Name, Image, Likeness
01.27.20 - The 2020 Early Signing Day for Football was on Dec. 18th, and I want to bring attention to a hot button in college athletics – Name, Image, Likeness – and its effect on recruiting. We saw some good examples that I’ll highlight, but the trend is going to be a whole package from college programs built around NIL in recruiting.
Name, Image and Likeness (NIL)
In case you’re not familiar with the landscape, the time is coming soon when student-athletes can profit off their name-image-likeness. With the NCAA facing a multitude of state rulings to put this into effect, they expect to vote on proposed rule changes to see this happen across D1, D2, and D3 next January at the 2021 NCAA Convention. So now more than ever the question from recruits to programs (besides how much PT can you guarantee me) is going to be: how can you help build my brand?
*Reference articles that may be of interest:
>> 1.13 - How much could UK’s basketball players make off their name, image and likeness?
>> 1.24 - The NCAA Says It’s Working to Change. Next Year, at the Soonest.
2.28 Update - added new recent articles of interest:
>>2.04 - How recruiting has taken shape as the first frontier of the NIL revolution
>>2.24 - As NCAA Handwrings, Female Athletes See Opportunities From Looser Endorsement Rules
>>2.25 - Here’s a glimpse of how programs are getting in front of the NIL movement
2020 NSD NIL Samples:
Lets take a look at some of the better examples of how programs utilized unique NIL tactics from the most recent football early signing day :
Baylor – Muppets
Created muppet characters for recruits to be used in short story commitment videos, including voice-overs from the actual athletes:
>> https://twitter.com/BUFootball/status/1207412550511603722
>> https://twitter.com/BUFootball/status/1207291163948015616
Syracuse – Illustrations
Created superhero-themed illustrations of recruits, and used voice-overs from the athletes - could very easily see these illustrations on Nike player jersey tees and full size wall poster designs:
>> https://twitter.com/CuseFootball/status/1207296196030713856
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6Nx9Vlg5U6/
Kansas State – Lego Characters
Created Lego characters for each recruit complete with jersey number and name on the back - could K State reach a licensing agreement with The Lego Group for sale of branded team sets?:
>> https://twitter.com/KStateFB/status/1207288901754380288
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6ZT2vwlPbp/
Michigan St. & Temple – Emojis
Both programs created emjois of the recruit heads, and MSU also included a talking head voice-over from the recruit – the problem is they used the same app or vendor to create them, way too similar in look:
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6N1_4zFVSu/
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6N0zABHBOw/
Mississippi State – Cowbell
Created branded cowbells with recruit’s name/info on them, love this concept as a potential product that could be sold online and on gameday at Davis Wade Stadium. Is this the first true example of a program helping a player generate revenue off their NIL? This product concept also translates to athletes across all sports:
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6OKeaqJRaf/
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6OEKXbJwM4/
Nebraska/Northwestern/Oregon St – Banner/Poster
All three programs created a poster/banner concept (don’t believe any banners are to spec, more Photoshop, and posters smaller scale vs. normal 24x36) - but again the real interest here is as a potential product that could be sold:
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6OJi07lz02/
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6N1pGflQMv/
>> https://twitter.com/coachfitz51/status/1207332180415975424
>> https://twitter.com/coachfitz51/status/1207321689849241600
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6OGtb9hF_y/
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6OB3GtHHpq/
Ohio State & Wisconsin – Player SM
A lot of programs include player’s social media handles in graphics, but Ohio State and Wisconsin went a step further to simulate actually following recruits on social. Mark under all the ways a program can help a recruit build their brand:
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6N0SyIg58d/
>> https://www.instagram.com/p/B6ODdf5HOES/
Oklahoma, Texas & UCF – Logos
All three programs created logos for recruits. Couple interesting things about this: what input did the recruits have; how many will use them on their own; will OK and TX and UCF follow through using them on any future graphics once they’re playing; imagine doing a logo for a recruit that becomes a superstar and carries the logo all the way through to the pros - is ownership fully the player’s:
https://www.oudna.com/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6NzViuFCSw/
https://twitter.com/UCF_Football/status/1207361975493132289
What are you going to do for my brand?
