Earlier this month, Learfield made a pivotal change to its NIL approach.
The multimedia rights holder for 160 Division I athletic programs announced it was turning its Compass app – which was primarily used as the athlete opt-in platform for major licensing campaigns like Fanatics and EA Sports College Football 25 – into a dealmaking platform.
Learfield is now rolling out its second annual NIL impact report, highlighting the latest trends in the space. With roughly 30,000 athletes already onboarded onto Compass NIL, the stats will continue to rise over time.
According to the report released on Wednesday, athletes earned $13.6 million in cash and trade value from Learfield’s NIL sponsorships in the 2023-24 academic year. It’s a 100% year-over-year growth in the category for the company.
With more than 12,000 brand partners, Learfield also saw 500 of its sponsorship deals incorporate NIL activations. More than 2,000 athletes participated in NIL activities in 2023-24, with 57% male athletes and 43% female. The media NIL deal per activity was $3,000.
“We’ve been, if not the most active organization in NIL since it started, certainly one of the most active businesses in NIL,” Learfield president and CEO Cole Gahagan previously said. “I don’t think it’s an overstatement for me to say that this is probably the biggest, most meaningful step we’ve taken in the NIL era.
“Launching a platform brings school brand partners at the local, regional and national levels into one system to be used by sellers and the student-athletes themselves to create more deal activity. Not just the mere fact about what’s being introduced, but also that it’s being introduced at this inflection point of student-athlete compensation and NIL activity.”
Football continues to be the leading participating sport, followed by men’s basketball, women’s basketball, softball and baseball. The most popular NIL activity remains social media. Meet-and-greets and commercial and video content also ranked high.
Learfield seeing on-campus work payoff
Learfield continued to find success through its on-campus work. According to the report, Learfield saw five times the lift in athlete participation and a 4.8-time lift in cash and trade compared to schools without a dedicated business manager. Roughly $625,000 in cash and travel value was earned by each school’s athletes from Learfield’s multimedia rights NIL sponsorships on campuses.
Institutions with on-campus personnel include Alabama, UAB, Arizona, Colorado, NC State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Western Kentucky, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The Crimson Tide also now has the Alabama Advantage Center, an in-person venue where athletes can execute NIL activities.
“At Wyoming, we recognized the need to provide our student-athletes with a full-time resource to maximize NIL opportunities,” Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman said in a statement. “With the addition of our dedicated NIL business manager through Learfield, we are looking at ways to educate our donors, fan base, and partners to showcase the importance of NIL and give them examples of how they can get involved.”
Learfield’s continued role in group licensing, collectives
Third-party NIL collectives have become imperative for top programs to retain and attract talent. A popular trend has emerged with collectives securing official sponsorships as a way to advertise in front of fans and work closely with athletic departments. According to Learfield, over 90 NIL collectives have signed sponsorship deals, allowing the organizations to use the school’s IP.
Learfield also has its CLC division, the nation’s leading collegiate trademark licensing company. Through a partnership with OneTeam Partners, which works in group licensing, the two entities offer licensing opportunities for athletes to leverage their NIL with collegiate logos. According to Learfield, 217 manufactures licensed athletes’ rights to produce NIL products.
EA Sports also contracted OneTeam Partners to manage the facilitation of NIL rights ahead of this summer’s release of EA Sports College Football 25. All deals were done through CLC’s Compass NIL app. More than 12,000 athletes have opted into the game.
On top of jersey sales and the upcoming video game, licensed deals include trading cards and custom merchandise. Learfield reported $19.4 million in sales of college-branded NIL merch in 2023-24, a 111% year-over-year growth.
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