Black Tuesday: UNM Won’t Reveal NIL Licensing Agreements

Revenue-sharing payments will begin for some University of New Mexico student-athletes on Tuesday.

Lobo fans will not know who is receiving the payments or how much compensation they will receive.

The agreements in place are between a public institution and, in most cases, individuals who are of legal age. In theory, the contracts should be public information that is subject to public disclosure.

The Pit Press submitted public records requests to UNM on June 9, asking for revenue-sharing agreements between UNM and UNM football and men’s basketball players. In response, the University of New Mexico’s Office of the Custodian of Public Records denied the requests.

In response to a later request submitted June 11, UNM produced, but completely redacted, templates of its Name, Image and Likeness Licensing Agreements with student-athletes for the upcoming 2025-26 season.

Two documents were produced by UNM, one of which was titled Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Future NIL License Agreement Between the University of New Mexico and XXXXXXXX and is three pages long.

A second document, titled University of New Mexico NIL License Agreement, was produced and is ten pages long. Both documents are completely redacted, except for the title. Neither document is a licensing agreement for a specific student-athlete, but it is believed to be a template for the licensing agreements that UNM signed with student-athletes for the upcoming season.

UNM’s explanation for not producing documents is twofold: one, it claims that the requested documents are considered education records under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). UNM also claims that the NIL licensing agreements are trade secrets, which are exempt from public disclosure under New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA).

UNM’s response follows a consistent trend among universities across the country, which have withheld NIL licensing agreements because they were protected from disclosure under FERPA or as trade secrets. In May, The Post & Courier reported that Clemson University refused to disclose its revenue-sharing contracts, citing them as proprietary trade secrets. Likewise, Dan Libit of Sportico reported earlier this year that the University of Wisconsin withheld its NIL agreements because doing so could “jeopardize the competitive position of the university.” The Deseret News and five universities in Utah engaged in a two-year lawsuit under Utah’s public records laws to determine whether NIL agreements were protected under FERPA. A Utah Judge determined that universities were not compelled to produce the documents because the Utah legislature amended Utah’s public records laws to exempt NIL agreements.

However, unlike public records laws in Utah and other states such as Colorado, New Mexico’s IPRA statute does not include a specific exemption for NIL licensing agreements that automatically shields them from public disclosure. In citing FERPA as grounds for not producing the NIL licensing agreements, UNM relies on IPRA’s catchall exception, which allows public entities to withhold documents “as otherwise provided by law.”

FERPA educational records are documents maintained by an academic institution that include final course grades, student grade point averages, standardized test scores, attendance records, counseling records, and disciplinary actions, among other categories. It's challenging to understand how a contract in which a student-athlete allows the university to market their name, image, and likeness is considered an educational record.

However, UNM’s NIL model appears to tie payments to student-athletes with the student-athletes’ holistic educational experience.

“Now that student athletes are getting compensated for their NIL, we have an even bigger obligation to provide financial literacy, support, and education that all of our student athletes need,” UNM Athletic Director Fernando Lovo said when he joined the Pit Press Live! on Thursday.

Unless UNM changes course, receiving the unredacted licensing agreements from UNM would require a lawsuit under New Mexico’s IPRA statute and a court order requiring UNM to produce the documents.

What is in the UNM NIL Licensing Agreements?

UNM Deputy Athletic Director Ryan Berryman said the athletic department has no further comment on UNM’s response to the public records requests. Berryman provided some information about the timeline for revenue-sharing payments. 

“Football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball will get a payment in July,” Berryman said. “Some will be on July 1, some will be later in the month.”

Berryman also provided some information about the terms of the NIL Licensing Agreements UNM has in place with its student athletes.   Berryman said more than half of the players on the football team and most of the players signed to UNM’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will get revenue-sharing payments this upcoming season.

UNM athletes will receive their payments on a centralized digital platform known as Teamworks General Manager. UNM announced a partnership with Teamworks General Manager in April. Berryman said that UNM is working to ensure that all UNM athletes are set up with a Teamworks account to receive their payments on time.

Considering the constant roster turnover in college athletics, Lobo fans may be interested in the duration of licensing agreements to keep players on the roster for more than one year. Berryman said UNM is “primarily operating on a single-year basis” for its licensing agreements for student athletes at this time. This means UNM athletes will only be under contract for one year.  

Finally, Berryman said that UNM’s contracts include language that allows a student-athlete’s NIL compensation to increase throughout the year.

“(There) is not a direct incentive. There is not something that says ‘hey, if you score five touchdowns you’re going to get X amount of dollars,’” Berryman said. “They do allow for an increase to the value if there were to be a case that would warrant an increase. The example I gave was that if we make a bowl game, (UNM would) have one additional game on TV. There are more news articles, there is more coverage and more licensing opportunities. We do have the ability to adjust up in those kinds of scenarios.”

Because NIL licensing agreements are not performance contracts, UNM must disguise incentive terms in the NIL licensing agreements as being earned when there are more opportunities to market a student athlete’s name, image and likeness, rather than direct performance incentives where a student athlete automatically gets more compensation if they achieve a particular milestone.

The changes from the House Settlement go into effect on Tuesday.