Since the NCAA adopted the name, image, and likeness policy that allows student-athletes to generate revenue from their personal brands for the first time, NIL collectives—organizations that pool funds from donors, businesses, and fans—have emerged as another source to pay collegiate athletes.
NIL collectives operate independently from the universities they serve and are structured in a few different ways: some are incorporated as 501(c)3 nonprofits or nonprofit corporations without any 501 IRS codes, while others are organized as for-profit limited-liability corporations. Regardless of structure, such entities are generating millions of dollars in the Inland Northwest in hopes of remaining competitive in attracting top talent.
Collectives solicit funds and then arrange opportunities for college athletes to leverage their NIL platform and get paid for endorsements, public appearances, social media posts, and other branded content.
Some say the new NIL era also has been beneficial for businesses and organizations that use collegiate athletes in their advertising and marketing strategies.
Tim Brandle, treasurer of the Cougar Collective, a nonprofit corporation that raises funds for Washington State University student-athletes, says the group was quickly put together in January of 2022 when a few alums learned that the football team’s incoming quarterback at that time, Cameron Ward, had received an alluring offer from a collective that raises funds for University of Tennessee athletes. The offer included stipends for a vehicle and an apartment, Brandle says.
“It was kind of founded out of necessity, in terms that we were actually not prepared or ready for this,” says Brandle, a WSU alum. “By the end of December 2021, a lot of our very best players were poached off our team by other big schools … we were totally unprepared as to what the landscape of college football was going to be.”
David Pendergraft, a member of the group helping to manage the Zags Collective LLC, which pools funds for Gonzaga University's student-athletes, emphasizes the importance of ensuring the legacy and culture that Gonzaga basketball has built over the years is not eroded in this new era of college sports.
“What Gonzaga has meant for this community and what it has done for our city … the more we can support it as a community the more its staying power increases,” says Pendergraft, a former guard for the men’s basketball team. “It’s a free-market agency every year … without a collective or without the ability as a community to continue to get the right guys, (Gonzaga's legacy) will go away very quickly.”
Pendergraft acknowledges that the new terrain in college sports is one that communities and people involved in collegiate sports must come to terms with to stay competitive.
“Whether we like it or not, the environment of collegiate sports and what the student-athlete is has changed, and it’s not going away,” Pendergraft says.
The NCAA's NIL policy went into effect on July 1, 2021, allowing collegiate athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness for the first time. The policy has been transformative for student-athletes who have monetized their NIL brand by penning deals with companies outside of school-funded benefits and scholarships. In the months following the adoption of the new policy, NIL Collectives—usually founded by alums and fans—also began to sprout to support financial opportunities for student-athletes.
'Labor of Love'
Brandle, an attorney in Spokane, helped to found the Cougar Collective along with members of CougsFirst! an alum organization of business professionals that promotes alums doing business with alums. The collective is structured similar to a nonprofit but is a private corporation under Washington state law, Brandle says. While the collective serves a public purpose, it's not required to make its finances available to the public and isn't associated with any 501 IRS codes, meaning contributions it receives aren't tax deductible, he says. The collective pays business-and-occupation taxes and Washington sales tax, and remits sales tax to the state of Washington for funds received for products and services it offers.
The group is supported by volunteers with the majority of funds going to student-athletes, save for a few business expenses such as the collective’s website and other electronic services. The collective raises funds for the majority of sports athletes at WSU, he says.
“Every single person within the organization is unpaid. It’s kind of a labor of love for all of us involved,” Brandle says. “Our whole mission and whole goal is to fund NIL opportunities and educate student-athletes at WSU on how to better promote themselves.”
For the past couple of years, state ethics laws have barred universities from promoting or having any affiliation with NIL collectives, Brandle says. An amendment to the Ethics in Public Service Act, however, was signed by Gov. Jay Inslee in March and clarifies that certain public employees won't be prohibited from using public resources in advising students who seek to benefit from their NIL brand. That law goes into effect on June 5, he says.
According to the NCAA site, on April 17, the Division I council adopted a proposal that allows schools to help student-athletes identify and facilitate NIL opportunities. The rule goes into effect Aug. 1.
Since starting the Cougar Collective, the group has reached a point in its fundraising in which it holds a sizable amount of capital, allowing it to make counter offers, he says. As of fiscal year 2023, total funds raised and paid out to students is about $2 million, he says.
“We’re not just this pushover anymore,” Brandle says. “That number is now exponentially higher.”
After the Pac-12 Conference was essentially dissolved last year, the collective received over $200,000 in one-time contributions, he says.
Brandle says there has “been a groundswell of support" as people realize that financially supporting the collective will benefit the university. Additionally, support has grown for the Cougar Athletic Fund, the fundraising arm of the WSU athletics department, which helps with scholarships and stipends for coaches’ salaries, he says.
The Zags Collective was founded in March 2023 to provide student-athletes with opportunities to engage in business deals and charitable causes. Formed by Matt Santangelo and Shaniqua Nilles, two former players on the men’s and women’s basketball teams at Gonzaga University, the collective changed hands in March and is being headed by Pendergraft and other community members.
The collective has two entities, the for-profit LLC and a foundation, says Pendergraft. The BPS Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization managed by Las Vegas-based Blueprint Sports & Entertainment.