Let’s take a quick run through on some ways that programs can help athletes build their brands:
Recruiting Graphics – head or jersey swaps – this is where it all starts, you see recruits share these edits all the time, this is your first opportunity to help showcase the recruit as a branded athlete. This is a no-brainer to the majority, but since this is where it all starts I wanted to include it.
So the obvious recruiting graphics that coaches text out, and also custom edits used in presentations on visits are musts. And in that presentation you’re going to have to include a section on NIL and your program’s strategy for brand building. Some programs are ahead of the game and do this already, but every program (all sports) should be planning for this.
SM Training - Once a recruit is on campus, the program should have a point person to handle social media training. Sure these kids have grown up on SM, but there are always lessons to be learned and examples to help improve their social games too. Many times programs just stress what not to do on social, so important to remember that you ALSO need to be able to outline what they can do to build and enhance their brand – two parts to the overall strategy. This is not a freshman year presentation before classes start only thing, the best programs continue the education throughout the athlete’s time on campus.
Brand Education – This can come in the form of many things, but it’s important to have a program/curriculum in place designed to help athletes learn about branding and brand building. Examples include workshops, speakers, lunch n’learn, library of relevant recommended books/mags/Twitter follows, etc. A lot of options on how to structure this in ways that will differentiate programs. The key again being this is not something you introduce them to once, it’s an ongoing effort.
OSU Football has been a leader in this area in the past with their “Brand U” and “Real Life Wednesdays” initiatives.
*Don’t forgot recommending/highlighting the obvious built-in option too – the existing courses offered by your college/university that student-athletes get to attend for free.
Asset Management – Athletes need easy access to their personalized digital assets (ie images/graphics/videos/logos – action and custom) and this is where we’ll probably see services like Inflcr and Opendorse become universal in college sports. These services help the distribution flow from program to athlete to social platform.
https://opendorse.com/
https://www.inflcr.com/
Touchpoints Playbook – So the first thing I would ask if I was a recruit: how are you going to market me, how do you specifically market athletes?? This is where you show the recruit a Touchpoints Playbook – all the ways that the program and athletic department market athletes (good to have a few case studies on individual cases too). This is not where you pull out a Heisman-level campaign built around an individual, the majority of your players aren’t that level – this is more a base level marketing strategy: program covers, posters, social media, TV exposure, articles - you should be able to run the data using different player popularity levels to determine a baseline of the overall exposure and marketing you can provide an athlete over the course of a season.
Example stats to track:
Program Covers – do you have game programs? Do you include all your athletes on them, how many per season?
Posters/Promos – do you have promotional posters around campus, bus wraps, elevator wraps??
Social Media – how many times did you include player x, player y, or player z in a post over a year? What was the overall exposure? How many players do you do content features on?
TV – how often do you play on national tv, regional tv; what are all the outlets a fan can hear or see a athletes name during the season (TV/Radio/FB-YT deals) – it’s not hard to get audience numbers.
Articles – how often is the program covered in regional/national newspapers and magazines? Player x was mentioned how many times, player z was mentioned how many times.
Data like this can easily be tracked and packaged into a Playbook of all the ways you’ll help market the athlete.
SM Analytics Report
Another recommendation to your marketing arsenal is sharing an annual social media analytics report for each athlete: # of posts – medium (custom, stock, video) – by platform – impressions – engagement - follower growth. In a perfect world you’ll be able to show an increase in numbers each year, and credit it back to your program’s efforts.
The purpose of this post is to get you started thinking about the possibilities, and how your program will answer the branding questions. There are a lot of unknowns with what will be allowed under the NIL rules, so it’s important to stay on top of the decision dates and do your fair share of competitive intelligence. I think it’s safe to say the programs that will stand out will be flexible, creative, and have a ongoing education mindset.
