NIL, transfer portal leading to new era of college hockey

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This article was written by Andrew McGuinness, who is part of the Professional Hockey Writers Association x To Hockey With Love Mentorship Program. This program pairs aspiring writers with established members of the association across North America to create opportunities for marginalized people that do not traditionally get published on larger platforms covering hockey.

To Hockey With Love is a weekly newsletter covering a range of topics in hockey – from the scandals of the week to providing a critical analysis of the sport.

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NCAA men’s ice hockey dates all the way back to 1948, just six years after the start of the NHL’s Original Six era. In other words, it’s been around a while. It takes a lot for something that old to undergo truly seismic changes. But as the world of college football experiences a massive, easy-to-see revolution, college hockey may slowly be seeing its balance shift, with more options available to players and more ways for bigger schools to potentially gain an advantage over smaller but just as successful competitors.

There is always a lot of attention on college athletics these days. That in itself is nothing new, but the reasons for it are – and they are significant ones. The once iron fist of the NCAA is seeing its power fade. Long-standing staunch rules are dropping like flies. Even more groundbreaking change may be on the horizon with the recent unionization of the Dartmouth men’s basketball team, the latest challenge to the “athletes aren’t employees” model that is the bedrock of the NCAA.

Often, when these things are talked about, football or basketball are naturally at the forefront. Some are quick to point out that Olympic, non-revenue sports need to be cared for, too. Hockey, though, occupies a weird middle ground in the college sports landscape. It can’t compete with the massive popularity of football or basketball. It was grouped in with 40-plus-other sports in a $920 million deal with ESPN for championship broadcasting rights – football and men’s basketball are different beasts, with TV deals for the College Football Playoff and men’s March Madness collecting $7.8 and $8.8 billion, respectively (women’s March Madness is part of the aforementioned ESPN deal). But hockey is the third-highest revenue generator at an average of about $2.5 million per school each year, with the top universities peaking around the $5-6 million range.

So, college hockey matters. And that’s before getting into the 230-plus NHL prospects currently playing in the NCAA. It’s led to the league transitioning into more of a player development focus than in the past – a role that only stands to increase as times change.

“It seems like to me, every year we see at least – just completely anecdotal and guessing – but like on our broadcast, there’s just more top NHL draft picks that come through South Bend by virtue of the Big Ten,” said Tony Simeone, who has broadcasted Notre Dame hockey for NBC since 2018. “I just think that that’s going to continue to happen with all the changes that are taking place.”

College hockey may not feature nearly as many of the seven-figure deals and highly visible TV commercials as football and basketball (although Arizona Coyotes rookie Logan Cooley was part of an ad campaign while at the University of Minnesota for Chipotle, which also sponsors Team USA’s helmets). But there are two lesser-known yet important financial factors that Colby Cohen, who played for Boston University from 2008 to 2011 and has worked as an NHL and college hockey analyst since 2016, pointed out for fans to keep an eye on.

Back in 2015, six years before college athletes were allowed to make money off their name, image and likeness (NIL) in everything from video games to TV commercials, the Power Five conferences (Big 10, ACC, SEC, Big 12 and the soon-to-be-extinct Pac-12) increased scholarships to allow schools to cover the cost of attendance, rather than merely tuition. Expanding scholarships in this way allows for expenses beyond tuition, such as books and travel to campus, to be covered. Athletes became eligible to receive stipends of $2,000-$4,000 under this change – not life-changing, but not insignificant.

Another under-the-radar financial factor is Alston money. The name Alston was used to represent a group of Division I athletes who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in 2014 against several anti-trust concerns. While this lawsuit would be key in leading to NIL, education-based Alston awards worth up to nearly $6,000 annually (or $24,000 over a standard four-year college career) can also be provided directly by universities.

In general, schools with more resources that are in the best position to cover these opportunities should have an advantage in recruiting. And that doesn’t necessarily align with the teams who have fared the best in recent years. The top of college hockey is an interesting hodge-podge of big-brand names and smaller schools that have carved out a niche, like Quinnipiac or St. Cloud State, for themselves on the ice. The balance between those groups could shift due to these aforementioned factors, which open up larger schools to flex the advantage of their financial resources in greater ways than previously allowed.

“I think what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna lose the middle class of college hockey,” said Colby Cohen, who played for Boston University from 2008 to 2011 and has worked as an NHL and college hockey analyst since 2016. “I think you’re gonna have the upper class with the big football programs and then you’re gonna have like the lower class of teams that don’t really have it and they’re in random parts of the country. And you know, all the players are filtered to one or a couple of these schools, but you also kind of see that happening right now.”

However, there’s a disparity in the focus on hockey and other sports even between the top revenue-generating schools. For example, Michigan’s Champions Circle gives options to donate to each specific varsity team. Meanwhile, the only sports mentioned on Ohio State’s THE Foundation are football and men’s basketball. Penn State’s Happy Valley United also lists football and men’s basketball individually, with a separate option for all other sports. But the opportunities they have still dwarf many of their closest competitors, whether they are currently taking advantage of them or not. But even though the majority of donations will likely go to football and basketball, Simeone said that it’s still possible for the totality of that money to trickle down to other sports – including hockey.

There are positives to the changing landscape for college hockey fans, though. More and more top prospects are flocking to the NCAA, with prominent Canadian prospects such as 2021 No. 1 pick Owen Power (University of Michigan) and projected 2024 No. 1 pick Macklin Celebrini (Boston University) opting to play in the USHL and transition to college hockey through that league for their draft-eligible seasons. College hockey has always been able to match (if not exceed) the CHL from an educational standpoint and can now compete with the league from a financial standpoint as well (CHL players make no more than $250 per month).

“It helps the NCAA to say to a top prospect that’s a Canadian kid, ‘the OHL is gonna give you x, y, z. Well, we can do better than that. You can make more money playing here than you can Major Junior,’” Cohen said.

Even international prospects, most notably projected top-five pick Artyom Levshunov (Michigan State), see the NCAA as a more promising option than before. According to NCSA College Recruiting, 21 percent of college hockey players are international recruits.

Unlike in the CHL and overseas leagues, players unhappy with their situation can enter the transfer portal and easily head to a new school, an opportunity nearly 10 percent of NHL prospects currently in the NCAA have already taken advantage of. One of Levshunov’s teammates at Michigan State – 2022 first-round pick Isaac Howard – became one of the most notable players to change schools. Howard scored 37 points in 37 games for the Spartans after putting up 11 in 35 contests the year prior for Minnesota-Duluth. Maybe his production would have taken the same jump if he stayed put. Maybe not. But it’s an added safety net for players – and an added complication for teams.

“Coaches have alluded to kind of how every year you have to more or less, like, re-recruit your own roster and field requests to maybe come and join your team,” said Simeone on the portal. “I think it’s probably affected how [teams] approach incoming freshmen. Because you might just be able to replace your second line forward in the portal. [A coach can say], ‘I don’t have to think about who’s a freshman we could bring in next year to be our second-line forward.’”

However, it can also help programs execute quick turnarounds and help new coaches make their marks quickly. Michigan State second-year coach Adam Nightingale is a great example. When Nightingale took over in 2022, the Spartans were a decade removed from their last NCAA Tournament trip. This season, they not only made it back but did so as a No. 1 seed.

In today’s college sports landscape, anything is possible – for better, and for worse. While it may not be as newsworthy as the Earth-shifting conference realignment or massive money deals in other sports, college hockey is entering a new era where players have more say and options than ever before.

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NIL, transfer portal leading to new era of college hockey

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