Navigating NIL for College Athletes with Matchpoint Connection’s Jonathan Pixley | NIL Series #2
Enjoy the Athlete CEO podcast? Leave us a 5-star rating & review to help others like you discover the show!
Episode Summary
As a college athlete interested in NIL deals, how can you connect with potential partners?
With NIL being such a new concept, there are several ways outside of the traditional models of procuring endorsements that are showing up as options for student athletes. One of these new platforms is MatchPoint Connection, which is a two-way marketplace that helps student athletes and other social media influencers connect for endorsement purposes. Through their web-based app, student athletes can connect and partner with brands both locally and nationally to earn money through various types of endorsement deals.
In this episode, Jonathan Pixley, Vice President of Athletic Operations at MatchPoint Connection, sits down with AWM Capital’s Will McGuffey and Zach Miller to discuss what MatchPoint Connection is as well as the current landscape of NIL for college athletes. In what is a constantly evolving marketplace, Jonathan shares his insight on what the NIL marketplace looks like, and the direction that it is trending. One point that Jonathan believes that all athletes should understand is that while making money with current NIL opportunities is important, the focus should always be placed on being a good person and your preparation and performance on the field.
With many student athletes not knowing how to capitalize on the NIL opportunity, Jonathan gives our listeners valuable insight into the processes that have been successful for student athletes so far. Whether it is a proper valuation, understanding your marketability, or tips into curating and maintaining a successful brand, Jonathan, Will and Zach discuss how athletes should be looking at the NIL opportunity.
Episode Highlights
(2:05) What is MatchPoint Connection?
(4:30) Why was Matchpoint Connection founded and what services does it offer student athletes?
(5:35) What does the NIL landscape look like for a student athlete?
(6:57) Are there any changes to NIL rules for NCAA athletes that are on the horizon?
(8:30) A discussion on current trends in the NIL marketplace and what are athletes able to earn.
(10:10) How should student athletes value themselves in the NIL marketplace?
(11:50) What should a student athlete do when managing their brand and image.
(13:35) NIL as a recruiting tool for college athletics.
(15:58) Discussion on how NIL will impact the future of NCAA sports.
(19:00) How to succeed on and off the field with NIL.
Stay Connected
AWM Capital: IG | LinkedIn | Facebook | AWMCap.com
If you have any questions or would like to reach out to Will, Zach, or Jonathan directly, please email them at:
Jonathan Pixley – Pix@MatchPointConnection.com
Will McGuffey – WMcGuffey@AWMCap.com
Zach Miller – Zmiller@AWMCap.com
+ Read the Transcript
Will McGuffey (00:00): Another installment of our AWM Capital podcast series on name, image, and likeness. With NIL being such a new and hot topic, our goal is to peel back the curtain and give you a better understanding of what is fact and what is fiction in this ever-evolving space. Today, I'm joined by my colleague and former Super Bowl champion and Pro Bowl tight end, Zach Miller, as well as Jonathan Pixley, who is the vice president of Athletics, Name, Image, and Likeness at MatchPoint Connection. Thank you both for joining me today on this podcast.
Zach Miller (00:29): Thanks, Will.
Jonathan Pixley (00:29): Thank you for having us.
Will McGuffey (00:30): So, Jonathan, we'll just jump right in. For people that are new to NIL, can you give us a brief introduction into what NIL is and then discuss why MatchPoint Connection was founded?
Jonathan Pixley (00:43): Well, NIL stands for name, image, and likeness. And so, as of July first of this year, college athletes were given the right to monetize their name, image, and likeness, and actually get paid to do various advertising things, could be on social media, could be an autograph session, could be an onsite appearance. Anything that involves their name, image, and likeness, college athletes are able to monetize that now, as of July one. It's been in the works for several years, of course. But the last two years, it really picked up steam and we knew it was coming. MatchPoint was founded on the NIL premise. I mean, it was based on that and we knew it was coming.
