The Business of NIL: Parents, Brands, and the Power Behind College Sports | Justin J. Giangrande

If you're asking how you get your son or daughter out there, you need to rank content development. At the end of the day, social media gets it out. That's the truth. As Gary, we use height matters. The more hype you can build, it's a monetization method. Now we're just dealing with college degrees and scholarships. For kids, elite, athlete, invest in them early, help them get his social media going, and then when you have real serious decisions to make, kind of professional, then you vet it. You don't win by following the playbook. You win by rewriting it. 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real. No theory, no fluff, no shortcuts. This is right about now with Ryan Alford. You sports college sports name image and likeness. We all know these terms and they're changing fast. The entire landscape athletes are truly becoming brands younger than ever. It's a reality that's here. We can't hide from it. We just got to learn to embrace it and know how to do what's right for the kids and for the brands. Justin Giangrande is the founder and CEO of Network where he works with elite athletes and brands at the center of the shift. Justin, welcome to write about now. What's up brother? What's up man? Good to be on. I appreciate you having me on. I appreciate you for joining the CEO of Network. A lot of the things you had done I'd heard the name. You just own the fucking network. You are the CEO of Network. Serial entrepreneur, you've gone the track. I recognized a lot of names. What is Network? What are we doing today? Network is a collegiate sports marketing and management agency. We are located in Fort Lauderdale, New York City and Los Angeles as well as Atlanta about staff of 20 executives from all over figure agencies. Just a bunch of hardworking individuals but we're laser focused on the business of college sports from youth high school which leads into college and then college which leads into pro which is really kind of through three lanes. One elite talent management, 44 men and women under management representing them and negotiating with the schools, branding and marketing them. A true sense of NIL thinking of their charities and PR but really managing them 360. We have an advisory business that works with schools and conferences and brands under NIL strategy. Some of my most proud work is Sacramento State who's elevated to division one. They've been a client of ours for two years led by my partner Doug Scott of helping to figure out ways to raise a profile school and then production company. Film and TV concepts, storytelling we just had a show come out on Roku on Sacramento State basketball with Omaha and overtime. We're a boutique agency pack a punch and I'm really helping people navigate this college space bed on it super early. As we kind of go in I was the first person to ever represent a high school athlete in the United States coming from my background and just have been bullish on what college sports as a business can be or just laser focused on really owning the space. It's a fascinating time with the whole NIL stuff. It's obviously still very fresh and new. The landscape has yet to be 100 percent defined. It's fascinating as I look at I'm a firm believer that it was a little late to the game. These guys, these guys, girls, whoever athletes in any sport generate a lot of attention, a lot of awareness, a lot of dollars for the universities and not being able to profit on that always saw was a miss and some ways are attempts to make up for the sins of the past or the Wild West of the present. That's well said. People ask me, this is good for business but obviously this is chaos and one of the one of my advisors and tours of mine said Gordon Whitener said, you know where there's chaos, there's opportunity and Justin, you're at the heart of the chaos. People ask me all the time, are you surprised this hasn't gotten right? And I'm not. I'm not because everyone, all the ADs, all the school presidents, all the conference, everyone knows where we're going. They just don't want to get there because it's painful. This was not set up for what needs to happen. You need to have a huge change of what happens and get a lot of stakeholders on board and re-imagine the whole thing. Watching house of cards set on fire with a basketball and football, that's where we are. And I wonder where it's going to land. Who's going to be the body that controls this? The NCAA sort of washed their hands from it. The people is not something that everyone doesn't know. The big 10 and the SEC commissioners have the power. There's a piece that they like it. People inherently are selfish at the end of the day. The fact that they have control for their conferences puts their conferences in a good spot to win. If the goal is winning national championships, it gives them an inherent advantage. That's why we see at times Tussle gets the AD from Tennessee has gotten into with SEC commissioner a little bit Danny White because at times he's called him out for not necessarily thinking about the big picture, which is an interesting dynamic. People think it's untenable what's kind of going on in college sports. Even though selfishly on our side probably benefits our business. Withers fact that there's no collective bargaining. The fact that when I'm dealing with GMs, they don't know what the other side of the table is. They don't know if the school is spending 40 million or 30 million or 10 20 million. There's a complete lack of transparency going on of what these deals are and how much one university's paying for a player or whatever it is. It's all about their