West Virginia NIL collective gets 15% of sales from beer collaboration

The West Virginia collective Country Roads Trust announced on Thursday a beer collaboration with Big Timber Brewing Company that will raise NIL funds for Mountaineers athletes.

The beer is called Trust Lager. Country Roads Trust will receive 15% of all beer sales – a fact that Country Roads Trust President Stephen Ford said will be featured on the beer cans. The can design will be unveiled on Aug. 2.

A critical aspect of Country Roads Trust’s announcement is that the beer will be available inside West Virginia’s Milan Puskar Stadium during home games this football season, which helps maximize distribution and alignment with the university and fans.

“The biggest piece of all this, what gets us all excited, is being in Milan Puskar Stadium in the fall,” Ford said.

The plan is for the beer to be available for $10 inside the stadium starting with West Virginia’s home opener against Duquesne on Sept. 9.

Ford said the beer will be available in restaurants, as well as for purchase at retail locations through four-packs of 16-ounce cans, starting Oct. 3.

“It’s a little too soon to speculate,” Ford said, when asked how much revenue Trust Lager could generate.

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.

“We obviously have a goal of where we want to be,” Ford said. “It’s a brand new beer so there’s nothing to go off of. There’s no data to say, ‘Hey, this light beer is going to sell well.’ But Big Timber, they’ve been around for a long time. They do really well in the state. They’ve got a really good IPA, some really good craft beer.

“And if it does as well as any of those beers that they have, we could see revenue from those royalties to the Trust before the end of 2023 being over six figures, being over $100,000.”

Ford recently told On3 that despite the recent sagas involving former West Virginia men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins, “We’re actually in a really, really good spot today.”

Country Roads Trust ‘couldn’t keep it in’

Ford said Big Timber Brewing Company’s executives are West Virginia alums and he credited the advertising agency Wheelhouse Creative with assisting with the design of the can.

“It was something that we all were just excited about and we just couldn’t keep it in much longer,” Ford said, adding that water from the state is used to brew the beer.

Through the agreement between Country Roads Trust and Big Timber Brewing Company, the collective granted the brewery a license for its name and logo. The collective then receives the agreed-upon royalties.

“You could put out a beer all day,” Ford said. “It’s all about distribution. Where is it going to be? Where can fans find the beer? Where can they find their local bar or restaurants?

“And Big Timber’s got partnerships with these distributors in the state. One of them here in north-central West Virginia has a deal with the food and beverage company with WVU, and they already had beer in the stadium. And this was an easy sell for them. Now, we needed to make sure that there was no direct tie-in to WVU with the beer.”

Six NIL collectives benefit from beer partnerships

Trust Lager is the sixth announced beer collaboration that benefits an NIL collective. The first five beers were The Horseshoe Golden Ale benefiting Boise State athletes, SWARM Golden Ale, Cincy Light at Cincinnati, Ames Lager at Iowa State and Hell’s Half Acre Lager at TCU.

“We wanted to do something outside the box and obviously there are other collectives that are thinking outside the box, thinking bigger, on how to drive revenue,” Ford said. “So it goes to show that the collectives are all thinking the same, without talking with each other.

“We’re all thinking the same on how to drive new revenue. Since we can’t have the student-athletes promote alcohol, well why not just partner with a brewery and we get a percentage of those sales?

“So, it was an easy decision from our end.”