Which Notre Dame athletes could cash in from NCAA ruling?

The NCAA is moving on allowing players to make money off names and likenesses. Which Notre Dame athletes could benefit the most?

Earlier this week, the NCAA moved toward figuring out a system that would allow athletes to make money off their image and likeness. Contrary to the belief of many who only read headlines and tweets, this has nothing to do with colleges cutting checks directly to players. That’s not what’s happening here, Notre Dame included.

What is happening is a movement toward leveling the playing field — so to speak — to give scholarship athletes the same rights and privileges as students on academic scholarships. What we’re looking at is a future where college athletes would be allowed to broker their own deals with outside businesses — small, big, local and national.

Many are talking about a doomsday scenario where the only schools who will be competitive in sports will be those in large cities and who have local business owners with deep pockets.

Here’s the thing — people with money don’t make a habit of giving it away unless they are going to get something in return. The idea that a local Buick dealer is just chomping at the bit to toss wads of cash to local college football players to do commercials for their dealership is just absurd. Even your bigger companies like Nike and Under Armour are selective in who they give endorsement deals to. Businesses simply aren’t going to sign a run-of-the-mill quarterback — even at Notre Dame — to huge deals just because they are a recognizable face in some circles.

The bulk of the athletes who are going to make money off these potential changes are those in your niche sports. Like it or not, that includes women’s basketball.

Women’s college basketball is more popular nationwide than the WNBA is. Just a couple of years ago, the most popular name in women’s basketball was Arike Ogunbowale — and that was while she was at Notre Dame. If they were allowed to, plenty of businesses would have been lining up to sign Arike to short-term deals after she hit those buzzer beaters in the Final Four. But that’s just one athlete, and it was because she was a household name in her sport at the time.

They only other Notre Dame athlete in recent memory who became a household name while still playing for the Irish was Manti Te’o — and a lot of that notoriety was for all the wrong reasons.

This potential change in the way the NCAA deals with names and likenesses isn’t something that’s going to change the amateur nature of college sports across the board. Instead, only the elite of the elite who are the most recognizable names in their sport while still in college will have the chance to make that extra money.

The sky is not falling, and it’s still not raining money for college athletes.