Jonathan Pixley (01:27): We didn't know exactly when it was coming, but we knew that we wanted to be in a position to be able to involve ourselves in the marketplace for sure. We have since leveled up, obviously, with where we're dealing with all social media influencers, because we knew that if you deal with only college athletes, you're dealing with about 460,000 college athletes. And it limits you, so we've leveled up. But the NIL world is a big enough one to be involved in by itself, so that's why it was founded.
Zach Miller (01:57): That's great. I mean, for me, personally, I think the NIL stuff, as a former athlete that would've had some NIL deals in college, I think what you're doing is amazing. Can you explain to us a little bit about how MatchPoint works and then kind of what's your role in the marketplace? What are you solving for?
Jonathan Pixley (02:14): Well, MatchPoint is ultimately the dating app for athletes/influencers and businesses to connect. So you would create a profile, either as a brand or as a talent, on our app. And ultimately, the details that you give in that profile would create a suggested feed that would give you the best possible matches for you to be involved with partnerships for you to be involved with. And we're one of the only two-way marketplaces in the country at this point where a brand can pitch a talent and a talent can pitch a brand. Most of the platforms are set up to where ultimately a brand pitches a talent and that's it. But athletes on our app can reach out to businesses, both locally and nationally, and submit offers to them. And once the offers are submitted, then it's up to the other side. They'll receive a push or an email notification letting them know that they got an offer waiting on them.
Jonathan Pixley (03:09): They open it up. They can either accept it, reject it, or continue negotiating through our chat function that we have and our app. And ultimately, once the offer is accepted, the money is sent to us, whatever the money is that's been agreed upon to be paid by the brand to the talent, it's sent to us at MatchPoint. And we hang onto it in escrow until the deliverable has been completed. Once the deliverable has been completed, it's sent back to the business for review. They review it. And as long as they're okay that it was completed up to standard, then once they mark complete, then we release the money to the athlete or the talent on the other side. And MatchPoint makes 9% on both sides, which we haven't gotten any pushback on that 9%. First of all, it's a nominal fee.
Jonathan Pixley (03:58): But secondly, we're finding out that a lot of the platforms nationally right now, there are some that aren't charging athletes anything. So that's very attractive to the athletes, of course. But what they're not really promoting heavily is the fact that they're charging the brands 25-30%. So you have less brands to partner with, right? So we kind of try to find that middle ground. The problem that we are trying to solve is simple. We're trying to educate the marketplace on both sides, right? Because nobody really knows what to do with this yet. They're figuring it out slowly but surely. And I'm going to use this phrase one time and I can't stand it, okay? The Wild Wild West. Right? So that's it. I'm not saying it again, because it's the most commonplace phrase used right now. But it is the chaos that has ensued because of NIL, which we knew that would happen as well.
Jonathan Pixley (04:52): We want to help clean that up and allow an easier method, I guess, for athletes and businesses to connect and also to allow the athletes to be their own agents to a degree, right, so that they understand their value. Now, that has also created a sense of chaos as well. But ultimately, that's what we want to do. We want to kind of help clean that area up so that athletes feel like they can represent themselves. They can learn how to do that effectively and also for brands to be able to connect to them very, very easily.
Will McGuffey (05:27): I know you just said that you just want to say Wild Wild West one time, but I'm going to go ahead and- Jonathan Pixley (05:32): You said it again. Why'd you say that again?
Will McGuffey (05:34): I'm going to go revisit that. Within the marketplace, I mean, this is so new since the inception was this past summer. What's been available for college athletes? What does that actually look like?
Jonathan Pixley (05:50): Everything. And I think that's the chaos that I'm talking about. I mean, we're seeing all kinds of crazy things happen. I mean, I know y'all are paying attention to it heavily as well, but these collectives that are being formed at these different universities where you don't really get the details to how the money's being dispersed and what businesses they're attached to and everything. But it could be everything from a collective, which kind of comes across as a pot of gold for the athletes to go to a university, to the ability to do a social media post for a hundred bucks or 200 bucks. And really everything in between is available to them at this point. I don't know how much longer that lasts with the redrafting and the constitution coming out and all that. But at this point, all is fair game for the most part, other than directly paying a student athlete just to play. There's no pay for play, which once that happens, you're a pro and there's no more college athletics, so.
