NIL deals for other sports (non FB/BB)

Can’t imagine Soccer programs getting NIL money, considering it isn’t a sport that even gives full scholarships out (traditionally) to players. 
 

Furthermore, former college soccer player and captain of my team, the sport is becoming increasingly filled with foreign players that are happy to come and play here in the States and do that without a full ride. My former program is year in and year out in the Top 10 of DII and I bet 9-10 of their 11 starters are all foreign.  
 

Also, soccer is an anomaly compared to other college sports, that DII teams can be just as good if not better than many DI teams.  So don’t rule out DII programs. 

Yep...  Google it - they're popping up everywhere.  The IU cheerleader that unstuck the ball during a tourney game got a deal!  So did an NAIA volleyball player.  They exist, they're just few and far between.  I don't think they'll ever get saturated to the point that football and mens bball will.

But the big victory with NIL is that any college student can earn legit money.  Reference Olivia Dunne vs Donald De La Haye...  (Dunne is/was an LSU gymnast with TikTok and IG followers in the millions, making millions; De La Haye was a UCF kicker booted out by the NCAA for earning money off non-football related videos he made a few years before NIL.)

Nike's first NIL deal was with a UCLA soccer player, so like most deals if you show value you're likely going to have an opportunity to grab NIL money.  And that's true even in football - we hear about these crazy deals some guys get but I'm fairly certain that the backup right guard at Okie St. or the 2nd WR at Rutgers isn't getting much in the way of NIL money.

I have a good friend who's son will be wrestling for Princeton. He's already been shown some of the NIL opportunities that are going to be available. So, short answer, yes there is NIL for "non-revenue" athletes. 

Is your son in the player pool for his country’s national team for his age group or been offered to join a good academy team with one of the top European clubs or an MLS club? Is he starting for the best club team in your region? Has he been offered any D-1 scholarships? If not, then he should try to enjoy playing while also focusing on academics.

Long before NIL deals became relevant, one of my sons was a three-year varsity starter for a good high school soccer team and played for a good club team. The only player he knew who had D-1 offers was someone who’d played on the 1999 USA U-17 team with Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley.

My son’s best opportunities would’ve been to play for one of the D-3 schools where he was accepted and where, unlike at D-1 schools, soccer wouldn’t have been a full-time job and academics had priority. He took an academic scholarship and got enough AP credits to enroll at a D-1 school as a sophomore. He never played D-1 sports, but got to party with some players who won a national championship, graduate with honors (Phi Beta Kappa) and without debts. (Apologies for feeling proud of what my son accomplished both on and off the pitch, but I know that he can look back on his experience with college choices and quote famed golf-course groundskeeper Carl Spackler.)

Yes, the third highest paying sport for NIL is womens volleyball. The types of deals will depend on the individual much more. Does your kid already have a following on social media they can leverage? Is the place they are going a place where soccer is a bigger deal? 

There are absolutely soccer players getting NIL deals, they are probably guys who already have 50k followers on tik tok when they get them though. If your kid is riding the bench most of the time for a mid tier d-1 team its probably not going to be much.

I think it's likely to be pretty sparse for things like Men's soccer, unless you have one of those random situations where there's a wealthy alum of that particular school who loves soccer for some reason, maybe a professional soccer player who went there or something?

You see a lot of the examples of non FB/BB athletes landing NIL deals and they tend to be female, attractive and with a significant social media following even before the NIL deal is signed.

Has to be the case for SEC Baseball players right? These guys, many of them, are future pros with big contracts coming. To get these guys, they have to give something - they are turning down millions in some cases go to school - and take a risk on either not turning out to be great or getting hurt.

My neighbor's son, since moved, was drafted out of HS and went in the 2nd round. He was given money over his slotted amount (something like 2-3M?) and had to choose that or UVa or South Carolina etc.. I wonder if at the time (4-5 years ago) if NIL was a thing and they offered him at least some sort of cash, if he would have switched.

Baseball in college isnt revenue producing, but its still a pipeline to a big revenue producing pro sport and kids have to pick college or pro early on and stick to it

Andrew Fenty (tennis) signed with Tom Brady's apparel company earlier this year.

Arkansas softball just got a deal with a Buick GMC dealership with all 27 athletes. They also signed eight ladies in the top 25 in the class of 2022 in a sport with 12 full scholarships, and I'm guessing this deal might have helped sign the class? 

The deals are happening.  It's just not publicized.  I think people are confused with what NIL is.  It's not schools and the available money they have....scholarships have nothing to do with it.  It's a local business picking the womens gymnastics team to run ads for them and paying them.  It's not the school paying them, scholarships, etc.  It's not going to happen at the volume or price point of FB and BB.  But its going to happen and already is.

I know this sounds crass, but is your student-athlete attractive or unique enough that they'll draw the attention of millions of people?

If yes, it doesn't matter what sport they play, they'll get brand deals. 

I'd imagine that it depends on the athlete. Unless there is some booster at 'State U' who wants to give money to soccer players b/c they like soccer, I'd guess that if your kid can be described as an influencer then they might be able to pull some decent money. If not, probably not.

I think I read somewhere Ziyah Holman(track sprinter) is the most profitable NIL athlete on campus

This was an article from the WAPO a couple months back.  Who’s making the most from NIL? Women’s basketball is near the top.  I meant to post about it, but then got too lazy.

The long and the short of it is - women have done very well in the NIL market because they, according to the article, are better at marketing over social media than their male counterparts.  They can also generally reach a different demographic that may not be your traditional sports-follower.  All this to say, NIL has certainly opened the space for non-revenue sports as long as the specific athlete is able to bring something unique and marketable to the table. 

The site below lists NIL deals for a large number of U-M athletes, many of them in non-revenue sports.  I follow volleyball, and I saw deals for Kendall Murray and Hannah Grant, neither of whom were in the top 3-4 players on the team last season.  So yes, they are everywhere.

https://nilcollegeathletes.com/universities/university-of-michigan

Ziyah Holman seems to be killing it on NIL