Kendrick Perkins is Taking Names, as Investments or Otherwise

Perkins recently revealed his company Nilly, which is set to act as a short term loan shark to college athletes who may be short on cash.

Did any of you have to read the short story “Gift of the Magi” in high school English class? If it doesn’t sound familiar, it’s the one where the couple sacrifice their greatest treasures to buy their partner something. The woman cuts her beautiful hair to buy the man a chain for his watch and the man sells his timepiece to get his wife a comb.

The point of the story, from a high school lens at least, is that there is no greater show of love than self-sacrifice. The point of this story from anyone who has had any further frontal lobe development is that if either of these two people would have communicated even a little bit, they’d have avoided the whole problem.

To look even further beyond, it’s also a story about how pawn shops and loan sharks are morally dubious at best and take advantage of people who badly need some money.

But, you know what this sounds an awful lot like? The old school NCAA boosters. We’re talking the mafia-esque men in suits who would drop money off in manila folders to 17-year-olds who just needed to commit to a certain college program. If you have any interest in that side of football, look up Nevin Shapiro and watch in horror as someone goes mad with the ability to sway high schoolers. 

That was all supposed to change in 2022. In just about two years since the switch, NIL negotiations – Name, Image, and Likeness rights, which each player owns on the basis that they are, well, a person with those three things – have gone from an above board way for players to gain back the surplus value from programs into a way to police and contain student athletes all over again.

In 2010, in the land before time, controlled by our aforementioned mafiosos, USC was hit with tons of sanctions for their actions with two major “amateur athletes.” On the gridiron, it was running back Reggie Bush, who had defined the Trojans’ best stretch in decades with his electrifying play en route to a Heisman trophy and top five draft pick with the New Orleans Saints. On the court, it was top recruit OJ Mayo who may not have had the team success of Bush but would go on to be picked third overall.

The story goes that Bush accepted a house for his family and a car for his commute to and from said house from an agent that had no associations with USC. It was a courting present that would strip Bush of his name and reputation in return for short term stability. For both Mayo and Bush, it was these representatives taking advantage of kids that simply wanted to sell their golden watch, only to find out they had been left without comb or clock and at the whim of their lender.

Enter Kendrick Perkins and new company Nilly.

In what can only be described as a fable come to life, Perkins and Co. have now made a company that will literally buy the name out from under players fresh out of high school. According to ESPN, Nilly trades an upfront gross amount of somewhere between $25,000-$500,000 dollars in return for 10-50% of all NIL earnings in a seven year time span (that span includes earnings after college) or however much money is needed until the loan is paid off.

According to Perkins himself, the focus is to take the stress away from athlete’s parents and to simplify the day to day instead of waiting for a paycheck that may never come. College sports is littered with the theoretical corpses of sports careers that ended preemptively, so it makes sense for athletes to get their equivalent of a signing bonus if possible.

Some may say it is extreme to compare boosters that were often described as “working in the shadows” and a valid Better Business Bureau following company, and I’d agree with that to an extent. The issue comes more so with how continuously we have gotten new companies that threaten NIL as a means of freedom for athletes.

Considering workers should get paid for their work and college athletes are, for all intents and purposes, employees of colleges, and as such the NCAA as well, the current system is still far better than the old one. Despite initial fears, players are both sticking around and heading out to chase paydays. Recruiting has not shifted far from the allure of the notoriety playing for blue blood schools still brings (even if NCAA25 disagrees). 

These NIL opportunities were proposed for college football, they were built up to be a resolution to a worker’s rights issue. Modern history of NIL legislation starts in 2014 when Northwestern petitioned the NCAA to classify student athletes as employees so that they could unionize. It was unanimously struck down then. This has never been a story about the NCAA kindly fostering improvement, but it is now something entirely different and entirely the same.

What the NIL agreements have become, however, is what college sports has always been built on; it has always been a systematic issue of for-profit programs trading a largely unusable education for blood, sweat, and tears. Instead of finding a fair value sharing system, the NCAA has exposed 18-year-old kids to a world that is chomping at the bit to take advantage of them. 

Part of the issue with selling things to kids is that they struggle to choose long term stability over short term gain. This is not to infantilize the student athletes, who are in large part legal adults, but simply to put into focus the scale. When you’re 10, you spend your whole allowance on three candy bars. That’s a waste of money, but it’s a waste of five dollars. When these players sell their names, they are selling their earning potential for the entirety of their college careers. 

This is not simply a loan, it is just an advance. Just like a kid with their allowance, you only ask for an advance when you’re going to be instinctive and desperate to get something you’re sure can fix your problems. Preying on that is exactly what boosters did. The comparison is no longer hyperbolic, it’s only hidden behind a layer of respectability and above board book-keeping.

It’s wrong, morally, and to watch a former athlete like Perkins encourage and bankroll it feels more like a ladder being pulled up than any attempt at granting opportunity.

I’ll keep calling them kids not to make them out to be incapable but to give them the grace of understanding. In a perfect world, these are people that could have the privilege of not needing to provide for their families. The weight of great expectations are heavy enough, but Perkins’s company adds in the weight of fiduciary responsibility. 

That’s a lot to put on the back of a college student, and no matter if they carry it or break and are ground to dust by the wheels of the NCAA, Nilly wins back their investment.

Welcome to the bastardization of NIL deals. Welcome to the continued dishonest and ruthless state of the NCAA. Welcome to college sports.

They haven’t changed at all.