KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In just more than seven months since being introduced to college sports, name, image and likeness has morphed into a recruiting superweapon.
And in the never-ending arms race of college football, those who outfit themselves best are bound to prosper.
“If you would have asked us four to five months ago, we might have said we want to try and raise $3 (million), $4 (million), $5 million annually. Now, the goal is $25 million annually. Or more. And we think that goal is absolutely attainable,” said Hunter Baddour, president and co-founder of Spyre Sports, a Tennessee-centric college sports collective. “We’ll have to work hard, which we will. If this is how the game is played, then game on.”
Late in the 2022 recruiting season, it became clear that this was precisely how the game was being played, and as coaches turn the page to the Class of 2023, the money and impact collectives such as Spyre Sports can have are only growing.
“We’re prepared to invest a substantial amount of resources into the 2023 recruiting class,” Baddour said. “When you add all that together, it’s well into the seven-figure category.”
Baddour and CEO James Clawson co-founded Spyre Sports in 2020 and quickly found fertile ground in name, image and likeness. It has become one of the sport’s most organized and advanced collectives, a new catch-all term in college sports for groups of fans with varying budgets set aside to help aid players in monetizing their name, image and likeness. Money is pooled from a variety of sources and distributed to players according to their value, while players are responsible for providing deliverables such as event appearances, social media posts or autographs.
The money is staggering, and so is the influence, especially for those with the means to show recruits their market value can outpace what it might be on a campus elsewhere.
“Neyland Stadium being packed, passion of the fans, being in the SEC, all those things are still major factors,” Baddour said, “but what NIL opportunities a player will have is right up there at the top now.”
On July 1, 2021, the NCAA removed the restrictor plates on athletes’ rights to monetize their name, image and likeness. The initial flood of deals was small, sometimes just for free gear or products from local businesses.
While it’s impossible to quantify the precise impact of money from an NIL package in a recruit’s mind, Tennessee signed seven of the nine Class of 2022 prospects Spyre Sports had significant conversations with during the recruiting process, according to Spyre.
“We realized being involved in recruiting was going to be a priority. Then we realized how much money we were going to need to be elite,” Baddour said. “And we’re shooting to be No. 1.”
But so is everyone else, and in college football especially, a brand new game is afoot, as that influence — and the money that provides it — only figures to increase in the Class of 2023.
Underneath the splashy headlines and mysterious deals is a budding economy on the recruiting trail where collectives across the sport such as Spyre are making players aware of their value and, once they arrive on campus, following through with money that reflects it.
“We’ve had so many different area businesses step up to be able to help us with this kind of package. Whether it’s apartments, condos, car dealerships, free places to eat. It can be as simple as tires. Car washes. We’ve done all kinds of stuff,” Clawson said.
Added Baddour: “All in all, it’s six-figure packages.”
Some are payable for multiple years, but packages like the ones Spyre helps arrange for players are routinely for more than six figures. In one recruiting class, that adds up.
“There will be an NIL collective for every Power 5 school by the end of 2022,” said Blake Lawrence, CEO of Opendorse, which helps businesses, collectives and athletes team up for endorsement deals. “And the top collectives will spend $10 million per year on NIL.”
It’s the newest frontier in college football’s ever-changing arms race, and this particular race extends to basketball, baseball and non-revenue sports as well. But most recruits who saw the biggest benefit of monetizing their value were those who waited to make a decision late in the 2022 recruiting calendar.
The recruits in the Class of 2023, however, will be the first ones who will be able to pursue NIL deals throughout their decision-making process. Collectives around the country are preparing, and in Spyre’s case, it’s focused on building a Tennessee-centric war chest.
It’s in stark contrast to the often widespread belief that the majority of NIL deals in college athletics was fueled by local businesses. In the case of collectives, which are sprouting up across the country every day, they’re fueled by fans of varied economic status.
The game has changed.
And collectives are about to become necessary to win.
The total NIL cost for a given recruiting class, like most monetary figures in the college athletics arms race, figures to only rise. In Spyre’s case, it’s preparing and planning for that number to balloon to $25 million to $30 million in the coming years.
It’s why it enlisted the help of a Washington, D.C., political fundraiser it connected with via Heath Shuler, a former Tennessee quarterback who played in the NFL before spending six years in Congress.
“They’ve taken the right approach, which is to get the right people involved and engaged, and they’ve done that from the fan standpoint to the high donors,” said Shuler, who does consulting work with the group. “The respect they have across the board has been evident in the amount of progress they’ve made and the amount of money they’ve raised.”
It’s a new, fast-changing world, and Spyre has focused on trying to use the upheaval to Tennessee’s advantage, hoping to jolt alive a dormant program that hasn’t won an SEC title since 1998 or competed for one since 2007. Collectives are going to grow more competitive as they grow more common, but Spyre opened its doors to The Athletic this week for a look inside its operation on the new forefront of recruiting battles across college sports.
