KSR's Q&A with Kentucky WBB's new NIL Director Liz Brown

The name, image, and likeness (NIL) space in college athletics is still practically brand new. Decision-makers have yet to craft uniform rules across the country that every school would abide by. It’s making for some messy situations in certain corners, but like with most things in life, time will sort out the issues and eventually everyone will be on, mostly, the same page.

We’re only roughly two years into the new NIL era. Some of the top-funded universities have already begun to take advantage of the opportunities that are now presented, whether that be for recruiting purposes (which isn’t technically allowed) or simply helping a high-level student-athlete earn his/her much-deserved keep. NIL should be seen as a positive in the landscape of college sports, although it might take some time to wade through and then weed out the early problems.

At this point, schools are either embracing NIL or they aren’t. The schools that don’t will get left behind as others use that money to improve their rosters and build their overall brands. For the Kentucky women’s basketball program, head coach Kyra Elzy is on the side of embracement. Players such as Blair Green and Maddie Scherr have already been taking advantage of NIL through their massive social media followings, inking multiple deals with local and even national brands.

But now, Kentucky WBB as a whole is going all in on the NIL movement. Back in May, Elzy created a new position on her staff titled “NIL Director”. The first person to hold that position is Liz Brown, who has nearly a decade of college coaching experience under her belt already. Brown is now responsible for helping Kentucky WBB players manage and develop their brands, educating student-athletes on the topic of NIL and how to maximize those opportunities, and serving as a NIL liaison, among other related duties.

After spending a month in Lexington to meet the team, learn the ropes, and craft a plan, Brown sat down with KSR for an exclusive 30-minute interview. The goal of this interview is to help give fans a better idea of what this new NIL space will look like for Kentucky women’s basketball, but also college sports in general. Here is our entire discussion.

*This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity purposes.*

ZG: Tell us about yourself. I know you have a big basketball background. How did you get involved with NIL here at Kentucky?

LB: Honestly, on a whim. I’m coming from Fordham, I was an assistant coach there and we didn’t have too much to do with NIL. We had a couple of kids that I think were doing stuff with Barstool — but almost half the country is doing something with Barstool. A few other things here and there but nothing what you would expect at this kind of level in the SEC. So this is kind of new territory for me but I am super excited about it. I really like that it’s new, I like that I’m coming into it when everybody is kind of at the starting line instead of coming in late and people are already way ahead. I’m just really excited about it to be honest. I think it’s a really good opportunity for these girls and I think anything you can do to make the new generation better than what ours was, I’m all for that and I’m really excited I get to be a part of helping them get there.

ZG: Did UK reach out to you? How did you get involved with this?

LB: It’s a little bit of a funny story. I did my GA (graduate assistant) position at the University of New Haven and I believe that was 2017-18, and I met Kamiko Williams, who is one of Coach Elzy’s former players. We’ve always stayed in touch and I talked to her about what happened at Fordham and I guess Coach (Elzy) had reached out to Kamiko and asked her if she knew anybody that was looking for a position. We had a couple of positions open here. So Kamiko reached out to me and let me know and I said absolutely I would love to look into that. Then it just kind of happened from there.

ZG: Was it initially for a NIL position or is that how it played out?

LB: I believe there were three positions open. I think it was the video coordinator, the recruiting assistant, and then this position. I was immediately like not the video coordinator position. It’s just not my forte. So it was between the NIL position and the recruiting assistant. I was a little hesitant about the NIL position just because I have not specifically worked in that field before so I initially interviewed for the recruiting assistant position. After that, it melted into, “Well, what about the NIL?” and I was like sure, let me ask some questions so I can give you guys what you’re looking for. And everything seemed to match up and it’s been great ever since.

ZG: What were some of those questions you initially asked?

LB: What they were initially looking for from me. What my role would be, what they were expecting. I had never been in a position like that before. It’s not even like I could look up what do they do. Because there is no information on it anywhere. Just asking what my roles would be, what you would be looking for from me, and they were really great. I was fully transparent with them. I didn’t want to have anything held back, letting them know where I’m at with it. Because I want to give them what they want. They just have approached it with so much grace with me and they’ve been truly phenomenal. There are so many resources here — I mean I’ve only been here about a month and my confidence in this has grown substantially. I believe I can do it but I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m really getting a hang of it, I’m really getting a feel for it, and I’m really excited. I’ve had individual meetings with all of our players and just trying to get to learn them better and learn what they want to be involved in, what they value, what their passionate about and also have them learn a little bit about me and what I’m doing here to help them. I just finished up my last one yesterday. I think they went really well. I love getting to know the kids. So far I think we have really good kids here and so many ideas just started going through my head as we were talking and it just got me really excited because I think there’s a lot of opportunity here and some of it is right in front of us with all of those obtainable goals for right now that lead to those big picture goals.

