At this season’s Maui Invitational, Chaminade faced off against three Division I programs, including the University of Texas. This SEC school is estimated to be worth $8 million to $10 million in Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) money alone for men’s college basketball, according to CBS Sports. While Chaminade only has one NIL deal for the team, with a brand called Influxer, which sells clothes featuring the athletes’ names, and the players receive compensation for the sales. However, the players said these clothes were just purchased by their family members and friends.
Texas beat Chaminade 119-78 in the second game of the Maui Invitational. Texas made it to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament.
“Their (Texas) players are making way more money than I’m making,” said Eric Bovaird, Chaminade men’s basketball head coach of 15 years, with a laugh. “The Maui Invitational is a big reason why a lot of our players decide to come to Chaminade, to have that opportunity to play against some of the biggest schools in college basketball.”
It is estimated that there was $2.3 billion in NIL money in college football and almost $400 million in college basketball, according to CBS Sports, during the 2024-2025 season. That’s where Chaminade University begins to be impacted. These huge numbers are Division I programs, but every other year, Chaminade men’s basketball plays in the Maui Invitational with some of these top Division I schools. The gap between NIL money at Chaminade and NIL money at these major Division I programs is huge.
Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) was legalized in the NCAA on July 1, 2021. The idea was that college athletes can get paid by third parties if their name or image is used on social media or to promote the third party’s brand. However, it didn’t take long for big schools to find a way to use NIL as a recruiting tool.
In December, former Duke quarterback Darian Mensah was offered by the University of Miami that it would buy out his current Duke contract and terminate it, pay $10 million total to make the transfer and give him country club housing, an Adidas Deal, and his sister a full-ride scholarship and NIL money too, according to Sports Illustrated in 2025.
This is an offer that the NCAA had no problem with.
The difference in the landscape of money between the two schools is undeniable, but the difference in talent isn’t as big as the money makes it seem. The Silverswords were able to lead the game against Texas twice, and Chaminade’s senior guard Nathan Medina dropped the most points in the game with 30. Chaminade actually led every Division I opponent it faced in the Maui Invitational, including a 20-point cushion against Washington State University.
NIL money can bring a school a lot of star power, but it can never guarantee wins for a program.
“The doors will open to get paid, in my opinion, but I do think it’s funny how we’ve played these guys getting paid and you’re like, bro, this guy’s not better than me,” said Medina, who scored 51 points in the three games in the Maui Invitational. “At the end of the day, our team (Chaminade basketball), if we play together, we’re good, and we can compete with these teams who are worth a lot.”
After asking 35 athletes across Chaminade’s 12 sports, the amount of NIL money earned between all of the athletes was around $250. All of which came from Influxer, an NIL company that Chaminade has partnered with. This seven dollars per athlete shows the realistic numbers of NIL money for Division II athletes.
Smaller Division II programs like Chaminade are looking for ways to utilize NIL the way it was originally intended by promoting products and small local businesses.
“We need to dive into some corporate partnerships and so forth,” Bovaird said. “We’re trying to get some local businesses involved and seeing how we can include them in the NIL space.”
One of the top considerations of a college athlete when looking for a school besides the athletic program is the financial cost of the school and how much scholarship can be received. NIL is the way small schools can close the gap of not being able to provide full scholarships. Alumni and donors can help donate NIL money to the school, which can ultimately be a deciding factor for a college athlete. Chaminade is still working on creating an NIL fund that will help the schools athletics.
“NIL has the ability to redirect a player’s interest from one school to another,” said Chaminade athletic director Tom Buning, who has been at Chaminade since NIL became legal. “At the Division II level, there are a lot of folks that aren’t on full scholarship or have to pay things out of pocket. Now NIL allows somebody to say ‘Hey, all that is taken care of, and here’s some extra money for you to have.’”
Football and basketball have the most NIL money circulating, and Chaminade men’s basketball is already starting to see it make an impact. Bovaird explained that he had recruits decide to attend another Division II school because it could provide free airfare for them on holidays so they could go home to family. He also brought up how, in the last two years, a question that is asked commonly now in the recruiting world is, “Does your program have any NIL opportunities?”Chaminade, like most Division II and some Division I programs, fails to financially provide the full amount of scholarships that the NCAA allows in each sport. Therefore, the priority for fundraising and any extra money donated is getting those scholarships. That leaves little room for money to be set aside for NIL. This is a current issue that many schools are facing and could eventually cause the gap between big schools and small schools to grow.
“If somebody asked me, ‘Tom, what’s it take for men’s basketball or men’s soccer to win or be the best in the conference?’ I would probably throw out, ‘Well, if I had some money for NIL,’” Buning said. “I know there are some circumstances we’ve had that NIL would be useful.”
NIL is continuing to grow year after year, and there is new legislation being passed from the NCAA. According to ESPN, there have been over 500 lawsuits against the NCAA since 2024, with many revolving around the NIL landscape. One lawsuit being the states of Virginia and Tennessee blocking the NCAA from prohibiting schools from using NIL to induce recruits. This is where the transfer portal and NIL have completely changed the landscape of sports forever, and will only continue to change it in the future.
“I think that student athletes should profit from their name, image, and likeness,” Bovaird said. “… However, I hate the fact that NIL got mixed in with the transfer portal. But it’s the world we live in, and we have to adapt.”