Coaches, administrators or even donors might be uncomfortable with college football’s new reality, but many of those same people were once uncomfortable with other changes before this one.
“Reasonable people can disagree on NIL as a good or bad thing for college sports. But both sides can agree that it’s not going anywhere, and if you want to be competitive, you better embrace it, or you’ll be left behind,” Baddour said. “Support has been outstanding. People get it. They understand, even if they don’t like it. They want to win and they want to do whatever is necessary to win.”
Baddour and Clawson spent more than a decade at Allegiant Athletic Agency, a Tennessee-based sports agency. Most of their work was on the sports marketing arm of the agency, but at the NFL Scouting Combine in 2020, they began making plans to break off and start their own agency.
“The company was initially founded on player representation, but very quickly we started tracking NIL and how that was going to look about a year out and realizing the magnitude of what this was going to be,” Baddour said. “So quickly, our business model pivoted. … We realized pretty quickly this was going to be a lot more than mom-and-pop type deals.”
It hit hyperdrive last summer, when on two weeks’ notice, the NCAA announced players would be allowed to monetize their name, image and likeness. At 12:01 a.m. on July 1, Spyre Sports announced its first deal with Tennessee offensive lineman Cade Mays, a former five-star prospect who transferred to Tennessee from Georgia before the 2020 season.
Baddour and Clawson had helped amass millions of dollars in marketing deals throughout their careers in the sports agency world, representing players from every Power 5 conference, every SEC school and nearly two dozen former Tennessee players as they transitioned from college to the pros.
“We felt like we had a great case to make for why we were the guys to do this,” Clawson said.
They started in two places: First, they put together as many deals for current players as possible.
“When recruits come in for official visits, you know they’re going to ask the current players. I heard what coach said about NIL. What is the real deal?” Clawson said. “Our experience with them is what they tell those players.”
And that experience doesn’t have to just be in-person. Spyre’s social media accounts as well as players’ accounts aren’t shy about touting the benefits of their deals.
“We want players to see through social media if you come to Tennessee, they’re going to have a nice car, going to have a nice apartment,” Baddour said.
The other immediate priority was building relationships with key donors who had spent years or decades donating to Tennessee athletics and explaining how the world was changing and the role they could play.
theathletic.com
And in the never-ending arms race of college football, those who outfit themselves best are bound to prosper.
“If you would have asked us four to five months ago, we might have said we want to try and raise $3 (million), $4 (million), $5 million annually. Now, the goal is $25 million annually. Or more. And we think that goal is absolutely attainable,” said Hunter Baddour, president and co-founder of Spyre Sports, a Tennessee-centric college sports collective. “We’ll have to work hard, which we will. If this is how the game is played, then game on.”
Late in the 2022 recruiting season, it became clear that this was precisely how the game was being played, and as coaches turn the page to the Class of 2023, the money and impact collectives such as Spyre Sports can have are only growing.
“We’re prepared to invest a substantial amount of resources into the 2023 recruiting class,” Baddour said. “When you add all that together, it’s well into the seven-figure category.”
Baddour and CEO James Clawson co-founded Spyre Sports in 2020 and quickly found fertile ground in name, image and likeness. It has become one of the sport’s most organized and advanced collectives, a new catch-all term in college sports for groups of fans with varying budgets set aside to help aid players in monetizing their name, image and likeness. Money is pooled from a variety of sources and distributed to players according to their value, while players are responsible for providing deliverables such as event appearances, social media posts or autographs.
The money is staggering, and so is the influence, especially for those with the means to show recruits their market value can outpace what it might be on a campus elsewhere.
“Neyland Stadium being packed, passion of the fans, being in the SEC, all those things are still major factors,” Baddour said, “but what NIL opportunities a player will have is right up there at the top now.”
On July 1, 2021, the NCAA removed the restrictor plates on athletes’ rights to monetize their name, image and likeness. The initial flood of deals was small, sometimes just for free gear or products from local businesses.
While it’s impossible to quantify the precise impact of money from an NIL package in a recruit’s mind, Tennessee signed seven of the nine Class of 2022 prospects Spyre Sports had significant conversations with during the recruiting process, according to Spyre.
“We realized being involved in recruiting was going to be a priority. Then we realized how much money we were going to need to be elite,” Baddour said. “And we’re shooting to be No. 1.”
But so is everyone else, and in college football especially, a brand new game is afoot, as that influence — and the money that provides it — only figures to increase in the Class of 2023.
Underneath the splashy headlines and mysterious deals is a budding economy on the recruiting trail where collectives across the sport such as Spyre are making players aware of their value and, once they arrive on campus, following through with money that reflects it.
