NCAA Basketball: Sports attorney Dustin Maguire on the future of NIL

While the landscape is ever-evolving, NCAA Basketball and college athletes are finally starting to benefit from their name, image, and likeness (“NIL”). Dustin Maguire, an Edwardsville, Illinois-based attorney, has been preparing for this — advocating for athletes every step of the way.

I spoke with Maguire about his involvement in the NIL movement and why he believes independent legal representation on the athlete’s behalf is so important moving forward.

From Advocate to Adviser

After California’s “Fair Pay to Play” act paved the way in 2019, Maguire worked closely with Illinois Representative Emanuel “Chris” Welch on a NIL bill in Illinois. Maguire testified on behalf of the legislation in 2020, and a similar bill was ultimately signed into law just a few weeks ago — making Illinois one of 17 states with NIL laws in effect.

Given the recent well-publicized Supreme Court ruling and the NCAA’s suspension of NIL restrictions, Maguire is now focused on not just being an advocate for college athletes — but how he can actively guide them as an attorney.

Nameimagelikeness.com, a domain name Maguire shrewdly secured back in 2018, details the legal and compliance services his firm can offer.

From the site: “Maguire Law Firm provides legal and compliance services to college athletes. We offer NIL advising, contract review, contract drafting, trust accounting, and compliance services for college athletes and their families. Our firm works with compliance staffs, sports agents, CPA’s, financial advisors, and insurance agents to guide college athletes through every step of their NIL experience from recruitment until graduation.”

Athletic departments are offering resources to help athletes secure NIL opportunities and maintain proper compliance; they’ve played a role in some of the initial NIL deals that have received coverage.

Maguire sees two reasons, however, that these departments are likely to fall short, making the legal services he and other attorneys can provide an important complement for many athletes.

1) Overwhelmed by a deluge of new NIL-related responsibilities, athletic departments may struggle to keep abreast of compliances standards while providing each athlete the individual attention they deserve.

“We’re not talking about complying with an organization’s rules anymore,” Maguire said. “We’re talking about compliance with State Law, IRS regulations, and perhaps here soon federal law…”

“Professional legal services need to be available to the athletes,” he added. “They have the top-of-the-line strength and conditioning, academic support, you name it, it’s there on a lot of these college campuses. And, NIL shouldn’t be any different.”

2) There is arguably an inherent conflict of interest as well. Can athletic departments serve both their employers (the schools) AND the athletes?

“I think there needs to be an understanding from the athletes that there’s a likelihood that interests will not always be aligned,” Maguire said. “There are a lot of lawyers, a lot of law school graduates working in those compliance offices, but you cannot serve your employer and an athlete in a NIL deal…”

“Who’s going to be telling the athlete ‘No’ that you can’t have the social media post from Adidas because you’re at a Nike school?”, he added. “I really believe it’s important that if a school is going to claim that a potential NIL deal is conflicting with an existing contract of the school, that that conflict is analyzed and ideally worked around for the athletes benefit, and I don’t see how any employee or agent of the university takes on that role to help the athletes work through such a situation…I think it’s going to be become very clear that the athletes need to have their interest protected by those who are looking out for them and them alone. And I think those are attorneys and agents.”

The Journey to Attorney

Maguire’s commitment to NIL stems back to his own experience as a college basketball player. He started out at Saint Louis but explored transferring following his freshman season. Knowing he’d have to sit out a year if he went to another Division I school — another NCAA relic that has since been eradicated — Maguire chose Northern Kentucky, then a Division II program.

As a sophomore in 2008, no D-II player had a better free throw percentage than Maguire’s 93.6%, and he was named as a preseason All-American candidate prior to his junior season. But after a back injury — one that eventually required spine surgery — cut short his junior year, and a cancer diagnosis brought his playing career to a close (has been cancer-free since 2010) — Maguire was pulled towards the NIL cause.

He stayed involved in the basketball program as a graduate assistant coach, something that further cultivated his interest in advocating for athletes.

“Seeing the coaching side of things after my playing career was really helpful and just opened my eyes to the need of the players to get access to the same opportunities that all students have,” Maguire said.

He also credits the 2014 Ed O’Bannon lawsuit, which found not paying athletes for the use of their likeness to be in violation of federal antitrust law — and temporarily halted the EA Sports NCAA video games — as the driving force for his decision to pursue his law degree at Northern Kentucky.

Following the ruling, Maguire could see the dam starting to break. He took his first steps toward formal legal involvement with NIL, helping roughly 100 former college basketball and football players submit their claims for the $60 million settlement — an option many of them didn’t know they had. Following graduation, Maguire opened his own law practice in 2015, and he continues to operate as a solo attorney.

The Value of Independent Representation

Given college athletes are just tipping their toes into NIL opportunities, they’re likely not fully aware of the potential obstacles, something resources like Maguire — a “non-agent sports attorney” — can help them work through.

Contract Drafting and Review

Athletes need to know exactly what they are committing to when they sign a contract. How are they going to get paid and when? What happens if they get injured or if another pandemic (God forbid) strikes and the season is shortened or canceled?

Maguire sees the length of contracts as an area in particular need of scrutiny.

“[The athletes] need to be mindful that there shouldn’t be a commitment to an exclusive relationship for any length of time at all,” he said. “Anyone who’s trying to get an athlete to sign a multi-year deal right now, I would suggest could potentially not be looking after the interests of the athletes. Taking the quick money, or binding yourself to a lengthy commitment to a company, I think is very shortsighted.”

Trust Accounting

Figuring out how to manage the money flowing in from NIL opportunities might sound like a good problem to have, but it’s still important to get it right. Firms like Maguire’s can help athletes and their families manage these proceeds and prepare for those tricky taxes (Uncle Sam will take his cut!).

Entity Creation

Whether it be hosting a basketball camp, selling personalized gear, or a starting a business outside the world of sports, the sky is now the limit for entrepreneurial athletes. Maguire can help them form LLCs to limit their personal liability exposure.

Agent Selection

Rather than finding NIL opportunities, Maguire focuses on how he can help from a legal and compliance perspective. That said, he expects to assist many clients in the agent selection process.

Looking Ahead

For now, Maguire is only providing his services to athletes at Illinois schools. The 10 states with NIL laws in effect require an attorney or agent to be licensed in those respective states. For the other 39, it depends on each school’s individual policy, but Maguire is erring on the side of caution to ensure proper compliance.

Although he might not be able to work with every athlete yet, he has a network of attorneys across the country he’s happy to refer them to. There is an expectation that a federal NIL law will eventually be passed, which among other things, could limit some of these cross-state restrictions.

The NIL movement may never again regain the national attention it’s received these past few weeks, but to Maguire, it’s just the beginning.

“It’s not about July 1, it’s about what started on July 1,” he said. “The reality is this restriction that’s been on the athletes and the athletes alone for so long, it’s finally been removed. So there is that access and that opportunity, but the resources need to be there. And that’s my focus…I’ve been an advocate for the players for years. And I’m just excited to be able to focus my efforts to provide the legal and compliance services.”