COLUMBIA, Mo. — Earlier this month, three Mizzou football players — Ennis Rakestraw Jr., D.J. Jackson and Davion Sistrunk — made a surprise appearance at a 10-year-old boy’s birthday party in Columbia. They signed autographs. They ate cake. They played kickball.
And they got paid — legally.
That last part would never have been possible until last summer, when the NCAA relaxed its long-held rules that prohibited college athletes from profiting off their name, image and likeness. That’s all changed over the past 10 months during the NIL movement.
At Mizzou, the most visible example is geared toward players like Rakestraw, Jackson and Sistrunk, who along with 15 fellow defensive backs have capitalized on the NIL craze by partnering with a corporation that pays them guaranteed income every quarter and provides a platform to sell their own branded merchandise.