🏅 LSU's taking you behind-the-scenes

Hey there,

Hope you didn’t miss us too much. We’ve got a loaded edition today: Amazon’s got a new documentary series coming out, which will follow LSU athletes’ NIL journey; Tennessee just struck a deal to help bring in revenue while maintaining their beloved stadium’s name; Duke hired a sports media celebrity to bring eyes to the football program. And that’s not all — it’s all coming up right now.

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— Cole, Justin and Collin

The Big 3

🚨 Amazon’s NIL Docuseries Drops Next Month 🚨 

Amazon’s highly anticipated NIL documentary series has been teased for months. Now we have a trailer for the series, which is set to be released September 10^th.

The series will examine how NIL has affected student athletes at LSU, one of the country’s most successful NIL factories. Last year, the school housed four of the country’s biggest NIL earners: Heisman winner Jayden Daniels, women’s basketball superstars Angel Reese and Flau’jae Johnson, and gymnastics sensation Livvy Dunne, whose current NIL valuation is $3.9M.

The series – which is produced by LSU great Shaquille O’Neal – will provide one of the only behind-the-curtain looks at NIL to date. (More)  

Tennessee Signs a 20-Year Stadium Deal

Athletic Departments are trying to diversify their revenue streams to account for the multi-million-dollar settlement bill that they’ll soon have to pay former NCAA athletes. An increasingly popular option has been to sell a stadium’s naming rights for money, like FIU just did with Pitbull.

Well, instead of selling the rights to Neyland Stadium, Tennessee just named a “presenting partner” for Neyland Stadium, the Knoxville-based gas station chain, Pilot. The agreement’s duration is the wildest part of this story – it’s a twenty-year partnership.

In the announcement video, it seems both Pilot and Tennessee wanted to preserve the venue’s original name. Pilot will invest in stadium improvements, and Tennessee fans will see the company’s name everywhere… but it will remain Neyland Stadium for a long, long time. (More)

Duke Football Makes a Home-Run Hire

NIL is part of the attention economy. With attention comes eyes, which means advertisement opportunities… which leads to NIL deals. That’s why schools – like Duke – are investing heavily into social media to take their NIL programs to the next level.

Duke just hired sports media celebrity Rachel DeMita as their football team’s resident content creator. The move does two things: First, it brings them awesome social content, of course. Second, it brings her 2M+ social media followers directly to Duke’s football program:

I agree with Blake here – I like what they’re doing. At the same time, though, I’m a bit skeptical: Will her celebrity actually create enough exposure to justify the (likely pricey) cost of hiring her? Only time will tell. (More)

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ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Braden Smith

• School: Purdue 

• Sport: Basketball

• Position: Guard

• Class: Junior

  Accolades: 

• First-team All-Big Ten and Honorable Mention All-America accolades.

• Named one of five finalists for the Cousy Award, given to the nation's top point guard.

• Averaged 12.0 points, 7.5 assists, 5.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game, while playing a school-record 1,327 minutes and starting all 39 games.

  NIL: He recently topped the NIL Store’s charts as the highest earner in July—the only basketball player to do so.

NIL BLITZ

♦️ Philip Rivers’ son may become the next Arch Manning, in terms of recruitment, hype, and subsequently, NIL

♦️ Duke AD: “We need [football] to be good to drive revenue, so that we can put those resources into our 26 other sports.”

♦️ Rhoback continues its NIL spending frenzy, signing two Notre Dame football players to their NIL roster

♦️ Arkansas landed a stud football player from Florida State because of a bad agent 

♦️ A former member of WWE’s NIL program won a gold medal in Paris 

♦️ Florida is working with The Athlete Group, which is run by a former NFL executive, to fill their general manager opening

♦️ North Carolina’s field hockey squad just signed a teamwide trading card deal with Upper Deck

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Today’s Poll Question:

Last Edition’s Poll Results:

Will more schools offer multi-year NIL deals in the future?

• Yes, they provide a leg up in recruiting - 61%

• No, they’re too financially risky - 39%