Bayou Traditions, Mass St. Collective fundraise for baseball, softball

Two organizations designed to provide name, image and likeness opportunities to athletes at Kansas and LSU, respectively, announced fundraising campaigns last week that allow fans to pledge a donation for every home run, strikeout or win for their baseball or softball team.

The LSU-focused NIL collective Bayou Traditions and the Kansas-aligned collective Mass St. Collective shared the fundraising campaigns on their respective Twitter accounts.

Each collective partnered with the Denver-based live event and mobile engagement company CUE.

The two campaigns came a week after the Tulane-focused collective Fear The Wave Collective Group announced a similar one, also in conjunction with CUE.

The CUE-powered websites allow fans to pledge $0.50, $1, $3, $5, $10 or $20 per home run in baseball or softball. They can commit $0.25, $0.50, $1, $5, $10 or $20 per strikeout. Donors can contribute $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 or $100 per win.

CUE will charge donors every Monday based on the following week’s results. They won’t be charged until their total pledges exceed $30. Fans can modify their pledge during the season. If they join midseason, they will only contribute donations based on future results.

Each site provides a benchmark for fans as a reference point. For example, the website for Mass St. Collective’s fundraising campaign lets fans know that the Jayhawks’ baseball team won 20 games last year, while hitting 55 home runs and striking out 441 opposing batters. The Kansas softball team also won 20 games, while hitting 52 home runs and striking out 313 batters.

Opendorse: Baseball, softball players responsible for less than 10 percent of deals

When the NCAA released additional NIL guidance last May, it reaffirmed that NIL agreements can’t be based on athletic performance, such as points scored, minutes played or winning a contest. However, the baseball and softball-related fundraising campaigns at Kansas, LSU and Tulane aren’t tied to NIL agreements for specific athletes. Yet, indirectly, athletes at those schools can still financially benefit from the on-field performance of baseball and softball players.

It’s also one of the first announcements from Bayou Traditions, which publicly launched in January. The collective partnered with LSU Sports Properties through the sports marketing and media company Playfly Sports, which allows Bayou Traditions to be the official collective of LSU.

These campaigns also promote fundraising and potential NIL opportunities for athletes who compete in sports that engage in just a fraction of the NIL opportunities nationally. The NIL technology company Opendorse recently shared on Twitter that baseball players were responsible for just five percent of the activities disclosed to the company through January 2023. Softball players were responsible for just 3.9 percent.

Football and basketball players engage in more than half of all NIL activities, according to Opendorse.

Football players were responsible for 36.2 percent. Men’s and women’s basketball players combined to be responsible for 15.3 percent of all NIL activities completed or disclosed through Opendorse.

The fundraising campaigns allow collectives to potentially tap into both a select group of deep-pocketed donors and a larger audience of lower-level contributors. In order to achieve sustainability and longevity, collectives likely need a combination of both, as well as engagement from their local business community.