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During his senior year at Deep Run High School, Zachary Levet won the Virginia 5A cross country championship and the indoor 4x800m relay state title.
After graduating in 2018, Levet’s success continued during the start of his collegiate career at the College of William & Mary.
Levet was named to the all-conference team after an 11th place finish in the 2018 Colonial Athletic Association Men's Cross Country Championships, helping William & Mary capture its 19th consecutive CAA Championship.
Earlier this month, the men’s cross country team extended its streak to 20 straight titles – a title it won without the help of Levet.
Nine months after earning all-conference honors, Levet uploaded the video “What I’m Doing Since I Dropped Out of College for YouTube” to his ever-growing YouTube channel.
His YouTube account has accumulated over 65,000 subscribers, and his videos have amassed over six million views combined since his first post on July 24, 2018.
Levet started college with about 100 subscribers, but as his videos gained popularity, he realized the potential monetary value in advertisement revenue and sponsorships, he said.
“Around fall break, one of my videos popped off and I really started to get some traction,” Levet said. “When I was gaining more of a following, it started to happen pretty quickly, and I began to realize the value.”
Levet had a decision to make, as he was unable to simultaneously compete as a Division I athlete while pursuing his entrepreneurial aspirations. He chose to leave William & Mary.
NCAA policies evolving
NCAA rules have long stipulated student-athletes were unable to profit from their name, image and likeness, with violations resulting in the loss of scholarships and competitive eligibility. Universities often educate student-athletes to prevent accidental infractions of these policies.
Ashley Meyer, two-time swim team captain at Glen Allen High School and 2018 Virginia Swimming All-Star, participated in the student-athlete policy education as a member of the University of Richmond women’s swimming and diving team.
“During the beginning of the year everyone on the team had a mandatory meeting where people from Compliance went through a presentation with us,” Meyer said. “Then during critical points in the year, like right before March Madness, they’ll send out reminders about no sports betting or receiving any compensation.”
UR Associate Athletic Director for Compliance Ryan Colton oversees compliance relating to NCAA rules and policy developments, including educating student-athletes
“Part of that education is to work with us to help navigate those issues, because sometimes there are ways to allow student-athletes to accomplish their goals within the rules,” Colton said. “We try to help them with that and use us as a resource.”
However, some of these policies may soon be changing.
In May 2019, the NCAA’s Board of Governors appointed a working group to develop a set of principles to resolve issues related to student-athlete name, image and likeness, according to a press release from the NCAA.
The ad hoc committee was composed of presidents, commissioners, athletics directors, administrators and student-athletes across all three NCAA divisions.
The committee produced a final report in October, at which point the NCAA’s Board of Governors voted unanimously to explore allowing college student-athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses by modernizing NCAA policies.
The board has instructed each of the three divisions to implement new rules before January 2021. Action was taken in order to improve the student-athlete experience and as a response to federal and state legislation on the issue, NCAA officials wrote in a statement.
In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a former Santa Clara University baseball player, signed the state's Fair Pay to Play Act. The legislation would allow NCAA student-athletes in California to sign endorsement deals and hire sports agents starting Jan. 1, 2023.
“Every single student in the university can market their name, image and likeness; they can go and get a YouTube channel, and they can monetize that,” Newsom said in an interview with the New York Times. “The only group that can’t are athletes. Why is that?”
Newsom officially signed the bill on NBA star LeBron James’ HBO show, The Shop. James had been a vocal proponent of the legislation, and tweeted his supportfor Gov. Newsom with a video clip of the signing.
“Colleges and universities reap billions from these student athletes’ sacrifices and success but block them from earning a single dollar. That’s a bankrupt model — one that puts institutions ahead of the students they are supposed to serve,” Newsom wrote in a statement.
Levet agreed with Newsom’s message.
“The schools and the NCAA are immensely profiting off the student-athletes and I think it’s ridiculous how much they can profit without the athletes taking any cut,” Levet said. “There should be at least some element of fairness.”
College athletics generate $14 billion in annual revenue for colleges and universities, and the NCAA takes in $1 billion each year, according to a press release from Newsom.
Profit 'as much as you possibly can'
The NCAA has opposed the Fair Pay to Play Act and similar bills, citing the necessity for a uniform college athletics model.
“The California law and other proposed measures ultimately would lead to pay for play and turn college athletes into employees,” the Board of Governors wrote in a statement. “This directly contradicts the mission of college sports within higher education — that student-athletes are students first and choose to play a sport they love against other students while earning a degree.”
The goal of the NCAA’s comprehensive review of name and likeness issues aims to avoid state-by-state legislative differences, Colton said.
“The NCAA has created the committee so their hope would be to have a national resolution,” Colton said. “So it’s a fair playing field across the board of intercollegiate athletics rather than having state legislature, which could be extremely difficult to manage.”
Meyer said she saw both sides of the argument, as allowing student-athletes to earn money could incentivize them to stay in school longer, but scholarships toward tuition are essentially a form of payment as well.
Levet strongly supported student-athletes profiting because of the uncertainty of their futures, and his decision to leave college may have been impacted if the rules had been different, he said.
“I genuinely believe a student-athlete should be able to profit as much as they possibly can,” Levet said. “When you’re a student-athlete, there’s the possibility of suffering a career-ending injury while still in college.”
Levet also said many student-athletes don’t have the opportunity to make money in their respective sports as professionals, so they should be able to benefit from endorsement deals while respecting their school’s brand partnerships.
As a swimmer, Meyer said she couldn’t foresee herself making money from an endorsement deal, but potentially from being able to market herself as a collegiate swimmer in offering private lessons in the Henrico area over the summer.
It’s difficult to know how these changes would impact student-athletes on a day-to-day basis until the details of the policy changes are determined, Colton said.
However, the resolution expected by January 2021 could impact the future of student-athletes in Henrico and elsewhere throughout the country.
