NIL: It's Time to Get Live, It's Time to Represent
Derek Cox, MBA
Football Brand Consultant | NFLPA and CFLPA Certified Agent | Former NFL Player
Athletes need to realize that capturing and seizing one point in time can bring opportunities for a lifetime. 4 years in college can get an athlete paid for the next 40 years. Look at Brian Bosworth. Having played in the NFL for only 2 seasons, he’s mostly known for being a college football sensation at the University of Oklahoma. However, the brand of Brian Bosworth is still getting paid today from what he did in college. See his recent commercial with Dr. Pepper here.?
Athletes can leverage their days on the field to establish their own brand through creating consistent content that resonates with their loyal fanbase. Content doesn’t require one to be the best athlete. Content is a shared event/experience that does 1 to 3 things or a mix of these 3 things: educate, entertain, and/or encourage.?
If the athlete’s content educates, entertains, and/or encourages others, it gives fans a reason to pay attention to the athlete. And as long as the content is relevant and resonates with fans, it will hold their attention and have them coming back for more.?
Additionally, athletes must understand that a brand is built over time. It doesn’t simply manifest overnight. If the athlete can’t stick with posting regularly for a year, does (s)he really deserve to be paid for (her)his content? Be willing to post when nobody is watching, so you’re ready to post when everybody is watching. The social media following and earnings will be small initially, but consistency over time is what builds a brand.
So today, let’s give the athlete some tools on Facebook and Instagram to start building a brand and monetizing (her)his name, image, and likeness (NIL). With the help of Front Office Sports and Matt Lee, athlete partnerships, Facebook, we will discuss:
Video Monetization
Use stories, reels, IG TV, and Facebook Watch to distribute content, grow fanbases, and then monetize audiences.?
On Instagram, athletes can monetize IGTV and Instagram Live. On Facebook, athletes can monetize Facebook Watch and Facebook Live.?
IGTV Ads presents a way for athletes to earn money for their content that is over 1 minute in length. It’s time consuming to create content, so Instagram wants to reward its creators for their time with the ability to monetize content they have already posted and content they continue to post.
Athletes must realize that many parts of their lives are worthy of their own personal reality television series. It’s entertaining and fun for viewers to see the behind the scenes, especially live behind-the-scenes footage. Go live for more than 1 minute and grab viewers’ attention in the first 3 seconds with a caption or person that reels viewers in. Save this content to IGTV. Utilize the “series” feature to make episodic content. Create a catalog of this type of content on IGTV for fanbases to tune into and consume at their leisure. Fans may have days where they binge watch their athlete’s content, so a catalog of clips will feed their appetite.?
Promote and tease your IGTV episodes on stories and in feed. Always use feed preview to drive more traffic to your IGTV content. Be sure feed preview is toggled on.?
If the athlete has a creator or business account, when (s)he posts to IGTV, the option to allow ads will be given to the athlete. The athlete should turn this feature on to monetize their content.
At the moment, Instagram doesn’t place any safeguards against what products, categories, or brands can advertise on an account. However, Instagram does have plans for users to select options that will disallow certain things such as alcohol from advertising on any content. Additionally, on creator and business accounts, Instagram will provide data insights that indicate which content by the user is performing the best.?
Tap into Facebook. The audience demographics on Facebook will be largely different than the audience on Instagram. Post these same videos from IGTV to Facebook Watch.
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Facebook Watch allows users to have in-stream ads added to their content. These ads can appear before, during, or after videos. There is a certain amount of viewership minutes/hours that an athlete must acquire in order to be awarded the option to add in-stream ads to (her)his content.
On Facebook Watch, users do have the ability to block certain ads from products, categories, and brands. Athletes can block certain categories such as alcohol, politics, and gambling to ensure their content is within eligibility of their university or conference. Setting up blocks is done inside creator studio under “create block list.”?
Live Monetization
Instagram has launched a new feature called “Badges.” It’s a great way for athletes to monetize their live content. With Badges, when an athlete goes live, (her)his following can buy badges of a certain icon to display their loyalty to the athlete and stand out from the crowd. For example, a badge could be one, two, or three hearts to signify a person’s loyalty/allegiance to the athlete. The cost of one heart is $0.99, two hearts is $1.99, and three hearts is $4.99. This is a one-time purchase that is reflected with hearts on the users account while attending a live stream session by the creator/athlete.
Athletes keep 100% of the badges income they earn. And the more the athlete does live, the more opportunity (s)he has to earn/engage with fans by acquiring various tiers of badges. In order to have access to Badges, an athlete will need to have over 10,000 followers and will need to host regularly on Instagram Live.
Facebook has created “Stars.” This is a way for athletes to take their live streams to the next level. Users can earn money by connecting with fans during live videos. The way it works is fans can buy stars on Facebook that allow them to send and communicate to a creator/athlete their loyalty/affinity. For example, a fan may decide to buy 95 stars on Facebook for $1.99 or 250 stars for $4.99 and so forth. The fans can then use this deposit account of stars to send individual stars to the creator/athlete that they are watching on live stream.
Every star that the creator/athlete receives is equivalent to one cent. If the athlete gets 100 stars on (her)his live stream, the athlete receives one dollar. Frequency and quality are important for this feature to pay dividends. Stars is a great feature to use for athletes that are into gaming. If athletes are already streaming video games, take it live on Facebook and build a fanbase of loyal supporters that send stars to communicate their liking and support.
Subscriptions and Events
Facebook has done something special to help creators and athletes that post regularly to Facebook. Facebook realizes that creating and posting content is time consuming. It wants loyal fans to be able to share their support of their creator/athlete by allowing “Fan Subscriptions.” Fan subscriptions allow Facebook users to support their favorite public figures, creators, publishers, and video pages through a monthly subscription with Facebook. When fans subscribe to an athlete, it gives them access to exclusive content, closer access and interaction, discount opportunities, recognition and supporter-only groups.
Paid Online Events is another feature on Facebook Live that gives an athlete’s fans access to special live video experiences. Things such as virtual camps and clinics, fitness classes, scrimmages and games, Q&A sessions, and cooking classes are creative ideas for paid online events. Promote your own events and generate buzz leading up to the event to get more fans to actively join and participate. Charge a one-time fee to this virtual audience that couldn’t attend in person either by choice or by design.
Conclusion
Athletes should start testing and adopting these features on Facebook and Instagram. Check out the Facebook NIL Athlete Hub for all of the resources available on Facebook to help athletes monetize their accounts, maintain eligibility, and onboard their accounts. Athletes can utilize these 4 to 5 years in college to create a brand that lasts and gets them paid for years to come. In the past, performances on the field dictated income opportunities in the future, as with Brian Bosworth. However, in the present, performances off the field can be just as powerful, if not more, in generating income. By creating and posting content, athletes can seize this moment in college athletics to build a brand that can be monetized for life.
Battle well,
Derek