Learn how Schmidt feels the school is trying to take the moral high ground with its unique NIL model — in an era with scarcely enforced guidelines.
The NCAA’s March Madness tournaments ended just under a month ago, but the college athletics revenue-generating turnstile never stops spinning. Just ask Jacob Schmidt, the executive director of TrueNU — Northwestern’s main NIL organization, a nonprofit which coordinates volunteer activities with local charities for student-athletes who profit via name, image and likeness.
With the college football and basketball transfer portals having closed May 1 and Northwestern beginning a second sale of old Ryan Field memorabilia April 8, Schmidt rarely enjoys a free moment, even out of season. For the former Northwestern running back and football director of player personnel, much of that overseeing relates to uncertainty about rules, sailing a turbulent sea in search of clearer NIL guidelines despite frequent under-the-dock deals between coaches, administrators and boosters.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Inside NU: How have you managed your own experiences in a pre-NIL landscape with the current world?
Jacob Schmidt: It’s certainly different. We had enough situations where athletes over the years tried — whether it was creating their own music or creating a startup through McCormick — to use their name and status as an athlete to help market different products that they themselves were creating. Unfortunately, a lot of times, we were told no. My time as an athlete, I never thought about it [monetizing his likeness]. I started a few games, but my NIL wasn’t worth much. If all you know or think about is pre-2021 college sports, you’re gonna hate this [new reality]. But I’m hopeful that enough people are coming around this idea of, look, these athletes deserve a piece of the pie.
INU: What are Northwestern’s advantages and disadvantages in the NIL sphere?
JS: Small, tight-knit, passionate fanbase. Successful alums. When you’re talking about funding NIL, you need to have some folks with major capacity. We do. We’re in Chicagoland, which, from a market standpoint, doesn’t get much better. We have incredible athletes, amazing stories. Our coaches are the best in the country. On the disadvantage side, we’re the small private school. We’re not necessarily the gigantic brand or the college town, the public flagship that some of our peers are, and they use that to their advantage. This isn’t Columbus, Ohio, or Ann Arbor, Michigan or Madison, Wisconsin. This is Evanston, Illinois, and it’s a little bit tricky, a little bit difficult to help our athletes monetize who they are in a market locally that maybe isn’t paying as much attention as some of our peers. I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. We’re a niche school in a niche place, so we’ve got to do our best to leverage our strengths.
INU: Is it realistic for Northwestern to ever compete against top Power 5 schools in NIL?
JS: My answer is yes. Will we or have we ever competed in our revenue sports against the blue bloods? Not really. I think we’ve all come around to say, “That’s OK.” We need to be a contender; we need to compete against our peers. Is Alabama a peer? No. We need to compete for Big Ten championships, and I’m confident that we can and will. From an NIL resource standpoint, we’re more competitive. The blue bloods, the few who are sort of unreachable — look, they’ve been doing that for decades.
INU: Moving forward, is the plan for TrueNU to maintain its charity-based approach?
JS: I see it changing, not out of choice, but out of necessity. I think there’s a reality here where NIL is going to be facilitated directly through the institutions. In the future, will collectives come in-house — under the Northwestern umbrella, part of the athletics department? Are we compensating athletes? Are we paying them for play? Are they employees? Are we revenue sharing? We’re going to need to be able to adapt to whatever the model looks like here over the next nine, 18, 27 months. We’ve approached it in a way that feels great and feels right for Northwestern, allows us to get all of our athletes involved from all 19 programs. We’ll continue to operate out here as long as we can in this way, but we talk every day about what’s next and preparing for that change.
INU: A critical aspect to NIL is player addition and retention. Does TrueNU have anything to do with that, and, if so, what does that process of communication look like?
JS: NIL is a critical component relative to recruiting and retention. That’s high school recruiting; that’s keeping your best players on campus; that’s providing the necessary support in terms of the transfer portal. We follow the rules. We’re not using NIL to directly entice prospects to come here. Can’t do that. We absolutely invest heavily in Northwestern student-athletes. These coaches are able to tell the stories and show the real data to prospects. They’re able to prove that, look, we have a competitive NIL program. When you’re an athlete here, you get to benefit from that. Until that point, however, you don’t. It’s absolutely a major piece of the current puzzle.
