3 Things You Need to Know About NIL & Personal Branding

The change in NIL rules has completely changed the world of college and even high-school sports. Student-athletes can now make deals with brands and businesses, in exchange for money or other benefits, in return for their NIL (name, image, and likeness). 

This offers some huge benefits and has the potential to change student-athletes' lives, but it also has the potential to be detrimental if not handled properly. The adults involved in this change on both sides of the equation (the school and the business) must understand what’s at stake. 

If we want to see the benefits of NIL long into the future, we need to combine it with a strong foundation in personal and professional development and frame all goings-on through the lens of longevity, not just the immediate gain. 

3 Things That Must Underpin NIL 

1. Personal & Professional Development 

The first thing we need to consider when we’re thinking about how best to move forward with NIL is creating a foundation that will support student-athlete personal and professional development. We need to realize that the new rules around NIL ask teenagers to manage business deals with little or no business or work experience behind them. 

Throwing children into the deep end and expecting them to make the right decisions every time is madness, especially when there is so much opportunity for brands to take advantage of them if no guidance is given. If we want NIL to be sustainable and, more importantly, benefit the young adults selling their NIL, we’ve got to focus on personal and professional development. 

In other words, it’s the college’s responsibility to provide their student-athletes with personal and professional development resources (whether that be classes, one-on-one coaching, or something else) that will enable them to thrive in this new landscape. 

Personal and professional development should look like: 

• Self-awareness development 
• Communication skills 
• Organizational skills 
• Confidence and public speaking 
• Career management 
• Vision and future planning 
• Finance skills 

It doesn’t have to be complicated - student-athletes simply need the skills to handle their lives and careers consciously so they’re less likely to make mistakes and can feel confident in how they conduct themselves. 

2. Leadership Development 

The next consideration is leadership development. It’s easy to see student-athletes as teenagers and young people just out to have a good time and play their sport, but we need to remember that many of these student-athletes are going to become role models for others. 

In fact, NIL means that they are much more likely to become influencers and role models before they reach the upper levels in their sport. During and after their sporting careers, they’re likely to become business leaders, interested in politics, and have power through their voices. For these reasons, we must give student-athletes the tools to become the best leader they can be and understand the sway they have over others. When children are asked who they look up to in their lives, 91% name a famous athlete, second only to their parents. To put that in perspective, TV and movie stars were only mentioned 56% of the time, and musicians even less frequently, at 32%. 

This statistic demonstrates how important it is to give our student-athletes the knowledge they need to become the kind of leader they want to be in the world. An NFL athlete likely knows that what they do in the world will be talked about, but a college kid new to NIL won’t necessarily put two and two together. 

So, what does leadership development look like in practice? It may include:

• Communication skills 
• Brand management (more on that below) 
• Strategic thinking 
• Self-awareness 
• Influencer skills (not in the sense of being an “influencer”, but in the sense of being comfortable and intentional with how you persuade and promote) 
• How to conduct yourself when emotions are running high 

It’s important to teach student-athletes not just how to be an ideal leader, but how to be a real leader. There’s a lot of information out there about how to lead by people who aren’t leaders, and they’re just listing off positive skills leaders need to have. But a real leader has the skills to understand how what they say and do will impact those around them and take action accordingly to get a positive outcome. That’s not something that’s taught to student-athletes often outside of the context of the pitch or field but desperately needs to be taught. If you’re not sure what this can look like at your school, please reach out to me. 

3. Brand Development 

In a world full of NIL opportunities, it’s crucial that student-athletes understand what a brand is, what their NIL means for other brands using it, and what it means to cultivate a personal brand that brings them fans and opportunities. 

The majority of everyday people don’t understand what a brand really is and what goes into brand management. It is not just the packaging. It’s not just a logo, fonts, or the language used. It’s so much more than that. 

A personal brand encompasses every aspect of how you present yourself to the outside world, and often in your personal world, too. (Having a mismatch between the two makes them very difficult to maintain and may lead to feelings of imposter syndrome.) It’s important for student-athletes to realize that if you don’t take control and cultivate your personal brand, the external world will do it for you (or forget about you). 

Think about two of the most famous professional athletes out there: LeBron James and Tiger Woods. 

LeBron is a family man (inspired largely by his biological father never being in his life), a good businessman, and a philanthropist, building on his childhood growing up in poverty - and that’s not to touch on his insane professional achievements. His personal brand is positive, humble, and skilled. 

Moving over to Tiger Woods, what comes to mind? Likely his affair and his spotty driving record. Woods also has a foundation that gives back to kids and is one of the very best in his sport, but his personal life has overshadowed his career for over a decade, and it’s a shadow he’ll never be able to shake off. 

Student-athletes need to understand how their actions build their personal brand - not just so they can avoid missteps (after all, we’re not all perfect) but so they can think before they act. They need to be able to foresee the possible outcomes of their actions off the field (or court, pitch, track, etc) the same way they do on it. Do they really want their name to be synonymous with a certain brand? 

Not every mistake can be foreseen and it’s important for anyone who wants to be successful to be prepared to take risks, but there’s a difference between taking calculated risks and throwing caution to the wind just to get immediate gratification. If we teach student-athletes the personal development skills to think critically and the knowledge of personal branding so they can consciously build their brand, they’ll be well-positioned to find success during their sporting careers, and after. 

Does this only apply to student-athletes destined for stardom? 

No. While we need to remember that some student-athletes will become the next big names in their sport, and so need the support and education to become successful leaders in the sport and the global community, athletes in less popular sports also deserve this same level of skill development. 

Social media means that we all have a personal brand and we all have an opportunity to become leaders. Athletes in smaller sports may also develop a following and most athletes go on to become business leaders, using their knowledge and/or success to springboard their businesses. 

These smaller athletes often have more interaction with their community and thus can even have more influence over their followers. Just because a student-athlete is in a sport that is generally only given attention around major events (such as the Olympics) doesn’t mean that they can go without these skills. They can’t. 

Athletes headed for the major leagues will need more support because they’re going to be getting more frequent offers of a larger size and their actions will be under closer scrutiny, but if we can offer all student-athletes training in these 3 core areas, we’ll develop better leaders for the future. 

It’s going to take a while for colleges to find their footing when it comes to all of this, so it’s imperative that they lean on consultants and professionals who can support them and their athletes with the knowledge and skills they are unequipped to offer (such as NIL and personal brand management and the legal side of their deals). 

If you want to learn more or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected]. I’m a NIL and personal brand expert and am passionate about making sure the student-athletes benefit from these changes and become our future leaders - I’d love to talk to you about how we can ensure your athletes get the best start to their professional careers.