Blueprint Sports acquires Student Athlete NIL

Blueprint Sports has acquired Student Athlete NIL (SANIL), Blueprint CEO Rob Sine told On3 on Wednesday morning. The two major NIL collective operating companies will now merge and operate 70 collectives that delivered over $108 million in payments in 2024.

The move comes as schools prepare for revenue sharing to begin on July 1. Schools will be able to share $20.5 million in Year One of rev sharing if the House v. NCAA settlement is approved this spring.

“I firmly believe, and we were making a big bet with this, that in-house agencies are going to continue to exist,” Sine told On3. “We’re in the process of signing several, multi-year deals with Power Four clients. We believe we’re going to be a seat at the table to help the schools as they navigate through this, whether it’s making payments for them, but it’s about the additive revenue that these budgets are probably going to need, above and beyond what the rev share is going to dictate.”

The conversations about a possible merger have been in the works since August, Sine said. SANIL and Blueprint have a strong Group of Five presence and will work with 15 Power Four schools. The initial focus will be on college basketball with so many mid-major programs.

SANIL founder Jason Belzer stepped down from his advisory role with the company to pursue other opportunities in January. He stepped down as SANIL’s CEO in July.

“What we’ve done in the last four years is what the multimedia rights industry has done over the last 50 which has become a valued partner to athletic departments,” Sine said. “We’ve been able to speed up what has taken them a long time. What it now is, is what else can we do? How else can we be of service to the athletic departments and the conferences? How do we be nimble?

“This may turn into who knows what in the next few years, but at the end of the day, it’s about making sure that we have a seat at the table, and we can help from a revenue standpoint, and we can drive this.”