It’s been nearly two years since the NCAA adopted a policy that allows college sports stars to earn financial benefits from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. In the first year of the the NIL era, student athletes earned nearly $1 billion thanks to the new rules.
Those payments have come from a multitude of industries, but for many student-athletes, the creator economy offers the strongest financial opportunities. There are more than 75,000 college sports creators who are monetizing their channels, and those creators are the fastest-growing group on shoutout platform Cameo.
College athletics is now a gold rush, and companies are rushing in to work with the next generation of sports influencers. One of the firms leading that push is Viral Nation, a creator-focused marketing and technology company. By working alongside an eclectic roster of student-athletes, Viral Nation is preparing its partners for post-graduate careers in content creation.
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The NCAA’s NIL decision came on June 30, 2021. But the story doesn’t start there.
Before NIL-associated content became a billion-dollar business, there was Donald De La Haye.
In 2017, De La Haye was a football player at the University of Central Florida who shared snippets of his workouts on his Deestroying YouTube channel. His decision to turn on monetization violated NCAA rules, but it also highlighted the inadequate nature of those rules. “It was just very unfair in my opinion,” De La Haye said after the NCAA ruled him ineligible, “and now I gotta deal with the consequences.”
Across the sports world, student-athletes followed the twists in the Deestroying saga. Though college basketball players like Anthony Hamilton, Jr. and Jordan McCabe knew the strictness of the NCAA rules, they had also developed side hustles as creators. “I am an athlete who started going into content creation and got good at it,” Hamilton told Tubefilter. “I was watching from the distance as [De La Haye] was trying to grow. I always backed up the point he was trying to get across.”
The Deestroying saga showed Hamilton that it was possible to accrue “generational wealth” by “building your own brand.” The battle between De La Haye and the NCAA provided “motivation” for a young baller who was then playing for Division III LaVerne University.
And that’s where Viral Nation came in.
As soon as the ink dried on the NCAA’s 2021 rule change, Viral Nation began assembling a roster of college athletes for its new sports marketing division. McCabe got connected with the firm less than a week after the NCAA decision dropped. By September, Hamilton had signed with Viral Nation, too.
Jonathan Chanti, the President of Viral Nation Talent, told Tubefilter that his company was prepared to act quickly once the NIL era began. “For us to take concerted or focused risk by jumping into new opportunities, that’s just who we are. When we see something meaningful, we go,” Chanti said. “Our industry changes very quickly.”
Viral Nation’s sports marketing division made a tempting offer to college athletes. Its services include brand matchmaking, a creator studio, access to strategists, syndication for long-form content, a podcast wing, and a venture arm. Thanks to those perks, Hamilton saw immediate returns from his Viral Nation partnership, raking in $400,000 before the end of 2021.
A sense of creative freedom came with those deals. “By signing with Viral Nation, I was able to just focus on basketball,” McCabe told Tubefilter.
Breaking down the “creator first, athlete second approach”
Plenty of star athletes have worked with Viral Nation to grow their creative side hustles. Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers is a recent partner.
But Hamilton and McCabe are best known as creators, not All-Americans. That’s not a coincidence. Chanti told Tubefilter that Viral Nation prefers to team up with great creators who happen to be college athletes — not the other way around. With a “creator first, athlete second” approach, Viral Nation has created a network of microinfluencers, who can connect with brands for cost-effective campaigns.
Chanti explained that college athletes who may not be able to go pro in their sports “have an opportunity to grow and evolve” through their content. They can show that their college careers represent only a part of who they are.
Hamilton, for example, has used YouTube videos to show his life beyond basketball. He gets strong viewership with workout videos, but he also showcases the ups and downs of his day-to-day life through occasional vlogs.
Like Hamilton, McCabe has used his videos to offer a look into the personal life of a college athlete. “It allows you to entertain different fans by showing them your day-to-day as an athlete that they otherwise wouldn’t see,” the former UNLV Runnin’ Rebel and West Virginia University Mountaineer told Tubefilter. “You’re allowed to tell your story in your own voice and really allow people to see who you really are.”
As thousands of NIL hopefuls launch channels, podcasts, and other creative endeavors, the student-athletes who can show their authentic selves will have a leg up. McCabe often chats with NBA stars on his podcasts, but his guests have also included sneaker designers and prominent creators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUp7pikdEbE
Even NBA prospects are succeeding by mixing their personal lives with their on-court exploits. Gradey Dick, a star for the Kansas Jayhawks, is expected to be a first-round pick in the upcoming NBA draft. But that’s not who McCabe sees in Dick’s social media posts — he sees a “goofy, easygoing, charismatic person” whose interests go far beyond sports.
OK, but what about when school ends?
Gradey Dick won’t have to rely on Instagram monetization after he signs a seven-figure NBA contract, but for Hamilton and McCabe, content creation is the clear path forward. That career has its ups and downs, but as these athletes leave college behind, they have an advantage over some of their new peers: They already know how to grind.
To build effective social media channels, creators must hustle every day, often without taking breaks. High-level athletic competition requires similar commitment, except the work is more physical. Some notable creators have already noticed that link. That’s one explanation for the rise of influencer boxing. If creators can endure the grueling requirements put on them by digital algorithms, then they can handle an intense training regimen.
Hamilton and McCabe are moving in the opposite direction. “Every day I just want to next video to be better than the last,” Hamilton told Tubefilter. “I apply that to everything you do in life. I’ll try new stuff while maintaining the quality of my content.” The former Clemson Tiger referred to the “elite schedule” he uses to stay up to date on all his ongoing productions.
Chanti sees high-level athletes as ideal partners for both Viral Nation and the brands that work alongside it. He described creators like Hamilton and McCabe as eager, accomodating individuals who meet deadlines. “I think a lot of their mental focus and commitment really carries into the work,” he said. “When NIL talent commit to doing things, they do it.”
That doesn’t mean that NIL athletes don’t need help managing the grind. Both Hamilton and Chanti called on schools to educate their student-athletes about the ins and outs of content creation, so that the sharks in the NIL waters don’t take advantage of them. “These are kids,” Chanti said. “Not everybody has ethics or a fiduciary obligation to do right by them.”
McCabe said that he wants to impart his creative knowledge onto the next wave of NIL athletes. “With the reach that I have, I can help a lot of younger players as they come up, not only from a skill standpoint, but from a mental standpoint in terms of what they can expect from their journey,” McCabe told Tubefilter.
But at the end of the day, there’s only so much that can be learned. Viral Nation’s NIL partners have shown that to succeed in the creator economy, they need to trust themselves and bear their honest personalities. “All the road bumps prepare you,” Hamilton said. “I can just be. I’m Anthony Hamilton, Jr. and that’s dope as f**k.”
