Kentucky walk-on Kareem Watkins signs NIL deal with luxury private car club

Even Kentucky’s walk-ons get NIL deals. Last night, junior guard Kareem Watkins announced a partnership with Lex Exotics, a luxury private car club in Lexington that also partners with DJ Wagner, Watkins’ stepbrother and Kentucky signee.

In the video he shared on social media, Watkins gets to choose between a Tesla and a 1967 Mustang. He goes with the Tesla and seems to have a blast driving it around town.

“Today is a cool day. I get to pick between these two cars,” Watkins says. “One is an old-school, retro ’67 Mustang and one is a Tesla. I think I’m going to go with the Tesla because I hear it goes from 0-60 [MPH] in 1.9 [seconds] so we’re going to check that out.”

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Watkins is part of Kentucky’s teamwide NIL deal with Morgan & Morgan and is also on Cameo. His NIL valuation is $15.1K but has yet to be updated to reflect the partnership with Lex Exotics. Even then, it ranks No. 616 in college basketball. Not too shabby for a walk-on who’s only played 22 minutes during his three-year career and has yet to record a single point.

DJ Wagner announced his NIL deal with Lex Exotics in March, pulling up to the McDonald’s All-American Game in Houston in a Rolls-Royce Cullinan. Wagner also has deals with Nike, NOCTA (Nike’s sub-label in collaboration with rapper Drake), and WME Sports. His On3 NIL valuation is currently $702K, which ranks No. 5 among high school basketball players and No. 55 in the overall On3 NIL 100.

As part of the deal, both Watkins and Wagner will attend the Lex Exotics launch party on May 13. If you want to be there too, Commonwealth Causes is holding a raffle that includes tickets to it as part of a “VIP Fan Experience,” along with two lower-level tickets to a Kentucky Basketball game, two suite passes for a Kentucky Football game, and a complimentary $12,000 Lex Exotics 1-year Diamond Membership. The raffle ends on May 11 and so far, only 32 of the 250 tickets have been sold, so hop to it if you want to mingle with Watkins, Wagner, and other “mystery UK Basketball players.”

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