Nebraska AD Troy Dannen sets clear focus on NIL efforts

Wearing a black suit, white shirt and red tie, Troy Dannen took the stage for his formal introduction as Nebraska’s athletic director.

On his blazer sat a red “N” lapel pin of the Nebraska logo — yet Dannen could envision himself wearing a different brand’s logo in the coming weeks and months.

“You’re going to see me wearing 1890 stuff as much as I wear Nebraska stuff because it’s about this: recruitment and retention of our student-athletes,” Dannen said, referring to Nebraska’s most prominent NIL collective. 

Both in his address to university leadership and boosters and during his ensuing press conference with reporters, Dannen repeatedly emphasized the importance of recruiting and then retaining talented student-athletes at Nebraska.

The way to get it done, according to Dannen, is through supporting The 1890 Initiative. Unlike his predecessor, Trev Alberts, whose measured support of Nebraska’s NIL efforts often occurred quietly behind closed doors, Dannen wasted no time publicly setting a new precedent for how Nebraska’s athletic director would interact with its NIL support system.

“I will be beside and embrace everybody in the collective and try to make sure our athletes and our coaches know the role of the collective in helping them do their job and helping build winning programs,” Dannen said.

Just five years ago, such terms — NIL and 1890 — would’ve meant nothing to Nebraska fans looking to put a winning product on the field. But since student-athletes gained the right to profit from their name, image and likeness in 2021, collegiate athletics have never been the same.

At first, Nebraska’s efforts in the NIL space were fragmented with several different collectives popping up in late 2022. Several months later, The 1890 Initiative absorbed Nebraska’s leading collective, Athlete Branding & Marketing, and quickly became the go-to organization for all things NIL.

Having a centralized location for NIL efforts is crucial for Dannen, who has witnessed how athletes’ motivations for choosing a school have been impacted by NIL. In years gone by a scholarship, a laptop, a top-tier strength coach or an experienced head coach might’ve been the leading factors in a players’ recruitment.

Now it’s NIL. Both in terms of landing recruits out of high school and preventing current players from entering the transfer portal each offseason, financial incentives and earning potential are more important now than ever.

“(In) today’s day, there is a sharing of resources with the student-athletes,” Dannen said. “If we’re going to compete, if we’re going to recruit and retain, everybody in this department has to support what lies ahead for student-athletes to be a part of the economic model of this. Today, it’s NIL, tomorrow it’s going to be something different, and we will pivot and evolve into that.”

Such discussions are particularly crucial for a Nebraska football program that has not posted a winning record since 2016.

Dannen has the perspective of a generation that witnessed a much different level of success from Nebraska in prior decades, but he knows the playbook has changed tremendously since the Huskers were last competing for national championships.

Whereas Bob Devaney built Nebraska into a national contender by embracing the potential of strength and conditioning coaches, Dannen said NU will need to find a different way to innovate in the modern age — and the solution is a forward-thinking approach to NIL.

Present for Dannen’s introduction was head football coach Matt Rhule, who has also publicly supported The 1890 Initiative since arriving at Nebraska.

“I think we’re blessed to have 1890, they do things the right way in helping us go get players,” Rhule said after the season in November.

Rhule and Dannen’s relationship, which dates back to their time in the AAC with Rhule at Temple and Dannen at Tulane, played a major factor in the athletic director’s decision to leave Washington after less than a year.

Dannen said he and Rhule have to be “great partners” by working with and advocating for each other, adding that both men have the same goal in mind of “adding a trophy to the trophy case.”

“If recruiting and retention of players is priority No. 1 for him, it’s priority No. 1 for me,” Dannen said of Rhule.

While both leaders are aligned on the importance of NIL in building and maintaining a roster, the very system they’re focused on benefiting from continues to change year to year. Dannen said Nebraska is well-positioned to handle any major changes due to its status within the Big Ten and the strength of its fanbase, but he also acknowledged that uncertainty is part of the equation.

“The relationship our students-athletes have with the university is going to continue to change and evolve,” Dannen said. “You can speculate what it’s going to look like but, know this — if you think the last five years of college athletics have been wild, these next five years are going to put it to shame.”

The changes Dannen is alluding to are related to the way that athletes receive financial compensation in the NIL era. Deals and payments are currently handled by third-party sources, not the universities athletes attend and represent.

NCAA President Charlie Baker made waves in December when he proposed creating a new tier of collegiate athletics where schools could directly pay players — but the NCAA might not get the chance to alter its bylaws on its own accord.

Just as the NCAA only revised its NIL policies following a Supreme Court ruling requiring it to do so, another landmark court case could lead to further changes. The Dartmouth men’s basketball recently unionized, with the university’s refusal to recognize the union likely sending the case to the federal court system.

Whether it means universities directly handling financial payments, or even athletes becoming employees of their school, the writing is on the wall that the current system of NIL payments will not remain in place forever.

For the time being, Dannen wants to dominate the NIL space — then set up Nebraska to dominate whatever comes next.

“The one thing that’s absolute that’s going to happen, there will be a line item in our budget for student-athletes at some point in time,” Dannen said. “I don’t know what form that takes, I don’t know whether the courts or legislators force that on us, and I don’t know how much of it is we will be proactive and put that plan in place ourselves as an enterprise, but that will be coming and it is not optional.”

“That is what NIL will transition into, and we’d better be supporting it to the max today because as we transition, we will be supporting it to the max tomorrow.”