Ohio State AD Ross Bjork addresses NIL strategy for student-athletes

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State Athletics Director Ross Bjork discussed how the university will directly compensate student-athletes through revenue shares on Thursday.

Bjork’s comments come after a federal judge approved the terms of a $2.8 billion antitrust settlement last week, which will allow schools to directly pay players through licensing deals.

You can watch the briefing in the player below.

“The signing of the House settlement Friday by Judge Claudia Wilken will reshape collegiate athletics. Ohio State and schools around the country will now be permitted to directly compensate student-athletes through revenue sharing, which is actually institutional NIL rights,” Bjrok said in a statement.

During Thursday’s press conference, Bjork said the university is set to distribute $20.5 million of revenue-shared dollars that can be given to an athlete. $2.5 million of that will be toward scholarships. The remaining $18 million will be shared between four sports: football, men’s and women’s basketball and women’s volleyball. Bjork said the university will use metrics to determine how much money is distributed to each sport.

Bjork hopes more sports will be added in the future.

Bjork said he the university is committed to offering 36 intercollegiate sports and providing scholarships to all 36 programs.

Ohio State announced on Monday that it’s launching a new strategic group that’s designed to support, streamline and enhance Name, Image and Likeness opportunities for student-athletes.

The strategic group will be called the Buckeye Sports Group.

Ohio State says a key part of the settlement is the implementation of a Fair Mark Evaluation process and a “range of compensation” designed to establish standardized benchmarks for NIL deals across sports and institutions. The Buckeye Sports Group intends to serve as a centralized hub for NIL brand deal facilitation, corporate partnerships, student-athlete storytelling and NIL support.

The Buckeye Sports Group will have access to Learfield’s Compass NIL technology to facilitate deal transactions and gain insights into student-athlete interests.

The group will support Ohio State student-athletes with a focus on three areas: deal facilitation and management, content creation and storytelling and support services.

In a move to streamline and optimize NIL operations, the group will work to consolidate existing NIL collectives under a single marketing team. The founding members of THE Foundation and The 1870 Society, two existing NIL collectives, will remain engaged and serve in an advisory capacity to the new group.

The university also announced a new internal resource center that it says will be designed to enhance success across varsity sports.

To read more about the new group, click here.