ZG: By resources, do you mean the opportunities themselves, or contacts you can connect them with?

LB: I would say the network, the contacts, and then if they need help with anything, specifically getting a contract looked at by somebody other than myself, somebody who maybe speaks legalese better than I do. Wherever my boundaries don’t let me cross, there are people here that can help them with that and I think that’s really important. I think if we got to that boundary and I couldn’t help them and it was like you gotta figure it out for yourself, I don’t think it would be as successful, so knowing they have those resources and me knowing they’re there, I can literally place them in front of where they need to go.

ZG: Loaded question here: What are your expectations? What is your role? How are you going to facilitate the NIL deals between the players and the actual companies? In general, what do you expect to be doing the first few months you’re here?

So my first few months, I really just want to focus on getting all of our girl’s foundations built. By foundation, I mean the most important thing that they can have right now is their profile. When I say that, I mean pretty much their Instagram account, which also can lead into their TikTok, Twitter, just the rest of their social media, but primarily, where companies go to look at athletes to see if they’re — if they match what they want — is the Instagram account, and then closely followed by TikTok. So my main goal for right now is to try to make sure that we get everybody’s profiles headed in the right direction. Some of them have profiles that you can tell that they do some type of advertising this year. Maddie (Scherr), Eniya (Russell), you can tell that they’re doing something, but I want us to have so much more of who they are outside of basketball, outside of just what people initially see when they drive past the billboard with them in a uniform. There’s so much more to them and I think your audience is always excited to learn more about you. And I think that’s where these companies are going to find ways to invest in you. If I’m posting something about what I’m passionate about that aligns with my values and then a company is offering some type of product that I’m already using just in my daily life and I’m an advocate because I like it, not because of I’m trying to brand it, that company now has a reason to want to invest in me. And I think that’s where we need to get to is, we’re not just posting things for fun or to look cool or whatever. And yes, we should post some things for fun, because that shows who we are. But you have to understand that everything that you’re posting is either helping or hindering you get a company’s attention. So that’s where I kind of want to get to with creating these profiles that are pleasing and that are drawing in attention for investments from outside companies.

ZG: Does that include Twitter, too?

LB: I would say Twitter too, but I think those are my two main ones (Instagram and TikTok) and I think it will kind of just follow suit throughout the other apps. I need to figure out where we’re most active. I know that we’re active on TikTok, 100 percent. I know that we’re active on Instagram. I know some of them are active on Twitter, but I would like to find out specifically who is and percentages of what apps we’re using because those are the ones obviously that you want to build upon. But other than that, getting those foundational profiles built and then just really educating them on, yes, once we get your brand created and how to build your brand, what kind of things to be trying to put out there, but we want it all to be authentic. We don’t want to start just putting a bunch of random things out there to try to get people to know who we are. We want it to just come naturally and I think that might be harder than if Chick-fil-A says, “Hey, do this for me.” That’s easy because they tell you what to do. It’s trying to be your authentic self, but remembering to press record that is more of a challenge sometimes.

So I just want to be their biggest sounding board and they’re their best resource. I’m an intentional resource for them. I’m trying to learn as much about them and have them learn as much about me so that we can move forward, step by step successfully, and that they have that trust and belief in me that I really am here solely for them and to help them in whatever way that I can. Your goals and your dreams are now my goals and my dreams. Let’s do it, I want to do it. I tell them, I have an open door policy 24/7, you can call me anytime a day. I’m here for them and I really want to build those relationships so we can get going.

ZG: This might be a tough question to answer just because you haven’t been doing this long, but will you be acting as a “middleman” in between the NIL and the players? Are the players going to reach out? Are the organizations going to reach out? Or does it just depend on who’s reaching out to who?

LB: I don’t want to necessarily say middleman because that kind of becomes a gray area. I am able to assist in making connections between company and player. But I cannot assist in anything farther than putting them together. And then they have to — whether it’s me putting the company in contact with one of our girls or me putting one of our girls in contact and giving them the contact information for said company. But that’s my extent in that area. What I can do is if they come to me with a contract and say, “Hey, can you look this over?” I can help them with that. “Hey, can you help me come up with content ideas?” I can help them do that. I can help them schedule. Okay, you have to make eight posts in two months. I can sit down and help schedule that out and I can be there as their walking reminder, hey, we’ve got something due on Thursday. Where are we at? How can I assist you?