According to a press release by the company, Blueprint Sports is the parent company of the Zags Collective. Blueprint Sports manages over 25 collectives nationwide.
Pendergraft says Blueprint Sports helps the collective stay compliant with IRS rules, contracts, and other responsibilities. The funds that are made to the foundation allow for Zags Collective NIL athletes to volunteer their time doing charitable causes, he says.
The for-profit side functions as a marketing agency in which businesses can pay a fee for athletes to engage in promotional content.
"The profit side is for businesses that want to, for example, have Anton Watson do a commercial ... they're going to pay marketing dollars," Pendergraft says.
Not all schools, however, have an alum or fan following that has created an NIL collective to pull funds for the school's athletes.
Tim Collins, the athletic director for Eastern Washington University, says that although the school doesn't have a collective yet, many of its students are engaged in NIL activities.
NIL is not always a priority for athletes, Collins says. Of the over 300 student-athletes at Eastern Washington, about 10% have an NIL deal, and he projects that figure to likely be true industrywide.
Even so, the department hopes to launch an online marketplace this summer that will connect student-athletes with businesses in the area for NIL opportunities.
“We’re fully equipped and prepared to support (student-athletes) with NIL activities if those things come about,” Collins says. “But really, at the end of the day, our sole mission is still about creating opportunity in higher education for young people.”
Business Basics
Businesses in the Inland Northwest, such as Walker’s Furniture Inc. which does business as Walker's Furniture & Mattress, have also benefitted from partnership deals with NIL athletes.
John Proffitt, director of qualified assurance and marketing for Walker’s Furniture says when NIL went into effect, the company wanted to support athletes as they entered this new era. Their first partnership deal was with Drew Timme, the massively popular, mustachioed 6-foot-10-inch forward for the Gonzaga men’s basketball team.
Timme filmed two commercials over two years for the furniture store in which local families would be chosen to receive new furniture.
Proffitt says Walker's Furniture's partnership with NIL athletes became an initiative called Walker's Cares in which a portion of proceeds from each mattress sold goes toward charitable organizations and local families.
The company has raised over $300,000 for charities to date, Proffitt says.
This year, the company partnered with Gonzaga men's basketball small forward, Anton Watson, he says. Watson's contract expires this month, and the company has not yet decided how it will move forward, Proffitt says.
Another local company that has benefitted from NIL partnerships is Northern Quest Resort & Casino, a trade name for The Kalispel Indian Community of Washington.
Matt Almond, executive director of marketing and partnerships for Northern Quest, says when NIL went into effect, he recognized the opportunity to collect “earned media”—free publicity that comes from others recommending the business such as free press coverage, customer recommendations, and social media shares. Northern Quest Casino and Gonzaga University have a corporate sponsorship that paved the way for Almond to reach out to Timme so he could become a brand ambassador for Northern Quest.
The results turned out better than he could have hoped, Almond says.
“I think we quantified it at $63 million in earned media when Drew was talking about us during March Madness,” Almond says. “There was a Wall Street Journal article and an ESPN podcast and all kinds of fun things.”
On that same day during March Madness, Timme was also interviewed regarding the perception of partnering with a casino. His response appeared in 264 newspapers across the country the following day, Almond says.
"Drew spoke well about the Kalispel Tribe and how it gave back $1 million a year to the community through various vehicles, and how (Northern Quest is) in on the court and they're amazing community partners," Almond says.
Before Timme left Spokane to enter the NBA draft last year, he also did a social media shoot for a concert ticket giveaway at Northern Quest, and had dinner at the new restaurant, endorsing it.
Northern Quest has grown its NIL partnerships to seven, including student-athletes from Eastern Washington University, and Boise State where Spokane-raised Tyson Degenhart is a forward on the men’s basketball team.
How Athletes Spend
While there is a lot of coverage of student-athletes making large-figure deals and spending it on extravagant material things, most students use their NIL-earned funds for things like paying for groceries and helping their families, Brandle says.
“There’s this notion that these kids are spoiled, and they use the money for buying stupid things, but not from my experience,” he says. “A lot of them are investing it, or using it to support their brothers and sisters, their parents, and their community.”
One student-athlete is Dean Janikowski, a placekicker on the WSU football team currently working on earning his MBA. Originally from Southern California, Janikowski and his father founded the Heather Janikowski Foundation to honor Janikowski’s mom who died from breast cancer two years ago. In her honor, Janikowski began an initiative using his NIL brand called More than a Kick, in which people can pledge funds for every field goal made in a game. The proceeds will go to families who are experiencing hardship from cancer in Pullman, Washington.
“My mom was always giving, so we wanted to be able to keep her legacy and keep doing that,” Janikowski says. “Every single time I stepped on the field, if I made a field goal, that money raised went to people in the Pullman community. So far I’ve helped over 10 people just by donating all this money.”
Janikowski is supportive of the opportunities that the NIL policy has brought him and other student-athletes. Universities often only have a certain amount of scholarships that they’re able to distribute, and the NIL funds that most of his colleagues earn are used for tuition and other everyday expenses, he says.
“There’s a lot of guys on the team who are not as blessed as others. That NIL money helps pay for groceries, for gas, and just hanging out and being able to do stuff,” Janikowski says. “That’s huge for them. It’s been awesome to see the Cougar Collective help out guys like that.”