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Duquesne First to Hire NIL Coach for Athletes


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Duquesne is the first NCAA school to hire a person to help its athletes navigate the upcoming NIL rules and regulations so that they can properly benefit from marketing their name, image and likeness (NIL).

https://theundefeated.com/features/duquesne-empowers-athletes-by-hiring-personal-brand-coach/

While I guess it is fair to applaud the Dukes for getting ahead of the game, I can't help but wonder how much a Duquesne athlete could stand to pull down in a competition with other local athletes like the Steelers, the Pirates, the Penguins and even Pitt.  I know the Duquesne program doesn't get much recognition in Pittsburgh, let alone Pennsylvania or nationally.  But kudos for trying to get ahead of the game as it is coming.

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Yeah a lot of schools have hired firms to handle this stuff. I wouldn't be surprised, and it could make sense, for an operation like Learfield to get into this stuff. They are already having the conversations with outside companies about sponsorships. 

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2 hours ago, Littlebill said:

SLU already hired a firm months ago. Duqs hired one guy. Guess you only need one when half your team transfers out every season

Did SLU hire Opendorse?

 

If that is the case, that's good.  That said, I really like what the Dukes did here.  I think it makes sense that you have someone to work with branding for your athletes, that isn't in the business of making a percentage of the money the athlete makes like Opendorse.  

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2 hours ago, Brighton said:

SLU would have to compete with the Blues, Cards, Mizzou, Illinois, and probably the Chiefs instate.

Not really competing with Mizzou, the Illini or the Chiefs when it comes to personal appearance cash.  That is where I think much of the money will be for most college players, especially those over 21.  Being in a major metro area can offer SLU a big advantage when it comes to this.
 

 

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1 hour ago, cgeldmacher said:

If/When our kids get endorsement deals, will they be allowed to use the Billiken name and logo, or will they have to just go off of their name and face recognition?

I would assume that it will be no Billiken name or logo. Maybe a "From St Louis's favorite hometown team" type of line... 

 

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23 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

Imagine the kind of endorsement deals Grandy and McBroom could've landed ........

I kinda feel bad lumping those 2 together. Is Grandy’s “fame” really weird and slightly off-putting? Yeah. But if he has success with it, and he’s cool with it, more power to him. Where as from what I understand from McBroom’s YouTube career, he’s a WORLD CLASS POS! It also kind of makes me laugh that because of Grandy, the term “super spreader” will have completely different meaning for all of us. 🤣😂🤣

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20 hours ago, jonny karate said:

I cant wait seeing yuri flying on a carpet or sitting on top of the arch at 2 in the morning

The phrase “These are deals you just can’t PASS up” will definitely be used. 
Most likely while Yuri “passes” some rolled up carpet to Becki. 

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23 hours ago, Brighton said:

SLU would have to compete with the Blues, Cards, Mizzou, Illinois, and probably the Chiefs instate.

Nice to see the fear showing up from the Trolls. Big city. I wonder who Ackerman would pick as a representative for their dealership? Which team and players really represent this city?

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23 hours ago, brianstl said:

Not really competing with Mizzou, the Illini or the Chiefs when it comes to personal appearance cash.  That is where I think much of the money will be for most college players, especially those over 21.  Being in a major metro area can offer SLU a big advantage when it comes to this.
 

 

No one is really going to say that it is a good move for their business to pay some college athlete $10,000 for a personal appearance.  Let's not kid ourselves, this will all be payoffs to kids that now is legal.  If a guy who owns a car dealership in St. Louis is a Mizzou guy, he'll pay his endorsement checks to Mizzou kids.  If a law firm on the East Side has a bunch of partners that are Illinois fans, they will pay their money to an Illini player.  I certainly don't expect our kids to have some advantage in this area for endorsement dollars.  These will all be prearranged payoffs to kids from boosters of their school.

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40 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

No one is really going to say that it is a good move for their business to pay some college athlete $10,000 for a personal appearance.  Let's not kid ourselves, this will all be payoffs to kids that now is legal.  If a guy who owns a car dealership in St. Louis is a Mizzou guy, he'll pay his endorsement checks to Mizzou kids.  If a law firm on the East Side has a bunch of partners that are Illinois fans, they will pay their money to an Illini player.  I certainly don't expect our kids to have some advantage in this area for endorsement dollars.  These will all be prearranged payoffs to kids from boosters of their school.

I am all for paying the kids a reasonable salary[few hundred dollars a month] but opening up a free market for endorsements is a terrible idea. Yes I know some kids are already being bought but this just makes it very difficult for mid sized programs like ours. I doubt Doc and Rex want to get in the player buying business. 

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i am sure the authors of this rule and the big benefactors will be the blue bloods who have been getting such payoffs for their players for years (go back to the ucla days with wooden who had his big bag guy) now they have it all legal and the blue bloods will be able to control the player market all above board.   

as willie says, this a terrible idea.  

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3 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

There's the market for one-and-doners and then there's everybody else.  The top 300 guys that make up the overwhelmingly majority of our recruiting classes ain't gonna get squat.

I don't agree. There are what 25-30 one and doners. Somebody like Jordan I believe would command money. Take an Okoro. Lots of teams would like a player of that size and potential . I believe it's that next level player that the bidding will center around. 

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2 minutes ago, willie said:

I don't agree. There are what 25-30 one and doners. Somebody like Jordan I believe would command money. Take an Okoro. Lots of teams would like a player of that size and potential . I believe it's that next level player that the bidding will center around. 

This is a top 50 program in a top 30 market. To not acknowledge that is ludicrous

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10 minutes ago, Littlebill said:

This is a top 50 program in a top 30 market. To not acknowledge that is ludicrous

I'm not sure what your point is but we do not have the top corporate support you may find in a lot of cities. With the exception of Doc I don't know of any deep pocket backers sitting at courtside. 

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i agree with willie.  there is a reason a big bunch of the high roller seats sit empty every game no matter how well the billikens are playing   they are corporate owned but for the wrong reason.   they couldnt care less about the billikens.   those ceo's just buy the seats as marketing write offs, etc.   

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22 hours ago, brianstl said:

Not really competing with Mizzou, the Illini or the Chiefs when it comes to personal appearance cash.  That is where I think much of the money will be for most college players, especially those over 21.  Being in a major metro area can offer SLU a big advantage when it comes to this.
 

 

Yes. Much of the $$ will be for personal appearances. As to the question of whether players would be able use SLU logos, names, etc., it's an interesting topic. In some situations, top-tier players may compete with SLU for sponsorship dollars. In others, there may be joint team/player/sponsor opportunities. In yet other situations, sponsors may use player appearances as a cheap way to buy an implied relationship with SLU/team or defeat another sponsor's exclusivity. Each might have different solutions as to use of marks.

There may be some top-tier players who capture the entire market's passion who advertisers want for more than just appearances. They might compete with the school for sponsorship $$. Now if the sponsor also buys a team sponsorship (or if already a team sponsor,) would SLU prohibit the use of their trademarks and all of the resulting co-marketing opportunities simply because the player is also getting paid? I wouldn't.

Now if the sponsor is major, didn't buy a SLU sponsorship (bought the player only) -- and wants more than player appearances -- if you're SLU, you're probably prohibiting use of marks. But there are downsides: no SLU awareness via promotional co-marketing activities, and it reduces the opportunity to use this player-only sponsorship to ultimately bring the sponsor into a SLU sponsorship down the road. It also runs the possibility of angering your player if the deal goes south (because you didn't allow use of marks,) literally costing the player big money. Maybe the player walks at end of school year.

There are two other situations. 1) Some schools offer exclusive sponsorships within business categories. For example, "official beer sponsor", "official wireless carrier", etc. (I have no idea if SLU has such.) Sometimes sponsors locked out of exclusive deals use player sponsorships to "break" the exclusivity, especially when there isn't a labor union governing this kind of thing, definitely the situation here. Imagine for a second, if Verizon tried to sponsor a player to undermine TMobile. (again, have no idea whether TMobile's SLU sponsorship is exclusive.) In that situation of using a player-only sponsorship to defeat another sponsor's SLU exclusivity, it would be a definite no-no on use of marks. But what about a player sponsorship in which there is no exclusivity involved, but it does compete with an existing sponsor. An example might be selling players to an automotive dealership group that competes with Bommarito Automotive. (again, I have no idea if that is an exclusive deal.) But what would Bommarito say if 4 or 5 players signed a deal to make personal appearances at a competitive dealership at half the cost of a SLU sponsorship? SLU gets nothing. Players might undermine an existing sponsorship. My opinion: no marks. And I don't really like the thought of it. 2) Small, mom & pop sponsors for personal appearances. A pizza parlor, for example. It's kind of a tough call. They're not likely ever going to be a SLU sponsor -- too small. So probably no loss of revenue that would have come to SLU. And it helps in building local goodwill. But in allowing use of marks, SLU might lose control of how its marks are used and which brands they're associated with. The player would control. Not good. Trying to police this for all their players? A nightmare. On other hand, SLU doesn't want to anger its players. Tough call. Maybe no SLU marks. But simple "SLU player" in ad copy/text is OK. A mess.

Perhaps a solution would be a joint Athletic Dept/Players sponsorship sales strategy with rules governing. It would offer a stronger array of options, opportunities for both $$ (short and longer term) and co-marketing. But there may also be legal/anti-trust limitations for SLU, too. While SLU certainly owns and controls its marks, in the interest of protecting its sponsors and sponsorship pricing, can SLU actually limit the sponsors its players sell and the prices they charge? I'm not sure. The players don't have a labor union to negotiate these kind of things.

Sorry if I've gotten too far into the weeds on this! But it's a complicated subject, actually way more so than I've highlighted. There will have to be much discussion, processes, rules, approvals, etc put in place. And lawyers. Getting a headache just thinking about it! (no offense to the many great lawyers on this board!)

 

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