Fans are now able to purchase the jersey of their favorite college football player while also knowing the player will benefit from the sale.
Fanatics and OneTeam Partners’ collaboration to bring the jerseys on the backs of college football fans has officially kicked off. Originally the deal between the two parties was announced in February, but Thursday, Sept. 8 marks the first day jerseys will actually go on sale. Featured athletes include Alabama quarterback and 2021 Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young and fellow signal-callers Caleb Williams (USC) and Quinn Ewers (Texas).
So far, 4,300 student-athletes from 40 schools have opted into the deal. Notable schools that have deals with Fanatics include Alabama, Texas, and USC, plus national powers Clemson, Oklahoma, and Notre Dame.
The ability of Fanatics and OneTeam Partners to create the NIL jersey program is due to group licensing, which is used for all professional athletes who are part of player associations and increasingly by amateur athletes in the name, image, and likeness era. OneTeam Partners, which represents the NFLPA, MLBPA, WNBPA, and the MLSPA, then utilizes the rights of its athlete members to secure collective deals with brands for products like video games, trading cards, and apparel.
One of the main questions to arise regarding group licensing at the college level is how the athletes will be compensated given how new the NIL space still is. To get the lay of the land, Boardroom spoke to Malaika Underwood, OneTeam Partners’ Senior Vice President, about the subject earlier this year.
“Through group licensing, the royalty rate is the same with every athlete, but because you can identify sales based on the name on the back of the jersey, there is a possibility that the star quarterback will sell more jerseys than the right guard and therefore get more compensation than other players might,” she said.
In short, the bigger names will sell the most jerseys and therefore make the most money. Fans are able to shop for the jerseys across the Fanatics universe, respective schools’ official stores and e-commerce platforms, and select Barnes & Noble campus bookstore sites operated by Fanatics.
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