How the Billikens stack up in the NIL infrastructure game

[brianstl]

I used the site https://businessofcollegesports.com/tracker-university-specific-nil-collectives/ to put together this post.  It supposed to be an up to date school specific tracker of NIL collectives and other NIL programs. What it tracks are NIL collectives, university-specific marketing and talent agencies, player-led with yoke programs (basically subscription programs with content from players), NFT Communities, NIL exchanges/marketplaces and Student Athlete Empowerment partnerships all by school.   If I missed anything from the site or you know of anything else, please post it.  

In my opinion, the two most important things to have in place are an exchange and a collective.  I think going forward every program is going to need those two things if they really want to compete, but the collective is by far the most important.  A well run collective can bring in more money from more people than any of the other NIL infrastructure items.  All that said, each of the items has the potential to help and having something in place is better than nothing. 

The Billiken athletic programs currently have Billiken Exchange, https://dash.inflcr.com/exchange/saint-louis-university. It is NIL exchange partnership with INFLCR.  The goal is to connect businesses with Billiken athletes who they would like to enter a NIL deal with.  There are no other public NIL infrastructure items in place for Billiken athletes.

I thought I would compare where SLU stands against the rest of our conference, programs we want to be considered on the same level as one day and programs that would like to be on our level.  I am just comparing the infrastructure in place right now and not any dollar amount programs might or might not have been able to generate for players.  Donors and businesses will come and go when it comes to being willing to pony up.  If you build a good infrastructure that takes advantage of as much of the fan base as possible, you can have in place programs that withstand those situations.  

 

The Billikens vs. The A10

Davidson has nothing public.

Dayton has nothing public.

Duquesne has nothing public.

Fordham has partnered with Student Athlete Empowerment to help manage NIL.

GW has nothing public.

George Mason has a collective, Patriot Nation Collective. It is billed as a “player-directed” collective created by men’s basketball players and community leaders.

La Salle has nothing public.

Loyola has partnered with INFLCR in creating RAMBLER Exchange.

UMass has nothing public.

Rhode Island has nothing public.

Richmond has nothing public.

St. Bonaventure has nothing public.

Saint Joseph’s has nothing public.

VCU has partnered with INFLCR in creating VCU Exchange.

 

The Billikens vs The Big East, Gonzaga and Wichita St. 

Butler has a collective, All Good Dawgs.

Creighton has nothing public.

DePaul has partnered with INFLCR in creating LEGACY Exchange.

Georgetown has nothing public.

Marquette has a collective, Be the Difference NIL.

Providence has nothing public.

St. John's has partnered with INFLCR in creating UNLIMITED Exchange.

Seton Hall has nothing public.

UConn has nothing public.

Villanova has nothing public.

Xavier has nothing public.

Wichita State has a collective, Armchair Strategies.

Gonzaga has a collective, Friends of Spike.

 

The Billikens vs. The MVC

Bradley has a collective, Home of the Brave.

The rest of the MVC has nothing at this point.

 

I think it is crucial that someone puts together a Billiken collective, but right now the Billikens stack up pretty well having more in place than most A10 and Big East teams. The Billikens appear to be ahead of the vast majority of the A10 at this point.  It is surprising Dayton and Richmond have nothing in place at this point.  I was a little surprised to see SLU ahead of so much of the A10 at this point and was shocked that they are ahead of two thirds of the Big East.  Mason being the leader in the A10 when it comes to having a collective is really surprising.  The future for the MVC could be really ugly, but Bradley appears to be ahead of the game.

[Cowboy II]

-good stuff brian, can you educate a bit on collective versus exchange? 

[JMM28]

Collective is a group of supporters/boosters/etc that are giving money to specifically pay NIL deals to players. 
 

exchange is just a software program that connects potential advertiser or other interested types with athletes to pay them for social media posts, commercials, etc. At this point there is no excuse for any school to not have the inflcr exchange thing setup. 

[Lord Elrond]

So, the collective pays for the rights to the Name, Image, and Likeness of a player.  What do they do with those rights? Do they attempt to market them in any way?

[HoosierPal]

Here is some NIL $$ well spent.

 

[Taj79]

Thank you.  Good stuff to know.

[Lord Elrond]

10 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Here is some NIL $$ well spent.

 

Take the money and run…

And nothing to be done, the money paid to him cannot be tied to performance. He fleeced them.

[BilliesBy40]

29 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Take the money and run…

And nothing to be done, the money paid to him cannot be tied to performance. He fleeced them.

I doubt anyone is getting fleeced. Brennan has 86,000 Instagram followers. He will either continue fulfilling the terms of the NIL agreement - likely through Instagram posts - or the deals will be terminated.

[Old guy]

What really counts is not whether the guy left the team, but whether the purveyors of the funds provider for his multiple NILs are satisfied with the return on their investment.

And by the way, talking about money, did anyone notice that today the Dow lost over $1000? The economy does not appear to be improving.

Who thinks they really want to put money into this business?

[JMM28]

12 hours ago, Lord Elrond said:

So, the collective pays for the rights to the Name, Image, and Likeness of a player.  What do they do with those rights? Do they attempt to market them in any way?

Every one is different. Some are for appearances at the collective’s events. Some are for social media posts. Some are paying players to go do charity work or appear at charitable events. It really just depends.
 

Most collectives aren’t doing any sort of exclusivity agreement because they’ll actually help the players get more deals in the market as well. 

