Newsletter #83 | Mark Emmert stepping down, Angel City FC, LEARFIELD x Opendorse, Wichita State AD Darron Boatright + 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 Week:
NCAA President Mark Emmert steps down, effective June 2023
NCAA Board of Governors Chair John J. DeGioia announced by mutual agreement with the board that Mark Emmert will be stepping down as president of the NCAA. He will continue to serve in his role until a new president is selected and in place or until June 30, 2023.
“Throughout my tenure I've emphasized the need to focus on the experience and priorities of student-athletes," said Emmert. "I am extremely proud of the work of the Association over the last 12 years and especially pleased with the hard work and dedication of the national office staff here in Indianapolis.”
“Will he or she simply be in charge of dismantling the NCAA? And having all the decision-making devolved to the conferences or the schools?” American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco said. “Or will that person be expected to be a transformative figure and try to get some of these issues resolved or under control? You know, NIL is not what we expected, wanted it to be. It's the Wild West. It isn't NIL, it seems to be buying players and making sure you retain them, and that's not what was intended. The portal and NIL have created a perfect storm. ... What's our mission? Is this going to become semi-pro sports, or is there going to be any retention of the amateur model? Those are all things that are going to face a new president.”
“A few names for NCAA President: Washington State president Kirk Schultz, Oliver Luck, Baylor president Linda Livingstone, Clemson president Jim Clements and former Robert Morris president Chris Howard. Could there be an interim like Bob Bowlsby for 2/3 years?” - ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Twitter.
Angel City FC agrees to NIL deals with four athlete influencers
Two are SAs, with University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) gymnast Jordan Chiles signing alongside University of Southern California (USC) golfer Amari Avery. In addition, Angel City have agreed deals with wheelchair basketball star Luzi Skye and skateboarder Bryce Wettstein.
The Angel City ambassadors will attend the team’s home matches at the Banc of California Stadium and interact with fans on social media.
The four influencers will also produce content on Instagram and TikTok, as well as being involved in the club’s social media output. In addition, they will attend community events and have signed up to volunteer at Angel City’s outreach events.
"We are always looking for pathways to support and promote female athletes and grow the reach of Angel City to deliver more impact to our fans, community and city," said Julie Uhrman, President and Co-Founder of ACFC. "As the sports community in Southern California has embraced us, we want to give back and highlight incredible young female athletes. By partnering with these young women, who are at the top of their respective sports, we can give them a platform to grow their brands and their likeness and benefit from their support for Angel City FC and our players."
LEARFIELD, Opendorse announce strategic relationship
LEARFIELD and Opendorse have announced a strategic relationship to streamline access to NIL opportunities for student athletes as they engage with their schools’ corporate brand sponsors.
LEARFIELD will work with Opendorse as its NIL marketplace provider, supplying multimedia rights school partners access to comprehensive NIL solutions. A free, school-specific marketplace will be made available to each university, allowing its student-athletes to connect with brands through a seamless, compliant platform. LEARFIELD will also promote Opendorse to local and national brand partners as the preferred marketplace for LEARFIELD Allied™ arrangements.
This move builds upon LEARFIELD’s suite of solutions providing leadership in the NIL era and Opendorse’s best-in-class marketplace technology, having facilitated more than 100,000 deals with collegiate and professional athletes since its launch in 2012. In 2021, LEARFIELD launched COMPASS NIL™, a comprehensive student-athlete education, disclosure, compliance, and monitoring platform, followed by the launch of LEARFIELD Allied.
Together with the Opendorse NIL marketplace, brand advertisers can extend their school sponsorships and campaigns to include the reach and relevancy of student athletes. Additionally, where schools use both COMPASS and Opendorse, student-athletes will be able to more efficiently disclose deals.
“LEARFIELD is unmatched in its support of the college athletics ecosystem,” said Blake Lawrence, CEO, Opendorse. “Today’s announcement ushers NIL forward with increased opportunity and support for college athletes everywhere. There are nearly 500,000 student-athletes who are at the center of our business, and this new collaboration brings the necessary players together to truly impact those athletes through greater visibility and ease-of-use when identifying new NIL opportunities.”
Wichita State AD Darron Boatright comments on NIL, pay-for-play
The Wichita State MBB team lost 8 scholarship players to the transfer portal within a 48-hour span last week. Reports from The Wichita Eagle say that a common theme emerged in conversations with players, coaches and those around the program: the lack of NIL money-earning opportunities played a role in why prominent players such as Ricky Council IV, Craig Porter, Dexter Dennis and Morris Udeze ultimately decided to transfer.
