ACC school.

“All those guys at Carolina, all the guys at Miami, they’re all making more money,” Boeheim said. “A lot more. I think it’s inadvertently helping college basketball be stronger. It’s good for college basketball. The G League will probably have to respond and raise the salaries.”

However, while Power 5 schools will certainly benefit, Jim Boeheim admitted NIL hasn’t been as kind to smaller programs. He pointed to St. Bonaventure, an Atlantic 10 school that lost four of its players to Power 5 teams through the transfer portal. That includes Jaren Holmes, who averaged 13.5 points and 3.6 assists per game this past season.

Eight of the top 10 players in On3’s Transfer Portal Rankings are transferring from schools outside of the Power 5.

“It kills the smaller schools,” Boeheim said. “You develop a really good player and now he leaves. It helps some schools, but it hurts smaller schools who are losing their players to bigger schools to make more money. The whole thing, it’s tricky, it’s really tricky.”

Boeheim said he believes bigger schools could lose players to NIL, but there is more risk for small programs. So far, no Syracuse player has left the team for the purpose of attaining more money through NIL.