Two years into NIL, Everett Sports Management is 'always growing'

Two years into NIL, no other sports agency’s list of clients is comparable to the Everett Sports Management portfolio.

The South Carolina-based agency has worked with a list of athletes ranging from former North Carolina quarterback Sam Howell to Georgia tight end Brock Bowers. Led by Dan Everett and Jeff Hoffman, as well as co-founder and partner Rachel Everett, the firm has also worked with Miami women’s basketball stars Haley and Hanna Cavinder. The agency says they are the highest-paid female basketball players in 2023, and ESM has now led them into their post-basketball career working with Betr and Caktus AI.

Former Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett made north of $1 million in deals in his final season in Athens, thanks to ESM. ESM facilitated the Hyatt Hotels endorsement deal for former Tennessee wideout Jalin Hyatt, too.

ESM’s success has not been limited to working with some of the top college athletes in the NIL Era. The agency created Park Avenue, a marketing subsidiary at South Carolina, facilitating 120 partnerships in its first 90 days, according to the Sports Business Journal. While the NCAA ruled the service impermissible, Park Avenue pivoted and secured outside funding to continue serving Gamecock athletes.

In a lengthy conversation with On3, Everett and Hoffman talked about where the NIL industry is headed and how Park Avenue will continue expansion. Among the highlights:

+ Everett believes brands are only starting to spend substantial dollars in NIL: “So for us, every single month, as we represent some of the most high-profile athletes across collegiate sports, it’s become more lucrative. It’s become busier.”

+ Hoffman promised that Park Avenue is only a launching pad. ESM has every intention of bringing the format to other schools: “From an expansion standpoint, expansion is happening. On the tail of that statement is what’s very powerful about a Park Avenue is the exclusivity of it. The intent is not to place a Park Avenue in every school across the country.”

+ ESM has a distinct type of athlete it is looking to work with. Everett: “Being able to have people that are accountable. People that are trustworthy. People that at a very young age, see themselves as CEOs and want to manage and build a portfolio and handle their business is unique.”

+ Spending so much time deciphering state laws and being around athletes, Hoffman envisions more guidelines that would benefit athletes: “We can put some additional guardrails and guidelines out there that may help just benefit the athlete in the long run more so, so we don’t have fatigue on their brands.”

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and context.

Q: Did you guys know this was a space you wanted to invest time and resources into? Did you want to get into when you started to hear about the state laws coming together and then, obviously, the NCAA put its policy in place?

HOFFMAN: I’ll go first — 100%. You have to look at it is from a funnel perspective, right? NIL provided an opportunity for the funnel to go a little little further down for us. To open up, evaluate athletes in an open conversation. Whereas before that time, you waited until the end of a bowl game or the end of a season. It was very restricted. In this environment, there’s a lot more opportunity to evaluate more athletes — across gender and across sport — and there’s a lot more opportunity to help them monetize their name, image and likeness.

EVERETT: Being here in South Carolina, we’re in the hotbed of the SEC and ACC. What you see from even a pro football profile is, a top player at the University of Georgia who just won a national championship, has more commercial value than the starting quarterback right now for the Atlanta Falcons. So these athletes being able to monetize their platform through mainly traditional commercial opportunities, it’s fair, it’s reasonable, it’s what NIL was intended for. And it was absolutely time that they were able to take advantage of that.

Q: What has been the biggest learning lesson in the first two years of NIL? Is it how you handle the college athlete differently than a professional athlete? Or is the conversation different with brands when operating at the college level?

HOFFMAN: Twofold for me. One is the the need and necessity in this — I think this is why ESEM is so adept at navigating NIL so well is to be nimble. Whether it’s policy, whether it’s state law, whether it’s federal, whether it’s NCAA, there are a variety of groups that have influence over regulations and rules. So being able to be nimble and stay compliant across state school, federal is extremely important to stay viable and productive.

The second thing would be the economics. The economics of it, are far more lucrative at the high-profile level, then initial expectations. So again, it does come down to there are some very marketable players — across gender and across sport — at an upper echelon that makes NIL an extremely valuable space to participate in. I also think it’s a terrific funnel for traditional business for us, as well as allowing us to reimagine verticals of our business for something like a Park Avenue, and how do we support institutions and universities? So it has been economically interesting, as well as operationally challenging.

EVERETT: In the genesis of NIL, it was kind of a polarizing topic. So not only from a fan perspective, from a business interest, there were some companies and brands that didn’t want to wade in that water. It was a very, ‘let’s wait and see approach.’ And I think every single month it’s become more mainstream. It’s become more popular. It’s become more accepted. So for us, every single month, as we represent some of the most high-profile athletes across collegiate sports, it’s become more lucrative. It’s become busier. It’s just become a huge part of our business here at ESM, and that’s pretty awesome.

Q: Has NIL brought enough new clients and business where expanding ESM is a very viable option?

