Innovative app gets college athletes paid

By David Mullen

Brent Chapman is an opportunist.

Chapman, CEO of myNILpay, has produced an app billed as the “first-of-its-kind experience to direct-pay college athletes.” According to the myNILpay website, it is the first and only NCAA compliant direct pay platform where the public can send money to support university athletes.

A Buffalo, N.Y. area native and proud member of the “Bills Mafia,” Chapman lives in Frisco, went to Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis. and moved to Dallas, where his new job took him more than 8,000 miles away. 

“I moved to run a call center in the Philippines for two years and met my wife,” Chapman said. “We’ve been married 18 years.” An opportunity paid off. After his stint Manila and a stop in Detroit for his parents to meet his new wife, in 2008 Chapman came back to Dallas to launch a career in technology.     

NIL is the acronym for Name, Image and Likeness of student athletes. After decades of university sports programs profiting from players, a 2021 Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Alston allowed college athletes to earn compensation for their name, image and likeness. 

Those opposed to NIL say that major college sports athletes in football or basketball are already provided full scholarships with room and board, and further compensation could create an imbalance between players in sports that generate less exposure and revenue.

Pro NIL opinions include a greater incentive for a student athlete to perform, and athletes are bringing in staggering amounts of TV and ticket revenue and — indirectly — increased donations and not directly benefiting. Despite student athletes working on their sports with on the field and off with training, film study, meetings, etc., they are not permitted to hold a job while playing, even if they had time for one.

Despite years of court battles regarding NIL, the 2021 Supreme Court ruling caused chaos. The NCAA set no limits on payments. Many sports agents sought out athletes to sell the licensing rights that were still unclear or unestablished. 

“I was with my son at a football camp when all of this NIL stuff started,” Chapman said. “I was talking to some of the kids and asked, ‘What’s this NIL like?’ The stories were not great. I remember thinking over the next few days that ‘I can do this better.’ And the ‘better’ was that these athletes are just being taken advantage of. They weren’t getting the right advice, weren’t being helped and these were the quarterbacks.

“So, if the quarterbacks were getting that, and I started looking into it, then Suzy on the swim team or the D2 or D3 athletes is not going to get anything. So, my thesis was ‘Why all of these dumb rules? Why don’t we just facilitate direct payment to the kids?’” 

Chapman was told that he couldn’t do that without a quid pro quo with a fair market value established. “Have you ever heard of the block chain?” Chapman said. “That was sort of the beginning of myNILpay.”     

The website for the myNILpay app explains the payment process in five steps: select an athlete, pay the amount you want to pay, payment request is sent to the athlete, the athlete approves the pay request, and a digital request is sent for a digital asset. In return, fans get a unique digital asset featuring the athlete’s name and signature. “It gives the ability for every student athlete to participate in NIL,” Chapman said. More information can be found at myNILpay.com. 

Chapman kept his app idea a secret, utilizing a team of attorneys to make sure that his app was legal and compliant. “I didn’t talk to the NCAA. I didn’t talk to the schools.” Two months before launch, “I started  to get a temperature check to see what I was going up against. So, I talked to LSU’s and UT’s and Alabama’s and TCU’s, and Baylor’s compliance and they said, “Yes. Our student athletes can use this.’ So, I said, ‘OK, we passed that marker.’”  

High profile celebrities like rapper turned actor Ice Cube and women’s basketball legend and Plano resident Nancy Lieberman are backing the app. “What we are doing with Nancy is hitting social media,” Chapman said. “She is doing #NILforALL, and she gave money to her university [Old Dominion]. She is trying to build awareness that you can now direct pay to your university athletes.”

Chief Legal Analyst for Esquire Digital and the Editor in Chief for Today’s Esquire, Aron Solomon, reports on NIL deals and is skeptical. “This is straight-up pay-for-play, which runs not only counter to the intent of NIL but of college sports,” Solomon said. 

“You and me and our neighbor down the road have no business luring student athletes to the college of our choice through direct payment to the athlete if they choose the school we want. There’s also no way that this kind of program is going to survive the inevitable and swift legal challenges.”

“Who has access to NIL today? Big corporations and really rich guys,” Chapman said. “It’s more about the ability that you — as a fan — now have the option to support these athletes.”

What prevents an affluent alum from giving a star running back $50,000? “Nothing,” Chapman said, with a caveat. “There is a cap in the app. You can give an athlete $5,000 in the app.” More can be given with company approval. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the NCAA. It’s with the bank.” Chapman noted that services like PayPal or Zelle have transaction limits.  

“We want to give access to NIL to all student athletes. That’s why we are doing the #NILforALL campaign. It’s to let the 450,000 student athletes that don’t have NIL deals get some NIL deals. There is no one that I am aware of developing this. It is much more complicated than it appears to be.”

Chapman anticipated obstacles. “I thought I was going to get pushback from the university compliance departments. That has not been the case. The compliance departments have been the nicest and the coolest. They said, ‘Yes this is compliant and meets every rule, boom, boom, boom …’” said Chapman, as if wielding an invisible rubber stamp. 

As Solomon said, the myNILpay app may face legal challenges. But with an innovation designed to break through the NCAA and NIL confusion, Chapman may have found a breakthrough.