NIU AD Sean Frazier navigates new compensation landscape for athletes

NIU has opted in to paying athletes.

Now, athletic director Sean Frazier is trying to balance old-school ideals with a new financial reality.

“I’m new school on understanding we’re making money on the backs of student-athletes doing what they do above what’s going on,” Frazier said. “So we need to find a sweet spot, whatever rev share number we come up with that works.”

The House vs. NCAA settlement took effect on July 1, allowing universities the option of paying their athletes directly via revenue sharing, capped at $20.5 million this year. This complements current name, image and Likeness rules that allow third parties to pay athletes, as well.

Frazier said there is no revenue-sharing model in place yet at NIU, but expects a model to be in place by the end of the year.

Frazier pointed out that many student-athletes are benefiting from NIL deals across all sports. He said he did not have specifics about what percentage of athletes or from what sports. A follow-up email asking for specifics was unanswered, and a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the information last month was rejected.

“At this point, we are fully in the NIL business,” Frazier said. “We are fully supporting the ability for our student-athletes to monetize that. There are players that are doing quite well, male and female, in this wonderful world, and we are facilitating and helping our student-athletes with financial literacy and all the like to be able to do that.”

When it comes to revenue sharing, Frazier said it’s difficult for NIU and other Group of Six schools to keep up with the power conferences.

According to a financial report on the school’s website, the athletic program earned almost $33 million in revenue in the 2023-24 fiscal year. Expenses totaled almost $39 million.

Frazier said the university is looking at ways to increase existing revenue streams to generate more money to share with athletes.

The trick, he said, is that a lot of NIU’s revenue doesn’t go toward what he called flashy things, but rather the basics of running an NCAA Division I program.

“I still am concerned because of our model of fundraising, and our contributions, and our enrollment, and other things that are affecting NIU, about how much we can honestly part ways with,” Frazier said. “How much is really revenue? Or is it going to keeping the lights on and putting food in the refrigerator?”

The school’s decision to leave the MAC earlier this year and join the Mountain West for football in 2026 should create extra money from TV revenue, although the conference still is negotiating its media rights.

Most of the nonfootball sports will join the Horizon League, which Frazier said should reduce expenses, as well.

Frazier said NIU and other Group of Six schools can’t compete with Power Four schools in terms of what they can pay athletes. But he feels they still have to make the effort to put more resources into their student-athletes.

“We are all in on making sure we have the best quality student-athletes here,” Frazier said. “They need to be compensated for that. So if it’s going to be at the expense of some of these other things that we’re taking a look at, that’s the new model of college athletics.”

NIU football players have said in the past that the focus for them is on football more than compensation.

“I’m here for one reason: to play football,” linebacker Quinn Urwiler said at Chicago Media Day in July. “I love the game so much, I [couldn’t] care less how much I’m getting paid. I came here, I played two years as a walk-on here. I just want to play football. So I kind of block it out, and I know a lot of these guys, they didn’t leave. They love the game of football.”

Frazier also said each sport needs to be realistic about its place in the landscape. He said NIU is a developmental program, a reality since before the days of NIL and revenue sharing.

Football coach Thomas Hammock has said this multiple times. He structures the first few fall practices so that freshmen have a session to themselves to get reps.

“You can come to NIU, get developed, get to the next level,” Frazier said. “If it’s one, two, three years and you jump to some other program because you feel you can garner more money somewhere else, I’m fine with that. I’m not one of those folks that are shook about, oh I’m losing my whole roster and this whole system is no good. No. It’s just new. We have to adapt to the new structure.”