purview of risk tolerance. An AD and a president and a GMO schools have to decide what their risk tolerance is and then also they have to decide how much does the college sports commission actually matter. Do we even care that we're being governed? There's some schools that have never even signed the pack as far as the college sports commission. Gary again sees put this thing in place that some people are paying attention to but there's other people who just don't even think it exists. I'm a firm believer that the athletes should be paid the argument is are we rotting from the inside out the whole amateur athletics with what we're doing monetizing everything having no guard rails. Your agency sits in getting the best deals for your clients and taking care of them. How do you respond to that criticism? They didn't create the system. The powers that be Ryan could get on the same page whatever they want. It's on them. Players are just reacting. The reality is the people who say they want organization are the same ones that are oh man Michigan spending 30. Well here's another 10 million for Ohio State. They keep moving the goalposts because people want to win. It's about getting everyone on the same page. Who's going to be the leader? We've kind of seen it. We've had Trump come out and announced some things that are also normal citizens like oh my god it's all going to end and we're like that means nothing. That's basically Kim Rady and email saying hey I would like college sports. You have to get everyone on the same page and the stakeholders and also when this decision came down this was a supreme court decision. It's not as easy to just tell people what you want. They've taken some shots. Nick Savins went up there and been a part of these things. Man Nick Savin can't get it done. We got issues. The biggest thing that I would like to see the marketing deals and all that stuff hey whatever. Get as many as you can get. If you've got influence and you've got impressions and eyes then hey sell that stuff baby. How do you build a roster in a team? You thought the pros were bad with free agency. The changing rosters every year seemingly no guard rails on that. That needs to your minimum. It needs to be good to the athletes and fair for the athletes. We can't kill the sport and the fandom and the interest. Everyone puts it on the athletes. At the end of the day the powers that be need to decide the rules that we're playing by and they actually stick to them. The talent and the agents are just reacting to what the opportunity is. That's just it. Who is in charge here? Who's the adult around here? And honestly I point the finger. It's the SEC Commissioner and the Big Ten Commissioner. They have all the power. I mean they do. Justin talked to me about network. I've been to this on a few shows. Shameless plug for a book I haven't finished yet. Raising a brand which is how parents should navigate this world of name, image and likeness at an early stage to both take advantage and not go crazy. I'm curious how network. You're always identifying athletes, individuals earlier helping them guide them through this. More deals for high schoolers. People were apprehensive to do deals with high schoolers, real NIL high schoolers. So I saw real NIL deals. We're watching it. If you look at my client Malachi Tony, gets 18 years old as the world of his fingertips well deserved. Had to just an absolute monster of a season called a shot and went out and did it and that's remarkable. What I realize is all of these kids for 12, 13, 14, 15 year old kids who live on social media and drive eyeballs. Who are they looking up to? They're looking up to college kids but even high school kids. There's a kid Amir Sears who's a high school or 2028. You got 10 12 year old kids that are trying to be him. What it is is they consume online over time culture, Snapchat culture. Ultimately it becomes aspirational. As 12 years old, you got to make it to 22 to be an NFL player to have a life changing moment. What's crazy about high school or college is 17, 18 years old could be life changing for the family. I'm more interested as a youth in something that seems very close and obtainable to me and that's why we're seeing a shift of the eyeballs. There's no question if I'm a brand. I'm way more interested in elite college and high school players that I am pro at this point. Pro players have made their money. There's no limit to what college sports can be. Men's basketball and mental football. We're going to see private equity coming in. We're seeing mixed use retail come in. We're in the third inning here of NIL. The end of the day might be a decent transition to a gentleman you worked with Gary Vee. All attention is monetizable at some level and so don't hate the fact that attention is a fleeting and scarce and valuable resource. When you can garner it for your skills, your looks, whatever is and along this done in the right way, especially for young athletes and young people mature adults. Then no hate the player. You can hate the game, but it's life. It's always been that way. It's just manifesting more because we have social medium. We have these outlets. We have this democratization of content and scale. You worked with Gary. You're the present there. You're now in the network. We can talk about that. Some of that transition. I know we're going to reverse order here. I got connected to Gary and AJ. Honestly, I was not familiar with them in 2016. I had a previous company inclusive. It was a sports marketing and management company. Very similar to what network is now, but really focused on pro. 30 NFL and NBA players off the court, off the field. Refirst run NFL picks in 2015. Gary