For much of the spring and summer, Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh was the athletic department’s most visible proponent of expanding the scope of name, image and likeness (NIL) applications to benefit athletes in Ann Arbor. He stopped short of embracing the pay-for-play inducements certain schools have arranged to work the margins of a largely unregulated space, but his most recent suggestion to have the Big Ten share its television revenue directly with players was innovative.
Now, Harbaugh’s most famous colleague in Ann Arbor — Michigan basketball coach Juwan Howard — has joined the chorus encouraging the athletic department and university at large to narrow the gap between what’s happening at U-M and what’s happening elsewhere around the country.