Inside LifeWallet's international NIL deal with Miami's Lou Hedley

As one of top attorneys for John Ruiz’s healthcare company LifeWallet, Alexis Fernandez has played a substantial role in brokering NIL deals with Miami athletes.

None have taken as much planning as the company’s most recent partnership with Hurricanes punter Lou Hedley.

Heavily tattooed and a finalist for the Ray Guy award in 2020, he’s one of the most well-known players on Miami’s roster. The Aussie is also one of roughly 20,000 international athletes at the high school and college level whose student visa prohibits them from working here.

There is no clear messaging from the NCAA or federal government on how international students can profit in the NIL era. But thanks to a report addressing NIL for international athletes, Fernandez and Ruiz formed a plan for Hedley.

“Since we started the whole process with NIL, Lou was very interested because so many of his teammates were involved,” Fernandez told On3. “So we did start doing our research and our due diligence since the inception of our NIL program. … There’s clearly no explicit guidance document from the NCAA as it pertains to international student-athletes.”

Since flying Hedley home to Australia would have meant a deal was struck on U.S. soil, the company waited until he traveled to Perth this summer before signing him. Fernandez also reached out to production companies who could shoot the content for LifeWallet from 13,000 miles away.

“So for Australia, luckily, what I had done was, because even though he was flying there, we had enough time to coordinate things,” she said. “So with the production company, I set up Zoom capabilities that I was able to do everything remotely.”

While the group did not join Hedley on the 37-hour journey, which included a stop in Qatar, they worked with the punter over Zoom.

The nuance of the deal did not stop there, though. Hedley had to find someone who could post the content to social media from Australia.

“It’s a pain in the backside having to fly over but it’s all worth it,” Hedley told The Associated Press. “I feel like I deserve to get a little bit of money, I’ve contributed wealth to the team (with) my Name, Image and Likeness … so it was good to kind of get compensated for what I’ve been doing the last three years.”

While Fernandez would not provide exact specifics of the deal, she did confirm players’ profit from NIL deals vary. The Associated Press reported Hedley said it is roughly in the $50,000 range.

The last step for LifeWallet in the deal: paying him.

“From a company logistic perspective, there’s tax research that had to be done,” she said. “Most of our players we have on a payroll. (Hedley) is on a payroll as well, but the money is being sent to their home country since the work is being performed solely in their home country — it’s different. There was definitely some due diligence that was required.”

The Lou Hedley deal has not been the only international venture for LifeWallet.

West Virginia transfer linebacker Akheem Mesidor met Fernandez in Canada for a social media photoshoot. And there’s plans for the future, too.

Fernandez may have her stiffest challenge yet with Arkansas State transfer Norchad Omier flying home to Nicaragua.

“I think we definitely want to be advocates for them,” she said. “We are definitely looking at the whole legislation aspect of Name, Image and Likeness. Personally, I think that they should be able to be able to maximize on their NIL here in the states.

“If you think about it, the schools enter into some agreement with either Adidas, Nike or Pepsi. They’re wearing it on their uniform, they’re doing everything that any other student is doing. … I don’t see why they couldn’t make an exception for these students.”

Lou Hedley’s On3 NIL valuation since landing LifeWallet partnership

The Miami punter has an On3 NIL valuation of $26,000. He has seen a growth of $345 over the last 13 weeks. He currently has a $397 per post value with 31,000 combined social media followers.

The On3 NIL Valuation is an index that looks to set the standard market value for both high school and college-level athletes. The NIL valuation does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals an athlete has completed to date. It rather signifies an athlete’s value at a certain moment in time.

The On3 NIL 100 is the first of its kind and the defacto NIL ranking of the top 100 high school and college athletes ranked by market valuation.