In an exclusive interview, Wichita State AD Darron Boatright said: “Where we erred was focusing on educating our athletes about NIL and not just collecting cash and paying kids to come to Wichita State. We were told all along this was not pay-for-play, but now it appears the NCAA has no problems with that, so why not?”
“We didn’t spend as much sweat equity on pay-for-play because it was our understanding, as it was a lot of people’s understanding, that NIL was not going to be an obvious recruiting advantage,” Boatright said. “We knew there was going to be some gray area and it was going to be about how comfortable you are operating in that gray area.”
“Once football signing period came along, bam, collectives started popping up and student-athletes are getting promises of money to transfer prior to even enrolling in an institution. It has become straight up pay-for-play and the NCAA has absolutely done nothing to help prepare us for this … I firmly believe that the NCAA is so afraid of a split from the Power 4, 5, 6 conferences, whatever term you want to use. I think the NCAA is so concerned those institutions may split off that they are not regulating them at all.”
Armchair Strategies, a new NIL collective for WSU SAs, is owned and operated by two former Shocker baseball student athletes, Tyler Weber and Tymber Lee and former Shocker Assistant Athletic Director of Development Matt Baty of 6th Man Strategies (a Kansas collective). Additionally, a leadership team of Wichita business leaders, Ryan Baty, Andy Frieze and Chrissy Robben are also on board.
ICYMI Ticker
Untapped Potential: An Examination of Name, Image, and Likeness Earnings | Estimates for Community College Athletes is a newly-released paper in the Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, co-authored by Adam R. Cocco and Anita M. Moorman of the University of Louisville. “The purpose of this study was to examine the NIL value of community college athletes, thereby extending the NIL conversation in college athletics to this population of student athletes.” The study analyzed Instagram profiles of SAs from California. More HERE.
Naismith POTY Aliyah Boston is signing with Under Armour, with plans to advance women's basketball. Together, they'll host the first-ever UA Next Women’s Basketball Camp in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands -Boston's home. She'll also introduce the UA Breakthru 3 shoe this fall.
Irish student athlete Sam Alajiki, who plays basketball for University of California, Berkeley, has agreed to terms on a four-figure endorsement deal with college recruitment platform NextUpRecruitment.
PlayBooked, a platform/mobile app designed to help SAs monetize their years in college sports that was co-founded by Aquinas College Volleyball star Chloe V. Mitchell, honored 217 San Diego State University student athletes who achieved academic excellence. More HERE.
Rising Spear, an NIL collective that formed to develop NIL opportunities for Florida State University student athletes, is announcing the hire of Will Cowen as Chief Operating Officer. Previously, Cowen served as the Director of Player Development for FSU’s women’s basketball program. “Over the past four years, Will has gained the respect and trust of boosters, alumni and high school coaches in the FSU community, and I look forward to working together in the near future,” said Charlie Ward, a former FSU basketball standout and Rising Spear Alumni Advisory Board Member.
Icon Collective, Grambling State’s NIL collective, is officially working with Print For Players. The company is a full-service merchandise company ready to assist college players with their NIL merchandise by helping players with limited or no experience with merchandise, NIL requirements, marketing, and social media to immediately launch their brands. The Icon Collective is the very first collective started by HBCU Graduates for HBCU student-athletes. Each of the founding members is an alumnus of Grambling State University, an HBCU in Louisiana.
Carta, an ownership and equity management platform, announced a partnership with INFLCR. The partnership will give thousands of student athletes access to Equity 101, Carta’s interactive educational series about equity compensation. More HERE.
“I think what has been most gratifying to me is that NIL at the University of Wisconsin can deliver on whatever expectation our student-athlete has,” AD Chris McIntosh recently said. “We have on one end of the spectrum, we’ve got multiple examples of student athletes with six-figure earnings (from) NIL.”
SMS platform Subtext has extended its partnership with INFLCR - Subtext is helping SAs create their own subscriber communities.
Long Beach State has entered into a deal with INFLCR - more HERE.
Western Kentucky launched Hilltopper Local Exchange - more HERE.
We here at Optimum Sports Consulting would like to offer our condolences to the family and friends of James Madison University Softball player Lauren Bernett, who tragically passed away this week. She was 20 years old. The catcher and cleanup hitter for the Dukes “was a high-achieving member of our softball team and a great ambassador of JMU and our athletics program,” JMU President Jonathan Alger said. Full statement from Alger and Athletic Director Jeff Bourne below, as well as links to support for JMU students: