Missouri Valley Adopts Conference-Level Aspirational Standards For Name, Image and Likeness
 
The MVC Presidents Council has adopted Conference-wide guidance to ensure continued eligibility of student-athletes as they navigate the NCAA’s interim NIL policy.  On June 30, 2021, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors adopted a temporary regulatory framework that provided Conferences and member institutions with a pathway to create NIL policies.
 
MVC NIL Standards (Effective Aug. 20, 2021)
MVC student-athletes competing in NCAA-sponsored sports may participate in NIL activities as permitted by the NCAA Board of Directors’ Interim NIL Policy. Unless an institution’s applicable local, state, and federal law and the NCAA (i.e., interim NIL policy) allow otherwise, MVC institutions will follow these aspirational standards as they draft their respective NIL polices as recommended below:

• MVC student-athletes must abide by existing and applicable federal, state, and local laws, executive orders, NCAA’s interim NIL policy, state university system policies and institutional policies pertaining to NIL activities. 
• MVC student-athletes should disclose all NIL activities, compensation, agreements or contracts, including the retention or hiring of a marketing or promotional agent by a student-athlete. Any agreement in which a student-athlete retains the services of a sports agent for future professional athletics contract negotiations and representation continues to be impermissible under the NCAA’s amateurism rules in Bylaw 12 of the NCAA Manual.
• Compensation for NIL activities by MVC student-athletes must be in exchange for actual work or services performed. Compensation cannot be in exchange for athletic performance, specific athletic achievement, or used by institutional coaches, staff and representatives of athletic interests as an inducement to enroll or continue enrollment at an MVC institution.
• Institutional coaches, staff, and employees (paid or unpaid) shall not be involved in, facilitate, negotiate, or initiate any NIL activities of MVC student-athletes or prospective student-athletes at any time.

 
It is strongly recommended that each MVC member institution establish and maintain the following non-exhaustive list of best practices regarding NIL policy development that at a minimum:

• Include requirements for student-athlete disclosure of NIL agreements;
• Identify the process for handling conflicts of interest with existing institutional agreements that arise from student-athlete NIL activities;
• Reinforce with student-athletes, through education, those NCAA amateurism rules that remain in effect, including prohibitions on “pay-for-play,” impermissible recruiting inducements, and extra benefits that could jeopardize a student-athlete’s eligibility;
• Provide a means by which an institution may review and approve athlete agents prior to retention by a student-athlete or his/her representative for NIL representation, as required by applicable law;
• As prudent or when required by law, provide NIL-related education to its student-athletes on topics such as personal branding, taxes, marketing, contract law, and any other related business and legal concepts.
• Publish and make readily available (e.g., posted on athletics website, printed in student-athlete handbook) its institutional NIL policies.