The Grove Collective to sell custom beer at Ole Miss' athletic events for NIL funds

The Grove has long been one of the top tailgating grounds in college football.

Starting this year, beer sales inside Vaught–Hemingway Stadium will benefit Ole Miss’ NIL collective. The Grove Collective has partnered with Circle & Square Brewing Company to release Full Ride Gameday beer.

As part of the agreement, the collective will receive all the profits from sales of Full Ride at Ole Miss athletic events. While more and more NIL entities across the landscape release alcohol and beer products to drive revenue back to athletes, The Grove has ensured its product will be available to fans when they’re at events.

It’s also one of the largest revenue shares a collective has secured in working with a brewery. The beer will be available at Circle & Square Brewing’s taproom in Oxford, along with retail stores and restaurants throughout Northern Mississippi.

“We see this is a unique opportunity to generate funding for The Grove Collective,” the collective’s executive director Walker Jones said in a statement. “This will be one of the first partnerships of its kind for any SEC school’s NIL collective. We hope that Rebel fans everywhere will buy Full Ride knowing that they are helping to create more NIL opportunities for our student-athletes.”

When Jones took over as executive director at The Grove in September, he had some heavy lifting to do. Ole Miss was playing catch up in NIL, a position no collective wants to be in. By late November, the collective topped the $10 million mark in fundraising. It remains one of the top reported totals in the NIL collective market. In total, the collective has contracts with more than 165 athletes with at least one player from each varsity sport. The amount of capital raised by The Grove this fall also played a role in Lane Kiffin staying in Oxford. 

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. Establishing this Ole Miss-focused beer is yet another example. The collective raised upwards of $1.7 million on the first day of its fundraising campaign to raise $3 million in cash and pledges last week. Plus, through a partnership with Realtree, The Grove released 50 limited edition Nike Air Force 1 sneakers for members.

“This type of partnership is one of the main reasons we wanted to start a brewery in Oxford,” Circle & Square Brewing founder Sumner Abraham said. “It’s an innovative collaboration and we are honored to be a part of it and thrilled to contribute to the future success of Ole Miss’ student-athletes.”

Alcohol sales growing trend in NIL collective landscape

The Horseshoe Golden Ale benefits Boise State athletes, with Cincy Light at Cincinnati, Ames Lager at Iowa State and Hell’s Half Acre Lager at TCU. South Carolina’s Garnet Trust collective launched the Sandstorm Game Day Larger earlier this month, too.

Country Roads Trust announced a beer collaboration with Big Timber Brewing Company back in July. The West Virginia collective will receive 15% of all beer sales.

The SWARM Golden Ale, which generates revenue for The Swarm Collective at Iowa, generated $30,000 for the collective in its first month, according to the collective’s CEO Brad Heinrichs.

Alcohol has also become a growing market. Tennessee’s Volunteer Club launched vodka last week in stores throughout the state. Expected to sell at a retail price of $24.99, the entity will pocket 25% of every bottle sold.

The Vols are not the first NIL collective to sell vodka. Iowa State and its We Will Collective have released a cobranded line of vodka, called Iowa State 1858 Vodka. The organization will receive roughly $1 for each bottle sold.