Not in Kansas Anymore
Mit Winter's journey has taken him from Kansas to Colonial Williamsburg to Silicon Valley San Francisco before landing back home as an NIL legal expert
The NIL Report is a free newsletter that covers the latest stories and trends about how high school and college athletes can prosper under the NCAA’s new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rules. Join other athletes and business professionals in subscribing today.
In today’s issue, we sit down with Mit Winter—a former Division I basketball player and current attorney for Kennyhertz Perry—to understand his journey into law and hear his thoughts on NIL and her advice.
Back in the late 1990s, the college recruitment process was basic and organic for a small town Kansas family who had only know basketball all their life anyway.
Play in a summer tournament in July, visit schools in October and commit in November.
Easy. Simple. Done.
That’s just how it was for Mit Winter when he committed to play basketball at William & Mary in 1996. Growing up in Topeka, KS, basketball was ingrained as a way of life—his father played Division II ball at Washburn in Topeka and his younger brother ultimately played ball at Harvard.
“I decided to go to William & Mary because Ivy Leagues cannot give athletic scholarships. It was just the best for my family; save my parents some money. I thought it was cool to get a scholarship too at the time. As my parents and I remind my brother, it allowed him to ultimately play at Harvard because my parents could pay for it.”
For four years, Winter played a critical role for the Tribe where the six-foot-seven, 215-pond guard averaged 6.9 points per game, 3.3 rebounds and 1.2 assists. He started every game his junior year and all but nine games his senior year.
As a senior, Winter hung 36 points on James Madison, including a W&M record 17-of-17 from the free throw line that still stands to this day.
Somewhere in between scoring his game high and finishing his History major/Biology minor undergraduate path, Winter chose to pursue law school. He graduated from the University of San Francisco in 2005.
These days Winter, an attorney for Kennyhertz Perry Law, is back home in Kansas and plays a critical role in providing legal advice to athletes, businesses and media on the new era of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) in college athletics.
His top advice? Becoming real good at your sport or real good at using social media:
“I think there’s two main important ways that college athletes can increase their chances of getting NIL deals. One is to be really good at your sport and become well known in that sport. Number two— for this you don’t necessarily have to be the best in sport, best on your team even— if you just have a very large social media presence, that’s who brands want to work with.
College athletes are busy with school and your sport and everything that goes along with that, if I wanted to get as many NIL deals as possible I’d spend as much time as I had available on growing my social media presence and growing my followers on instagram and tick took. I think those are the two main [platforms] that will help you get NIL deals.”
As a former DI student athlete, Winter is very pro athlete in the NIL debate. However, Winter has become a visionary for where NIL and college athletics as a whole is headed due to his legal experience in representing the Big 12, Conference USA, and NCAA on a myriad of issues from television broadcasting rights to conference realignment issues to working on the O’Bannon and Alston cases.
Many businesses, schools and athletes have needed advice due to the NCAA’s sudden rollout of a brand new ‘bare bones’ NIL policy in the summer. But Winter says that schools are beginning to figure it out.
“It’s taken a while for schools to figure out what they want their policy to be, what role they’re going to play in NIL… for the brands who want to do deals with athletes it’s been a complicating factor just because they don’t know what all the different laws are and they have to have someone to help inform them so they’re not breaking those laws and making athletes ineligible.”
For example, Ohio State just recently announced that they changed their NIL policy in order to better assist their student athletes in facilitating NIL deals. Since Ohio does not have a state NIL law, the NCAA leaves it up to each individual institution to create their own rules.
On the other hand, in Texas, state law prohibits schools from facilitating deals. Although the NCAA allows institutions to create their own policies, they must do so in a way that is compliant with the state law.
This is where third party collectives or trusts can be a major benefit for institutions who cannot act due to state law. There may be some shadiness, but overall collectives are a net positive for the athletes Winter claims:
“I think collectives were inevitable under the current rules… Collectives are helpful for the athletes in getting deals because let’s say your school is in a state that has a state law that does not allow facilitation of deals. The collectives have stepped in and taken the role from the school. They have the relationships with the businesses in the town or region and can help connect the athletes with those businesses who want to do deals.”
Or states could just repeal their NIL laws.
Such is the case in Alabama, where legislators repealed their state NIL law in order to allow their schools more freedom in the NIL world. So Alabama and Auburn can be on an equal playing field with Ohio State.
The problem is that there is still no universal guidelines or bylaws for all schools, athletes and businesses/boosters to follow. The unintended consequence of inducing athletes to come, stay or leave is still a major gray area—the NCAA has announced their intentions on investigating this more thoroughly although it is unknown if and how any action will be taken.
With the threat of NCAA action looming, the more pressing issue, Winter insists, is that student athletes must be aware about the NIL deals they are entering into and ensure that they are not one-side against them.
“[Athletes] should be weary of what exactly it is you are agreeing to do. If you are giving the use of your NIL to a company, [you need to know] if there are any parameters over how long they can continue to use it, what ways they can use it; what fashion they can use it; how you’re going to get paid; when you’re going to get paid. That’s all important.
Any things that you might be required to do that would violate your school NIL policy or state law are important. You don’t want to put your eligibility at risk.”
For now, all players must continue to navigate this NIL world, which is still in its infancy, to the best of their abilities. But have no doubt, Winter expects change to be coming.
Winter believes that change will include employee and employer labels.
“Yeah, I think thats going to happen at some point whether that’s a year, two years, five years whatever it is. And it could be from a state law, federal law, court decision, or the national labor relations board.
I do think at some point, there will be an employer-employee relationship between college athletes and either university, conference or NCAA. And there will be some sort of collective bargaining that determines what the rules are that govern the relationship: how much they’re going to get paid, when they’re going to practice, how long they have to stay at the school.”
This is similar to what the Northwestern football team was arguing for a few years back, and now it seems that the NLRB is more willing to make a decisive ruling.
No matter what change happens, you can expect Winter will be there to help schools, athletes and businesses navigate it.
As for the NCAA, they’re not in Kansas anymore.