Brenden Rice building NIL brand with Centurion Lifestyle deal

Brenden Rice has been adamant from the start his NIL brand will not be defined by his father.

But that does not mean brands don’t see him as a vehicle to entering into an endorsement contract with Jerry Rice. The Colorado transfer headed towards Los Angles this offseason, joining USC. He recently brought on A&P Agency for NIL representation, too.

The third-year wide receiver has been wanting to ink a deal with a car dealership for a while. It’s not hard to understand why an athlete would want to find a way to land a set of wheels, especially on the West Coast. But while A&P continued to work diligently for its client, multiple dealerships inquired about having Jerry join his son in a promotion.

Simply put, they were not valuing what Brenden Rice brought to the table.

Enter Centurion Lifestyle. The one-stop shop for luxury lifestyle experiences immediately saw what partnering with the USC wide receiver could mean for its brand. While Centurion does provide access to yacht, villa and jet rentals, it has a fleet of exotic cars.

Rice will now have access to his choice at least twice a month. One night could be a Porsche, another day he could whip around in a Mercedes G550.

“I think this deal is really a big moment for Brenden,” A&P Agency’s co-founder Jacob Piasecki told On3. “Caleb Williams has a nice, old school car. And Brenden kind of wanted something to match that. When we signed him, this was a big thing he wanted. He was like, ‘Man, if you give me a car, that’d be the best NIL deal I could possibly get.’

“He’s ecstatic. He was really patient and great to work with. Working with car dealerships, it takes a while to get all the the Is dotted, Ts crossed. They want to make sure that they’re protected.”

The deal calls for Rice to take any car he wants out of the Centurion lot at least twice a month. In exchange, he will post on his social media accounts each time he drives one of the company’s cars. The deal could possibly be re-negotiated depending on the receiver’s NFL draft decision.

A West Hollywood-based company, the contract framework ensures Rice does not use up too much mileage on a single luxury car. There’s no compensation aspect either because of the risk Centurion is taking on.

“We talked to a lot of dealerships prior to Centurion on and they really just wanted us him to get to Jerry,” Piasecki said. “And we weren’t going to enable that. Brenden made it very clear when we sign him that he wants to have his own name established, rather than relying on his father’s.”

Rice has 23 catches for 266 yards and a touchdown this season.

Brenden Rice’s growing NIL brand

The USC wide receiver has not had any problems finding NIL deals. Rice was one of 29 NCAA Division I athletes who signed with lifestyle retailer Urban Outfitters. As part of that agreement, he publicized the brand on social media. And he’ll also have the opportunity to make in-store appearances at select Urban Outfitters locations.

And in September, INFLCR and the financial app MoneyLion announced a partnership. Rice was one of the athletes who signed a contract to help promote the new partnership.

“With the whole NIL era dawned upon us, you can definitely expect to see a large amount of money given to athletes and athletes need to learn how to use that money towards an overall greater financial education,” Rice told On3 at the time. “With these large amounts of money, you also have taxes. You have to invest that type of money into long-term growth.”

Brenden Rice currently has a $53,000 On3 NIL Valuation. That’s in large part his social media following of more than 56,000 between TikTok and Instagram. He holds a per-post projection of $195.

The On3 NIL Valuation is the industry’s leading index that sets the standard market NIL value for high school and college athletes. A proprietary algorithm, the On3 NIL Valuation calculates an athlete’s NIL value using dynamic data points targeting three primary categories: performance, influence and exposure.

While the algorithm includes deal data, it does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals athletes have completed to date, nor does it set an athlete’s NIL valuation for their entire career. The On3 NIL Valuation calculates the optimized NIL opportunity for athletes relative to the overall NIL market and projects out to as long as 12 months into the future.