Student-Athlete NIL, The Brandr Group enter partnership

A new alliance is coming to the NIL marketplace.

Student-Athlete NIL (SANIL) and The Brandr Group (TBG) entered a partnership, bringing together the provider for 41 NIL collectives with the group licensing partner used at more than 54 Division I institutions. The providers have been collaborating on projects for more than a year, however, this new agreement will streamline activations for athletes.

A key partnership piece will be SANIL assisting TBG with on-the-ground activities at overlapping university partner programs. With more than 1,000 athletes under contract and using their software, SANIL is able to make contact easily. The firms plan to also accelerate revenue generation for athletes through brand and corporate partnership programs.

The hope is the formal partnership will help in the maturation of the NIL space. Notable overlapping partners include Wake Forest, Syracuse, Rutgers, Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt.

“We’ve been working with SANIL on a project basis for over a year now and as the influence and impact of collectives becomes stronger it made sense to formalize our collaboration,” Brandr Group CEO Wesley Haynes said. “SANIL’s local presence and networks are a perfect complement to our group licensing rights, content development, and national brand activation efforts. The work that SANIL is doing to professionalize the collective ecosystem is innovative and sustaining and we’re excited to align with those efforts.”

Partnership opens merchandising to SANIL

On top of managing group licensing rights athletes, TBG started to work with NIL collectives by connecting brands with NIL entities, such as the Ole Miss-driven The Grove Collective. As part of the agreement, the two providers will be able to collaborate and pool together their resources.

While SANIL continues to expand its reach at the Power 5 level, it will build out its membership. Having a network of fans and donors will allow the company to enter content development and merchandising, something TBG specializes in.

“This multi-faceted partnership aligns The Brandr Group’s licensing power with SANIL’s ability to execute NIL partnerships at scale across our network athletes under retainer across the country,” SANIL founder and CEO Jason Belzer said.

What does this mean?

The Brandr Group and Student-Athlete NIL coming together through this new partnership will make life easier for athletes. For starters, this will eliminate another NIL avenue that athletes need to stay up-to-date on. Instead, they will be able to get most of their information through SANIL.

Back in September, SANIL facilitated a campaign for the TV show Survivor. More than 150 athletes participated, with 84 from the Power 5 and 68 from the Group of 5. All were under contract at a SANIL collective. Similar campaigns can be executed, something TBG will now have access to. When TBG secures brand deals for athletes, they’ll be notified by their SANIL collective at any overlapping institutions.

The final key piece is the group licensing aspect. As SANIL continues to add more schools and grow its network, the provider will soon be large enough to sell apparel and merchandise to donors. TBG would be crucial in executing any of those plans.