LSU's Angel Reese leads NIL Store's top earners from March Madness

The apparel company Campus Ink announced Thursday the 10 college basketball players who earned the most in name, image and likeness-related commissions during March Madness from their custom apparel sold through the company’s NIL Store network.

LSU forward Angel Reese tops the list and her teammate, Flau’jae Johnson, ranked fourth in commissions earned from March 1 through April 10.

Campus Ink didn’t disclose the athletes’ earnings, but Campus Ink NIL Director Adam Cook previously told On3 that athletes who partner with the company earn between $8 and $15 per item sold.

Here are the NIL Store network’s top 10 earners from March Madness.

The NIL Store’s Top Earners from March Madness 🤩 pic.twitter.com/FVyXMvTRrl

— The NIL Store (@nil_store) April 20, 2023

Campus Ink has partnered with 17 institutions for a school-specific NIL Store, including Duke, Florida State, Illinois, Iowa State, Michigan State, Penn State and Syracuse.

“Just because a store isn’t live doesn’t mean that we’re not supporting that school’s athletes so we have more than 40 schools that we’re supporting their athletes with licensed merchandise,” Cook told On3 Thursday. “We’re in upward of the multiples of thousands of athletes.”

On3 discussed Campus Ink’s top 10 list in depth with Cook to analyze what else stakeholders can learn about the correlation between on-court or personal branding success and merchandise sales.

Five men, five women are in the top 10

Every basketball player who was among the NIL Store’s top 10 earners during March Madness played for a team that earned a single-digit seed in the NCAA tournament. The average of their respective teams’ seeds is 2.8 and it’s even lower when counting LSU women’s basketball and Indiana men’s basketball just once each since both programs had two players make a list.

Three of the 10 players won a national championship this month and five of them played in the Final Four.

Fittingly, on the heels of the women’s basketball national championship game that drew an average of 9.9 million viewers, the NIL Store’s top-10 list was equally split with five men’s and five women’s players. Three of the top four earners are women, including the two LSU stars Reese and Johnson.

“This list is about top earners but what you see represented in this list is not just, ‘Oh, these household names,'” Cook said. “This list is actually representative of a bunch of different stories and so if you look at Angel Reese, that’s a story everybody knows. National champion. You know, the face of college basketball on the men’s and women’s side.

“Really exciting to kind of see her come into her own, take a stance, not just on, like, ‘Oh, I’m a ballplayer and we won a natty champ,’ but also ‘This is who I am as a person and you either like me or you don’t but I’m going to stay true to who I am on the biggest stage.’ That’s one story that you see represented here.”

The NIL-related challenges for international athletes

Notably, Purdue center Zach Edey, who was named the Naismith Player of the Year, and UConn guard Nika Mühl, who led the Huskies by averaging 36.6 minutes per game, rank second and third on the NIL Store’s list, respectively.

Edey was born in Canada and Mühl is from Croatia. Cook said neither player promoted their respective custom apparel so they “never had to” leave the country to engage in the opportunities.

International athletes who have an F-1 visa as a student face limited opportunities to earn income in the U.S., which affects their NIL opportunities. Cook said Campus Ink’s process often involves communicating with the international student services department at a university, yet he described a “sliding rule,” depending on the degree to which a specific university or athlete is comfortable with an NIL opportunity.

“They are not allowed to actively participate in NIL,” Cook said, describing Edey and Mühl each ranking near the top of Campus Ink’s list. “Not a retweet, not a thank you to fans, not any sight of activity but they’re still up there on that list, which I think speaks to two things. One – the incredible fan base that’s present at both of those schools. You know, UConn women’s basketball fans are unlike other fan bases, right? And Purdue basketball fans are rabid about the Purdue brand and supporting their athletes and we saw that all year.

“That’s another really wonderful storyline that’s present.”

Cook noted that UConn guard Paige Bueckers retweeted Campus Ink apparel on behalf of her teammates, which could especially benefit an international athlete who may not be allowed to actively participate in NIL activities.

Campus Ink launched a customized hockey jersey for Edey to honor his Canadian roots.

“When we launched the hockey jersey for Zach Edey, you know that was right before a game that was covered on ESPN2 and they were talking about a good example [of an NIL deal] and I think it’s present here with TJD and Grace [Berger], is if you want to see how you can take advantage of NIL, it’s go somewhere, stay there and be great,” Cook said. “That’s kind of what you saw with Grace and TJD. That’s not the only way to be successful in it but that’s a great path. You don’t have to be this crazy, loud, extroverted media personality to find success in this avenue.”

Campus Ink’s process of turning around Lamont Butler gear

Cook said he’d have to check his texts to determine the exact timestamps but he estimated that Campus Ink finalized and received approval for a shirt design to commemorate San Diego State guard Lamont Butler‘s buzzer-beater against FAU in the Final Four in less than 45 minutes.

“From our side, we’re all fans. We’re all watching the games and that happens and I mean, I was running around my living room, like, just so excited for Lamont, so excited for that program,” Cook said. “I spent some time in Southern California, my brother still lives in San Diego county so it was just an exciting moment for me personally and then I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, we actually have to do some work around this.’

“We start the conversation with our artist and he was already on it. He’s like, ‘I’m halfway done,’ so he’s on that piece. Then we have the operations side that’s starting to build some framework around just the e-commerce piece and then I’m on that last piece of talking with the institution, saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to get something going. Can I send this over to you right now?’ Again, they’re very responsive. ‘Yes, love it. Let’s chat. Call me if you need to,’ which, they’re trying to celebrate as well so it’s a lot of moving parts but just demonstrates a high level of competency and a high level of commitment from that whole ecosystem to make something like that happen.”