The Gazelle Group to pay NIL collectives through basketball contracts

The sports and entertainment marketing firm Gazelle Group, Inc., agreed to pay thousands of dollars to an NIL collective that’s aligned with Colorado through the parties’ agreement for the Buffaloes men’s basketball team to participate in the 2023 Sunshine Slam.

On3 obtained a copy of the contract through an open records request.

The phrase NIL collective is a catch-all term that applies to various organizations, including marketing agencies and nonprofits, that facilitate NIL opportunities for athletes. There are now more than 190 across the country.

The Sunshine Slam is one of many multi-team events (MTEs) that allow Division I basketball programs to play multiple non-conference games, often on a neutral court against programs with NCAA tournament aspirations. The Gazelle Group’s other college basketball events include the Barstool Sports Invitational, Empire Classic, Gotham Classic, Legends Classic and Tribute Classic.

A financial contribution to a collective could now be an added benefit for a school playing in one of those events.

“It’s just like everything else in the competitive event marketplace that it becomes another component of competing for teams,” Gazelle Group President Rick Giles said in a recent phone interview with On3. “We’re open to it, fully supportive of it and I think it’s great. I’m personally a great advocate that the players should make as much money as they possibly can and should have as many opportunities as they possibly can and so we’re really happy to provide those.”

It’s the latest example of the ever-changing nature of the NIL landscape. The competition to provide NIL opportunities for college athletes now extends to event organizers who seek to assemble desirable tournament fields and matchups.

Payments to collectives ‘something that’s going to be a lot more common’

The 28th and final clause in the nine-page contract between Colorado and Gazelle Group states, “Gazelle shall pay $5,000 to Participant’s NIL Collective (or other mutually agreed upon destination) no later than December 1, 2023.”

“I think it’s something that’s going to be a lot more common in college basketball,” Colorado Director of Player Development Zach Ruebesam said in a recent phone interview.

The four signatures on the contract from University of Colorado employees are dated Sept. 26 or 27, 2022, which is a sign of how new this specific clause — and this type of clause — is in the college athletics landscape.

For comparison, there’s no clause requiring payments to NIL collectives in Arizona State and Michigan‘s respective contracts with the Gazelle Group for their participation in the 2022 Legends Classic.

There’s also no such clause in a copy of the contracts the Gazelle Group signed with Georgia State or New Mexico for the Capitol Classic and Lobo Classic. The contracts for the two events, which are scheduled for later this month and each feature four teams and six total games, were signed in November and December 2021, respectively.

“Really last year was the first year they started throwing money into a collective to get a team to go,” Colorado’s Ruebesam said of event organizers in general. “It’s still very new. I think it’s going to catch on more and, again, it wasn’t a [decision where we said], ‘Oh, we’re going to go to the Sunshine Slam because Gazelle’s gonna give $5,000 to our collective.’

“It’s really like an added benefit of going to that tournament.”

The NCAA’s latest guidance to its interim NIL policy provided a reminder that schools “cannot donate cash directly to those entities,” referring to collectives. However, a contract like the one between Colorado and the Gazelle Group allows a third party to contribute to a school’s collective through one of the school’s agreements.

Gazelle Group has ‘no standard template’ for contributions to NIL collectives

The field for the 2023 Sunshine Slam hasn’t yet been publicly announced, so it remains to be seen whether, and to what degree, the Gazelle Group will contribute to other participating schools’ NIL collectives.

However, Giles said the Gazelle Group doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach. Ruebesam said the Gazelle Group offered to contribute $5,000 to a Colorado-focused collective and that there weren’t any subsequent negotiations regarding the amount.

“I think right now there’s no standard template,” Giles said. “These discussions and our discussions run the gamut, so for some schools having us support an NIL collective is important and for others, it’s not. When we talk to any school about playing in our events, there’s all these factors and criteria. You know, ‘Where is it? Who are we playing against? What level? How many games? How much are you going to pay us? What are the expenses?’ Things like that.

“Now, NIL is a component of that, that we engage in these discussions.”

Buffs4Life NIL Collective launches

Last Friday, the Buffs4Life Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) organization that provides financial assistant and mental health resources to former Colorado athletes, announced the creation of the Buffs4Life NIL Collective.

“Likely that will be the one it goes to,” Ruebesam said of the upcoming, earmarked $5,000 contribution from the Gazelle Group.

Before the launch of Buffs4Life NIL Collective, the only publicly announced NIL collective or membership-based community designed to support Colorado athletes was the Boulder NIL Club. The Boulder NIL Club is one of the dozens of player-led communities that the company YOKE powers.

“We, as a coaching staff, are very open to our student-athletes prospering on their name, image and likeness while also giving back to the community and that’s the best things about this Buffs4Life NIL [Collective],” Ruebesam said. “The collective is going to be tied to benefiting the Boulder community.”

The language of the Gazelle Group’s contract with Colorado says the group will pay $5,000 to “Participant’s NIL Collective (or other mutually agreed upon destination).” If the money doesn’t fund NIL opportunities through a collective, then where else could it theoretically go?

“Generally, one of the things when we talk about this with schools is things have evolved so much from last year to this year,” Giles said, chuckling. “What I tell people is ‘You know, if we’re locking into a future year, we don’t want to necessarily lock into practices that we’re employing or using in 2022 because in 2023 it could be different. In ’24, it could be different,’ and whether that’s laws changing or just day-to-day activities in the NIL marketplace, so we sort of try to leave some flexibility in there.”

The Gazelle Group’s Giles: ‘We’re all for…NIL opportunities’

Giles said he views that the NIL landscape generally offers two different routes for NIL opportunities: through a collective or directly with an athlete. With the new contractual clauses related to collectives, Gazelle Group is pursuing both routes.

“We’re all for, generally, trying to provide some NIL opportunities to players and/or collectives,” Giles said.

Last fall, the Gazelle Group provided NIL opportunities for players who participated in the company’s events. It will do the same this year. The terms can vary from player to player but Gazelle Group asked players to promote their team’s participation in the event on social media. Each player received a unique promo code for ticket sales, which would offer fans a discount.

Players received a percentage of the ticket revenue accumulated through their code.

“Some of the guys were very active and posted a lot and were creative,” Giles said. “Others not as much and so the guys that did more and were more energetic about it and more creative, they made more money than the guys that obviously did less.”

Giles estimated that the Gazelle Group is engaging with 10 to 15 players to participate in similar NIL opportunities this fall.

“We want to be competitive and keep up with those changes,” he said, “and to the extent that their participation in our events can create a financial benefit to both of us, then we want to push that forward and push that hard as much as possible.”

Giles said he read the NCAA’s recent guidance regarding its interim NIL policy. When asked about the part of the guidance that relates to athletes receiving compensation directly or indirectly for promoting a competition in which they participate, he laughed as he noted that it was the final bullet point in the document. He also pointed to the NCAA’s disclaimer that its latest guidance is subject to state laws.

In addition to participating in individual NIL deals, the Gazelle Group has now agreed to help fund NIL collectives that support athletes at schools that compete in its events. It’s another sign of the ripple effects of competition, ranging from the competition for donors to talented individuals and teams, that exist in the NIL landscape.

“All credit to coach [Tad] Boyle,” Ruebesam said. “He has a vision for NIL at Colorado within our men’s basketball program that’s going to be different, in hopes, than a lot of different programs all over the country in terms of the bigger picture for them financially while they’re in college and then preparing them for life after college.”