Newsletter #76 | Paige Bueckers x Chegg, Mark Emmert on Federal NIL Legislation, Campus Legends x INFLCR + ICYMI Ticker
Welcome to the NIL Newsletter by Optimum Sports Consulting - providing valuable, actionable NIL resources for athletes, administrators, agencies and other sport professionals.
Recapping NIL This Weekend:
Paige Bueckers' NIL deal with Chegg takes aim at student food insecurity
UConn women basketball’s Paige Bueckers has a new NIL deal that takes aim at addressing food insecurity for students. Bueckers, the 2021 national player of the year, will be the first student athlete brand ambassador for the education platform Chegg.
Bueckers and Chegg.org, the nonprofit branch of Chegg, have partnered with hunger relief company Goodr to host a pop-up grocery market on Saturday in Minneapolis, near Bueckers' hometown, that'll give out 6,000 free meals.
"It means a lot," Bueckers, an Edina, Minnesota, native, told ESPN in an email about being able to do this in her hometown. "To be in a position to give back to a community that gave me so much, especially not knowing for so long if I could be here on the court with my team, it's really fulfilling. But it's also only just the start."
The sophomore guard hopes to open permanent free Goodr grocery stores on school and college campuses. According to Chegg, 32% of college students in the U.S. have suffered food insecurity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As one of the top beneficiaries from new NIL legislation and policies enacted over the summer, Bueckers previously announced deals with StockX, Gatorade and Cash App, while also filing a trademark application for the phrase "Paige Buckets" to use on athletic apparel.
Mark Emmert says NCAA, Congress must work together to move toward nationwide NIL uniformity
NCAA president Mark Emmert said Thursday at the Final Four that the association needs to work with Congress to create a uniform NIL model across all 50 states in order to properly regulate it moving forward.
The different state-by-state laws, Emmert said, have made it difficult to adopt a consistent NIL model across all colleges and universities.
“It is unfortunately a circumstance where we've got now 30-plus different states with different laws,” he said. “We need to work with Congress to create one federal landscape. We've had a variety of legal actions in the courts with all of that.”
“That supersedes the board's ability ... We have got to have Congress find a single legal model by which NIL and other relationships with student athletes can be regulated. That's going to be a big task.”
“We've got a relatively, in my opinion, short window of time during which the schools, especially in Division I, need to decide what they want the relationship [with] student athletes and their schools to be, what the governance structure around that can be in the current legal environment, and how the rules and structures at a national level, a divisional level, at a conference level could and should be made.”
Tim Tebow’s ‘Campus Legends’ signs 3-year deal with INFLCR
Campus Legends, a non-fungible token company co-founded last year by former NFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, has formed a partnership with INFLCR that will allow college athletes to create NFTs and make money off their NIL.
The Campus Legends platform will be integrated into INFLCR’s global exchange, a feature within the INFLCR app where the more than 70,000 registered college athletes can access revenue generating opportunities from third-party companies. Other companies involved with the INFLCR exchange include TikTok, WWE and the Players Trunk.
The deal between Campus Legends and INFLCR is for three years, but the companies would not disclose financial details, although companies typically pay a fee to be integrated in the INFLCR app. Campus Legends is the first NFT platform to be featured on INFLCR, which has deals with more than 200 Division 1 athletics departments.
Campus Legends launched last fall with NFTs featuring the 2008 University of Florida football team, which Tebow led to the national championship. The company now has signed licensing deals with 21 Division 1 colleges, including the University of North Carolina, Florida State University and Michigan State University.
ICYMI Ticker
The Most Oustanding Player of the NCAA women's basketball championship game will receive an offer for monetary compensation, a trip to Orangetheory HQ, lifetime membership, and access to VIP classes for teammates/coaches, according to Darren Heitner.
The marketing agency Oncoor Sports is partnering with Opendorse, a leading technology provider in the athlete endorsement industry. Oncoor has facilitated the delivery and management of NIL opportunities for hundreds of student athletes, including those at Utah, Jackson State, Penn State, BYU and TCU. Full announcement HERE.
Team Paper has partnered with Ohio State softball as well as men’s and women’s basketball players to create a digital fan club where they offer exclusive content in return for fan support. For 10 dollars per month, you can become a member and get exclusive player interviews and members-only merchandise. For softball, it’s called the “Columbus Dugout Club,” with 80% of the proceeds going directly to the players and one out of every 10 dollars going to the Boys and Girls Club.
Great story on Stanford WBB’s Cameron Brink, who has NIL deals with Great Clips, Spotify, Third Love, Celsius Fitness Drink and Portland Gear. Fun fact? Her godparents are Dell and Sonya Curry!
Doug Edert, one of the stars of Saint Peter’s historic run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, is taking advantage of his newfound fame by putting himself on Cameo, a website where fans can pay him to record a video message for them. Edert is charging $100 per message.
University of Arkansas Athletics and The Brandr Group (TBG) have established a group licensing agreement for University of Arkansas student athletes covering all the Razorbacks 19 teams.
Kansas State has new NIL collective on its way. The Wildcats’ Den is set to go live on April 20th, according to NFL/NBA Agent Aaron Lockett.
Interesting story from On3 writer Eric Prisbell on WBB student athletes outperforming their male counterparts in NIL during March Madness.