Zach Miller (06:51): So from your perspective, I guess what's going to be the answer to the problem? How are you guys going to fix this? I mean, obviously, there's a ton of people operating in the space and trying to cash in on this. I mean, from your perspective and then also from a college athlete's perspective, what's the best answer for them?
Jonathan Pixley (07:13): Honestly, and I know this may scare some people, it scares me to even say it, but I think we need federal legislation, I really do. I think we need a blanket set of rules across the board. And again, I saw you cringe, Will, and I understand. It is scary to me, but the problem is if the NCAA is in charge of this, okay, it's already proven that that doesn't work. And so, I mean, the redraft that's fixing to come out, ultimately it entails them giving the power to the divisions, which then is going to be filtered down to the conferences, which then is filtered down to the school. So what ground have we gained, right? Until, in my opinion, there is a blanket set of rules, this is what everybody has to do, I just think there's too much wiggle room, again, for chaos. I don't think it can be consistent, and I don't think you're going to have the level of success that they initially, I guess, saw this as being. It's too much freedom in my opinion.
Will McGuffey (08:18): Yeah. Makes sense. I won't comment on the federal legislation piece. We'll save that one for coffee another day. But Jonathan, what are some of the trends? I know that internally we've had conversations, but what are some of the more notable or surprising trends that you're seeing within the NIL marketplace with college athletes?
Jonathan Pixley (08:41): Well, the one that jumps off the page to us, it did a while back and now everybody's seeing it, is the level of success that female athletes are having with this. Right? We all know, if we're admitting, that females are smarter than we are. So they get the social media space, and they're more marketable in a lot of different areas, right? I mean, you can market a female athlete with more brands than you can market a male athlete with, right? And the keyword being "athlete" there. But at the same time, they're communicative. They work hard at it. They want to do it. A lot of these girls, they're going to want to continue with social media influencers after they graduate.
Jonathan Pixley (09:26): So they're preparing themselves and we're dealing with some right now preparing themselves for that world. The other notable trend, and we kind of expected this, was that everybody thought that they were going to make a hundred thousand dollars this year. Right? And it is not reality, and I just think that when you're dealing with... And this is just the way we've noticed it. There are male athletes that overvalue themselves, okay? And then the female athletes undervalue themselves, but that is all kind of coming... The dust is starting to settle a little bit on that, and they're starting to figure it out.
Zach Miller (10:04): That's great. I mean, going to your point about the female athletes, I mean, for an average collegiate athlete, you're good at your sport, what should they expect? I mean, what kind of expectations do you set for your athletes? What can they earn? Where should they kind of set the bar and how do you know if you're undervalued or overvalued?
Jonathan Pixley (10:29): Well, I mean, obviously, the Bryce Youngs of the world who are going to make a million dollars, those are the anomalies, right? Those are the exceptions to all the rules. What we are noticing on our app and really across the board, most of these NIL deals are for a few hundred bucks. I mean, and it's between the $300-500 range. You'll have some thousand dollar deals. You'll have some five figure deals. I mean, but again, those are going to really the top 2 or 3% from a standpoint of not only their productivity on the field, but also that leads to their social media following. So the Bryce Youngs of the world, locally for us the Derek Stingleys of the world, right?
Jonathan Pixley (11:13): Livvy Dunne is a prime example, but as a gymnast at LSU, and she's an outstanding gymnast. But she's been in the social media world for a long time leading up to this. So again, she's another exception with, I don't know, she's got like 5 million followers across all of her platforms. So she's doing big money deals all the time, right? And again, those are the exceptions to the rule. The 97%, we like to call it. Those are the ones that, if they do it right, they're going to accept smaller deals up front and they're going to build their brand until it turns into bigger ticket deals down the road.
Will McGuffey (11:49): Kind of piggybacking on that thought, you mentioned earlier and we've touched on it, there seems to be an issue as far as understanding the athletes value marketability. Being a great player on the field doesn't always translate over to the marketing dollars with NIL. With that being said, what are ways that you are seeing athletes have success in procuring and managing their image through the use of their social media? Do you have any thoughts on how an athlete should prepare or tips on what you have seen as a successful formula?
