This Week in NIL - The Launch!
Now Presenting This Week in NIL, a newsletter about everything you need to know to keep up with the rapidly changing world of name, image, and likeness in college sports!
Hello! I’m Harrison from 8 In The Box Productions and we started this newsletter because we noticed there was not a centralized source for NIL news in an easily digestible format and we wanted to fix that! Email us here for feedback and please share if you enjoyed!
This Week in NIL:
🥩 A deal is Bloomin’ between Outback Steak House and college football stars
🐊 University of Florida stakes its claim as “NIL-U”
📊 Data released on the first 3 months of NIL, including a 4x increase of student-athletes participating in NIL deals
Outback Steakhouse deal focuses on giving back to the community
Similar to Louisville Basketball Star Hailey Van Lith’s deal with IcyHot and the Shaq Foundation or Pitt Quarterback Kenny Pickett’s NIL endeavors to support the Boys and Girls club of Western Pennsylvania, the deal will have a charity component by donating meals to Military Families and each player will host local give back nights for their favorite charities. A notable inclusion amongst some of the brightest starts in CFB is Michigan sophomore wide receiver AJ Henning, who has just 9 career catches for the Wolverines but over 200,000 followers on Tiktok (the amount of compensation they received was unclear).
Our takeaway:
Gen-Z highly prioritizes brands that share their social values. Student-athletes have a strong desire to give back to their community and amplify social justice issues. These kind of brand deals represent the direction influencer marketing is going in the future. And they are accepting student-athlete applications for future deals here.
Is University of Florida NIL-U?
This entire newsletter could have been filled with Gator News, but here are the highlights:
1. The Gator Collective, a platform where Florida fans can directly support student-athletes in exchange for exclusive/behind-the-scenes access, signed quarterback Anthony Richardson then signed their first female athlete (WBB star Lavender Briggs)
2. Speaking of Richardson, he is teaming up with Attorney Darren Heitner, to focus on six and seven figure deals. Rather than focus on one-off deals as many have done so far, they are only conducting long-term partnerships. And they say they already have landed a mid six figure deal. Why is this so staggering? Richardson hasn’t even been named the Gators starting quarterback.
3. NIL Marketplace MarketPryce launched MarketPryce Florida to help Gators find local deals.
4. Student Athlete Empowerment, a third-party service focused on connecting individuals and corporations directly with student-athletes without involving schools, launched at University of Florida, Loyola Marymount University and Robert Morris University.
Our takeaway:
Regardless if the NIL-U moniker ends up being accurate three months from now, it is clear creating opportunities for student-athletes to make money is a way that fans of schools feel they can impact recruiting in a tangible way.
Leading NIL marketplace releases data on the first 3 months of deals
Opendorse, one of the most prominent companies in the space, released data from activities on their platform since July 1st. Here are some of notable numbers from the report:
8.4%: the share of NIL activity by women’s volleyball players, which is higher than men’s basketball (7.5%) and only trails football (35%) amongst all sports
$391: the average compensation per activity for Division one athletes
87.7%: The share of NIL activities categorized as “posting content”
#1: The ranking of the Big Ten conference for total NIL compensation, beating out the Big 12 (#2), ACC (#3), SEC (#4), and Pac 12 (#5) in a battle of power-five conferences
Our takeaway:
A 4x increase in athletes who received or disclosed a deal from August to September demonstrates that this space is just getting started as more brands realize an opportunity to reach a new audience. Although basketball season hasn't begun yet, both men’s and women’s basketball deals falling short of volleyball upends many preconceived notions on who benefits most from these rule changes.
Top NIL Deals you need to 👀
TyTy Washington X Porsche
Reese’s Senior Bowl X Panini NFTs
HS Basketball Star Mikey Williams gets his first NFT
A deal I helped work on months ago finally goes live today. Follow the steps below to enter a drawing for Mikey Williams' 1st NFTs.To celebrate the launch of the Mikey Williams Charter Membership #NFT, I will be giving away a FREE Green Mikey NFT TO ENTER: ✅ Follow @noahabr & join THE CAVE https://t.co/k9zN4IxdPC ✅ RT ✅Tag a Sports Fan Winner selected in #giveaways channel in the @igotitauction FANCAVE https://t.co/PgMTJBwotq☞ echelon.eth @noahabrBre Socker X Treadbands (Click Here to see the full thread of even more deals covered by @AndrewPetcash)
Bre Socker, one of the top D3 field hockey players signed a deal w/ @treadbands Awesome to see athletes leveraging their name, image, and likeness.One of best D3 NIL stories yet? @brenotbri__ from @FisherAthletics Bre (#22) leveraged her presence on TikTok & IG into a deal with @treadbands and multiple affiliate partnerships. Meanwhile, the reigning @Empire8 POTY leads the conference in goals, assists, and points. https://t.co/CPepg0zogUD3 Direct @D3Direct
Thanks so much for reading! This Week in NIL is brought to you by the team at 8 In The Box Productions: we create branded video content for student-athletes. If you want to get in touch or provide any feedback our email is here! Finally, if you enjoyed this newsletter please consider subscribing and sharing with someone who you think would enjoy it too!