Athletes and Digital Products: The Next Wave of NIL Monetization

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This week we’re diving into how?athletes can productize their brands, with an example from NFL Quarterback Kurt Benkert ??.

?? Big Idea

College-athlete monetization currently resembles that of the traditional influencer.

As defined by?Influencer Marketing Hub, an influencer is someone who “has the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience.”

Based on these strengths, influencers monetize their relationship with their audience primarily through sponsorships and brand collaborations.

Some of these influencers are going through a wake up call right now — they have realized that in order to generate meaningful income from their work, they will have to think like entrepreneurs.?

Building a business model for their brand that is more sustainable requires a shift from reliance on third parties, to a focus on building audiences,?products, and services that they own.

When it comes to?products, I think the initial gateway for influencers and athletes to shift into entrepreneurship is through becoming a knowledge creator and selling digital products.

Let's explore.

?? Why It Matters

Digital products by definition are “pieces of media or downloadable assets that can be distributed and sold online over and over again”?(via Uscreen).

Examples of digital products include:

• Courses
• eBooks
• Notion Templates
• Tutorials and Guides
• Paid Podcasts
• Paid Newsletters
• Coaching Programs

Regardless of the format, digital products allow creators to?scale, by packaging their knowledge into a product that their audience can purchase from them multiple times, without incremental work required from their end.

The model address a lot of the?challenges?that creators face today in earning meaningful income from their work (TLDR: inconsistent????and reliant on brands).

In recent years, we've seen a wave of knowledge-based creators have breakout success with digital products:

• Justin Welsh: The Solopreneur creator has made over $2M in digital course sales in the last 2.5 years (source).
• Jack Butcher: The Visualize Value creator is earning $1 million a year from his course business. As reported by The?Hustle, “mostly all of sales come from his Twitter following, which he built from scratch in 18 months”.
• Dan Koe: Is on track to bring in $2.5 million in 2023. As covered by?Growth in Reverse?— there are?no sponsorships within his business. His primary monetization levers are 3 courses and a membership program.

These creators know that it?pays to have?expertise,?and are building their business model to support their unique strengths (just like influencers did with sponsorships).

???Athletes in the Space: Kurt Benkert

Kurt Benkert is an NFL QB who has spent his time in the league with the Atlanta Falcons, Greenbay Packers and San Francisco 49ers.

Off the field, Kurt has found success as a content-creator and has?over 600K followerson social:

• Twitter: 98K
• Instagram: 99K
• Twitch: 28K
• TikTok: 379K

And as a start-up advisor, per his?LinkedIn?he's been able to leverage his expertise in content-creation and passion for gaming into advising companies like Spacestation, World Champion Fantasy and Universe.

Kurt has a lot of expertise.

He's applied the principle of “productizing himself” first to his experience in the NFL.

As described on the?landing page, he compiles 5 years of notes from his NFL career and distills them into 3 comprehensive guides

• Coverages 101
• NFL 101
• Quarterback 101

His has packaged his knowledge into 3 valuable products that can help aspiring collegiate and professional football players. Per his?LinkedIn, he has hit 3,000 sales on his digital product business.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to a successful product launch, but one that stands out loud and clear: Kurt built the audience, before he sold to the audience.

Across all of his social platforms, Kurt consistently develops original content that adds value to his community on the various aspects of his brand. This active approach to nurturing his audience has built up their trust in him as an expert on these topics as well as their intent to buy from him as a creator.

You can see how he could apply this model of productizing his expertise across other avenues of his brand (content-creation, gaming, getting into tech).

Event though I'm no football player, I got my copy because I love to see Kurt paving an innovative way for athlete-creators. Check it out?here???.

???Platforms

What makes this possible?

To help creators diversify their income, companies are providing creators with the infrastructure to monetize their knowledge.

Here are a few examples:

• Kajabi
• Stan for Creators
• Gumroad
• Convertkit
• Teachable
• Uscreen
• Shopify
• Skillshare

Action ????:?Check out a few of the platforms to see examples of what creators are selling and earning.

???Key Takeaway

There are two big things we can learn from the rise of knowledge-creators and Kurt Benkert:

• Give expertise (for a long time) before you sell expertise:?The knowledge-business can generate meaningful income, but isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. The common theme behind successful knowledge creators, is that long before selling a product — they built their brand and audience around their expertise. As a result of providing free education, they fuel their credibility and trust to eventually sell something on the topic.
• Every athlete has unique expertise:?No two athletes are built the same — they all bring a unique set of experiences and lessons to the table. The beauty of digital products as a monetization strategy is that it allows athletes to highlight their individuality into their product versus being limited to monetizing that they're an athlete.

??What's Next

As we enter year 3 of NIL, I think we'll see athletes explore with digital products in two ways:

• Athletes Monetize their NIL Knowledge: Who wouldn't love to learn about brand building, content- creation, and partnerships from the athletes that are?living?it. For example, Leah Clapper (UF Gymnastics) recently started NIL Island.
• Mid-Major Athletes Win Big: Athletes with an incentive to build digital products will win big. I think in this case it's the athlete that doesn't (yet) have the audience size to command meaningful income from brands, but still have a valuable brand that their audience is eager to support directly.

?? Keep?Learning

• The Blueprint for Creating & Selling Digital Products
• The One Person Business Model (How to Productize Yourself)
• How to Build a $1M/ Year Course
• 9 Digital Product Ideas (With Successful Examples)

??That’s a Wrap

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