Happy NIL Day! It’s either the day common sense becomes policy or, as the NCAA would have you believe, the beginning of the downfall of civilization. Either way, it should be a boon for the Gamecock program.

A quick refresher:

The NCAA abdicated its responsibility on NIL, essentially throwing up its hands and saying “you deal with it” (after all, cookie cakes and butt dials don’t monitor themselves). That leaves NIL rules up to each state. The state of South Carolina passed a NIL in May, but it doesn’t take effect until next July 1 (a bit of a punt in its own right by lawmakers). The law could be adjusted to take effect immediately, but in the meantime each school is left to create its own rules, with the expectation that they will align with the state law. South Carolina hired Altius Sports Partners to help navigate NIL and released its guidelines Thursday morning. Among the restrictions: no pay for play, no pay for recruits, athletes cannot use school facilities and must have written permission to use intellectual property (logos), and no money can come from the school or school employees.

Initially, the conventional wisdom was that only the few highest-profile football players and maybe some men’s basketball players would be able to make money. This was the angle pushed by the NCAA, and included the argument that if different players could make different amounts of money, teams would fall apart due to infighting (this is why professional sports have never succeeded in the US).

That line of thinking has been replaced by two other lines of thought: one is that athletes in the “Olympic sports” have more to gain, while the other line is that nobody has any idea what will happen because it’s all brand new and will take some time to sort itself out. That is no fun for speculation, so we’ll focus on the first, which comes with some interesting research.

During the basketball tournaments in March and April, there were a pair of stories that looked at the social media reach of athletes. An Axios story found that, combining Instagram and Twitter, eight of the ten most-followed players in the Elite Eight were women. Another story by Andy Wittry found that nine of the 11 players with the most Instagram followers were women.

Both stories are worth reading and Wittry goes into far more detail about the math than I can recap (or understand), but the big takeaway for us is that, aside from women having greater reach than men, is that three of those nine women in the Wittry story are Gamecocks. Zia Cooke ranked fourth, Brea Beal ninth, and Destanni Henderson was tied for tenth.

Those numbers have obviously changed in the past three months. Aliyah Boston, who made a name for herself with a stellar postseason and summer, has nearly doubled her following since then, going from 21.1 thousand followers to 38.6 thousand. And Raven Johnson has over 20 thousand followers before ever playing a college game.

It’s no coincidence that only one of the female players on the Axios list, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, doesn’t come from one of the major programs (UConn, Stanford, South Carolina, or Louisville). All she had to do was average almost 27 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 rebounds per game. The top three - Cooke, Paige Bueckers, and Hailey Van Lith - were household names in high school, but for the most part success, including team success, in college drives followers.

That is good news for the Gamecocks, one of the most successful programs of the past five-plus years. Then there is the Gamecocks’ fan base, which not only leads the nation in attendance but is (in)famously active on social media, where Dawn Staley’s tweets are gospel. And when advertisers look for a platform they first want to reach the most people. After that, they want a focused approach where they know exactly who they are reaching. This is how Facebook or Google ads work, and why personal information like cookies is so valuable. That sort of targeted advertising is in theory what companies could accomplish with a player who has a huge social media following.

So although South Carolina can’t pay players directly, Staley can offer a recruit the promise of a tremendous platform she can use to market herself. The money will always find the talent (twins Haley and Hanna Cavinder of Fresno State, who have over 3 million followers on TikTok, were among the first women’s basketball players to take advantage of the new rule), but Wittry’s research suggests that a recognizable program is is a major boost.

So far it doesn’t appear any Gamecock players take advantage of the new NIL rules. There has been a late push for players to exercise patience - which is usually wise - and that seems to be the case (Staley is pushing that idea hard on Twitter). That doesn’t mean changes haven’t already been made. For years, Staley banned her players from social media during the season, but last season she waived the ban. Players’ posts were still monitored, but Staley recognized the value in letting players develop their brands.

“We have players that have a lot more than basketball going on that allows them to broaden their brand,” Staley explained in January. “We talked a lot about branding. We’re trying to get ahead of what might take place with name, image, and likeness.

“There are some that might post something that we’ll say, ‘Hey, you might want to take a look at that because here’s what the other side of your post could have a different meaning,’” Staley continued. “It’s good to keep them as responsible as possible while allowing them to enjoy being young and that part of their lifestyle.

Anecdotally, this summer as July 1 approached it seemed like players are posting more on social media, especially Brea Beal. Some players have already developed a personal brand. Henderson has her “Hennything’s Possible” wordmark that she puts on clothes. Expect more to follow. Boston is extremely well-known in the Virgin Islands. Johnson already has a nickname. There are also companies that broker experiences, like Cameo, where a fan can pay to get a message from a player or play a video game with a player. Those might be where the bulk of money exchanges hands, and it goes back to that social media following.