and AJ approached me because they had just started Vayner Sports. I call it. I came in in month two. They truly had one NFL agent and two clients at the time. AJ, the younger brother, had decided that he was going to be focused on this. I have such an appreciation for scaling business. My dad owns a Burger King. We can go into that. It is so hard to build process and team not be completely beholden to it as a owner. I was so impressed with what they built with a media agency at such a young age. And so I thought to myself, life's about journeys. Why not go on this journey? You're going to learn something really great. It was a lot of fun. I got to watch how they maneuver. People ask me all the time what it's like to work with Gary. It's pretty crazy exactly like you think. I might also tell people that AJ doesn't get enough credit. AJ is as smart as Gary and Gary will tell you that. Unbelievable with people. His emotional intelligence. I took a lot of takeaways from that. A lot of fun. Building a sports agency with two serial entrepreneurs who love competition. We got after it. And every day we swung this award. They really did. You know, just a lot of fun. I had the same birthday as Gary. How long were you with them? 2016 to 2020. About four and a half years. I got to build that. The NFL side with them pretty sturdy. A lot of fun though. Just wizard sharp. The most impressive thing is with all the success Gary and AJ have. They work their asses off every single day. Gary once said to me, I love the game. The best game of all time is business. It's not playing basketball. It's not football. It's business. People are maneuvering. We learn a lot from those guys. Not how to over hire. Just what people you need at what time in your company's life cycle. A lot of people don't think about that. When to take on capital and not really if you put the clients first. Cool thing with them is because they had so much success. They were definitely not doing it for the money. That's for damn sure. If you really can build about doing the right thing by your clients. Usually it has a good compounding effect and that had a really good effect on network. We're very lucky. A lot of our clients and really the parents of the clients are so loyal to us. Not because we're given them marketing guarantees. Not because anything else they believe in what we're doing. They believe that we give a shit about their kids and these are children. We're recruiting kids that are 16 years old. That's where you have to be if you're trying to land an elite high school quarterback basketball player. You got to basically be in it 16 to 17 year old establishing a relationship with them before they go to college. I mean I don't lose sight of that. These are people's kids. It was more important to build a relationship with the parent. 80% parent, 20% kid. Defined for me. The difference between marketing agent, sports agent. You have to be a lawyer to do this. Unfortunately I never wanted to have the term agent. I truly think of myself and our company as management. Thinking about all areas of the business. Negotiating with the school, doing endorsement deals, thinking about PR, truth like career management. However, in the NIL era, we got to call these people something. They were like, all right, your agents. Because in certain states, you had to get your agent license. Unfortunately I am considered an NIL agent. I really fancy myself more on marketing and branding person. But I also have a high aptitude in the company that does of negotiating with the schools. My whole life has been negotiating endorsement deals and deals for talent. And this is the same. People ask why we have committed advantage. Here's on the negotiating with school. I'm not stupid. There's probably people that are equal to what we do. I just had a lot of reps. I had the first high school athlete in the United States signed Malach and Nelson. So that just means I've been out this longer. That's 2021. We're still sitting here. Alabama and Texas. Alabama still does not allow high school and NIL in any form. Think about that. You got kids in California, one of the biggest states can monetize themselves whatever way. July 21st of 2021. And you're still sitting here with everything we just went on with the craziness of college sports. Kids in Alabama cannot monetize themselves at all in high school, which house that fair hasn't even what's that look like. Texas is crazy. Texas is crazy. Do you know the rules in Texas? No. Texas, you can get high school NIL from a school that you're going to if it's an in-state school. If you're in Texas A&M, Houston, Texas, they live in Texas at high school or they can pay you in advance. But if you want to go to Oklahoma, absolutely not. Your company exists and makes money by negotiating deals for young athletes. How do you balance what's good for the goose and what's good for the gander? The role that you play in that. It's pretty simple if you think about it to this lens. I mean, I have a lot of clients like this. The most important thing is putting the kids in. If you look at it through the lens, that if you put them in the right situation or school, fit, culture to be successful, money will come. Don't think of it through one transaction. Get the end of the day to really get paid. Even in college, you have to produce. That's when we see these big numbers after you produce. There's lots of times that I put kids at schools where there's a lot more money on the table. I tell families all the time. My job is to get you paid the most from the school that is the best fit and you want to go to. That is my job. My job is not to get you paid the most money. When you think of it through