In Their Own Words: Washington State collective focuses on ‘mighty by the many’ gameplan

Nearly 21 months into the NIL era, collectives have come to define the space. There’s just one problem: Nobody appears to have a clear-cut definition of what they are.

Most are booster-led, but each group’s daily activities look widely different. Some facilitate brand deals; others cut checks in return for a social media post. Another crop has registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization, accepting tax-deductible donations while creating partnerships with charities. And some seemingly are focused on helping recruiting efforts and roster retention.

To help us get a better understanding, On3 is turning to collective leaders across the country to have them explain – in their own words – how they view NIL, what accomplishments they’re most proud of, whether they have a good handle on the market rate for student-athletes, how they’re supporting women’s sports and the potential pitfalls for collectives on the horizon.

On3 continues the series with Zachary Thornton, the development director for Washington State-focused Cougar Collective. Thornton is one of the youngest players in the NIL space at only 22 years old. He graduated from Washington State in 2022 with a degree in finance and economics. His passion for NIL deals and athlete development began with his younger brother, Zane, who played for the Cougars’ football team from 2020-22. Zachary handles the day-to-day operations for Cougar Collective, including NIL deal facilitation. The Cougar Collective generated headlines last week after Washington State athletic director Patrick Chun spoke at the U.S. House’s Innovation, Data and Commerce subcommittee hearing. Many NIL experts said Chun, and others who testified, demonstrated a lack of understanding of how collectives even operate.

The Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity and context. 

Q: A lot of NIL observers said the hearing was full of misinformation, with witnesses who didn’t understand how collectives are run. Experts also said there were people testifying who seemed very ‘out of touch’ on the basics of NIL.

Thornton: I’m going to try and keep myself on track with this answer because there are a lot of moving parts. First, I do agree with you, there was a lot of misinformation. I think that the people asking questions on the subcommittee were not as educated as they needed to be on what was going on and the current state of NIL, especially collectives.

It kind of seems like collectives were the mortal enemy of the hearing. That upset me. I know some great people that are doing some great things around the country. It was not an accurate representation.

I think other collective leaders would agree with me that the naysayers, the people that don’t get involved because they don’t agree with it, or they don’t find it right – that hearing fed completely into that. It fed into the narrative that this is all for the worst, and the work is not real and is not true. I disagree with that.

I’m careful to use this sentence, but it didn’t do us any favors. It didn’t do anyone any favors around the country. It definitely did not push the needle where everyone working in this space wants the needle to be moved.

I want to say first and foremost, Pat Chun and Kirk Schulz, our president, they’re wonderful, wonderful people and they’re working extremely hard for our university every single day.

But at Wazzu, we don’t have any NIL laws. We are barred by a state ethics law. We’ve never sat down in a room and had a meeting with him. Pat doesn’t know our day-to-day. They try their best to support us, but the conversations we have always end with more questions than there are answers.

We’ve never gotten an endorsement. We’ve never gotten some of the things our competitors in other states get daily. That is another point – there were no favors done there just because he probably couldn’t. But at the same time, he’s barred by this ethics law.

We’ve not thrown the relationship out of the window at all, but we do meet with them regularly. We do meet with them bi-weekly. But it’s not in a position where they can wave their magic wand and we can start collaborating and stuff.

Q: It sounds like the relationship with the athletic department has to be at arm’s length?

Thornton: It’s been arm’s length for sure. Our board is full of Coug guys that have been around the programs, around the facilities, and they know them. Our board has kind of taken this approach where ‘We know our university and the student-athletes know that we support it.’ We don’t want to go scorched earth: ‘You guys aren’t listening to us, we’re going to do our own thing.’ That is not the case at all. We’re continually trying to share what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and why we’re doing it with them as much as we can. There’s just been very little support and assistance, quite frankly.

It’s ever-evolving. It’s going to come down to legislation. I could sit here and gripe about the university specifically, but they’re doing what they can. We’re doing what we can. But until something changes in the law, we will operate like this.

Q: Is federal legislation around NIL a bigger focus for Cougar Collective, or is a solution on the local level the priority?

Thornton: It’s hard for me to answer. I think it’s difficult because of the position that Wazzu is in. To start, we need our state ethics law to change. First and foremost. That would literally allow the university to retweet what we’ve got going on Twitter. When I say the magic wand, that would be extremely helpful.

We don’t have that awareness, that donor base awareness and education that, say (Washington), has just because of the market. When we talk about the magic wand, it would help us. It would give us that, ‘Hey, Cougar fans that have season tickets, it’s OK to look this way now.’

What’s going on in the NCAA, with the tampering, the inducements and the free agency of it, that’s affecting everyone equally. And everyone is scalable in terms of their disappointments, their frustrations with it all.

Coming back to that ethics law and being able to be hand-in-hand with our university is more beneficial to us than anything right now. But there doesn’t seem to be something that’s going to fix things for us.

When we have these contributor meetings and try to get people to buy into what we’re doing, that’s what we say honestly. There’s no white knight coming over the hill ready to take this all away. We’ve got to compete, and we’ve got to compete now. That’s kind of where we’ve turned our focus to.

How do we build an annual fund with every season-ticket holder? How do we as Cougs be mighty by the many to try and combat the sustainability issue with all this? We know Cougs can compete.

Q: Do you feel like you have a good handle on the market rate for student-athletes?

Thornton: That is one of the greatest challenges we’ve faced since starting up all this. With what’s happening now with the free agency with the portal and NIL thrown into one pot, that’s the worst part.

