WVU Partners with VEEPIO to Oversee NIL
The West Virginia University Department of Intercollegiate Athletics has partnered with VEEPIO Holdings, LLC to provide digital agency services to create, facilitate and oversee NIL sponsorship opportunities for its more than 450 student-athletes.
By teaming with VEEPIO, the athletics department gives Mountaineer student-athletes a partner to work directly for them in matching and securing sponsorship opportunities. The company will not only broker the sponsorship deals, but also monitor all analytics, record all NIL activity, customize a student-athlete’s profile for distribution and secure payment for the student-athlete. VEEPIO will be a full-service agency not only for the WVU athletes, but for pairing interested clients with the Mountaineers.
Leading the VEEPIO team in the Morgantown office will be former WVU standout linebacker, consensus All-American and WVU Sports Hall of Famer Grant Wiley, who will be the main contact to facilitate NIL opportunities for WVU student-athletes and potential clients. Joining Wiley as partners in the company are former Mountaineer kicker Jon Ohliger, who serves as the CEO, and former Mountaineer and NFL veteran linebacker Najee Goode.
“Doing what is best for our student-athletes is always paramount in our decisions,” Director of Athletics Shane Lyons said. “This partnership will open a lot of doors for our student-athletes to best monetize their NIL. We teamed with VEEPIO so that they can work daily for our student-athletes, giving them representation in the NIL game. In this case, we have former Mountaineers looking out for the current ones, which makes this special.”
Included in the partnership will also be VEEPIO’s extensive technology services to further facilitate NIL opportunities. One of the benefits of the technology package is access for Mountaineer student-athletes to use VEEPIO’s iOS mobile application and its SDK, which links an athlete to a brand and story to create an opportunity for e-commerce.
“We are very excited to partner with the West Virginia University Department of Intercollegiate Athletics to offer the student-athletes the knowledge, support and advice to assist them as they navigate the unknown areas of Name, Image and Likeness. This not only will help them excel now but also in the future,” Wiley said. “We’ve been working on the technology part of our product for several years and now have the advantage of using it with WVU Athletics, the first NCAA program using VEEPIO. Our company leadership consists of former WVU football student-athletes, and we would have loved to have had the opportunities these young men and women have before them. Mountaineer Athletics has what it needs to be successful on the field. Our goal is to ensure it has the technology and support to be successful off the field.”
West Virginia is the first major University to sign a NIL agreement with VEEPIO, which also works extensively with the NFL and its Players Association.
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