Alabama players go all-in with LANK brand through team NIL opportunity

Alabama stars Jalen Milroe and Terrion Arnold embraced the  “LANK” motto this season, and it became a rallying cry for the Crimson Tide throughout the 2023 season.

“LANK” stands for “Let All Naysayers Know,” and it was created by Milroe and Arnold after the Crimson Tide failed to make the College Football Playoff last season. Milroe and Arnold went all in with LANK in 2023, turning the slogan into a NIL brand and wearing shirts with the catchphrase throughout the season.

Now Milroe and Arnold are helping their teammates profit from the LANK brand.

Milroe and Arnold announced this week that every member of the Crimson Tide football team can profit from the LANK brand through an NIL partnership with the Yea Alabama collective and Athlete’s Thread.

The tandem shared the news through a special unboxing during a team meeting while preparing for the Rose Bowl matchup against Michigan. With the deal, every player can benefit from selling their own personalized LANK merchandise.

“This is a monumental moment for the players, brand and the entire fan base,” Athlete’s Thread – the company that helped the Crimson Tide stars produce the officially-licensed gear – said in a social media post. “The best part is this is still just the beginning.”

You can watch the unveiling below.

LANK motto connects Alabama players

Milore told teammates before they opened boxes to learn about the NIL opportunity that they put in a lot of hard work, and he was proud of how they adopted the LANK motto.

“We all know what took place over the offseason. What it all took to get us to where we are at right now,” Milroe said. “And we know that we’re not a finished product. But at the end of the day, we got a motto that we hold through the offseason, and we know about LANK.

“We know what it means to us. We know what this team had to go through.”

Arnold then said LANK has connected the Crimson Tide squad and brought them all together.

“We still ain’t done LANK-ing,” Arnold said. “Athlete’s Thread has given ya’ll a chance, us a chance, too, to go out here and market ourselves through Yea Alabama. And in the box, there’s a card. With the card, it’s your own individualized brand and you can go out there and market yourself and you can make money off that.

“We just wanted to give you guys a chance to connect, because ultimately this wouldn’t be possible without ya’ll. We’re all in this together. We’re brothers. And I love ya’ll boys.”

The unboxing – which included custom LANK gear specific to each player’s name and number – went well received with a chorus of hoots and hollers.

Among the 30-plus pieces of clothing available from LANK are T-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets and shorts. Athlete’s Thread did not provide specifics but said “a significant portion of the commissions” would go to the players.

Where did LANK come from?

Arnold recently explained to On3 how the LANK motto was formulated.

“Obviously Bryce [Young] was the quarterback then,” Arnold recently told On3’s Andy Staples. “And Bryce, very, very humble. Nonchalant and just as far, never too high, never too low. J-Mil, is the total opposite. J-Mil, in the locker room, is the center of attention in there. In player meetings, he’s going to get up, he gone talk, say what’s on his mind.

“So just as far that being, we came up with ‘LANK.’ He was like, ‘Man we gotta really go out here and let these naysayers know because they doubting us.’”