Your values and market values come from what you’re hearing from the student-athlete, which could be from his agent, could be from the parents, could be from what another coach or another collective has said. None of the numbers are data-driven or data-backed. So, you’re just taking the word of these people, who either want to beat you out for the kid or want to come to play for the most money they can get. That just becomes so skewed.

It becomes so difficult for teams like Washington State that now have to adhere to these values or try to meet these values when these values are coming from places so vastly different than we’re experiencing.

You hear things and you’re supposed to believe them. You don’t want to. And I think the market value is going to continually widen the gap. Until there’s structure or disclosures between collectives or universities – which I don’t ever see happening – it’s going to kind of continue to be like this.

Q: You have a different perspective on NIL because of your brother and your educational background. Plus, you’re younger than most in this space. How does having that viewpoint help you with your work with the Cougar Collective?

Thornton: That’s one of the things I love talking about most – that time that I got to spend when my little brother was a Coug and I was a Coug as well. It was perfect timing. He joined the team in 2020. Then NIL happened in July 2021.

At that time for me, I was going into my senior year of college. It was just about how can I get my brother and his group of friends that I’ve come to know so well some lunch money. How do I get them going-to-the-movies money? How can I do that to help propel myself into this world that I want so desperately to be in after I graduate?

So, it was all fun and games. It was reaching out to the local smoothie shops and polling the players where they like to eat in Pullman when they get a chance. It was really equal parts getting them out there and doing something fun for them. But it was also, ‘How is the community going to receive this? How are they going to receive this coming from a group of kids?’ I just really used the parts – the familiarity with the athletes and also being familiar with what a deal looks like and what a good deal looks like and how can I sell these 20-year-olds that are great kids. I saw that they would do anything at the drop of a hat, and they’re fun to be around. It just all came together so well.

Q: What’s been the most rewarding part of working with Cougar Collective?

Thornton: After I graduated, it was a quick turnaround. I worked for the university in their quasi-NIL space. And after I graduated, that position ended or kind of fizzled out.

I really care about the Cougs and Wazzu. We’re not prepared. We are not ready. I’ve seen already what these universities, these collectives and student-athletes have been able to do over the past year and half. We are nowhere close. Not to sound desperate; it was more of like, ‘How can I use my passion and now my alumni status to get out in front of this issue?’ I’m young. I’m hungry. Everyone on the teams is my age. So, it was like, ‘How can I come in here and play the good guy and use what I have built over the past four years to try and get out ahead of this?’

Now I get to wake up every day and essentially help my friends. I get to help guys and gals that are my age. I understand where they’re at. They understand where I’m at. I’m living down the street from them. At the end of the day, we’re all trying to do something better for them and our university.

Q: What type of deals are you most proud of with Cougar Collective

Thornton: Football gathers the majority of eyeballs and attention. But then again, we’ve done deals with women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, women’s golf, our men’s baseball team and our men’s basketball team. We make sure the student-athletes know we’re here to help. What I tell a student-athlete is that, ‘If I’m hitting you up, it’s good things only.’ That’s what I want our kids to know.

Some of the things I’m super proud of is that we’ve been able to find and create housing deals for our people using our connections in Pullman. Being able to call an athlete and their parents and tell them that we’ve inked something up to allow them to live with a great Coug-owned company for free based on their NIL, that’s a great feeling. I know the people that we’ve worked with are super-grateful. That provides them with the security that they need to go out and perform and do what they do best. That means a lot to me.

Coug Housing has been wonderful to us. They have just kind of been on board. It’s those people that understand what we’re trying to do, why we’re trying to do it, why it’s necessary and (are) willing to do it. It’s awesome. It’s fun to put all the pieces together.

Q: How much education about NIL have you had to do with local businesses?

Thornton: Wazzu is Pullman and Pullman is Wazzu. Everything is so close-knit here.

If players walk into a restaurant, everyone goes nuts. I’m just sure in the past, the restaurants were like, ‘Oh, we’ll get your meal for free.’ And the players would say they couldn’t do that. So, not only have we seen no NIL information or education, we have to backtrack and tell them that it’s OK and show them that the law passed.

It’s been a mix. I think that’s the lucky part. We do have to overcome that education and awareness gap. But then once we get in the door and show them it’s OK and what it is, this town is so small and passionate that it’s like, ‘Oh, I have a marketing budget, I can just use that on Cougs now.’ That resonates.

Q: What does NIL look like during the 2023-24 school year for Cougar Collective?

Thornton: By this time next year, I think we’re going to be in a position where we’ve dealt with this awareness and education gap with our fan base. Once we get over that, we’re really able to start playing ball with people that love the Cougs. That’s one thing we keep holding ourselves up on.

Once we get out there, Coug Nation is going to pick us up. I just think that they don’t know it’s OK. They don’t know the benefits and how cool this stuff can be really. We’ve had some awesome events where everyone gets some personal time with the stars on the team. They walk out and are like, ‘I’ve been a fan for 30 years, and I’ve never done anything like this.’ It’s on us to bridge that gap.

Next year when we bridge the gap, I hope that our subscription model is mighty by the many. It’s every season-ticket holder has bought in and they just know that they’re supporting NIL at Washington State. They know they’re supporting top players. Then internally we can start playing ball, getting into the space like I want to and be offensive to support coaches, the university and the athletic department.

If we had every season-ticket holder buy into the 1890 Club, we could seriously make some damage in this space and compete like we want to. It’s got tiers that start at $18.90 a month, that go up to $250 a month and keep going.

It doesn’t have to be this woe-is-me NIL story anymore.

That’s not the point of all this. It’s not the point to get bulldozed and roll over. I’m not doing that, and I know a bunch of Cougs aren’t doing that. We’re going to fight and we’re going to do whatever it takes.