The NCAA ruled in July 2021 that college athletes can be compensated for their name, image, and likeness (known as NIL). While there was an initial summertime burst of attention-grabbing student-athlete NIL headlines in the functional CPG industry (e.g. PlantFuel & Six Star Pro Nutrition), most are still sitting on the sidelines. Leading up to the landmark change, I felt NIL could offer fertile ground for functional CPG brands. It provided access to influential members of a consumer cohort that tend to be one of the most valuable to functional CPG brands (especially if we are talking sports nutrition). Since I worked with several functional CPG brands that were aggressively seeking deals, I assumed (I guess wrongly assumed) that the broader industry would be prepared to participate from the start. Throughout the inaugural fall college sports season, there were some wins, some telling trends in terms of distribution of deals, and a lot of groundwork laid by these first companies. During the spring season, we started to see functional beverage brands jump into the mix (e.g. Optimum Nutrition, Gatorade, and BioSteel). While these all for substantial deals for the functional CPG industry, why didn’t we see more NIL deals? One word…confusion. The key to success with NCAA athlete marketing is knowing the rules, acting fast, finding new opportunities, educating your ambassadors, and building meaningful relationships. While this may seem simple, the work that needs to be done to properly build an athlete ambassador program is quite cumbersome so make sure you build in flexibility and creativity to deal with unforeseen risks.

FOLLOW ME ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS