Saint Joseph’s Launches NIL Fair to Empower Athletes and Local Business
Saint Joseph’s University aims to be a trailblazer in the NIL space. Already receiving recognition within the industry, Saint Joe’s was nominated alongside seven other schools for the upcoming Influencer Best Institutional Program Award at the 2024 NIL Summit. Out of the eight nominees, Saint Joseph’s and Grand Canyon University were the only two mid-major programs. Now, SJU plans to further demonstrate their athlete centric commitment by creating “The Hawk Hill NIL Fair”, a collaborative effort from NIL stakeholders in the SJU athletic department, Hawk Hill Alliance (NIL Collective), Van Wagner (Multi-Media Partner), and Brandr (NIL Group Licensing).
According to a press release from Saint Joseph’s University, the NIL fair will “allow representatives from all four partners to educate existing University sponsors, prospective sponsors, alumni-led businesses, local businesses and more. The most innovative aspect of the Hawk Hill NIL Fair will be the introduction of several Hawk student-athletes, allowing the attendees to imagine the possibilities with these outstanding young men and women as brand ambassadors and partners.” Many small business show reluctance to leap into the NIL space due to the perceived legal complexities and the novelty of NIL engagements. Utilizing institutional resources to educate local businesses may be a necessary action to showcase the value of athlete led marketing to businesses without.
While a NIL fair may seem intuitive almost three years into NIL, Saint Joseph’s is ahead of the curve as this concept is only recently possible following regulatory changes from the NCAA in the wake of ongoing antitrust litigation. In a statement from Saint Joseph’s University Vice President and Director of Athletics Jill Bodensteiner, "We are excited to lead the way by adapting our NIL programming to align with the new rules and provide additional opportunities for our student-athletes."
While the NIL collective will continue to dominate how revenue sport athletes are paid, mid-majors like Saint Joseph's can seperate themselves from other peer schools by the level of institutional involvment and dedication to finding athletes NIL opportunities. While most mid-majors can not keep up with the NIL collective spending power of flagship state schools, empowering their athletes through creative means like an NIL fair can be a difference maker in certain recruiting battles.
Non-revenue athletics often get overlooked in NIL discussions, as players in these sports are almost always left off of a NIL collective's payroll; however, dedication to providing instiutional resources for NIL development in non-revenue athletes can be a huge factor in recruitment. For athletes without the suppoprt of an NIL collective, becoming a hustler is part of the NIL grind. Schools that choose to help athletes in the sports that recieve less of a spotlight thorugh partnerships with companies like Opendorse and Campus Ink's NIL Store remove some of the burdens of being a non-revenue NIL hustler.
The Hawk Hill NIL Fair will serve both its revenue and non-revenue athletes, help integrate SJU depper into the local community, and provide a template for schools around the nation to provide similar opprotunites for their respective athletes. The NIL Fair will likely catch on and increase local brands engaging in the space. Hopefully this leads to NIL endorsments becoming acsesible to more athletes, even those without tens of thousands of social media followers.
NOAH HENDERSON
Professor Noah Henderson teaches in the sport management department at Loyola University Chicago. Outside the classroom, he advises companies, schools, and collectives on Name, Image, and Likeness best practices. His academic research focuses on the intersection of law, economics, and social consequences regarding college athletics, NIL, and sports gambling. Before teaching, Prof. Henderson was part of a team that amended Illinois NIL legislation and managed NIL collectives at the nation’s most prominent athletic institutions while working for industry leader Student Athlete NIL. He holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law in Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor of Economics from Saint Joseph’s University, where he was a four-year letter winner on the golf team. Prof. Henderson is a native of San Diego, California, and a former golf CIF state champion with Torrey Pines High School. Outside of athletics, he enjoys playing guitar, hanging out with dogs, and eating California burritos. You can follow him on Twitter: @NoahImgLikeness.