There is a lot of NIL tomfoolery going on in college athletics right now. Oscar Tshiebwe’s expected windfall at Kentucky would not be part of that.
Tshiebwe, who announced Wednesday that he's staying in school, is exactly the kind of college athlete who should be getting paid for his name, image and likeness. He’s a proven star, the reigning National Player of the Year, coming off one of the greatest rebounding seasons in the history of college hoops. He led Kentucky to a 26–8 record (and, full story be told, to the worst postseason loss in school history, against No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s in the NCAA tournament).
Stadium’s Jeff Goodman tweeted that Tshiebwe could make $2 million, which is a very Kentucky number. The imperative to win at UK is bigger, thus so are the expenditures. (Always have been, whether it was NCAA-legal or not.) If the number is accurate, it still would leave Oscar well in arrears of coach John Calipari’s annual compensation of $8.5 million.