Jonathan Pixley (12:22): Absolutely. And I'm certainly not an expert in the social media world, okay? But we do have one who here at MatchPoint who is. Krystal Faircloth was, I mean, a very, very significant influencer in the social media world for years and years, and now she's here with us. She's providing insight to these athletes and influencers as to how to go about it. And she said it's just really simple. First of all, you want to accept smaller deals up front, like we talked about, until you get your name recognition out there and brand built a little bit. And then it's about posting, knowing when to post, what to post, posting consistently, but posting things on social media about real life outside of sports. That's what followers want to see. They want to see what did Zach Miller have for dinner last night, right? As creepy as that sounds, right, it's what they want to see. They want to see outside of football or gymnastics or whatever.
Will McGuffey (13:25): I'm guessing that was steak last night, knowing Zach.
Zach Miller (13:28): No, it was actually shrimp pasta my wife made. Very good stuff. Definitely trying to eliminate gaining weight during the holidays here, but we'll see. It never happens. She also made-
Jonathan Pixley (13:42): That was not an angle to use right there.
Zach Miller (13:44): Yeah. She also made cookies too. And when they're fresh off the pan, I mean, it's just tough to resist.
Jonathan Pixley (13:51): Would be rude.
Zach Miller (13:51): Yeah. It'd be rude.
Jonathan Pixley (13:53): It'd be rude too, right?
Zach Miller (13:56): One thing I was going to ask is with schools, I've seen it so many, especially I pay attention to college football, obviously, so many of these schools are using NIL as a recruiting tool. These funds you mentioned earlier that are being created to kind of attract recruits, sponsorship packages, I mean, how much of this is a legitimate concern? And then what are you seeing as far as these funds? What's that future look like, especially for some of these big programs that have kind of the donors, the boosters to really back it up?
Jonathan Pixley (14:30): Well, the funds are concerning for me personally and us at MatchPoint just because we don't know the details to them. They're just telling you that they... Schools are presenting it that they have this, like Texas said they've got 10 million dollars in this fund. Okay. Well, what are they doing? How are they allocating it? What is it attached to? Because in order for it to be legal, and I know they're not going to promote it unless they have some legal attachment to it, right? In order for it to be legal, there has to be a service provided by the student athlete that's attached to the charity or a business. So the concern for me is, I guess, not knowing the details to it. But having said that, as you've seen, okay, because of the transfer portal, which I know is a topic of another discussion, but the transfer portal is now directly related to NIL because there are people who are transferring because of what they are hearing is happening for certain athletes at certain schools.
Jonathan Pixley (15:31): And so not only are you dealing with high school kids, you're dealing with a junior in college who may have been first team all conference the year before and on the basketball team and played 35 minutes a game and got to shoot the ball whenever he wanted to and be on a draft board. But he's like, "Oh, but for my last year, I think I'm going to go over here because I want to make more money"
Zach Miller (15:52): Right.
Jonathan Pixley (15:54): So that's the concern is the lack of detail and the lack of reporting about it. But all schools are going to have to jump on board. I do believe this though, guys, and I think that's going to be the first thing that the NCAA or the federal government, whoever gets involved, okay, that they're going to dig into. They're going to dig into those things first, and they may find nothing wrong with it. And if they do, then more power to the schools to use them.
Will McGuffey (16:21): What do you think the ramifications from this are, from NIL, and how's it going to affect NCAA and college athletics as we know today? I mean, what do you think the landscape's going to look like in not 5 years, but 10, 15 years? Is this a dramatic shift that's about to occur? Or what are your thoughts on that?
