What Stays Behind: Jayden Daniels, LSU, and the Price of a College Legacy
Intro
It has been well known for years that a college athlete's legacy is typically controlled by that same university the athlete attended. Even after graduating, schools often still honor their former players, whether that is through highlight videos, merchandise, social media posts, or any type of promotional content. But with the recent rise of name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) rights, this typical student-university relationship has raised some complications. College athletes can now sign contracts that allow for the commercial use of their identities. This leads to a new question regarding what happens once their playing careers are over: who owns and profits from the athlete’s legacy after the NIL deal expires?
Background
The recent dispute between Louisiana State University (“LSU”) and Jayden Daniels, a former LSU football player, has raised this concern. At his time at LSU, Daniels played during the 2022 and 2023 seasons, before starting his career in the NFL. The biggest honor of Daniels's time at LSU was winning the Heisman Trophy in 2023, awarded typically to the most outstanding athlete in college football. During his time at LSU, Daniels wore the No. 5. However, recently at the start of this year's college football season, LSU assigned No. 5 to another player, DJ Pickett. Daniels’ representatives sent LSU a cease-and-desist letter regarding concerns about the continued use of his NIL. According to reporting on the letter, Daniels’ agreement permitted LSU to use his NIL for 180 days following his final college game, and Daniel is arguing that this agreement has long expired.
This is more than a disagreement over a jersey number. This rather raises concerns about how universities, such as LSU, use student-athletes' identity after their contractual license expires. An athlete may be at a university for a few years, but the value of that athlete's legacy can be used for years after. As NIL continues to play an important role in college athletics, these universities and athletes will have to address what happens to their NIL rights after they leave the campus.
The Duration of NIL Rights
An athlete may license the use of their NIL to a school, sponsor, or another entity while enrolled in college. The continued usage of the athletes' NIL largely depends on the terms of the contract between the school and athlete, depending on when the agreement expires. NIL agreements therefore need to address what the school can do while the athlete is enrolled and what rights, if any, survive once the athlete leaves the school.
The settlement in House v. NCAA created the expansion of payments between college athletes and universities. By allowing universities to play a more direct role in paying their athletes, the House case made contractual provisions governing the use of an athlete’s NIL during and after their college career even more important.
The growing landscape of NIL in college athletics and the recent Jayden Daniels dispute increase the conversations about these contract provisions. Current NCAA rules contemplate written agreements governing the use of athletes’ NIL and the circumstances in which any content created during the athlete’s enrollment may continue to be used even after eligibility ends. Thus, the Daniels dispute raises questions about the scope and duration of his NIL agreement with LSU.
LSU, and all other universities, generally maintain control over decisions regarding the team’s jersey number assignments. Even though Daniels was closely associated and tied with No. 5 at LSU, he does not necessarily have any exclusive legal rights to the number itself. Thus, LSU’s decision to assign No. 5 to another athlete should be distinguished from Daniels’ name and likeness. However, this issue becomes greater if LSU uses the number to specifically identify or to make ties with Daniels.
The issue with the jersey number also raises a question about right of publicity claims. No. 5 had not been retired by LSU, thus allowing LSU to assign the number to a current player as they see fit. This decision is a matter decided by the team and university rather than a right controlled by the former player and their NIL agreement. Ultimately, this paints a picture of how an athlete’s legacy can extend beyond what they can legally control. As athletes, such as Jayden Daniels, tie their jersey number to their college athlete career and the accomplishments with it, the number is not exclusively controlled or legally owned by the athlete.
Although a university may have an interest in continuing to memorialize the accomplishments of their former athletes, they do not have an unlimited right to continue the commercial use of an athlete's NIL after the agreement ends. The NIL agreements should therefore provide a clear distinction on what this may look like. This is especially relevant as an athlete’s NIL may potentially increase after leaving the school, and the school may want to continue to profit off the athlete’s identity. Thus, clear contract terms regarding what rights survive after the agreement expires, identifying what uses of the athlete are still allowed, and whether additional permission is needed can help resolve any disputes between the former college athlete and the school.
The Business Logic: Merchandise, Recruiting, and Brand Damage
Sports law analysts who reviewed the letter have drawn a consistent line: talking about Daniels’ accomplishments at LSU is just recounting public history, and that's fair game no matter who benefits from the coverage. Actively using his name to sell something is when the school would start to run a risk, but LSU hasn't crossed that line. That distinction isn't just theoretical, as it already has a dollar figure attached to it. LSU's shop still lists signed Daniels merchandise but has pulled his jerseys from sale. This is a quiet, unforced move that suggests the school is drawing the same line.