that lean, no, there are absolutely people who do not. There's bad agents out there who control the flow of information. There's kids that probably never know what one school's offering versus the other. We share everything. Our job is to have those conversations, put it together, share it with the family. The parents usually then decide how that information gets to the kid. Do we want a 16, 17-year-old kid known what the offers are? I have some clients that their decision, some very high profile clients in this last class, that the parents wanted me to have all the conversations, let him go through the recruiting process within the last five days when he was down at two or three. Hey, share it with me. We're now going to share him the financial difference. If I do my job, and our team does our job, most times those offers are pretty close. We're an agency that doesn't fall in love with having every conversation with every school and just trying to drive the price up. That's not our game. Our game is that ultimately these guys are trying to get to the NFL or the NBA as well. I have a very related to my fandom question. I was dabbo-sweeney so late to the game. And has he caught up? Are they going to catch up? You know what I'm talking about. It's comfortable to watch. He's accepted this and he hates it, but doesn't want to leave being a coach. I went to Clemson. I'm a Clemson guy. I love dabbo. We'll put a statue up. I respect his morals and his values, all those things, but the game changed. He didn't. We got behind. Now we're trying to play catch up, but I'm not sure we will. And that's just being honest about his Clemson fan. It's one of the more interesting moves we've ever seen. To push back on an ecosystem, I see what he's saying, but exactly. It's like you saw this coming. This wasn't a surprise. To think that you're going to sustain the culture you have, the whole landscape's changing. Do I think they can catch up? I don't know if they can get to where they were. They got a lot of money. The success that he did have and the base and the contracts that they have in place from that success, the revenue share and all that, it seems like they should be in the top 10 competitively when they want someone as fascinating. It's sort of related, damage you do your job. I mean, because have you had a deal directly with Clemson? Any deals or anything? I dealt with them early. It was a comfort. That's not how we knew it here. I get it and don't get mad at me. I don't think they've adapted that well. They're starting to, but the proof is going to be in the pudding. We'll see. Daven knows it. I've a farm believer in some ways that he should control his destiny, but there's just too much money involved in two myth variables. Two things can be true. You can be loyal to everything that he did and you can also go, well, we can't go down in flames. You're taking away from everything he built. What needs to happen is we're going to see what the season is. You guys, same thing with South Carolina temperature is getting pretty warm over there too. Talking with Justin, Gian Grande, big John. He's the CEO of network. Worse, it's all headed on the youth athletes education around content management. It drives me crazy, but I have a wife that's an administrator. I see what they teach kids. They need to get the playbook right for what's going to help in the future. Learning content development, learning their role, because the kids that can do their athletes that can develop content and be structured and disciplined about it and creative, that's your probably rock star client. And it's good for them. We're actually starting to see some of the programming in classes at college become more real life. The colleges saw a dip where people weren't applying to college as much because they were being serial entrepreneurs. Actually, we'll give some of these schools credit Syracuse has done an unbelievable job of marrying their communications with their business school and journalism school and how that all comes together. But you're absolutely seeing in school, the schools need to basically give these kids resources and the good schools that are doing it are figuring out how they leverage their college students to support their NIL efforts and teaching athletes how to grow on social. How awake is the brand ecosystem to the NIL athletes and the attention opportunity of these athletes? 100% the brands are looking at everything that's going on. Most brands at this part have an NIL person who's at minimum one person who's paying attention. Because if you get NIL, you sign the right client roster or client for your brand. It can really help you take off at a disproportionate value. You bet early on a kid, you pay him X and all of a sudden in the next six months he becomes Y. I'll give an example. We did a deal with NXTRD who is a mouth guard company. They did a deal with Malakitoni in the middle of the season. Yesterday's price would not be today's price. But I'm not mad at that at the end of the day. Cost benefit, everything in different spaces. Maybe put a risk put the money down when others might not have or played that game so they get the other side of it. You can probably live with that. You're going to get a shit hire on the back end so those deals work both ways probably. You mean sometimes the athletes don't pan out. Talk about that side of it. You're probably now in the evolution stage. Experiencing both ends of that. How's that? I've seen it for sure. The ups and downs, Rans making a commitment. Someone hasn't panned out. It's all about a journey being a long game. It's been written. We have a client Malakit Nelson who's now the quarterback in Syracuse and he's had an up and down journey. USC, the boy Z to UTEP, now in Syracuse. But what I've learned is all about riding with these guys and finding them at the right spot at the right time. Which is super exciting and rewarding. And then if you're a brand just doing your research and yeah, you're placing it back just like you'd be at the pro. You're going to do your research and be at peace with your soul. What would you tell parents? We've got a diverse audience. 