5/9/2022 other sports Edit

Rutgers Student-Athletes giving back with NIL deal via Vantage Sports

Alex Gleitman

Rutgers.Rivals.com

The ability for college student athletes to profit off of their name, image, and likeness (NIL) was viewed as a huge breakthrough last year. Unfortunately, though, NIL hasn't always been utilized in its intended form, and the NCAA is now forced to crack down on those violating its intent through pay-for-play schemes.

But there is some good being done with NIL. One example is through an emerging company and platform, Vantage Sports, which has teamed up with universities and colleges around the country to provide their student athletes the unique opportunity to profit off NIL while giving back to the next generation.

Very simply, Vantage Sports provides an opportunity for athletes of all ages, types, and sports to hire a college athlete for private training services. The athlete gets to set their market value for a timed training session, keeping the full amount, with a small service fee going to Vantage Sports on top of the training fee (Vantage Sports is also taking 1% of that fee and donating it to the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation For Autism). The amateur/youth athlete gets the opportunity to train with a college football player, an incredible experience in itself, and also enabling specialized training they can't get in many other places.

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"Vantage Sports is a unique platform for college athletes to leverage NIL and make some money by giving back to the next generation at the youth and high school levels who want to get some personalized, private training and mentorship," CEO and founder Patrick Johnson told The Knight Report. "It allows these youth athletes to take their games to the next level and utilize college athletes as a resource to understand what it takes to play at the college level."

Some of the programs across the country that have already partnered with Vantage Sports to allow their student athletes the opportunity to participate as hirable "coaches" include UCF, USF, Florida, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida State, Oregon, Notre Dame, Ole Miss, Miami (FL), Georgia, USC, Boston College, Memphis, NC State, Wake Forest, and of course, Rutgers, among others.

Football is the primary sport that Johnson built Vantage on, but the platform has slowly brought on "coaches" from other sports including baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, track & field, and golf.

"We've gotten some great buy-ins from a number of programs," Johnson said. "But as a New Jersey-native (Johnson was a high school football player at Westfield HS) it was very exciting to partner with Rutgers and get a number of their players on the platform. Many of them have signed up and we've gotten a handful of them going and training some local New Jersey players. We're definitely at our infancy as a company, but there's a lot of potential here and I think it has the ability to connect two sides of the sports world through this new platform with NIL, in a way a lot of people aren't thinking about. We've focused on football, but we've had some success with baseball, lacrosse, and a few other sports. We're looking to add more athletes from more and more sports as we grow."

Rutgers athletes that are signed up as coaches on the platform already and are available for hire include football players Curtis Dunlap, Ifeyani Maijeh, Rene Konga, Mayan Ahanotu, Rashawn Battle, Joshua Youngblood, Kenny Fletcher, Q'yaeir Price, Troy Rainey, Kyonte Hamilton, Jordan Thompson, Wesley Bailey, Stanley Dennis, Shawn Collins, Beau Lanzidelle, Henry Hughes, Keshon Griffin, Moses Gbagbe-Sowah, and Mohamed Toure, as well as baseball player Ethan Dodd.

Not only are these RU student athletes able to make money through their name, image, and likeness by providing their time and expertise in their sports to their clients, but they're also able to provide an incredible experience as mentors to the next generation.

"I think getting more highly specialized, personalized, and technical training in your sport is valuable," Johnson explained. "But getting a relatable mentor on and off the field who can give some insight into maximizing your chances of getting to the next level and what you need to be doing to play at the college level, that can make a real difference."

Finally, outside of just instruction for those youth athletes with high aspirations, Vantage Sports can also serve as a way for the programs associated with the platform to get a leg up with recruiting targets, as well as build a stronger connection with fans.

"I think both of those things (help with recruiting and fan base building) are definitely added value to our partner programs," Johnson shared. "For a recruit to have a chance to train with and get to know your players, as well as hear about what it's like to play at a school like Rutgers, that's definitely a value add with recruiting. And then I think fan engagement really has the most potential. If you have all of these young players training and getting to know these Rutgers football players, then they are certainly going to be more motivated to follow along with their season every fall, attend games, and things like that. It creates this whole other opportunity with fan engagement outside of the big, 300-kid football camps."

To learn more about Vantage Sports and/or to hire a collegiate athlete in your area as a coach (or sign up as a student athlete to be a coach), check out their website.