A year ago, the advent of lucrative name, image, and portrait sponsorships marked a turbulent year in college sports as athletes, businesses, boosters, and colleges scrambled for advantage.
There is now little doubt about the unprecedented financial opportunities that the NIL era has brought to college and high school athletes. What is believed to be the biggest deal to date (equivalent to the reported $ 9.5 million) went to the four-star quarterback Jayden Rashada after enrolling at the University of Miami.
In the midst of unprecedented change, an industry is emerging that involves trading groups formed by college graduates who have promised to boost their alma mater. Dallas / Fort Worth is home to a group of Southern Methodist University and Texas Christian University.
I think NIL is mainly working with TCU university athletes. It recently merged with another TCU collective, KF, and operates with a third collective, The Flying T Club.
Pony Sports works with SMU athletes and is one of the most prominent groups working with schools other than the five premier conferences that dominate college athletics.
One of the ThinkNIL and Flying T Club ambassadors is Mike Miles, a TCU male basketball player.
“It helped many of us. You don’t have to worry about costs,” said Miles, who is ranked one of the most repeaters in the country for next season. “It helped me a lot, maybe buying what we couldn’t buy.”
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Miles recommends that college freshman athletes read carefully before signing. In the case of Think NIL, he mainly posts on social media. He’s at the Flying T Club, he’s attending a party. His Instagram post advertises PSD Underwear, a luxury underwear company that deals with many NBA stars, including Jimmy Butler and Ja Morant.
“Our overall goal is to create NIL opportunities for them and find ways for them to benefit,” said Brent Cunningham, Vice President of Operations at NIL.
Cunningham has a long background in college athletics. He was TCU’s Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance from 2018 to March 2022 before teaming up with Guillermo Zamarripa at Think NIL. Zamarippa is also the CEO and founder of The Marketing Agency, a marketing agency affiliated with ThinkNIL.
Their experience helped them navigate the vague and unregulated landscape of NIL.
“We need guidelines that apply universally to all student athletes,” Cunningham said. He described the NIL as the “probably the least regulated” region in NCAA history.
“Wild Wild West”
If someone wants to sign a contract with a TCU athlete, he can work with Cunningham and his team. From there, donors can tell Think NIL that money should be directed specifically to athletes. Alternatively, gifts from donors can be distributed in a way that ThinkNIL deems appropriate.
College athletes also approached ThinkNIL for advice on how to pursue a deal. For most transactions, athletes typically need to make promotional posts on social media and include ThinkNIL in their careers. In return, they are paid with the money given by the donor.
Companies receive commission-based compensation and typically hold 10% to 15% of the amount donated by the sponsor. The number may vary depending on the nature of the transaction.
Initially, all Think NIL athletes came from soccer, men’s basketball, and baseball. Eight athletes from eight additional sports, six of whom are women, are the latest additions to the program.
Flying T Club also offers sponsors and athletes an opportunity, but because it is a registered non-profit charity, it behaves differently than ThinkNIL.
Donations to Flying T-clubs are tax deductible. The group then contracts with the player for the right to use the player’s name, image and portrait. Players must perform additional tasks, such as volunteering with an approved charity or posting a promotion on social media, to fully realize the value of the contract.
So far, the group has gathered more than 20 soccer, men’s basketball, beach volleyball and baseball stables.
Flying T Club also offers a membership level for donors, but according to lawyer Kelli Masters, this is not something the company is working on. The collective has a 10-member advisory board that chooses how to distribute funds among athletes.
“They are looking for great athletes for the community interested in this kind of work,” said the Masters.
Flying T-club It provides athletes with financial literacy guidance on topics such as how much money to secure for taxes and what to do with the 1099 form.
TCU athletes can also access Neeley NIL, a program organized by the Neeley School of Business, to teach athletes how to navigate the new world. There are classes, workshops and mentorship programs available for college athletes to negotiate contracts, collaborate with groups and learn how to develop financial literacy.
“Our focus is on the educational side of things and we make sure that student athletes make the most of all the resources available on campus,” said Managing Director of the Neely School of Business Institute. Rodney Dousa says. Entrepreneurship and innovation.
Many of the groups that sign contracts with athletes are new, but marketing companies with decades of experience in sports are also involved.
The Dallas-based marketing department is one of those companies. It differs from aggregates in that it represents only the brand, not the individual athlete. When companies use college athletes to find opportunities to better promote the brands they represent, they often approach athletes from a “purely influential perspective.”
Even companies founded as marketing arms had to deal with wrinkles in this new area.
“I still think it’s a bit of Wild Wild West,” said Basia Wojcik, Vice President of Sports at Marketing Arm.
Wojcik and her team also had to get used to the NCAA rules. They politely raise their heads to each university to inform them that they are using athletes in marketing transactions and spend time learning what is allowed at the state level.
In just the first year of the NIL era, the need for guardrails became a popular topic. Shortly after the Nijel Pack moved to Miami Men’s Basketball in one of the most important publicly flaunted NIL deals, the NCAA issued a reminder about proper recruitment practices, especially for groups.
The practice in question, known as “Pay for Play,” brings painful memories to SMU fans in the 1980s. Even with NIL, compensating someone to come to school is still just as illegal. The current problem is that it is difficult to regulate.
Joel Lara, a professor of Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas and a 30-year career in sports media, said:
90% of athletic directors Athletic Share Lula’s feelings and worry about the group.
Flying T Club’s Masters loves the non-profit model that helps NIL regulate, especially because athletes have to work to get paid. Both the NCAA and the IRS regulate the industry, which keeps everyone in compliance, Masters said.
Currently, there is no clear solution that the NCAA lacks a successor to retire President Mark Emmert and is afraid of antitrust proceedings when trying to enforce the rule. Concerns come from the NCAA v. Alston decision, a groundbreaking Supreme Court ruling in 2021, stating that college athletes can receive an unlimited amount of “education-related benefits.”
“I think Alston’s decision made the NCAA hesitate to take the backseat and try to do something,” said Maddy Salamone, a lawyer and athlete advocate.
Groups are not the only part of NIL’s landscape with critics. Lulla pointed out an unclear area of signature with the NIL agent. This is perfectly legal, but athletes may need a quid proquare to stay in the agency as a professional athlete.
“Everyone agrees that NIL is not supposed to be used for recruiting players,” Lulla said. “But that’s exactly what is used for both recruiting high school players and for transfer portals.”
Where are you going from here?
The next controversial debate already taking place in Texas is whether high school athletes should be allowed to sign contracts. Currently, Texas Senate Bill 1385 does not allow them to do so, but as a result, more superstars may leave the state to go to high school or graduate early. The state had already seen it when South Lake Carroll quarterback Quinn Ewers gave up his senior season to sign a $ 1.4 million NIL deal after committing to Ohio. After that, Edwards moved to Texas, competing to start a quarterback job.
Lulla is worried about the future of college sports that don’t pack stands because it’s easy for boosters to directly monetize selected athletes and sports rather than athletic clubs.
“At some point, there are concerns that non-income sports may turn into club sports,” Lulla said.
Texas has one of the largest NIL markets in the country, especially thanks to the University of Texas and Texas A & M. The two programs are tied to one of the country’s most valuable college football programs, each worth $ 147 million.
The result is a huge financial opportunity for athletes, including UT’s Offensive Lineman earning $ 50,000 each in exchange for Horns with Heart to use his name to support charity. it was done.
But that doesn’t mean that small schools like private universities with financially successful backers, like TCUs and SMUs, can’t compete.
“The great thing about NIL is that everyone has a chance,” Lara said.
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