Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham star in new promo video for Donatos through NIL deal
Late last month, Kentucky stars Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham announced an NIL deal with Donatos. The two starred in a promotional video about the partnership as the “official Donatos Duo.”
Tuesday, the company released another video showing Sheppard and Dillingham handing out pizzas at the Ronald McDonald House in Lexington.
The duo interacted with the kids and signed autographs while delivering the pizzas. Of course, they also got their own and shared them at the end of the video.
Donatos – which has five locations throughout Lexington – announced deals with Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard Feb. 26. They also announced a promo code, “DonatsDuo,” which also gave fans special edition posters.
“We’re your official Donatos Duo,” Sheppard said in the first video. “Order our favorite pizzas at any Lexington location and get a limited edition poster. My favorite pizza is the hot honey, and you can add banana peppers if you want it ‘Reed Style.’”
“And I’m a fan of pepperoni, so I always go for The Pepp 150, so you should get that,” Dillingham added.
The partnership with Donatos is part of Dillingham and Sheppard’s growing NIL portfolios. Sheppard – who has 120,000 social media followers – has partnerships with The Dairy Alliance, Planet Fitness and Topps while Dillingham has an agreement with Crossover Culture and Shop GLD.
Dillingham holds an On3 NIL Valuation of $638,000, which ranks No. 10 in the On3 College Basketball NIL Rankings. He also sits at No. 73 in the On3 NIL 100, the first of its kind and defacto NIL ranking of the top 100 high school and college athletes ranked by their On3 NIL Valuation.
On the court, Dillingham ranks second on Kentucky’s roster with 14.8 points per game while adding 3.8 assists and 1.1 steals. Sheppard is also a key piece of the Wildcats’ success this season, leading the team with a 51.7% three-point percentage while adding a team-high 4.3 assists in addition to his 12.4 points on average.
Both players are generating some NBA Draft buzz, as well. In ESPN’s Top 25 player rankings ahead of March Madness, Dillingham came in at No. 3 and Sheppard wasn’t far behind him at No. 5. CBS Sports recently projected them to go back-to-back as top-10 picks, as well, with Sheppard going No. 5 overall to the Portland Trail Blazers and Dillingham going to the Toronto Raptors as the No. 6 pick.
Kentucky has just two games remaining in the regular season, starting with Wednesday’s matchup against Vanderbilt. UK will close things out Saturday against Tennessee before the SEC Tournament begins.