Members of the Penn men’s basketball community, including Director of Athletics and Recreation Alanna Wren, reacted to reports of the team’s new alumni-driven name, image, and likeness and internship initiative in a series of interviews with The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Last Friday, the DP reported that the team was utilizing a “collective” that allows individuals to contribute funds to the program’s players through legitimate name, image, and likeness opportunities and encouraging alumni-driven “paid internships” to financially support athletes.
“We can raise money in the collective, but then it has to be dispersed … for true NIL opportunities where somebody is legitimately profiting from their name, image, and likeness and basically funneled through legitimate business opportunities,” 1982 Wharton graduate and men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery said in a virtual question-and-answer session on Nov. 6.
“The paid internships … can be a little bit higher,” McCaffery added. “You can pay [the players] whatever you want, but it’s more important and it’s better for me if I can [say], ‘these aren’t no show jobs.’ … These are show up, learn, and grow [jobs].”
The Ivy League enforces a blanket ban on all “pay-for-play” initiatives, including the type of funds in place at larger schools across the nation in which alumni donors contribute donations directly to student-athletes, often called “NIL collectives.” But according to McCaffery, Penn’s structure is solely meant to facilitate legitimate NIL as well as internship opportunities.
Wren said that the focus of the measure is to engage the University’s extensive alumni network.
“Our focus is on connection — connecting our student-athletes to potential employers and connecting our student athletes to potential commercial NIL opportunities that the companies and student-athletes then can choose to arrange,” Wren wrote in a statement to the DP.
“Many of our alums are in position to help us with both,” Wren added. “Employers set compensation and companies suggest NIL arrangements that then need to be approved by NIL Go and the Ivy League.”
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NIL Go is the newly created clearinghouse platform through which student-athletes are required to report third-party NIL deals for approval. Agreements are evaluated on a number of criteria, one of which is fair market value. This step is intended to encourage true NIL, which refers to legitimate endorsement opportunities secured by players and is permitted by the Ivy League.
A source close to Ivy League basketball — who was previously familiar with Penn’s encouragement of alumni-driven internships prior to the DP’s reporting — felt that Penn’s use of the practice could garner scrutiny from the Ivy League, namely the conference’s executive director Robin Harris.
“I think the Ivy League office has a big issue with this,” the source, who was granted anonymity out of fear of retaliation, said. “Because I think Robin Harris knows that this is not what the Ivy League wants – the people who really matter, not the [Athletic Directors]. I would imagine they are very concerned about this story.”
The source went on to claim that the alumni-driven internships were spearheaded by 1984 College graduate Michael Fink, who serves as the Penn men’s basketball special advisor to the head coach. During the program’s contests against Rowan and American this weekend, Fink sat alongside Penn’s assistant coaches on the bench. Fink and McCaffery attended Penn together from 1981-82.
In the Nov. 6 call, McCaffery mentioned Fink as someone that the team could “work with.” He also referenced 1983 Wharton graduate and program alumnus Jonathan Schwartz and 1995 College graduate Michael Weisser, who he said “run the collective.”
1972 Wharton graduate and 1974 Wharton MBA graduate Alan Cotler, a former Penn basketball player and former Wharton professor, said Penn’s new effort was “not a big deal.”
“The word ‘collective’ is radioactive,” Cotler said. “It means different things. The way [McCaffery] describes it, he’s got Penn alumni working together to get these kids jobs where they get paid to do work. … It seems to be consistent with what the NCAA says and what the Ivy League says.”
The compliance offices for Penn Athletics and the Ivy League did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
In September, the Ivy League established that it would begin signing attestations of independence for all NIL deals over $2,000, indicating that the agreements had not been brokered by the signing institution’s athletic department in any way.
Penn men’s basketball alumnus and moderator of the Nov. 6 event Stan Greene praised McCaffery’s efforts in an interview with the DP. He feels that the approach Penn is taking, with alumni-driven internships, sets student athletes up better for the future than other practices across the country.
“Ultimately, [current NIL practices are] not good for the majority of the kids. … But I believe that, just as we have with pro sports, there will be a number of them that go broke,” Greene said. “Unfortunately, because they went from school to school over four years, they won’t have any allegiance to any schools. And when the money runs dry, they won't have anything to fall back on.”
“[For] our student-athletes, and especially the way Fran is positioning things, it is about not just the four years, but the 40-plus years,” Greene added.
Additionally, Greene felt that the program’s embrace of a collective and alumni-driven internships could change how the Ivy League approached the “pay-for-play” era.
“Anything is possible. It takes someone like Fran [and] what he means to his alma mater, to the program. As soon as he was brought on board, he hit the ground running, not only in keeping some of our best players here but bringing in transfers,” Greene said. “But even more impactful was how he was a magnet for alums who have strayed away from the program.”
“As it relates to the Ivies, I have a lot of confidence about the fact that Fran is here and how that could change things,” Greene added. “Things can always change.”
