USC Basketball: Two Trojan Hoopers Land NIL Deal With Largest Injury Law Firm in the Country

Some interesting moves taking place in the NIL space on the cusp of March Madness.

USC women's basketball star point guard Juju Watkins and men's basketball guard Boogie Ellis recently posted videos on their Instagram promoting the Morgan & Morgan law firm. 

Morgan & Morgan claim to be the largest injury law firm in the country, and have previously partnered with other college athletes for NIL representation like the University of Georgia's three-time All-American Brock Bowers, and in another case, 10 members of the Kentucky men's basketball team. 

Juju Watkins has lived up to the hype in her first season at USC, playing a huge part in the Trojan's current Associated Press rankings (third). She was the number one recruit in the 2023 recruiting class and has landed several other NIL deals in addition to Mogran & Morgan, solidifying her status as the next big thing in college hoops. 

According to Nick Shultz of On3, Watkins, who is averaging 27 points per game, will be featured on billboards and other "out-of-home media advertisements". Men's hoops star Boogie Ellis will also be featured in the same way. 

In the same article from On3, Morgan & Morgan expressed their desire to expand their desire "to continue to create additional partnership opportunities with Los Angeles athletes and organizations in the future". 

The announcement comes about a week before the start of March Madness, savvy timing for the Morgan & Morgan firm. Both Boogie Ellis and Juju Watkins, by the end of March Madness, could become mainstream household names. 

So in some sense, this could be Morgan & Morgan trying to time an explosion of both Ellis' and Watkins' NIL value. Ellis is a fifth-year senior at USC and currently has an NIL valuation ranked 74th out of all NCAA men's hoopers. 

Juju Watkins is ranked 11th out of all NCAA women's hoopers. Both of these rankings are courtesy of On3, which is the only outlet with any sort of tracking system that's generally considered the industry's most accurate, publicly available database on NIL valuation.