🏅 Iowa State's big gamble

Hey there,

What’s crazier — UConn selling their court’s naming rights to a hair-care brand, or Howard’s basketball coach selling a 33% stake in his program? We’ve got updates on Iowa State’s controversial new NIL partnership, the NCAA’s new NIL Assist tool, and more coming right up!

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KICK-OFF

🚨 UConn Sells Basketball Court Naming Rights 🚨 

It turns out Pitbull isn’t the only one ponying up cash for college sports venue naming rights. Beauty brand Madison Reed just struck a deal with UConn to attain court naming rights for their basketball stadium. According to an unnamed source, the price tag was “well into multi-million-dollar range.”

Generally, beauty brands have steered clear of the NIL space; sports and beauty products aren’t an obvious fit, consumer-wise. But Madison Reed is doubling down with UConn — in addition to court-naming, the agreement forges multiple NIL partnerships with members of the women’s basketball team, including superstar Paige Bueckers. 

As part of their deals, the players will wear Madison Reed’s hair coloring products in their hair throughout the partnership. As far as I can tell, that’s a first for the NIL world. (More)

Meanwhile, Howard’s Coach is Selling his Team…?

Howard’s basketball coach, Kenny Blakeney, is fed up with recent changes to college basketball. “I don’t want to have a two-tiered system where we’re not able to compete for the NCAA tournament,” he said, “And from what I’m hearing right now, that is a real possibility... That’s not what I signed up for.”

His solution? Try to sell a 33% share of Howard’s basketball program to private equity investors. His asking price is currently $100 million for a 1/3 stake in the program.

The plan – which he hasn’t pitched to the school itself yet – will be to build a new arena and practice facility with the cash injection. There’s even more to his plan to take Howard to the top of college basketball, which you can check out by clicking the following link. (More)

A New Lawsuit has the NCAA Reeling

Just as the NCAA obtains some clarity on the House v. NCAA lawsuit, another legal challenge has been issued– this one because of the House settlement. Cornelio v. NCAA is the latest class-action antitrust complaint, and it’s attempting to recoup money for athletes who were given partial scholarships.

According to the complaint, the NCAA's enforcement of scholarship limits violates the Sherman Act because “capping of scholarship money at artificially low levels in these sports results in wage fixing.” The case is bolstered by the recent House settlement changes, which would eliminate scholarship limits entirely.

“This suit seeks to ensure that the NCAA and its members follow through on the promise of eliminating this rule,” the complaint continues, “And to recover the damages caused by their collusive and illegal practices.” (More)

DOWN TO BUSINESS

How to Find Market Value with NCAA’s NIL Assist

The NCAA’s NIL Assist tool is just over one week old, but it’s already providing valuable insights into the NIL marketplace. The publicly available data dashboard allows users to categorize data through transaction types, sports, and even athletic positions to help see what “true” market value entails.

For instance: If I wanted to see the average NIL payout for a running back to make a public appearance, I could simply toggle those settings and find out that the average disclosure value for such a deal is $1,967, based on the deals that have been disclosed thus far. 

Of course, we can’t see precisely what the deal was or who received it. The data dashboard is more about market transparency than anything else, so as more deals get added, we’ll see more accurate data on how much an NIL deal should cost. (More)

• Republican lawmaker Bob Good lost his primary reelection, which means his bill—which attempted to codify student-athletes not becoming employees—is likely dead.

COLLECTIVE 101

Iowa State’s Big NIL Gamble

Iowa State’s NIL collective just received a $300K donation from Elite Casino Resorts, a regional gambling company. While some states specifically disallow NIL deals with gambling companies, Iowa has no such law.

The Cyclones aren’t the first school to sign a deal with a gaming company. In fact, their in-state rival, the Iowa Hawkeyes, signed a $500K deal with the very same company in January of last year.

That deal produced some bad optics, as several Iowa football players were hit with criminal charges for illegal gambling later that year.

The relationship between college sports and the gambling world has been tumultuous, historically, which is why partnerships of this sort have proven to become controversial when they do spring up. Of course, $300K is a lot of money… but the collective’s PR team is likely sweating a bit. (More)

• How has Minnesota’s collective righted the NIL ship for football? One deal at a time, starting with a focus on player retention.

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Paige Bueckers

• School:UCONN

• Sport: Basketball

• Position: Guard

• Class: Senior

 Accolades: 

• 2024 WBCA, AP, USBWA, and Wooden Award First Team All-America

• 2024 CSC First Team Academic All-America

• 2024 BIG EAST Player of the Year

• 2024 BIG EAST Scholar-Athlete of the Year

• NIL: Paige becomes the first college basketball player to have her own Nike signature shoe. She also landed a NIL deal with Madison Reed, a hair color company, and secured an ownership stake in Unrivaled Basketball, a league co-founded by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier.

NIL BLITZ

♦️ The Cavinder twins continue to make history after signing a three-year NIL deal with Under Armour

♦️ North Texas hires high school AD as general manager and NIL director 

♦️ One Knoxville writer thinks that Tennessee would have become an even more historic program had NIL come along sooner

♦️ South Carolina launches a weekly show where two Gamecock legends reminisce about their college experiences

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BATTER UP

Today’s Poll Question:

Last Edition’s Poll Results:

Was it a good move for FIU to sell their stadium's naming rights to Pitbull?

• Yes, it’s funny and economical - 53%

• No, it’s tacky - 47%