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Thinking about NIL deals...

Longtimebuff1

Buff Hall of Famer
Gold Member
Jul 31, 2002
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Boulder, Colorado
So I know I am a dork. But this whole NIL thing...It is bugging me so I need to articulate how it could be made to work, and who is involved. Thinking generally about the value of the business case of an NIL deal with a college athlete - target two markets: The hometown of the player, as well as the local Denver/Boulder market. Start with fashion/apparel/popular culture advertisers, and so on.

In the case of the home town, the goal is to help the kid build his brand out in to the community ("homegrown"), by partnering with hometown businesses that are on-point with the athletes brand (brand synergy). Homegrown personal brand benefits the player significantly because that relationship can be leveraged beyond the athletes playing days, into life as a business owner, or professional or what ever. This adds a lot more value to the relationships.

Regarding the Boulder/Denver area: I think the most leverage in this market comes from approaching prominent national brands* with the promise to give them a strong presence on the local college campus, tied to the athlete. This should be doubly attractive to the advertiser because college sports is a connector for older yet fashion forward fans/patrons who connect around emerging "fashion" trends + their favorite collegiate brand, creating more opportunity for the advertiser.

*Spend some time walking through retail stores in Boulder, and take note of prominent brands. Spend time on campus and take note of the prominent brands. Develop JV's with appropriate nat. brands, and retail establishments in partnership with those national brands they sell.

If you do it right it could have a lot of value for everyone involved. In fact a next step would be to build a financial model in order to fully articulate the value to the athlete. It would ideally be a nice replicable system that you can quickly plug an athlete's brand into, and every four years would reliably drive x $. Measurable value for the athlete and the business partner that ties an athlete to Boulder for their college career.

Damn, I have too much time on my hands...
 
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