“We’ve had so many different area businesses step up to be able to help us with this kind of package. Whether it’s apartments, condos, car dealerships, free places to eat. It can be as simple as tires. Car washes. We’ve done all kinds of stuff,” Clawson said.
Added Baddour: “All in all, it’s six-figure packages.”
Some are payable for multiple years, but packages like the ones Spyre helps arrange for players are routinely for more than six figures. In one recruiting class, that adds up.
“There will be an NIL collective for every Power 5 school by the end of 2022,” said Blake Lawrence, CEO of Opendorse, which helps businesses, collectives and athletes team up for endorsement deals. “And the top collectives will spend $10 million per year on NIL.”
It’s the newest frontier in college football’s ever-changing arms race, and this particular race extends to basketball, baseball and non-revenue sports as well. But most recruits who saw the biggest benefit of monetizing their value were those who waited to make a decision late in the 2022 recruiting calendar.
The recruits in the Class of 2023, however, will be the first ones who will be able to pursue NIL deals throughout their decision-making process. Collectives around the country are preparing, and in Spyre’s case, it’s focused on building a Tennessee-centric war chest.
It’s in stark contrast to the often widespread belief that the majority of NIL deals in college athletics was fueled by local businesses. In the case of collectives, which are sprouting up across the country every day, they’re fueled by fans of varied economic status.
The game has changed.
And collectives are about to become necessary to win.
The total NIL cost for a given recruiting class, like most monetary figures in the college athletics arms race, figures to only rise. In Spyre’s case, it’s preparing and planning for that number to balloon to $25 million to $30 million in the coming years.
It’s why it enlisted the help of a Washington, D.C., political fundraiser it connected with via Heath Shuler, a former Tennessee quarterback who played in the NFL before spending six years in Congress.
“They’ve taken the right approach, which is to get the right people involved and engaged, and they’ve done that from the fan standpoint to the high donors,” said Shuler, who does consulting work with the group. “The respect they have across the board has been evident in the amount of progress they’ve made and the amount of money they’ve raised.”
It’s a new, fast-changing world, and Spyre has focused on trying to use the upheaval to Tennessee’s advantage, hoping to jolt alive a dormant program that hasn’t won an SEC title since 1998 or competed for one since 2007. Collectives are going to grow more competitive as they grow more common, but Spyre opened its doors to The Athletic this week for a look inside its operation on the new forefront of recruiting battles across college sports.
Coaches, administrators or even donors might be uncomfortable with college football’s new reality, but many of those same people were once uncomfortable with other changes before this one.
“Reasonable people can disagree on NIL as a good or bad thing for college sports. But both sides can agree that it’s not going anywhere, and if you want to be competitive, you better embrace it, or you’ll be left behind,” Baddour said. “Support has been outstanding. People get it. They understand, even if they don’t like it. They want to win and they want to do whatever is necessary to win.”
Baddour and Clawson spent more than a decade at Allegiant Athletic Agency, a Tennessee-based sports agency. Most of their work was on the sports marketing arm of the agency, but at the NFL Scouting Combine in 2020, they began making plans to break off and start their own agency.
“The company was initially founded on player representation, but very quickly we started tracking NIL and how that was going to look about a year out and realizing the magnitude of what this was going to be,” Baddour said. “So quickly, our business model pivoted. … We realized pretty quickly this was going to be a lot more than mom-and-pop type deals.”
It hit hyperdrive last summer, when on two weeks’ notice, the NCAA announced players would be allowed to monetize their name, image and likeness. At 12:01 a.m. on July 1, Spyre Sports announced its first deal with Tennessee offensive lineman Cade Mays, a former five-star prospect who transferred to Tennessee from Georgia before the 2020 season.
Baddour and Clawson had helped amass millions of dollars in marketing deals throughout their careers in the sports agency world, representing players from every Power 5 conference, every SEC school and nearly two dozen former Tennessee players as they transitioned from college to the pros.
“We felt like we had a great case to make for why we were the guys to do this,” Clawson said.
They started in two places: First, they put together as many deals for current players as possible.
“When recruits come in for official visits, you know they’re going to ask the current players. I heard what coach said about NIL. What is the real deal?” Clawson said. “Our experience with them is what they tell those players.”
And that experience doesn’t have to just be in-person. Spyre’s social media accounts as well as players’ accounts aren’t shy about touting the benefits of their deals.
“We want players to see through social media if you come to Tennessee, they’re going to have a nice car, going to have a nice apartment,” Baddour said.
The other immediate priority was building relationships with key donors who had spent years or decades donating to Tennessee athletics and explaining how the world was changing and the role they could play.
Cars, apartments and 'six-figure packages': Inside the new, money-fueled frontier of the college football arms race
While money has always fueled college football, that fuel is now going in a brand-new engine. And the price is only going to rise.
theathletic.com
