Purdue’s Zach Edey Declared Ineligible for NIL Benefits as an International Student

Canadian NCAA athletes blocked from big endorsement deals

Canadian NCAA athletes blocked from big endorsement deals | Image: CBC News: The National/YouTube

For the third year in a row, the NCAA men’s basketball National Player of the Year is unable to profit from his Name, Image, and Likeness endorsements.

Zach Edey of Purdue, honored as the national player of the year in both 2023 and 2024, joins the likes of Oscar Tshiebwe from Kentucky as extraordinary talents in college basketball who are barred from financially capitalizing on the advent of the NIL era in collegiate athletics.

“I hope they change it in the future,” Edey said Friday as Purdue prepared for the Final Four.

“I obviously have lost out on a lot of money this year. At the end of the day it needs to change, for sure. I understand kind of the legal process, it takes a while. It’s not like it’s an NCAA rule; it’s an American law. Anytime you try to go change that, I understand it takes a while. But I do think it needs to change.”

Edey is a native of Toronto, Canada, while Tshiebwe hails from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Edey was widely recognized as the player of the year in 2022 and recently achieved the title of NBA G-League Rookie of the Year alongside the Indianapolis team.

When discussing his financial opportunities, Edey mentioned that he’s able to make money on sales of his jersey

“I’ll try to do some stuff when I can. When I’m back in Toronto, I’ll try to do some stuff,” Edey said.

“Obviously I can still do jersey sales and stuff while I’m here, that passive income stuff. It’s not like I can go film a commercial in West Lafayette. I don’t think I’m really the best person to ask about that.”

Caitlin Clark, the reigning national player of the year in women’s basketball, has accrued a reported total of $4 million in NIL worth through partnerships with H&R Block, Hy-Vee Grocery, Gatorade, State Farm, and other entities.

Similarly, Paige Bueckers from UConn was the inaugural college athlete to engage in an NIL arrangement with Gatorade and currently holds multiple deals.

Eminent figures in recent men’s college basketball like Drew Timme from Gonzaga, an All-American, exited college with near-million-dollar contracts. Timme, known for his distinctive mustache, secured an exclusive pact with Dollar Shave Club and a Washington-based casino.

In 2022, Tshiebwe sought a meeting with United States Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to advocate for Congressional reforms that would revise a policy prohibiting college athletes on an F-1 visa from engaging in NIL engagements without jeopardizing their immigration status.

This regulation also restricts F-1 visa holders from pursuing any form of off-campus employment.

“I’m a basketball player at the end of the day,” Edey said Friday. “That’s really what I’m focused on. Especially when I can’t even make the NIL deals, I don’t want to hear about them, to be honest.”

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