Exploring NIL Policies and Their Impact on Athletes
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00:00Did it, um, like surprise you, uh, like, you're not like exactly a guy doing tons of sports
00:11movies.
00:12So here you go.
00:13You go down to Baton Rouge and you start, uh, following this money, essentially it's
00:18a, it's a money, you know, path of, of all these different athletes and what they make.
00:22It's kind of the haves and have nots in, in essence, uh, right.
00:27Like some of them make nothing at all and they go unnoticed and that has to suck for
00:31them.
00:32And then these other ones are making all kinds of money.
00:35What was it like for you to be exposed to it as a filmmaker?
00:39Yeah.
00:40I mean, look, I think, you know, we've all got different opinions on NIL, right?
00:45When, when the NIL policy came down just three years ago, I think, you know, it was hotly
00:51contested then and it's hotly contested today.
00:53I think a lot of people have really strong ideas about the impact of NIL on college sports,
00:59but I think, you know, rather than just talk about how messed up the policies are, how
01:04every state has different rules, I think I ultimately wanted to see, well, what is this
01:07really like, uh, for, you know, for these athletes day to day.
01:11And so what I saw that, that I was really surprised by was, man, this NIL stuff is hard.
01:18It's a hustle.
01:19And to be honest, it doesn't matter if you're Libby Dunn making millions of dollars or you're
01:25Aaliyah Armstrong, who's just struggling to find a deal.
01:29It's a full-time job.
01:30And so you add, you know, you've got already a full-time job with your sport.
01:35You know, you're doing that 40 plus hours a week, you're a full-time student, and now
01:39you add to it this NIL piece, which is a job unto itself.
01:44It's pretty tricky to figure out how to come up in this.
01:46And look, it's an incredible opportunity, but every one of these kids is hustling in
01:52different ways.
01:53And so whether you've got a team of, you know, 10 people behind you in the case of Libby
01:56Dunn, or, you know, really just yourself and the LSU NIL department, like Aaliyah Armstrong,
02:03it's a game, it's a money game now, and everybody's trying to take advantage of this opportunity.