![]() While Dunne competes in gymnastics, a star Olympic sport with a loyal following on the college level, Hurley participates in a track-and-field discipline that barely causes an Olympic ripple. ![]() Hurley has continued to expand his fan base via TikTok lip-syncs, often sung without a shirt. Since becoming a college athlete, he’s signed NIL deals with brands such as Amazon, Jimmy Dean, Vuori athletic apparel, and Bubble, the skin-care company. He wouldn’t have been able to earn money while jumping for the Longhorns, or any other school. If NIL rules hadn’t changed two years ago, Hurley, who became a TikTok influencer while in high school, would have skipped college. It expects athletes to have earned more than $100 million in NIL by the end of 2023. According to Opendorse, a company that connects athletes with businesses, some 90,000 college athletes have made money on its platform. Name-brand businesses like Wells Fargo, Sony, and Dunkin’ are competing in this space, as are local car dealerships and taco joints. ![]() Since then, companies and collectives-the nebulous alumni and booster groups pooling money together to entice athletes to their campuses-have been offering athletes deals ranging from millions for multiyear marketing agreements to meal money for an appearance or social media post. After years of sustaining hits in the courts and in the media for allowing schools and administrators and coaches to enrich themselves on the backs of football and basketball players, the NCAA finally relented, and dropped its arcane rules preventing athletes from signing third-party sponsorship deals. July 1 marks the second anniversary of the day that college athletes, at long last, were given the freedom to profit off their personal brands. “It was a good day,” Hurley says afterward, “to be great.” He’s clinched his second meet title of the outdoor track-and-field season. Myers Stadium, he hops up, pounds his hand against his chest, and points one finger up in the air. ![]() Hurley, 19, soars, arches his back over the 7 ft., ½ in. But a few hundred eyes, at most, are fixed on Hurley as he attempts to win the Texas Invitational. The overwhelming majority of college athletes who earn in the neighborhood of $1 million or more to market their name, image, and likeness (NIL), like Hurley does, perform athletic feats before 50,000 to 100,000 fans in packed football stadiums or sold-out basketball arenas. On this bright, 80-degree late-April afternoon in Austin, Hurley sprints toward the bar, his wavy dark-brown hair bouncing in front of a sea of empty stadium seats. He prays that God gives him the wings-represented by an angel tattoo on his left calf-to carry him over the high-jump bar. Sam Hurley, a University of Texas sophomore, does so before every leap. One of the highest-earning college athletes on the planet says a little prayer. ![]()
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