An important part of this story is the impact recruiting leverage and roster management have on decisions like these. Kiffin's decision wasn’t about Daniels. It was about a promise he inherited. Pickett was promised by ex-head coach Brian Kelly that he would be able to wear No. 5, but wore No. 3 as a freshman because Kelly did not get Daniels’ blessing to let Pickett wear it. The comparison to former LSU quarterback Joe Burrow has been made by many, even by Kelly himself. LSU had never reissued Joe Burrow's No. 9 since his 2019 Heisman-winning, national championship season. Kelly said he wasn't prepared to issue No. 5 until he got approval from Daniels. He believed that the school shouldn't treat one Heisman winner's number differently from the other. Kiffin chose the opposite stance, stating, "When a kid is promised something to come to a school, he should wear it. So at that point, I don't think that's really my decision. We should honor what he was told." This is one of the first instances examining a tension between former NIL players wanting to keep their image and the school’s justifiable need to move on and offer incoming players certain numbers as part of the recruiting process.
This fiasco has also led to brand damage for both sides. The reputational fallout landed almost entirely on Daniels. His camp's decision was quickly framed as a miscalculation, one that traded a minor jersey slight for memeificaiton right as he entered the NFL season. This is not a one-off for Daniels, pointing to his mother and agent's earlier fallout with Arizona State over recruiting violations as evidence that this isn't Daniels' first public break with a former program. Unfortunately, the mockery extended beyond football commentary. Within days, professional teams in other leagues joined in publicly, and the backlash was covered as a lopsided PR misstep.
The backlash to Daniels does not necessarily mean LSU’s brand has come out on top. A program's relationship with one of its most decorated alumni is itself a recruiting asset, and a public dispute with a Heisman winner and former No. 2 overall pick does not help sell that story to the next recruit deciding where to commit. However, the asymmetry is clear: Daniels absorbed the public backlash, while LSU's cost was mostly reputational risk it managed quietly.
How This Affects the Future of NIL Athletes’ Legacies: Contracts, Licensing, and Risk
This situation will likely not be the last of its kind and can be used to explore how contract drafting for these athletes will change. Louisiana is one of seven states, six of them within the SEC, that have implemented a mandatory sunset clause governing the length of NIL contracts. That is where Daniels' 180-day window comes from. But a sunset clause only answers when a contract ends, not what either side can do the day after. Vague sunset clauses in NIL statutes may produce expensive litigation, with disputes likely to center on similar issues to this one. Post-termination publicity rights are an underused clause that athletes should be negotiating up front, alongside use-of-likeness rights, exclusivity terms, and remedies, rather than left to be argued over after a relationship has already ended. The next generation of NIL contracts should be spelling out exactly what a school can keep using, for how long, and at what price.
Furthermore, this situation is a good example of how schools may audit their own licensing and how important it is for them to maintain a strong legal team. Whether a lawsuit is viable or not, LSU did not wait for one. Within days of the letter surfacing, its shop had quietly pulled Daniels' jerseys while keeping other signed merchandise on sale. That is a small but verifiable data point, and it's likely that other athletic departments are watching. One letter from a single program's most recognizable recent alumnus may be enough to trigger internal reviews outside of Baton Rouge before any court gets involved.
The question remains about whether this will be a recurring problem or not. NIL has stopped being a side issue for athletic departments. Legal analysts now treat it as a standing operational risk, one that runs through compliance offices, general counsel, budgeting, and how a university governs its athletics program overall. The House settlement gave schools a framework for sharing revenue directly with current athletes for the first time, but it didn’t do anything to resolve what obligations survive once those athletes leave campus. As more Heisman-caliber, NFL-bound players pass through NIL contracts, the pool of former stars whose names and images schools continue to use for merchandise, recruiting materials, and hall-of-fame walls will only grow. Daniels is not a unique case. He is an early one.
Conclusion
Still, the question remains: when a college athlete's contract ends, how much of him stays behind? LSU's answer had mostly been assumed rather than negotiated. The image stays on campus just like the stats stay in the record books, because that is how it has always worked. Daniels' letter is the first real test of whether that assumption matches what the contract actually says. None of this required a judge—a letter and public backlash did more to expose the gap than perhaps a courtroom would have. Both athletic departments and players should be wary of contract ambiguities. The jersey itself was never the issue. Kiffin's call was a coach's decision, made under a policy LSU wrote for itself. What the letter forced into the open is the question: once a career ends, who owns what is left of it? The school that built the platform, or the player whose name made it worth watching.
*The views expressed in this article do not represent the views of Santa Clara University.
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