NIL marketplaces, collectives ramping up in-game marketing

The Gator Collective made sure it was everywhere the first two weekends in Gainesville.

With the Billy Napier Era kicking off at Florida, and the Gators hosting two top 25 teams in Utah and Kentucky, the NIL collective wanted to make sure its presence was known. The Swamp finished with 90,799 in attendance — the 10th most at home in school history — against Utah. Another 89,993 watched the loss to the Wildcats.

That’s a lot of potential donors.

Banners were spread out around the tailgate scene, including QR codes that linked to the collective’s website. A prominent tailgate was set up on the Gator Walk. The collective made sure to have a spot in the gameday program, too.

The main feature was a 32-second videoboard commercial. Athletes from Florida’s volleyball, baseball, basketball and football programs explained what NIL and the Gator Collective set out to do.

An all-out promotional blitz has worked, too. The Gator Collective has seen an uptick in donations over the past two weeks.

“A lot of exposure,” Gator Collective’s operations director Jen Grosso told On3. “We expect that it will take repeated efforts before we see the real impact. We will have this same marketing strategy for all of the home games.”

With the second year of NIL here, more collectives and marketplaces are making sure they’re putting their product in front of fans and college communities. The best place to draw in new collective members is the actual sporting event. And schools have become crafty with ways to push out links and promotions to their fanbase, using QR codes and videoboard messages.

NIL marketplaces pushing out products to college fanbases

During starting lineups in Wake Forest‘s Week 1 home game, each player was given a spot on the video board along with a massive QR code that took fans directly to the athlete’s Opendorse page. Maryland and Kansas have carried out similar campaigns; the Jayhawks even put a QR code on the gameday program. And Nebraska has aired NIL advertisements during pregame at Memorial Stadium.

INFLCR launched its local exchange program at the start of 2022, quickly partnering with schools such as Oklahoma and Texas A&M. The local exchange allows businesses and collectives to directly begin conversations with student-athletes.

Paying for the software isn’t cheap, though. INFLCR CEO Jim Cavale pointed out to On3 that the price double a school’s annual fee. Businesses do not pay a transactional fee to sign an athlete.

“So these schools all made huge pushes at basketball games and gymnastics events to market their school exchange,” Cavale said. “Here’s where you go if you’re an Oklahoma fan, donor, supporter, business or collective, and you want to work with our athlete. Here we are about eight months, nine months later. We’ve got more than 65 of our 200 schools that have added this local exchange technology to have their own school exchange.

“Now we’re in football seasons, the first football season where they’ve had their school exchange, and, yes, they’re going to continue to use the jumbotron and signage in the stadium.”

Opendorse announced plans to launch school-specific marketplaces at 75 partner schools throughout fall 2022 earlier this summer. The company is also the first openly-facing NIL marketplace in the space. Colleges using QR codes and promotions in-game is not a surprise. And as a plus, it shows recruits how important NIL is to the school even if it cannot broker the deal directly.

“NIL success is now a major piece of the recruiting pitch,” Opendorse senior director of brand marketing Sam Weber told On3. “Most schools still can’t facilitate deals, but they can make their athletes accessible and easy for fans to support. By promoting their marketplace, they’re able to show their commitment to NIL support on a big stage and direct fans to work with their players. Eventually, the programs that receive significant fan support will be able to share how their athletes earn more dollars and deals at School X vs. School Y.”

Collectives focusing on donations

For all the work marketplaces are doing in creating opportunities for athletes, collectives have also been busy trying to boost donations.

The Gator Collective is just one on a list to get creative with its role on gamedays. Virginia Tech collective Triumph NIL debuted an ad this past weekend, naming a player of the week. Kansas collective Mass Strategies put a major ad up on the video board in Week 1, too. So did Arizona’s Friends of Wilbur & Wilma this week. At Kansas State, signage for the WildcatNIL collective can be seen inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium and throughout the historic Aggieville bar district.

Pokes with a Purpose, 1Oklahoma Collective, Cohesion Foundation and the 901 Fund are all official sponsors of their institution’s athletic department, too.

For all the concerns collectives have about staying competitive in recruiting and the transfer portal, the prime time to raise funds is during football season. Specifically, if a team is winning games on the field.