Battles End joins Florida State NIL collective market with plan for player retention

Early national signing day last year is not a memory many Florida State fans hope to ever relive.

Travis Hunter, a five-star plus recruit, stunned the college football world when he flipped his commitment to Jackson State last December. One-time Seminoles legend Deion Sanders led the recruiting coup. Some Florida State fans even burnt their Sanders’ jerseys out of anger.

Simply put, avoiding a repeat of that day is a driving force in the formation of the new Florida State-focused NIL collective The Battles End. With a focus on player retention of the current roster, there’s an understanding of the impact a strong, well-organized collective can have for the rest of the program.

“Influential people in the sphere of Florida State athletics wanted to make sure nothing like last year’s national early signing day ever happened again,” The Battles End president Ingram Smith told On3 on Tuesday afternoon. “They wanted to have a presence in the NIL space they could have a large degree of confidence in.

Smith, the host of Nolecast, a popular Florida State podcast with Bud Elliott, will run the day-to-day operations of the organization. He plans to abstain from recruiting conversations involved in the show, which averages at least 5,000 views per episode on YouTube.

He’s secured backing from multiple Seminole boosters and local businesses. And while he opted not to get into specifics on the funding and who is supporting the collective, he made it known Battles End plans to become one of the most ambitious collectives in the nation.

“I’m not going to tell you that I’m John Ruiz and I have unlimited money,” he said. “But I will tell you that we can be as competitive as we want to be in this space.”

Importance of roster retention with emergence of Transfer Portal

For as much as college football is about pageantry and tailgates, the sport has turned into an arms race in the past 16 months. NIL collectives have surfaced at nearly every Division I school. And the word collective, which has no ulterior meaning, has become synonymous with Name, Image and Likeness. The race is to stockpile the most cash to distribute to current players so recruits know what they can make once they enroll at the college.  

The same methodology rings true when making sure players do not enter the Transfer Portal. Ensuring an athlete’s NIL needs are satisfied plays a major role in their future plans. Through his experience with the Nolecast, Smith has seen how the portal has forced college football to evolve.

The start of the Transfer Portal’s 45-day window began Monday. Already more than 1,000 names have been entered into the database. Florida State has just lost three players, and Battles End has plans to rollout announcements of deals being signed the rest of the week.

“Retention is everything,” Smith said. “Candidly, our job is made easier by their culture and the locker room that Mike Norvell has. I think some of the conversations we’ve had would obviously be more challenging. Success helps, but it is legitimately a good culture in Tallahassee right now. It’s not something we’ve been able to say for a while. We have every intention of keeping every player we possibly can for what we think is a special year, next year.”

Learning curve, crowded Florida State market

Smith is still bracing for the learning curve, though. For as informed he is on the state of Florida State football, he is new to the collective world. Surrounding himself with a trusted staff is a start. He’s brought on a chief of staff who works in mergers and acquisitions at a large consulting firm and a lead advisor who operates a hedge fund.

“I probably was one of the more five or 10 educated people in the Florida States sphere on NIL, but I’m learning something new almost every hour. It is a learning process. I’m fortunate to have some of pre-existing knowledge that from the Nolecast and common interest in business, marketing and collegiate athletics.”

Battles end becomes the third operating collective to join the market. Micconope 1851 provides developmental opportunities for athletes, while Rising Spear accepts donation and brokers deals. How the market shakes out is unknown; Rising Spear already absorbed Warpath 850 in May 2022.