Ole Miss' The Grove Collective signs softball team to NIL ambassador program

As the debate over the future of college sports continues – especially when it comes to Title IX compliance – more NIL collectives are stepping up to support women’s sports. The latest is at Ole Miss, where the Rebel-focused Grove Collective announced it signed the entire softball team to its NIL ambassador program.

The move links The Grove Collective with 21 softball players. Financial details of the partnership were not released. However, the collective called the move significant.

“This nationally leading deal marks another key milestone for the softball program, coach Jamie Trachsel and the collective,” the Grove Collective said when it announced the deals.

The new partnership expands The Grove Collective’s NIL roster to more than 200 Ole Miss athletes across 18 men’s and women’s teams. It’s also the third full-team NIL signing for The Grove following the men’s and women’s basketball teams.

“This investment from the collective, paired with the new stadium, supports the goals of coach Trachsel to have Ole Miss competing on the national stage in this new era of college sports,” the collective continued.

The Rebels are currently ranked No. 17 in the country with a 15-6 record. Ole Miss was 32-28 in 2023 and the Rebels advanced to the NCAA tournament before falling to eventual Women’s College World Series participant Utah. Ole Miss athletic leaders are working on renovating the softball stadium to include a larger press box, as well as numerous fan amenities.

Trachsel is in her fourth season at Ole Miss. In just three years in Oxford, she has guided the Rebels to back-to-back NCAA Regional Finals appearances. In 2023, she became the fastest coach in Ole Miss history to achieve her 100th victory, needing only 159 games to accomplish the feat.

Ole Miss’ The Grove Collective leader in NIL space

When Walker Jones took over as executive director of the The Grove Collective in September 2022, he had some heavy lifting to do. Ole Miss was playing catchup in NIL, a position no collective wants to be in. 

By late November 2022, the collective topped the $10 million mark in fundraising. It remains one of the top reported totals in the NIL collective market. While Jones hammered home the importance of donors contributing to The Grove, he made sure the collective was locating revenue outside of the fan base through deals with local and national brands.

When On3 released its top 20 ambitious NIL collective rankings at the end of June 2023, The Grove clocked in at No. 9 on the list. At the time the collective had contracts with 165 athletes with at least one player from each varsity sport.

“Their school has really gotten behind Walker and his team,” a source told On3 at the time.

Before the start of the 2023 season, the collective ran a seven-day NIL fundraising campaign. The organization raised more than $3 million in roughly 10 days. Adding more than $3 million to the bank account made a strong statement before Ole Miss even started its football season. The collective also just recently launched a new fundraising campaign that aims to raise $10 million and surpass 10,000 Grove Collective members by the end of March.

Lead from the 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁!

There's one week left before we seed our March to Victory regions!@KeithCarterOM 🤝 @grovecollectnil https://t.co/hyWF17WZhg | #HottyToddy pic.twitter.com/rf1ONz631a

— Ole Miss Athletics (@OleMissSports) March 11, 2024

Positive NIL news for women’s sports

While there’s zero question that football and men’s basketball athletes are the biggest winners in today’s NIL Era – especially with a focus on Roster Value and recruiting and maintaining winning teams – more collectives are stepping up to support women athletes with teamwide deals.

There have been a handful of other teamwide NIL deals for women’s teams over the past three years.

One of the first that grabbed national attention came in 2022 when the Texas Tech women’s basketball team landed deals worth $25,000 per player. Plus, Utah’s Crimson Collective made history with one of the largest multiteam deals for women’s sports this past December.

All eligible Utah athletes – including walk-ons – on the women’s and men’s basketball and women’s gymnastics teams have the option to receive leases for one of two vehicles with the value of the multiteam deal believed to approach $2 million. 

There have been other collectives across the country that have a solid record of supporting women’s teams – including in the SEC with Auburn’s On To Victory, Florida’s Florida Victorious, Oklahoma’s Crimson and Cream, Tennessee’s Lady Vol Boost Her Club and Texas’ One Fund. However, Jason Belzer, CEO of Student Athlete NIL, which manages some 30 collectives, said last summer that 95% of collective dollars are distributed to male athletes.

Additionally, The Drake Group, a non-profit advocacy organization, believes Title IX applies to the activity of collectives because schools and most collectives are “entangled, entrenched and integrated with the schools,” according to a 10-page memo the group sent in August to the Office for Civil Rights. The group claims that schools are evading Title IX responsibilities as their affiliated collectives distribute an overwhelming majority of dollars to male athletes. 

Nonetheless, the move by The Grove certainly can be viewed as a positive step forward in the NIL space.