Houston basketball players sign NIL deals with Daspit Law Firm

The Houston men’s basketball team has agreed to team-wide NIL deals with Daspit Law Firm.

The Houston-focused NIL collective LinkingCoogs facilitated the deals, which are worth six figures in total. LinkingCoogs spokesperson Landon Goesling, who was formerly both a Houston guard and grad assistant, said the ethos of both parties makes it a good partnership.

John Daspit, an attorney and the founder of Daspit Law Firm, has a slogan that he’s going to work harder and be tougher than anyone on behalf of a client, Goesling said. Under Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars often rank among the best teams in the country in effective field goal percentage allowed and offensive rebounding percentage. Those are stats that are typically associated with effort and toughness.

“That is literally the M.O. and mantra of the men’s basketball team at the University of Houston,” Goesling said. “They’re always known for being the toughest team on the court, always leading the country in defensive statistics and so I think it was a really, really good match and community partnership.”

As part of the agreement, the players agreed to film a commercial for Daspit Law Firm. Goesling said the commercial is being finalized.

Houston basketball players celebrate after deal

On Wednesday night, the players celebrated with a team dinner in downtown Houston, complete with a private dining room and custom light-up menus. The whole team was there.

“As a former player who played at Houston, we went to the Sweet 16 and won a conference championship, played in the NCAA tournament, lost to Kentucky, you know, I wasn’t a major rotation guy,” Goesling said. “Obviously, at the time, wasn’t in the NIL world but I tell people I have the best part of this whole gig to be able to reach out to the team and let them know that not Marcus Sasser, our first-team All-American, but the entire team has an NIL deal.

“To be honest, the players like that just as much. It’s more fun for them. Everyone’s involved and, again, your starters all the way down to your walk-on are involved in this deal and that’s just kind of been the culture of this program anyways, the way Coach Sampson is. Player A to Z is treated the exact same and held at the same standard. So, I think it fits the University of Houston basketball program.”

LinkingCoogs facilitates NIL opportunities for Houston athletes

Goesling said LinkingCoogs has facilitated almost $1.8 million in NIL deals in roughly three months for Houston athletes. A recent team deal with Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, the owner of Gallery Furniture, was a seven-figure deal, according to Goesling.

“At the end of the day, this is really what NIL’s intended for is to create real partnerships with companies — local and sometimes national brands — in contrast to having a bunch of donors kind of throw money into a pot,” Goesling said. “This is allowing them the ability to really partner with some of these companies in Houston and Houston being one of the largest cities in the country, it’s been a lot of fun.”

Earlier this season, Houston was ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll for the first time since the 1983 season, when the Cougars reached the national championship game. They made the Elite Eight last season and the Final Four the year before that.

“I have a really good relationship [with the players], played with a lot of them, grad assistant coached for a year, so know a lot of the kids and I told ’em, ‘Man, you guys keep winning, you’re making my job a lot easier with that number five or number one right there by your name,'” Goesling said.