Syracuse, N.Y. – Syracuse University will partner with INFLCR (pronounced “Influencer”) to help its athletes navigate new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rules that allow them to profit from their personal marketability, the university announced.
“We’ve known for quite some time that we were going to get to this day,” SU athletic director John Wildhack said. “The path to get here has been clunky, is one way to describe it. But it’s here and we’ve long taken the attitude that NIL is coming. We weren’t sure exactly what form. But we’re going to be prepared for it, we’re going to embrace it and we’re going to work with our student-athletes and those that have the notoriety, the potential and the talent to leverage their brand, let’s help them in doing so.”
(Coming later today: Wildhack offers details about SU’s NIL plan.)
SU has had a year-long relationship with INFLCR that previously allowed Orange athletes to share provided photos and videos of themselves on social media. With the dawn of the NIL era, that relationship has expanded to offer educational opportunities for athletes to learn how to use data gleaned from their own social media activity to actively seek deals in the marketplace.
INFLCR will provide personal one-on-one guidance to explain any tax ramifications or other financial implications of potential deals. The university will offer an NIL bootcamp for its athletes in September and will avail athletes to other NIL educational opportunities on its campus. SU athletes would be required to report any deals to SU’s compliance department.
Jim Cavale, the CEO of INFLCR and a Syracuse native, said education will consist of “short videos and articles” on topics such as financial literacy, tax compliance, fair market value, negotiation, and building a personal brand and monetizing it.
“The new system will provide education,” Cavale said. “It will also provide connections to places where student-athletes can make money. And it will provide the ability for student-athletes to disclose all their transactions to compliance.”
Syracuse athletes will be able to access information and make transactions on an INFLCR app loaded onto their phones.
After weeks and months of wrangling, NIL activity officially began at 12:01 Thursday morning. Since then, college athletes have been announcing deals on various social media platforms.
“This is a very entrepreneurial opportunity,” Cavale said. “It’s not going to be overnight, all of a sudden, student-athletes wake up and have money coming into their checking account. This is a business they gotta start. The ones who are good at their craft and who are entrepreneurial are going to win the most. That’s it. It’s like everything else: You get out what you put in.”
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