25 to 50 year olds. Some a lot with maybe burgeoning athletes and how could should would parents be navigating this land if they have a son or daughter that has this potential? First, if you are not married or married, you go to the gym and you find the best athletic specimen and you target them for marriage. How do you navigate it? And this is resonated with some parents. You have to trust someone at some point finding a good representation that has a track record that fits you. But attorney someone you can trust as a parent that is going to advocate for you and your family. Definitely because to think that you're going to swallow this whole thing up yourself when there's so many moving pieces, it's just not realistic. Do your diligence, vet different companies, ask questions, get involved. If you're asking how you get your son or daughter out there, you need to rank content development. At the end of the day, social media gets it out. That's the truth. As Gary, we use hype matters. The more hype you can build, it's a monetization method. Now we're just dealing with college degrees and scholarships. For kids elite, athlete, invest in them early, help them get his social media going. And then when you have real serious decisions to make, find a professional that you vet it. What's the most misunderstood part of NIL? The difference between a one and two year deal for an elite high school player going to college and the importance of that. It's a that understanding, good to lead four or five star prospect, how to protect yourself. Maybe importance of your first deal, getting a little bit more guaranteed and leaving something on the backside or building in escalators. That's a really big one because schools are trying to convince you everyone's doing a one year deal right now. For the school side performance, baby. Clemson did finally play all these guys last year and the performance kind of sucked. That's an interesting part of all this. Biggest mistake make. Understanding that if you're brush and out there, it can help you, but when you don't produce on the field, everyone's going to judge you. Being a good person, not being narcissistic, not getting too high on yourself, especially in this environment and realize that there's going to be ups and downs. And don't think all of a sudden because you had one good year that it's smooth sailing. That's the reality. Biggest mistake brands make in this NIL. You're actually not investing further. It goes back to your point right. Investing further in high school. There's a lot of opportunity in a lead high school talent, specifically in football. In football, there's top five to 10 guys in each high school class that you basically can bet are going to be superstars. There's you could pay a lot less early on. That's the next new frontier. This one I did, if I was Justin. That's what I'd be. I mean, if I was the brands, if I was the brand manager, that's where I'd be too. Attention, it's tough, but man, they follow those high school players, man, they are superstars and the ones that are doing it. I know people are doing it and I know y'all are into adjusting, but add is untapped. There was the best opportunity in college sports right now. Women's volleyball, beautiful women, athletic game, fast paced, selling out stadiums, women's volleyball, great pro league being developed in Loveby, women's volleyball and under tapped resource are opportunity. One thing that will matter more in five years. Your school's ability to get brand partners to invest in an IEL for the athletes. Actual endorsement deals, not just fake revenue, I'd say. Regional going through Tennessee, pilot flying J. That's going to continue to matter. Real endorsement deal money. I wouldn't they want to help facilitate getting these brands to sign bigger deals for their athletes. It helps augment what they're getting. The university that figures that out sounds like a winner to me. I'm sure some already are. Justin, that's been fun, man. It's been really fun. I really appreciate the time and always hear to talk at IEL and excited. I can tell you're shit here and I can tell if you're a parent, they need to write down any T-W-O-O-R-K. Big John. Justin, Diego Grande. Drop some deeds for me brother, where can everybody learn more about what you guys are up to? Social web, all that stuff. Appreciate you having us on thenetworkadvisory.com on social. I'm at jg.network on Instagram, at jgnetworkceo on Twitter. Appreciate it brother. Let's stay in touch. Appreciate you guys. Hey guys, you're going to find us. Ryan is right.com. Hey man, it's a lot of bad advice out there. There's a lot of bad people out there. It's all about getting right now. Ryan is right.com. We appreciate network. We appreciate Justin for coming on. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time. We'll write about now. Here's the truth. Information doesn't change your life. Execution does. So don't just listen to this episode and move on. Take the idea. Make the call. Launch the thing. Fix the problem. Build what you keep talking about building. For more follow Ryan Ulford on Instagram at Ryan Ulford and watch or listen to every episode at RyanIsRight.com. This is right about now. Now quit waiting. Go win.