Adidas launches NIL network to sign athletes as paid brand ambassadors

Adidas is going all-in with name, image and likeness, launching a network dedicated to signing student-athletes — all of them — as paid brand ambassadors.

The network will be open to any student-athlete at all 109 adidas-partnered Division 1 schools reaching over 50,000 competitors across 23 different sports. Power 5 and HBCU programs will be the first to join the network.

It’s the first major sports brand to offer a group deal of this magnitude.

“We hope to uplift student-athletes by providing educational opportunities to learn more about the NIL and business landscape, which may include bringing them into brand moments and campaigns, partnerships with existing brand athlete partners and ambassadors,” Adidas NCAA program lead Jim Murphy said in a statement to Sports Illustrated. “But really we want to open the doors to a more equitable future outside of just unlocking monetary rewards. We want to help them grow as student-athletes and set them up for a future beyond college sports.”

The network will be rolled out in four phases, starting with Power 5 and HBCUs, with other schools joining the fold by April 2023.

Participating student-athletes will receive a percentage of the sales they drive to the company’s website and adidas app, along with sharing sponsored social media posts.

“We started to think about how we could do something on a larger scale outside of just individual endorsement deals,” Murphy told Sports Illustrated. “When we really looked across NIL and we grounded it in our mission statement that through sport, we have the power to change lives, I think that’s where we really started to grasp the idea.”

Back in 2017, former Adidas consultant Merl Code, former Adidas employee James Gatto and business manager Christian Dawkins were accused of paying money from Adidas to families of high-profile prospects to ensure they signed with Adidas-sponsored schools, including Louisville, Kansas and North Carolina State. All three were found guilty of various charges, namely bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Five short years later, Adidas will legally pay student-athletes for attending their sponsored schools.