 

 

[Lord Elrond]

11 hours ago, BilliesBy40 said:

I doubt anyone is getting fleeced. Brennan has 86,000 Instagram followers. He will either continue fulfilling the terms of the NIL agreement - likely through Instagram posts - or the deals will be terminated.

So you are saying he would have gotten this NIL deal even if he DIDN’T play football at LSU?  No one who was giving him this money had any expectation of him ever playing a single down of football at LSU? And they are probably signing non-athletes to the same NIL deals at similar rates of pay?  This was a quarterback at an SEC school which has been highly competitive in that conference. By reports of what NIL deals are worth at schools in the SEC this would have been worth well into 6 figures.

[BilliesBy40]

32 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

So you are saying he would have gotten this NIL deal even if he DIDN’T play football at LSU?  No one who was giving him this money had any expectation of him ever playing a single down of football at LSU? And they are probably signing non-athletes to the same NIL deals at similar rates of pay?  This was a quarterback at an SEC school which has been highly competitive in that conference. By reports of what NIL deals are worth at schools in the SEC this would have been worth well into 6 figures.

In a lot of cases, yes, although it is reasonable to think his follower count would be lower if he wasn’t a D1 athlete. To that end, a good attorney would bake in exit rights if the athlete’s follower count dips below X, effectively making it pay for performance.

Are there examples where players are being paid huge sums for nothing? Probably, but most of these deals are akin to any “influencer” getting paid to  promote a product/company. To that end, it would be naive to think attorneys representing these companies aren’t ensuring they have easy ways to terminate the agreement if it is no longer beneficial to the company.

[Lord Elrond]

32 minutes ago, BilliesBy40 said:

In a lot of cases, yes, although it is reasonable to think his follower count would be lower if he wasn’t a D1 athlete. To that end, a good attorney would bake in exit rights if the athlete’s follower count dips below X, effectively making it pay for performance.

Are there examples where players are being paid huge sums for nothing? Probably, but most of these deals are akin to any “influencer” getting paid to  promote a product/company. To that end, it would be naive to think attorneys representing these companies aren’t ensuring they have easy ways to terminate the agreement if it is no longer beneficial to the company.

I get that the people would want to have those protections built into the agreements, but remember, the athlete would be dealing with multiple different universities. In these negotiations, the athlete could say “I don’t like these in there, the U of X doesn’t have them, take them out or I go there”. Now they have to weigh the value of those protections against the desire to have the athlete play there. Given how many universities there are, it’s easy to see just how much leverage the athletes have. Look at what Scott Boras does in negotiating with only a much smaller number of MLB clubs, and how he usually gets what he wants by pressing his leverage with those clubs desire to have that player.  Similar negotiating tactics apply. Of course, without knowing all the details of these deals, which I’m pretty sure no one will ever know outside of the parties making them, it’s hard to say what the final deal calls for. My point is the athlete has a lot of leverage in the negotiating process, much more than the side giving the NIL deals if they are smart and know how to apply that leverage. And I also believe that all these NIL deals really are pay for play, but disguised by lawyers. While deals to influencers who are not athletes on Instagram and other sites are real, the money being paid for similar numbers of followers to these athletes just doesn’t match up. The people who gave that money to Myles Brennan expected him to play for LSU.  Without that expectation, he doesn’t get that deal. Maybe he gets some other influencer deal, but it’s for far less money. Again, who can prove anything with everything being kept confidential, but I feel that point stands. Look at all the people who post on here encouraging whoever they can to get NIL deals for Billiken athletes, and even the title of this thread. It’s all about getting and retaining athletes.

[Old guy]

48 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

I get that the people would want to have those protections built into the agreements, but remember, the athlete would be dealing with multiple different universities. In these negotiations, the athlete could say “I don’t like these in there, the U of X doesn’t have them, take them out or I go there”. Now they have to weigh the value of those protections against the desire to have the athlete play there. Given how many universities there are, it’s easy to see just how much leverage the athletes have. Look at what Scott Boras does in negotiating with only a much smaller number of MLB clubs, and how he usually gets what he wants by pressing his leverage with those clubs desire to have that player.  Similar negotiating tactics apply. Of course, without knowing all the details of these deals, which I’m pretty sure no one will ever know outside of the parties making them, it’s hard to say what the final deal calls for. My point is the athlete has a lot of leverage in the negotiating process, much more than the side giving the NIL deals if they are smart and know how to apply that leverage. And I also believe that all these NIL deals really are pay for play, but disguised by lawyers. While deals to influencers who are not athletes on Instagram and other sites are real, the money being paid for similar numbers of followers to these athletes just doesn’t match up. The people who gave that money to Myles Brennan expected him to play for LSU.  Without that expectation, he doesn’t get that deal. Maybe he gets some other influencer deal, but it’s for far less money. Again, who can prove anything with everything being kept confidential, but I feel that point stands. Look at all the people who post on here encouraging whoever they can to get NIL deals for Billiken athletes, and even the title of this thread. It’s all about getting and retaining athletes.

This sounds pretty much like a legal and accounting nightmare with infinite variation on contract stipulations and little accountability for the amount of revenue, if any, generated by the Athlete working out the contract stipulations. This is followed by an accounting nightmare for filing taxes involving such deals, with a future date of truth when the IRS audit comes to pass. I wonder how many of the NIL providers testing out the waters will renew such contracts, I assume very few of them. Why should they come back for more of the same.