🔒UConn’s new Championship Labs helps students monetize NIL, following recent rule change

As student-athletes ink deals with sponsors for the first time since an NCAA rule change, Joss Tillard-Gates, who played football for UConn’s successful team from 2006 to 2009, remembers when it was verboten for an athlete to merely think of using their NIL — an acronym for name, image and likeness.

Players were told not to accept gifts worth more than $20. They were often reminded of the NCAA’s prohibition against athletes receiving compensation, other than scholarships.

Fast-forward a decade, and the times have changed. Following a revision to NCAA regulations last year and a change in state law that went into effect July 1, student-athletes can capitalize on their personal brand, using social media, sponsorships and other means to build a business based on their collegiate athletic pursuits.

Though Tillard-Gates was redshirted for most of his college career, he was known as a star in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, and an inspiration to countless kids. He often wonders what could have been, if he had been able to receive a sponsorship from his favorite pizza restaurant or a local car dealership.

“It would have given me an opportunity to create some startup capital, or a down payment for a real estate purchase, whether that be multifamily, or a duplex, or single family for myself when I graduated,” Tillard-Gates said.

But he can experience the entrepreneurial potential of NIL vicariously, through a newly established program at UConn’s Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, called Championship Labs.

Tillard-Gates — who sits alongside former UConn men’s basketball star and current Utah Jazz forward Rudy Gay on Championship Labs’ advisory board — said he wants to help students use NIL to their advantage. He sees the program as an “entrepreneurial ecosystem” that will connect students, student-athletes and alumni.

Through Championship Labs, which launched this fall, advisers work one-on-one with UConn students to create a “blueprint to monetize their personal brand while empowering them with the skill sets of an entrepreneur,” according to the school.

Until recently, that would have been against the rules. In 2021, following two high-profile Supreme Court cases, the NCAA was forced to enact new regulations allowing college athletes to accept compensation for use of their NIL.

While the NCAA change applies to student-athletes across the country, Connecticut has made its own legislative changes.

In May, Gov. Ned Lamont signed a bill that allows student-athletes in Connecticut to use their school’s names, logos, trademarks, mascots, unique colors, copyrights and other defining insignia in endorsement contracts. The change was requested by UConn, as an update to an existing law the state enacted in 2021 allowing student-athletes to receive money for their NIL. The initial law prohibited them from using school logos and other insignia.

Until the new law took effect on July 1, 2022, Connecticut was one of two states in the country that banned student-athletes from using their school logos — a prohibition that opponents argued constrained students’ ability to obtain endorsements, putting the school at a disadvantage when it came to recruiting top athletes.

Genuine mentorship

Many students already have a large following on social media. Championship Labs is helping them turn their personal TikTok and Instagram accounts into professional ones that can generate income.

“One thing we do is we help them understand how the platforms work, how to build content, what kind of content people are looking for,” said David Noble, director of the Werth Institute. “How to understand their own brand, and how to transform and translate and communicate that brand into social. The way an 18-year-old uses TikTok is dramatically different than the way a celebrity trying to monetize their TikTok uses it.”

Until recently, student-athletes who were drafted had to rely mainly on their agent for advice. Noble said Championship Labs offers genuine mentorship, without the competing economic interests of an agent.

The Werth Institute helps by introducing students and alumni entrepreneurs to investors, something that wasn’t possible before the recent rule changes.

“We definitely are able to introduce students to investors and then make sure they have the proper lawyers, make sure they have the proper accounting, those sorts of things,” Noble said. “There are ways of running these businesses that are better, you know, best practices. We’re able to help with that.”

Championship Labs is for all students, not just athletes, but the ability of athletes to use their NIL gives them an additional tool to reach a large audience.

Jason Butikofer, special assistant to UConn’s athletics director, is the liaison between the school’s athletics department and Championship Labs. He said combining the benefits of NIL for student-athletes with the school’s entrepreneurial resources will help recruit top-tier talent.

“There are a number of pieces of the puzzle, but definitely our elevation of communicating the opportunity that Championship Labs provides something that we use in the recruiting process,” Butikofer said. “I think it’s a differentiator for us because there are very few, if any, other institutions that are aligned in this way with their entrepreneurship lab on campus.”

UConn brand

Noble said Championship Labs is working with 12 to 14 students so far, but by the end of the 2022-23 academic year, he expects that number to be between 100 and 200.

Students are pursuing an array of projects. A soccer player is working to launch a series of soccer camps. Another student is starting a clothing line. Another wants to form a nonprofit organization.

One of the first athletes to take advantage of NIL was women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers, who has inked endorsement deals with Gatorade and StockX. The Wall Street Journal reported she could make $1 million a year from those endorsements.

Bueckers has also signed deals with Chegg and Crocs.

Although she is not involved with Championship Labs — Bueckers has signed with Wasserman Media Group, the sports marketing company that represented former UConn great Sue Bird — many of her teammates are exploring opportunities through Championship Labs. The strength of Bueckers’ brand could benefit other players who land sponsorships with companies that don’t want to pay Bueckers’ prices, Noble said.

Though multimillion-dollar deals are only within reach for the most elite athletes, Tillard-Gates points out that every UConn athlete is competing at a high level and has a fan base.

“Geno (Auriemma) was not happy with a 20-point lead if the team isn’t playing up to the level that he knows it’s capable,” Tillard-Gates said. “And I think when you’re in an environment like that, that very easily transfers professionally to whatever environment that you’re in. Because you’re used to setting high, high bars and you’re used to meeting and exceeding the expectation that you’ve set, and regardless of industry, that is invaluable, and that’s also part of what we’re trying to weave in the Championship Labs.”

Through the program, students use professional expertise not only to make money, but to learn how to spend it wisely.

Tillard-Gates, who now works as director of community affairs for Clark Construction Group, said he’s seen firsthand UConn’s stature in the academic and athletic worlds. When he travels around the world, and tells people he played football at UConn, they know what he means. He’s even had people ask for his autograph.

“The UConn brand is massive, particularly knowing that it comes from one of the smallest states in this country,” Tillard-Gates said. “But everybody, everybody knows UConn.”

In addition to Tillard-Gates and Gay, founding members of the Championship Labs advisory board include Lorin Dixon, founder and CEO of ZaveryCakes; Amy Errett, CEO and founder of Madison Reed; Brian Krause, chief development officer for Focus Brands; Aaron Torres, Fox Sports Radio host and owner of Aaron Torres Media; and Michael Woodward, Focus Brands’ senior vice president for franchise sales.