Jonathan Pixley (16:42): It's already occurring, right? I mean, it's already happening right now. I mean, there are endless different directions that this thing could go, right? If the National Labor Relations Board decides that they're going to classify certain student athletes as employees, then those employees can unionize. And then if they can unionize, they can ask for revenue sharing, they can ask for healthcare, they can ask... I mean, all this stuff is out there. It's on the table potentially, depending on what comes out in January with the NCAA. I just worry that if and when that happens, how do you stop these kids from becoming pros at the amateur level, right? How do you stop pay for play? Because what is revenue sharing? You're paying them for what they're doing on the field or on the court or in the gym or whatever, so I worry about that more than anything else.
Will McGuffey (17:29): That makes sense.
Zach Miller (17:32): I think the biggest thing for me is, as a former collegiate athlete and seeing these guys get some conversation, I grew up with no money. So seeing these guys get some money to help them in college, and I maybe had my parents buy me some groceries every once in a while, but I had to go earn my scholarship to go to college. And then from there, I was lucky enough to be talented and put in the work to be able to get drafted. I actually wrote a paper in one of my English classes about why collegiate athletes should be paid more than they were.
Zach Miller (18:10): So to have this come to fruition, I think it's great for the athletes, seeing them get a chance to get some money early on. And whether they make mistakes or not, they get the benefit of learning with that money. Maybe they make mistakes, but they probably learn from them at an earlier age. I think it's a great thing for the athlete. And so I really appreciate you taking the time to discuss MatchPoint. Obviously, would've been cool for me to have NIL when I was playing. And I'm not going to say the word "Wild Wild West," but I think it is.
Jonathan Pixley (18:45): You just did, man.
Zach Miller (18:46): It's going to be good for the athletes in the long term, especially if they can get the right people around them, the right kind of advice at an early age and be able to get in a good situation early on where you're not just looking forward to that next check that, for me, was 800 bucks a month. So I think it's great and appreciate you coming on the podcast, Will for setting it up. But do you have any other financial guidance for the athletes, the families of athletes, agents out there? I know the marketing agents are on a lot of these kids, especially the talented ones. For anyone else that's listening out there, what kind of parting advice do you have there?
Jonathan Pixley (19:35): Yeah, absolutely. I think there are three things that I would love every athlete in the country to hear, right? Number one, just strictly attached to the NIL, in order for you to succeed, and different levels of success, right, but in order for you to benefit the most that you can out of this whole premise, I think number one, okay, your performance on the field, on the court, in the pool, on the track, wherever it is, okay, NIL needs to be a byproduct of that. The minute you put NIL ahead of that, that's when what really matters suffers. It's the reason NIL is in existence is for college athletes. The second thing is obviously the social media platform and your ability to use that efficiently on your own behalf, which we've already discussed. But the third thing, and I really think that this is really left by the wayside, probably in every industry, is be a good person.
Jonathan Pixley (20:35): As a young man or a young woman who is representing your institution, your family, yourself, be a good person. Don't get in trouble. Don't post stupid things. Don't attach yourself to brands that aren't representative of who you are. Right? And then the last thing too, from the brand side, because businesses are trying to figure this out as well. There are plenty of businesses that understand the social media model, and they understand the benefit to it. But there are businesses out there that are still stuck in, I guess, the old days, where they're not accepting that social media advertising is here. Oh, and by the way, it's a better ad spend in a lot of regards. So learning how to use it, attaching yourself to it, and accepting the fact that you need to use it as a business. Oh, and by the way, if you're in a college town or a state that has a university, which everyone does, then use it to help your universities out as well, right? Use it to help the athletes out. So I think that there can be benefits from both sides.
Will McGuffey (21:42): That's some great advice, Jonathan. Just want to tell you thanks again for taking the time to be on this podcast with us today. We've really enjoyed the insight that you've given us and our listeners on NIL and the current landscape and what we can possibly look forward to in the future. For our listeners out there, please visit our website, awmcap.com, for more great information on NIL and other topics, including more blogs and podcasts that cover a wide range of subjects. If any of our listeners have any questions, please take a look at the show notes at the bottom of the page for contact information to reach out to us with those. Zach, Jonathan, and I would be happy to help in any way that we can, answer any questions that y'all might have. Thanks again. And we look forward to seeing you again in our next installment of the AWM Capital NIL podcast series.