🏅 Interview with Canon Flores of Wyoming Sports Properties

Teaming up with

Hey there,

In our latest expert interview, we spoke with Canon Flores, the NIL Business Manager for Wyoming Sports Properties, the official multimedia rights holder for the University of Wyoming. In this role, Canon facilitates groundbreaking NIL deals for student-athletes by leveraging the power of Wyoming's athletics brand and its intellectual property. 

Canon shares his insights on how NIL is revolutionizing sponsorship opportunities, particularly in a state like Wyoming where the connection between community and university is unmatched. 

You’ll want to read this one! 

— Cole, Justin and Collin

How does Wyoming Sports Properties collaborate with the University of Wyoming to maximize NIL opportunities for its athletes, and what unique advantages does your locally-based team bring to this partnership?

Wyoming Sports Properties | Learfield is the official multimedia rights holder with the University of Wyoming. Our objective is to engage the corporate community in sponsorships of Wyoming Athletics through traditional and non-traditional media channels. As the official multimedia rights holder, this allows our team to facilitate NIL deals with student-athletes, with an emphasis on those student-athletes in their Wyoming Athletics Jerseys/gear through the use of intellectual property.

We see professional athlete endorsement deals all the time where they are wearing a generic (traditionally team-colored) jersey. Having the multimedia rights allows us to impact the fan/viewer on a more personalized level because these athletes are noticed by that Wyoming logo that they represent. This allows our partners to be affiliated with our student-athletes and the University at the same time, which is revolutionizing corporate partnerships in college athletics.

Given the evolving landscape of NIL in college sports, how do you see the role of NIL Business Managers like yourself changing in the next 3-5 years, particularly at institutions like the University of Wyoming? 

I see my role becoming more crucial to universities within the next 3-5 years due to the revenue share coming to college athletics. We will need other avenues of compensation for the athletes to stay competitive in retaining them. This allows the schools to focus on one component and NIL business managers like myself to hunt deals that support student-athletes.

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What strategies do you employ to help Wyoming's corporate partners leverage NIL deals effectively to engage with the passionate Cowboys fan base while also ensuring fair and meaningful compensation for the athletes involved?

At Wyoming Sports Properties, my role is to provide a white-glove service towards NIL for our partners. I work directly with them to create a creative campaign or individual deal that will attract the attention of Wyoming fans. I help them select the right athlete for the deal so that they get the most out of their partnership with us, whether that be a local Wyoming student-athlete or someone with a connection to a brand or message. On the other hand, I will talk with the athlete about the deal beforehand to ensure that they feel compelled to engage in the deal and to ensure the compensation is fair for their time and what they will be doing.

Can you share any recent success stories where Wyoming Sports Properties facilitated NIL deals that not only benefited the athletes but also helped local businesses and corporations achieve their marketing and branding goals?

We are currently working through a deal with AARP of Wyoming and Allyson Fertig, the starting Center for our women’s basketball team. Allyson is creating videos that discuss fraud in different scenarios, which is a focus of AARP of Wyoming right now. This campaign is called Fertig’s Fraud Blocks.

Allyson is utilizing Wyoming’s athletic facilities to give fans tips on what to look for when a possible scam comes across to them. Secondly, this allows fans to get a behind-the-scenes look at our training facilities in a manner they aren’t traditionally accustomed to. Another example is Delta Dental, which is the official mouthguard of Wyoming Athletics. They are using 4 athletes to promote their mouthguards and the importance of dental health throughout the year. They are using four athletes from different sports to highlight this importance, and selected our starting Quarterback, Evan Svoboda to promote the message to football fans.

Lastly, we facilitated a deal with Pizza Huts in the state of Wyoming to have our starting Quarterback on their box toppers to promote the upcoming season and to create a social media commercial for them (to be filmed later this year) promoting Pizza Hut as the go-to pizza option.

What advice would you give to coaches and athletes at the University of Wyoming looking to navigate the NIL landscape, especially in a smaller market, to ensure they make the most of the opportunities available to them?

The most important role in this space is education. Wyoming is not the Ohio State or Alabama of the college sports world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work with national brands like AARP and Pizza Hut. We have opportunities here for our student-athletes that are specific to Wyoming and won’t be found at other schools. The biggest item I preach to coaches, student-athletes, and our partners is that Wyoming is truly one state, one university.

We don’t compete with professional teams or other colleges in the state for a passionate fanbase. We have a whole state backing our student-athletes, and that’s a powerful thing that is not common across the country for Division 1 athletics. We have fans and businesses who will buy into our athletes and the University. That’s what I love about working with the University of Wyoming.