Pac-12 football athletes will be able to publish their game highlights and generate income from … [+]
For the first time, college athletes will be able to earn name, image and likeness compensation by sharing personalized game highlights as a new partnership kicks off between NIL marketplace Opendorse, Twitter, sports technology startup Tempus Ex Machina and the Pac-12 Conference.
During the 2022-23 college football season, Pac-12 football athletes will be able to publish their own highlight clips after games using the Opendorse NIL marketplace. Pre-roll advertising will be secured through Twitter Amplify, running on the video and allowing the athlete to be compensated.
“Twitter has always been and will continue to act as the megaphone for athletes to use their voice,” said David Herman, Senior Partner Manager at Twitter Sports. “Now they can leverage their most impactful moments on the field to earn meaningful NIL compensation. We’re thrilled to roll this program out with PAC-12 football and look forward to expanding it to sports and conferences across the country.”
Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff says the partnership illustrates the conference’s commitment to helping student athletes grow their personal brands.
“The Pac-12 is committed to providing our student-athletes with best-in-class technology, tools and promotional platforms that support their individual brands,” said Kliavkoff. “Our partnership with Tempus Ex is focused on enhancing our student-athlete and fan experiences, and today’s announcement is another important step in positioning the Pac-12 as a leader when it comes to student-athlete promotion and brand building.”
Tempus Ex’s proprietary FusionFeed technology delivers low-latency data and video that allows this partnership to come to life as part of an ongoing data stewardship partnership with the Pac-12.
“The Pac-12 was the first conference to make its game highlights available to student-athletes for NIL purposes, and now, through our all-encompassing data and technology partnership, we can offer Pac-12 student-athletes something they’ve never been able to utilize before for their own financial benefit,“ said Annie Gerhart, COO of Tempus Ex. “Our technology is ready for social media companies to create turnkey monetization programs that student-athletes can opt into and begin to earn compensation on their own highlights.”
Tempus Ex says FusionFeed is the only available solution that can deliver every angle of every play from games, automatically providing digital video clips that allow personalized highlights to be delivered to every participating athlete immediately after each game.
“By giving Pac-12 student-athletes access to their own personalized game day highlights, it opens up a whole new avenue for them to monetize and amplify their brands,” said Larry Fitzgerald Jr., a board member of Tempus Ex. “Tempus Ex’s proprietary FusionFeed technology is a game changer for college student-athletes as they continue to explore NIL partnerships.”
Opendorse first announced a partnership with Twitter in June of last year to allow brands to more easily integrate college athletes into campaigns on Twitter. With this new partnership, Opendorse NIL marketplace and Twitter Amplify deliver a turnkey experience for participating athletes and brands.
“We’ve long imagined a world where athletes have instant access to the moments they create inside the lines of their sport,” said Opendorse CEO Blake Lawrence. “NIL and Twitter Amplify tools take this concept to the next level. Now, athletes can share and monetize their moments in real time. This is the future of athlete-driven marketing.”
Reportedly, athletes can earn $1,250 for participating in the program, which sounds like a minimum regardless of their following. Although Twitter is a popular platform for sports fans and sports content, it’s not generally one of the top platforms for college athletes in terms of where they spend their time or have the largest following. It will be interesting to see how many actively participate and what sort of return they produce for the advertisers that will be attached to the highlights.
Regardless, it’s a move that makes a statement about the Pac-12 conference. We haven’t seen conferences get actively involved in NIL up this point, certainly not to this degree. Although it can probably be easily replicated by other conferences now, it shows a willingness by the Pac-12 to offer more opportunities to athletes to monetize their experience that may be a harbinger of more to come.
The new partnership will be available first to football athletes in the Pac-12 and next to men’s and women’s basketball athletes.