Nick Dunlap, the novice golfer who received a $1.5 million prize from the American Express event final weekend however couldn’t acquire it as a result of he was nonetheless a university athlete, has determined to show skilled.
The announcement comes after days of hypothesis that Dunlap may go away the University of Alabama golf crew and play on the PGA Tour after his historic win.
Dunlap knew when he entered the golf event as an novice that he wouldn’t have the ability to earn any cash from it, as a result of that may violate NCAA guidelines.
So why did he play?
“There’s a huge number of people who are going to be lining up to sign him as a sponsor,” Victor Matheson, an economics professor on the College of the Holy Cross who focuses on sports activities, informed MarketWatch. “Nike and Titleist and all these folks are going to be all lining up.”
According to Dunlap’s Instagram account, he already had sponsorships with Taylor Made and Adidas
ADS,
earlier than getting into the event.
From the archives: When LeBron James selected Nike in 2003, he gave up $28 million. It may find yourself making him $1 billion.
The NCAA started permitting school athletes to earn cash from their identify, picture and likeness, or NIL, in 2021, when student-athletes received a decades-long argument over the equity of receiving no remuneration even because the video games wherein they performed generated tens of millions of {dollars} for the establishments they have been enrolled in. Since then, student-athletes have been ready acquire sponsorship cash that leverages their NIL.
Of course, now that Dunlap is skilled he can signal any sponsorship alternative he needs and doesn’t have to leverage his NIL.
The second profit Dunlap acquired from successful this event is membership within the PGA.
Winners of tour occasions are assured invites to future golf tournaments for a sure variety of years, relying on when their win happens, a PGA spokesperson informed MarketWatch. This means Dunlap could have the power to play in tournaments between now and 2026, and can accomplish that now that he’s a tour member.
“Without a PGA Tour card, you’re not allowed to play in that tournament,” Matheson mentioned.
Despite leaving the Alabama golf crew and changing into an expert, he can not retroactively obtain his $1.5 million payout. That cash has already been awarded to Christiaan Bezuidenhout, the skilled golfer who completed in second place within the American Express event.
See additionally: Who owns the Tiger Woods ‘TW’ emblem now that he’s left Nike?
While it could really feel like an apparent transfer for Dunlap to show skilled, it seemingly wasn’t such a easy calculation.
Like many particular person professional sports activities, golf is dear for athletes. Golfers, not like skilled golf, soccer or hockey gamers, should cowl the price of all their very own journey to competitions, in addition to paying their coaches and health coaches. An athlete who enters the skilled golf world and doesn’t do effectively in tournaments doesn’t receives a commission and will even find yourself dropping cash.
“The assumption is that a college scholarship is worth more to [an athlete] than the potential prize winnings that they would earn, because the vast majority of college athletes who are playing golf aren’t winning $1.5 million,” Matheson mentioned earlier than Dunlap turned professional. “So retaining that college eligibility is worth much more to the vast majority of college golfers.”
Dunlap, who received the U.S. Amateur Championship in 2023, grew to become the PGA Tour’s first novice winner since Phil Mickelson received the Tucson Open in 1991.
Dunlap didn’t reply to a request for remark.
See additionally: NFL star Brock Purdy made $870,000 this season — 16 school soccer gamers made extra from NIL
Source web site: www.marketwatch.com
