Arkansas softball team lands NIL deal with Wright's Barbecue

Wright’s Barbecue, which has a couple of locations in the state of Arkansas, has teamed up with Arkansas softball in a new NIL deal. The entire team is a part of this new deal.

Softball players, like Taylor Ellsworth and Mary Haff, tweeted out that they were “Wright’s athletes” to announce the deal. Wright’s has made creative NIL deals in the past. There aren’t any financial details currently available on the deal with the softball team.

“We ran into (head coach) Courtney Diefel and Hannah Gammill at my daughter’s softball game,” sad Jordan Wright of Wright’s Barbecue. “I was like, ‘We need to get this done for you all. Y’all are having a great season and it would be fun for all players before regionals started.’ They all jumped on board.”

Arkansas has one of the best softball teams in the country. They beat Missouri to win the 2022 SEC Championship and will be hosting a regional in the NCAA Tournament. This isn’t the first team-wide NIL deal that the Arkansas team has signed. They also have a team deal with a local Buick dealership.

Arkansas, Wright’s Barbecue have teamed up before

Wright’s Barbecue has made numerous NIL deals with Arkansas athletes. It’s been great exposure for them in the past. They have made around 40 NIL deals with Arkansas athletes. Some of these are in exchange for things like gift cards and merchandise deals. A couple of baseball players even have menu items named after them in royalty deals.

This has been a partnership that is mutually beneficial to Arkansas’ athletes and Wright’s Barbecue. Athletes are getting NIL opportunities through this relationship. Wright has spoken about NIL being a great opportunity for student-athletes, who have a long history of eating there.

“We like to be proactive and ask athletes to do deals instead of fielding requests all of the time,” he said.