PHASE 1: RECRUITMENT
After discussing your campaign goals (including segmentation of athletes by sport, gender, location, follower size, etc...), we spend up to 3 days recruiting athletes to be considered for your campaign. We reach out directly to our 5,000+ members as well as a greater audience of 70,000 additional D1 collegiate athletes. We recruit through a combination of SMS, Email and Postgame App notifications.
PHASE 2: SELECTION
After recruitment has completed, we provide the brand with an extensive list of the athletes who have opted-in for consideration. The list is sorted by athlete value - determined in part by our own calculations and past history of having worked with the athlete(s).
During this phase we offer suggestions in order to help maximize the brands' budget.
PHASE 3: NEGOTIATION
After selections have been made, Postgame begins negotiating with each athlete and/or their agent. Our experience of working with thousands of college athletes gives us a strong sense of their worth - allowing us to expedite the process with a fair offer - and one that makes the best use of the brands budget.
PHASE 4: CONTRACT
After the offer has been accepted by the athlete, we generate a custom contract between us and the athlete that includes campaign expectations, payment, content rights, and more.
Each college expects the athlete to submit a contract to their respective compliance office prior to participating in a campaign and receiving payment.
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of the latest college athlete UGC
Brands Are Ditching Their Usual Influencer Marketing Strategies For NIL Deals
Marketing Brew - Brands Are Ditching Their Usual Influencer Marketing Strategies For NIL Deals
Ever since the NCAA gave college athletes the chance to profit off of their names, images, and likenesses with its NIL policy, brands have been lining up to court them. Almost two years later, though, some companies are finding that student athletes can be a bit hard to pin down.
Many student athletes don’t have agents or PR reps for brands to reach out to. Some aren’t used to checking their emails regularly (they’re Gen Z, after all—you have to slide in their DM's. And between academics and athletics, they are essentially juggling two full-time jobs already.
“We’ve had to relook at our marketing timelines and adjust to new factors such as the players’ academic schedule, practice, and game days,” Sara Tervo, CMO of fashion brand Express, which last year entered into NIL deals with Ohio State Buckeyes football players C.J. Stroud and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, told Marketing Brew in an email.
As a result, brands that want to play ball with college athletes might have to ditch their traditional influencer marketing strategies and write a different playbook.
“Whatever strategy you have for influencer…take it and throw it out the window, because it does not work in this space,” Danny Morrissey, co-founder of college sports marketing agency Postgame, told Marketing Brew.
There are plenty of perks to working with college athletes, NIL pros noted. For one, players can be “regional heroes,” Morrissey said, which makes them ideal for crafting winning local ad campaigns. Express, for instance, was “able to focus on more regional marketing opportunities where we can hone in on the fandom of a localized network with appearance days, local media outreach, and photo shoots,” Tervo said. The brand’s initial partnership with Stroud and Smith-Njigba resulted in 30 billion social impressions, she added.
Student athletes are also busy—really busy. Partnering with student athletes during the season can result in a more “elevated” campaign, but that also tends to be the toughest time scheduling-wise, Morrissey explained.
To alleviate some of that scheduling pressure, he advised brands to enter into partnerships with students before the season starts. Marketers might start creating content with a soccer player ahead of the season in late July or early August so that when the season kicks off, “you can then activate” with the players quickly, Morrissey told us.
Some brands seem to be embracing that kind of less-produced content: A fashion brand once specifically requested an athlete do a reshoot because the photos were “too high-quality,” Morrisey said. Brands should also prepare to be flexible.
”These athletes, they are busy, they have student commitments, they have athletic commitments, and they’re also just living life. The more that you can be engaging with them, flexible but involved, I think you’ll be successful.”