Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik signs NIL deal with Mercury

Cade Klubnik has signed his first NIL deal since this summer.

The Clemson quarterback has signed with Mercury’s ClemsonTigers.io, a digital platform to serve as a meeting place for athlete and fans. The company recently signed with the Clemson athletic department, which includes co-branding and sponsorship opportunities. Plans are in place for it to receive advertisement digitally and in-venue.

As part of the deal, Klubnik will partner with Mercury for the remainder of the season through the company’s Clemson-centric digital platform. Klubnik will be a monthly guest on the company’s Next Up podcast with Adam Breneman, who serves as Mercury’s vice president of NIL.

“The Mercury team really understands student-athletes, and I’m excited to be featured on and start to be active in this cool platform,” Klubnik said in a statement. “It is a great way for me to connect with fans and develop my own brand while keeping my focus on football.”

He becomes the fourth quarterback to sign with with Mercury. The company has signed Will Levis, Jalon Daniels and John Rhys Plumlee this fall.

A five-star prospect in the class of 2022, Klubnik has sat patiently behind DJ Uiagalelei as the Tigers have jumped out to a 8-0 start. They debuted at No. 4 in the first College Football Playoff rankings released earlier this week.

The 2021 Elite 11 MVP has played in five games this season. He’s 9 of 19 for 85 yards and a touchdown. He has not rushed to sign any deals. Represented by Athletes First, he partnered with NIL collective Dear Old Clemson this summer.

What is clear, however, is that Klubnik is the future quarterback for Clemson. And while the partnership with Mercury is for this season, there’s no doubt this will be a long-term deal moving forward.

“We believe Cade Klubnik will be a star in college football,” Mercury CEO Porter Grieve said.

Mercury building up Clemson program

The digital experience company signed KJ Henry, Xavier Thomas, Bryan Bresee, Tyler Davis, Myles Murphy, Ruke Orhorhoro and Justin Mascoll to a deal back in mid-October following the partnership with Clemson.

As part of the deal, every athlete has signed a contract that runs through the remainder of the season. They’ve also signed on to be auctioned off for experiences with fans, will be part of the Discord chat and appear in Mercury’s Next Up podcast. Plans are in place for a digital collectible to drop featuring the athletes, too.

And earlier this week, Mercury announced plans for the Tombstone Collection. The Clemson Graveyard commeorates each top 25 road win. To honor that, ClemsonTigers.io is releasing Tombstones for fans to purchase, which will include access to running down the hill, kicking a field goal in Death Valley, field access and having your name on the video board. It’s another development in Mercury trying to marry the fan experience with digital collectibles.

Purchasing a pair of custom digital football cleats also earns a fan access to a private session with an athlete.

Cade Klubnik’s rising On3 NIL Valuation

The Clemson quarterback currently has a $161,000 On3 NIL Valuation. His social media following has slowly seen an uptick this season, now sitting at more than 84,000 with 65,000 coming on Instagram. He also has a per-post projection of $905.

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.