On the flip side, I can also be educating businessmen and women about NIL. Because I think under the whole umbrella, the educational piece, whether it’s teaching our players how to be businessmen or businesswomen themselves, and then educating their businessmen and women from a company standpoint of it’s not just throwing money at athletes, this is a mutually beneficial agreement, it’s a partnership, there’s supposed to be a return on investments going both ways. Educating both parties, I think is so important, because the people who are working in it don’t know everything about it, yet the people on the outside definitely don’t know that much about it. So I think getting them built with their profile and that foundation and the educational piece for both parties, I think is my primary goal right now, is to just really start building all of that, from that bottom. I think that’s my bottom level. And once we get that going, it’ll be easier to build on top of that.

ZG: Are you able to advise them on deals? Do this deal, don’t do this deal?

LB: I cannot tell them what to do and you have to do. Obviously, you can’t go do something for a casino, there are certain things like that. You can’t do that, because they legally cannot do that. But I cannot tell anybody yes or no, I can just give my best advice to them, coming from a good place for me. I’m not having any kind of bias towards anything, I just give them the best advice I can and then they make the decisions at the end of the day. But I can do as much as I want to with educating them on what to look out for when companies are reaching out to you. How to make your pitch to companies, whether it’s a DM, whether it’s talking to somebody in person, all that kind of stuff. I want to do my best to educate them because that’s something that I can do fully. And then once they are set off on their own, hopefully, they’re ready to go.

ZG: It’s probably easier to do NIL deals with specific girls. Do you have to differentiate how you approach each girl with how they should approach NIL?

LB: My answer to that would be yes, no matter what, because every girl is going to have a different path. There’s no one way to do this. You have to see where your advantages and disadvantages are just individually. And I think that’s where I really want to strive to help each individual focus on their path. And I don’t want us to focus on venturing to what everyone else is doing. I want us to stay focused on what individually we’re doing because it doesn’t matter what other people are doing. We want to focus on where we’re going because your path can lead you to something totally different than what any of your teammates are doing. I think there is equal opportunity across the board, whether they are from Kentucky or not. I think sometimes it can get narrow-minded with only focusing on places in Kentucky because we’re in Kentucky, we have a lot of girls from Kentucky, but everybody’s hometown is 100 percent valuable in this. You do not have to only look for options and opportunities that are in Lexington. That’s where I really want to get to with everybody and I think that’s how it really does become an equal playing field for everybody. And also when you’re dealing with certain brands, there is no base in Kentucky, it is just a brand that is nationally or internationally known. And that’s just free range for anybody. So I do think it will be different, but I think it will be equally different for everybody.

ZG: With a girl like freshman Jordy Griggs, who is from California but is also a four-star, is it more difficult to get her NIL up and running?

LB: I don’t certainly think it’s any more difficult. I think, for every girl, really it starts with what you do on the floor. So you need to be putting work in on the court. You have had the blessing of being put on a stage where you’re in front of so many people. So as you’re filling up arenas, as you’re being promoted all over the television, getting on that floor should be one of your main priorities. The work that you’re putting in now to get in the gym, that is what’s going to push you forward and that’s just how hard you want to work. And again, that’s equal across the board. So for somebody like Jordy, who’s not from here, that’s okay. And again, like I said, her hometown is so valuable for her. If Jordy goes home for — anytime that she goes home — where’s Jordy’s favorite place to eat? Or what is the one place that she can’t get away from? Where she has to go when she goes home to get something to eat. There’s so many opportunities. And some of the obtainable goals are right in front of us and we’re looking out into bigger spaces without seeing what’s directly in front of us as well. Those are the kinds of things that make it an even playing field when we’re focusing on some of our smaller obtainables that are individually in front of each girl. Everybody can utilize that. It’s an equal playing field that way. I don’t think that there will be issues with getting people NIL, getting them in the positions that they want to be in. We have to put in the work, we have to make a plan. If we do that, we will be okay. No matter where they’re from, no matter what they’re interested in, no matter what kinds of things they want to be involved in, as long as we sit down, we make a plan, and we put in the work, we’ll be fine.

ZG: How do you navigate helping figure out which NIL deals work best for each girl?

