A Supreme Court decision rendered in June 2021 changed the landscape of college athletics. The court ruled unanimously that athletes were no longer forbidden from earning money from the use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL) in the public domain.
“College athletes were not able to profit from their NIL, even though companies like EA Sports, a video game developer, and many others, were using their NIL to make money. Those players were not receiving a penny for it,” said Ryan Maxwell, a Lexington attorney who found this dramatic change an opportunity for himself and two associates.
Tom Bower
The day of the Supreme Court decision, Tom Bower’s phone continuously pinged with new message notifications. Bower had been a local grassroots sports enthusiast for 15 years, putting together sporting events, tournaments, and camps. He had hundreds of contacts among athletes, coaches, athletics directors, administrators, and business operators who were curious about the new rules.
“We decided to jump in and help,” Bower said. That is when Athlete Advantage was born. Ryan Miller is founder and CEO, Bower is co-founder and president, and Maxwell is also a co-founder as well as general counsel.
“It started with us providing protection for athletes so they could navigate this new space safely,” Bower said. “That parlayed into us talking to various businesses and securing NIL deals. Our first client was University of Kentucky wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson (now with the NFL’s New York Giants). We were among the first in the country to do large-scale NIL deals around athletes. Things just grew.”
Now, Athlete Advantage, based in downtown Lexington, works with student-athletes and universities nationwide.
Ryan Miller
College sports used to be about what kind of sports facilities or traditions a school has or how many of its athletes turn pro. Now there is an increased priority on NIL success and the quality of those relationships. In response to the rule changes, the University of Kentucky Athletics Department created the BBNIL Exchange, a secure directory and portal for student-athletes and interested business entities to connect and explore potential partnerships. The athletics program reported that 176 UK student-athletes earned a total of 1,328 NIL deals between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.
“Our young people are leaders in our region and therefore great brand ambassadors,” UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said in announcing the program. “This next step in building on our NIL empowerment programs will be beneficial for our great student-athletes and local businesses looking for excellent leaders to serve as their representatives.”
Athlete Advantage has two goals: to drive revenues for universities and their NILs and to help with safety and compliance for schools and athletes. They are bird-dogging for the athletes — looking for and helping to evaluate deals for them. “We sit squarely in the middle as an advocate for the student-athlete to help prevent them from entering into deals that are, for lack of a better word, predatory,” Maxwell said. AA doesn’t take on a fiduciary advisor role in a deal, and it doesn’t manage the money. If AA generates an NIL deal for an athlete or generates an NIL contact for them, they take a percentage off the top and the rest goes to the athlete. If an athlete generates their own deal, then he or she keeps it all.
There are numerous misconceptions about NIL, according to AA’s leaders. One is that NIL deals are a fancy way to ‘pay to play’ for athletes or a way for college athletic departments and their boosters to pay exorbitant money to get the best talent to compete at certain universities. “That’s just not the case,” Maxwell said. “Nationwide, the average NIL deal is $1,500 to $2,500. College sports isn’t populated with million-dollar Lamborghini-driving prima donnas. Mainly, NIL deals help ordinary student-athletes across numerous sports pay for routine things like housing, gas in their car, a date with a friend. That’s a more realistic picture of NIL,” he said.
Of course, there are financial exceptions. Some college athletes are worth a fortune in the NIL space. LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne has a social media fanbase of over 10 million followers and has earned millions of NIL dollars. Most independent evaluators would agree Dunne is worth it because of the value she brings to NIL sponsors due to her popularity.
“Participating businesses receive a true return on investment for partnering with athletes. It’s a good marketing spend for them,” Bower said. He also notes that most student-athletes do not live luxurious lifestyles and many will not turn pro in their chosen sports. Some athletes come from poverty situations and NIL deals can help benefit them and their families. While at UK, Robinson channeled some of his NIL money into his father’s nonprofit foundation.
John Legend performed a private concert in May to benefit the Kentucky 15 Club, a program started by Athlete Advantage that generates NIL money for UK football. Here UK Head Football Coach Mark Stoops, center, presents Legend with a jersey as Associate Head Football Coach/Recruiting Coordinator Vince Marrow and Legend’s nephew, UK sophomore wide receiver Anthony Brown-Stephens, look on.
Another example of an NIL deal paying off big for a local sponsor is the deal between former UK quarterback Will Levis (a former Athlete Advantage client who is now with the NFL’s Tennessee Titans) and Claiborne Farm. The ad campaign centered on the athleticism of both football players and racehorses and promoted the sale of breeding seasons for the stallion War of Will. Maxwell says that within a month of striking the deal, Claiborne Farm had received three times its initial investment through the sale of the seasons.
What about less high-profile college sports teams in the age of NIL? Far fewer fans follow swimmers, tennis players, and rifle team members, for example, than football and basketball players. True, they don’t earn as much, on average, depending on an advertiser’s budget, but deals can still benefit all involved. Maxwell mentioned Clark’s Pump-N-Shop, a convenience store chain in Kentucky and other states, which invests in UK’s NIL program. In addition to reaping financial rewards, Clark’s earns goodwill among Big Blue Nation. “If you go online, you’ll see comments like ‘Thanks, Clark, for supporting our athletes’ or ‘We need to support Clark’s,’” Maxwell said.
UK All-American defensive tackle Deone Walker also works with Athlete Advantage.
While there is potential for companies to influence student-athletes’ playing decisions with exorbitant NIL deals, Maxwell emphasizes that NIL deals are, at their core, primarily a business decision and must make financial sense, especially for publicly traded companies. “They are still beholden to their investors and won’t go into multi-millions deals unless the ROI is there,” he said.
Bower and Maxwell have high praise for UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart and how he manages the school’s NIL space. “He decided to let the dust settle before making moves and not make rash decisions and I commend him for that,” Maxwell said. He adds that UK head football coach Mark Stoops surrounds himself with “ethical and competent assistant coaches and staff who work the NIL angles well.”
Neither Bower nor Maxwell envy college coaches and sports administrators in the evolving world of NIL. “It’s like a pendulum swung,” Bower said. “Once, all influence was with universities and the NCAA. Now it’s with athletes, but we think that’s best for everybody.”