HOFFMAN: We’re always growing. So if you think about our business, and you broke it down into three verticals, there’s NIL representation. There’s the core, professional representation: football and golf. And then the third vertical would be institutions and universities. So NIL provides an avenue for economic growth across all three of those. There’s more opportunity, more folks to support and identify partnerships for commercial value. We’re extremely adept to being able to leverage our data approach to do that.

EVERETT: Maybe a simplistic answer: Over the last 12 months, we’ve added seven new, full-time team members here at ESM.

Q: I think that a lot of institutions and collectives are going to basically want to copy what Park Avenue is and maybe ask their top donor to maybe step up and help fund the venture. Does ESM have plans for expansions? And at the same time, how do you ensure other agencies don’t copy the Park Avenue structure?

HOFFMAN: From an expansion standpoint, expansion is happening. On the tail of that statement is what’s very powerful about a Park Avenue is the exclusivity of it. The intent is not to place a Park Avenue in every school across the country, it’s about being selective with the most high-profile, most marketable institutions in the United States. And doing that in a very purposeful, precision way. So yes, we’re expanding, but we’re also being very exclusive in that that partnership.

EVERETT: We’re being slow and steady in that approach. I do anticipate in 2023, we’ll add another university. And as Jeff shared, we’re in discussions with several schools to see what that best opportunity is for both parties. I do think you would see that expansion, it will be one or two universities per year, especially considering the success that subsidiaries had their the University of South Carolina. For us, as a marketing only firm, when NIL began, we were in a definitely a sweet spot. We don’t have any distractions from a contract standpoint with professional sports teams. We’ve become one of the most formidable NIL firms in the country, because it was a very natural implementation to add that to our portfolio.

Q: ESM has partnered with Stetson Bennett and Brock Bowers, obviously the Cavinder Twins along with Sam Howell. What does ESM look for in an athlete that maybe the general agency in this day and age doesn’t look for? Is it brand recognition on social media? Is it having a really good personality off the court?

EVERETT: It’s definitely a combination, or it can be an independent of one another, of athletic performance, influence, like the Cavinder Twins have tremendous influence, and then character. I know that a lot of agencies say that, but I do believe here at ESM, you look across our client roster and you think of a Jalen Hurts, of Jonathan Taylor, Nick Chubbs and Mac Jones, a Brock Bowers. The character of these young men and women we represent is second to none.

HOFFMAN: We do a pretty good job of understanding the, again, the economics of a partnership. Do they have influence across brands that that will partner in that that market or geographic area? Do they, like Dan said, do they perform? Can they gain attention in an owned media way? Are they already being exposed? And then, you know, kind of an add on to what Dan says, is there discipline to be a business man or woman? Will they handle their business?

EVERETT: A large percentage of our clients make seven figures annually in endorsement income, commercial income. In exchange for making those millions of dollars, there are deliverables they’re having to provide in return. As Jeff shared, it’s a lot of work. So being able to have people that are accountable. People that are trustworthy. People that at a very young age, see themselves as CEOs and want to manage and build a portfolio and handle their business is unique.

Q: Does ESM plan to add to its NIL talent portfolio in the coming months?

HOFFMAN: Is growth in the future? Yeah, we’re going to grow. We’re continuing to grow. What you have to do is be measured in that pace, right? Scale is something that you want to achieve without the detriment of your current partnerships. I still want to be able to pick up the phone and chat one-to-one with all our alpha talent. I don’t want to lose that. That’s something that’s really important to us. And I think that’s what makes us novel.

EVERETT: When we talk about adding one Park Avenue per year, potentially. When you look across — we could sign 50 NIL athletes in the next 30 days if we wanted. But would our approach be able to monetize it responsibly the way those athletes deserve? Probably not. When you look at our growth, we’re absolutely going to add three, four or five very high-profile players across all sports and genders every year, but it’s probably going to remain close to that volume.

Q: What’s one thing about NIL that you would like to change? Is it you don’t like how ever state law is different? Do you want federal legislation? Or is it very much more pointed than that?

EVERETT: I believe NIL was absolutely intended for traditional commercialization where a brand pays an athlete X in exchange for these deliverables that obviously rewards the athlete and helps grow the brand. When you look across recruiting, retention and acquisitions, with collective dollars and donor pooling funding with sometimes somewhat nebulous deliverables — there needs to be more structure around that. That’s the one issue that I see now. True NIL, it’s absolutely incredible.

HOFFMAN: There’s a lot of things that may need a little more organization than that currently exists. Whether that’s a commissioner of NIL, NCAA or whatever that might be to help guide. You’re always going to allow institutions, local state governments to provide their own influence over their their laws and regulations. That’s just the way things are. We can put some additional guardrails and guidelines out there that may help just benefit the athlete in the long run more so, so we don’t have fatigue on their brands.