INU: David Braun and other Northwestern coaches have stressed the importance of using NIL to keep players in purple as opposed to paying them to play here. How do you ensure that your work aligns with coaches’ visions?
JS: That’s the critical dynamic. We are in lockstep with our coaches. Ultimately, we’re out here to support their teams and their athletes. I think every football coach in the country would tell you, ‘Look, we still need to develop players. We still need to prove that we can grow and sustain a competitive roster.’ Nobody wants to build a roster year in and year out strictly through the transfer portal. NIL for our programs is heavily focused on current athletes, and then the ability to show them that look, we’re investing in you. Stay here; don’t leave us. When other schools or other collectives maybe call or offer a deal and it sounds pretty good, just know that we’re here for you. You can’t live and die by the portal. You won’t sustain success that way. Do you need to add some pieces every once in a while? Absolutely. But you need to focus and invest in recruiting high school athletes building and developing over four years. I think we all read the headlines. A lot of kids jump in these portals these days, but the vast majority of these kids are staying at their schools. They’re developing; they’re getting diplomas. The way we’re doing it is to invest in those kids, make sure they know they’re a priority and that we need them to stay here and continue that for us to be a successful program.
INU: Can Northwestern guarantee any amount in NIL to a player seeking that to play here?
JS: There’s no promises; there’s no guarantees that a coach can make a kid. They can show them evidence. They can show them, hey, here’s what our football team or basketball team or softball team has made over the last X amount of months. Here are the different sort of vendors. TrueNU is 95% of the NIL income for Northwestern athletes right now, roughly. The coaches can educate prospects. They can show them this data. They can connect them with current athletes and those that can definitely talk about their experiences with TrueNU and how much money they’ve made. But the coach can’t sit there and say, ‘Hey, Brad, if you come here, I’m gonna give you X.’ I can’t do that. Now, is it happening out there? Yeah, certainly. But until more rules change, those types of things still can’t happen. But the way in which we educate is aggressive, is competitive. These kids will absolutely know what the market is when they’re done on campus.
INU: When you read headlines about quarterbacks fetching $1 million in the portal or John Calipari leaving Kentucky because of more NIL resources at Arkansas, what’s your reaction?
JS: It’s accurate. Everybody’s trying to figure out: What are the rules? A lot of it’s just semantics and finding ways to get around them. There’s no reason to beat around the bush anymore. We all know what’s happening. Gotta have the resources behind NIL to compete. This is all going to keep changing. We need to figure out how to do this better for everyone across the country.
INU: Is there a correlation between NIL spending and winning?
JS: We know what’s happening at Northwestern: The investments we’ve made have absolutely correlated to success on the court, on the field. The same cannot be said for certain places. Some “blue blood” basketball programs didn’t make the tournament this year or bounced very early with very expensive rosters. And the same thing goes for football. You look at some of the blue bloods, maybe in the state of California or Texas — who, over the past couple of years, have invested heavily in the space who have not reaped the benefits. You want to talk about donor fatigue, you want to talk about people who are investing in NIL for your collectives, and then not seeing the results. It’s going to catch up. Whether we’re gonna pay the kids or not, let’s just make the decision. Let the schools do it and have a framework in place across the country. Certainly, you still need to know who you are. In a place like Northwestern, we’re still gonna have to outperform, outplay, out-team some of the big boys that we play against.
INU: How confident are you that there will be some more clear-cut answers in the coming months?
JS: I’m very confident. I don’t know what the ultimate solution will be. But the dominoes keep falling. I think everybody saw the injunction that was granted a few months back in Virginia. Every couple months, there’s a domino that falls. Will we get to a model where we’re compensating certain athletes? Yeah, we will, because I think everybody agrees the current model is not sustainable. You’re continuing to allow the deepest pockets [to] reap the benefits and buy the most talented kids. You’ve got to get back to some semblance of competitive balance. You’ve got to get back to real accountability, and put a framework in place. I think most people agree that these kids deserve a little bit of the pie, so let’s find the structure to do that. But asking donors to fund rosters, it’s a bit silly, and it’s not sustainable. It’s gonna keep changing. I think we’ll see some major dominoes fall in the next year. Are we paying it directly? I think in the next three years, absolutely.