BYU announces The Royal Blue as its 'official' NIL collective

BYU announced Thursday the launch of The Royal Blue, an “officially licensed” NIL collective that signed a corporate sponsorship agreement with BYU Athletics. While schools and their coaches and administrators have taken advantage of the NCAA’s latest NIL guidance by promoting the collectives that support their athletes, it’s rare for a school to be the entity that announces the official launch of a collective.

A call to BYU’s athletic department to request comment wasn’t answered.

It’s notable that BYU’s press release and marketing materials described The Royal Blue as the “official collective” and the “officially licensed collective.” It’s not the first collective design to support BYU athletes.

In November 2021, the collective CougConnect launched to support BYU athletes. However, CougConnect and its director Jake Brandon welcomed the launch of The Royal Blue on Twitter.

After a reporter broke the news of The Royal Blue’s impending launch, CougConnect’s Twitter account responded with a quote-tweet that stated, “Excited to welcome Royal Blue into the NIL space in Provo! More excited for all the support our student-athletes will be getting! From limited discussions I’ve had it sounds like Royal Blue & us will be supporting players in NIL from different angles but with the same mission!”

In the last year, there have been mergers of collectives within individual schools’ fan and donors bases at Florida State, TCU, Texas and Virginia Tech. The creation of multiple collectives or NIL clubs designed to support athletes at a single school can cause pushback, or donor fatigue or confusion.

CougConnect’s public response to the launch of The Royal Blue was different from when the company YOKE launched the Provo NIL Club, a player-driven, membership-based community, over the summer.

At the time, CougConnect posted on Twitter a screenshot of Provo NIL Club’s Twitter account with a tweet that stated, “Imitation is the purest form of flattery I guess? Kinda shocked honestly.”

The Royal Blue ‘intends to operate as a public charity’

Similar to many other collectives across the country, The Royal Blue “intends to operate as a public charity as described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code,” according to its website.

The Royal Blue’s website states the collective will help BYU athletes support the mission of “local youth service non-profits.” The collective will provide all of the compensation.

The agency Oncoor Sports will administer The Royal Blue’s account with Opendorse, an NIL marketplace and technology company.

The collective’s website states between 87 and 95 percent of contributions will go to BYU athletes. The rest will cover expenses such as IT, legal and marketing costs.

“Working with The Royal Blue is an important step forward for BYU Athletics as we look to our future competing in the Big 12 under brighter lights and on bigger stages than ever before,” BYU Director of Athletics Tom Holmoe said in a video released as part of the announcement. “The support of collectives is an important signal to current student-athletes, recruits and their families that we are invested in these kinds of opportunities.”