Clark Lea breaks down Vanderbilt football's revenue sharing approach

As much as Clark Lea wanted to build his program solely on culture and development, he quickly realized that doing that wouldn’t be possible.

Lea knew that his program had to get with the times and make being a part of his team lucrative enough for high-quality players to seriously consider joining it. If he didn’t, he could do all the talking he wanted to. His vision wouldn’t be vitalized, though. If he didn’t already know that, his program’s 2-10, 2023 season proved it to him.

In the months following, Lea admitted that Vanderbilt “fell behind” from an NIL standpoint and paid the price for it. Now that his role has another wrinkle to it, he and Vanderbilt Athletic Director Candice Storey Lee are all in on making sure that his program doesn’t fall behind in regards to revenue sharing.

“Candice and I are aligned on what it’s gonna take from a rev share standpoint to field a competitive team in our league,” Lea told Vandy on SI. “We’ve gotta kinda get a grip on how it’s gonna look within our league, what it’s gonna look like amongst our peers and how we ensure that we maintain a strong position and strengthen our position in the league.”

Vanderbilt finished last season 7-6 and experienced one of college football’s biggest win increases. Lea believes that his program’s influx of NIL funds was a catalyst in the turnaround and should be “celebrated” in regards to its ability to retain talent that would have been poached in the past.

The blueprint will have to change for Lea and his program in regards to what its Name, Image and Likeness distribution looks like as a result of the NCAA vs. House settlement–which now forces all third-party NIL deals over $600 to go through the NCAA’s NIL clearinghouse. Lea doesn’t believe that the settlement will kill his program’s endorsement efforts, though.

“I think the NIL layer and the market value component will be interesting,” Lea said. “I’m excited for the potential being in Nashville and as the brand strengthens you locally, I think there’s certainly opportunities for our guys that way.”

Lea and his program will still work with Vanderbilt’s NIL Collective Anchor Impact and will also lean on former Vanderbilt receiver Earl Bennett–the athletic department’s Executive General Manager–is now leading the Vanderbilt athletic departmen’s Roster and Finance division.” Bennett will also be a “primary liaison” in building relationships with potential NIL endorsers.

Bennett has been around Lea’s program on a day-to-day basis since joining it as the Director of Player Development in 2021, but works more as a member of the Vanderbilt athletic department as a whole than as a member of exclusively the football program. The former Vanderbilt receiver–along with Storey Lee and the rest of the athletic department–are using their vision and Lea’s input to best position Vanderbilt’s football program

“We’re certainly trying to develop these systems as quickly as we can so that we have the chance each year, year on year, to field the best team that we can field,” Lea said. “That’s what it takes anymore so that is as important as anything. I’ve gotta continue to focus on the football, but we have to continue to have people with eyes on the strategic elements of rev share and the strategic elements of a partnership that allows us to attract the bets and the brightest and put them in positions to make plays on the biggest stages.”

Lea appears to believe that Vanderbilt can be a beneficiary of the NCAA’s new rules and standards. But in a similar way to Vanderbilt basketball coach Mark Byington–and Storey Lee, who believes there’s more legislation on the way–Lea doesn’t know exactly what to expect over the course of the next year.

“I view it similar to how I feel like I’ve viewed each of the past four years,” Lea said. “There’s a lot of unknown. I think the rev share model creates more known than unknown, but there’s still layers to this that we’ve gotta get a grip on.”