Former Notre Dame quarterback helps launch new NIL marketplace

Graduates of the Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business have launched a new online NIL marketplace. Titled MOGL, the marketplace has been established to connect student-athletes with businesses.

Ayden Syal came up with the plan when NIL became legal last July. He then started reaching out to see if anyone would be interested in joining him. One of the people he reached out to was former Notre Dame quarterback Brandon Wimbush.

The idea behind the platform is that student-athletes and businesses can find each other on it, based on their mutual interests, ideals and needs. That means a local car dealership can use the platform to find an athlete whose brand matches their own. They then make a connection and can form NIL deals from there.

“We were definitely skating to where the puck was going,” Syal said to Brendan O’Shaughnessy, writing for Mendoza. “This was built truly to coach athletes and to help businesses and brands reach new audiences with a targeted strategy at an affordable and scalable rate.”

MOGL has more than 3,000 athletes and 900 brands that are using the platform. That’s plenty of opportunities for students at Notre Dame in the world of NIL. They also don’t take a fee from athletes to be on the platform or take a fee from what the athletes will earn. There is not a traditional agency fee, either.

“MOGL is a disrupter,” Syal said. “What we’re doing is truly providing athletes with an alternative mechanism to source deals and monetize their NIL without having to sign a traditional agent representation contract.”

Notre Dame and NIL

MOGL isn’t directly affiliated with Notre Dame, though it is a new NIL opportunity founded by Notre Dame graduates. It’s also a reminder that Fighting Irish players can thrive off NIL with national reach.

Notre Dame athletes have also been aggressive in creating NIL opportunities. Along with Brandon Wimbush being a founder of MOGL, former Notre Dame football players also founded YOKE. That’s a platform that allows fans to play video games with student-athletes as a NIL opportunity.

Notre Dame athletes like Sam Brunelle, who now plays for Virginia, were able to use these platforms to immediately land new NIL opportunities.

For coaches like Marcus Freeman, Mike Brey and Niele Ivey have a great opportunity to sell Notre Dame with NIL.