LB: I never want to take away these big goals and these big dreams. I want us to always have those as an option for ourselves. When I say that, I want us to focus on those obtainable goals, I don’t want us to just erase those big dreams, but they’re stepping stones. Everybody’s stepping stones look different. So that’s why I don’t want us to get into that comparison game. But there are stepping stones to get to those big dreams and goals. First of all, if we go win a national title, they’ll come overnight. We can just find those big dreams overnight. But until we get to that point, there are those small stepping stones/obtainable goals that we can find in front of us. Once we find out that we can be successful — and it doesn’t matter what your first deal is. If it’s $100, to me, as an athlete, I have put in the work, I did what I was supposed to do, and I actually got a real check, it’s in my bank account, doesn’t matter what it’s for. Now, I have the confidence that, hey, that works. And I’m gonna want to continue to build on that. In the beginning, it doesn’t matter what we’re starting with, like you have to build brick by brick, right? You don’t start out with these giant bricks all the time, it’s small stepping stones to get to where you want to go. And I just really want us to embrace that, because we should be excited about that stuff. And I don’t want us to look at things that we’re seeing on social media, with other athletes and other things that are going on and wonder why we’re not there yet. Everybody has a different story. If we just stay true to who we are and what our path is, we will be just fine.

ZG: What were your conversations like with Coach Elzy regarding NIL? What were her goals for you?

LB: I would say that her goals for me are to get our girls in a situation where they can now be successful. I think that goes back to what I said with making sure that, foundationally, we have things that we can build on. It doesn’t matter how big and how nice your house is, if it’s not built on rock, it’s not going to stay up. So that’s a big thing for me is, I’m not looking for this to be a quick money grab situation for these girls. I’m looking for longevity. I want them to be able to understand how to read contracts. I want them to understand how to build up their brand outside of basketball. I want them to understand how to be entrepreneurs after they graduate so everything that I do with them here is not just to grab a quick buck. It’s we’re learning how to be sustainable for the rest of our life or network.

Not everybody’s gonna play after college and that’s okay. But you have a really good opportunity now to make connections with people and grow your network so that maybe you’re partnering with them right now, but you might be working with them later. And this is a perfect opportunity to build those connections. But it takes work, we have to be brave and bold, and we have to step out of our comfort zone. And that’s exciting. It’s a little scary. It’s scary for anybody, doesn’t matter that they’re college kids, it’s scary for anybody. And I really want to help them be able to do that and find the joy in doing that. Because it can lead to so many different things. So that was basically my goal, or our goal, when speaking was, we want to put them in positions to become successful. And I think that’s where it kind of starts is getting their foundations ready. And having that educational piece that is going to last them not just while they’re at Kentucky, but moving forward. Because once they have that, then you can really start to build and see where it takes you.

ZG: What are you allowed to do regarding NIL with potential recruits?

LB: We have a presentation that we show them and their parents, and it just kind of walks them through what my role is here for them and what my plan is to help them when they get here. Walking them through, I’m gonna help you create your brand, build your brand, educate you on money management, educate you on content creation, ideas, everything that we’ve already talked about. So far I’ve been explaining to them my three-month plan that I talked to you about, how I want to get started. That presentation can change as I go through and things change for me, but that’s basically what I do is I just walk them through the fact that letting mom and dad know that their daughter has help and resources to help them be the most successful that they can be not just for school and not just for basketball, but also with this new NIL space.

ZG: How do you try to determine a player’s market value?

LB: You can find those and they’re readily available. My main thing that I’m trying to use right now is through Influencer. You can almost have an audit of their social media to know who their target audience is, who is interacting with them the most in terms of male or female age range, time of day. So that’s what I’m really trying to work on right now. That’s my next step in helping them build their brands is figuring out what kind of engagement they’re getting from who, where, what, all that. It’s just like watching film. Once you see it on paper, it’s a lot easier to understand. Maybe that’s why I’m not getting the growth that I want. Because I’m not putting content that relates to this group of people that are the ones that are engaging with me most. So if I’m not making content that they’re interested in, they’re not going to engage with me as much anymore. So that’s how I think about it with my basketball brain is when we can put things onto paper and have factual things in front of us. I’m just a visual person, so seeing it, and then you can literally identify where you need to put your time and energy into. If you get the most engagement at 12:00, then maybe as you’re posting things you should focus on posting between that 11:00 and 1:00 timeframe. It’s just small things that can really start to make a difference. And understanding that and taking it to heart and really putting your time and energy into focusing on that stuff, I think can really just start to nudge you forward in the right direction.