Texas becomes latest to launch YOKE player-driven NIL collective

Texas football has become the latest to join the growing list of player-driven collectives in the NIL space. The Austin NIL Club launched Wednesday afternoon with a press release tweeted out by several players, including tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders and defensive back D’Shawn Jamison.

Michigan State’s East Lansing Club became the first player-led collective earlier this month. These organizations are self-described as player-led and membership-based fan communities, but they are powered by YOKE.

YOKE’s website describes the company as the “premier web3 company providing technology for athletes to build community and receive equitable compensation” for NIL. The company is the third-party provider behind the the Austin NIL Club and the various other player-run groups.

The Austin NIL Club plans to release 4,000 access passes in July. Similar to the other player groups, the passes will cost $199 and provide fans access to meet-and-greets with the team, members-only tailgates and an online community where they can interact with players.

Owning this pass guarantees membership to the club. Fans can also buy multiple passes, which can be re-sold using blockchain technology on the ANC site. Merchandise will soon be on sale, too.

The Austin NIL Club is the fourth collective to join the already crowded Texas market.

Role of YOKE with player-led collectives

These player-driven collectives are not truly independent of outside parties. And it’s inaccurate to describe the group as player-run if there’s middleman.

Michigan State rising sixth-year senior right guard Matt Carrick recently explained how YOKE approaches these locker rooms to On3’s Andy Wittry.

“The stuff that we’re sending out, they make,” Carrick said. “We push it out.”

It started with YOKE employees sending direct messages to a few Michigan State players, Carrick said. Then the company contacted the team’s leadership council.

“We were kind of held responsible to get everyone on board,” Carrick said.

At Michigan State, Auburn, Arkansas, Kansas State and now Texas, players are not required to join these collectives. They have the option to opt-out and not take a cut of the profit.

But YOKE is taking a profit, too.

YOKE co-founder and CEO Mick Assaf, a former running back at Notre Dame, said YOKE’s platform fee has decreased from 25% to 18% as the company’s scale has grown. “We’d love to get into the single digits eventually but a lot more people have to be using our technology for that to be the case, but I think that’s really possible,” Assaf said.

Growing trend across college football

Experts are not surprised by players making a move to have a seat at the table. The move also gives student-athletes the opportunity to have the cash funnel directly to them.

“I’m not surprised that they are giving it a try,” said Mit Winter, a sports attorney at Kansas City-based Kennyhertz Perry LLC. “With players running the collective, theoretically more of the revenue generated by the collective will flow to the players than with a collective run by a third-party business.”

And on top of that, the accessibility to coaching staffs is much easier.

“Even if a state law prevents a school and its employees from communicating with a collective, the school and employees would still be communicating with the athletes about other things,” Winter added. “If there is strict adherence to a law like that they’d be prevented from talking about the collective and its activities, but it would be difficult to keep athletics issues and collective issues separate when talking.”

This story has been updated to reflect YOKE’s current platform fee.