Glory2Glory focuses on grassroots approach to NIL representation
No matter how you imagine NIL, it’s a fractured environment that lacks any tidy, uniform process for college or high school athletes to find and monetize their value. But Glory2Glory Sports Agency founder Antoine Hyman sees the situation differently.
“There’s a tug-of-war between fear and greed going on right now,” he said.
That tug of war, Hyman says, is between the established powers that are quickly losing grasp of the institutions that guided high school athletes to college and beyond. The fear of change surrounding this process is holding young men and women back from the value that they create.
“It’s a struggle because of our history,” Hyman told On3. “We didn’t intend to empower athletes and now we’re here.”
That’s why Glory2Glory Sports Agency focuses on a grassroots, ground-up approach. The agency is trying to give high school student-athletes their first voice on a local level, and Hyman believes his agency is the first of its kind.
“Other agencies like Klutch Sports or Roc Nation changed their models to service high school athletes,” Hyman said. “We’re the first to focus entirely on high school athletes. We’ve had to get it out of the mud. When you look at our actual deals, we started with pizza shops and barbershops that included deals for goods and services. Now our last (mentorship program) was with Chick-fil-A.”
Glory2Glory represents more than 20 student-athletes
According to representatives from Glory2Glory, the company has done 26 NIL deals for 20 athletes in the two years since its founding. The company operates primarily in the Northeast, having agents in New York, New Jersey, New England, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Florida.
To use a well-trodden analogy, Glory2Glory is David in this story of David vs. Goliath. The group is an upstart agency with 12 agents working its way up the food chain through local markets like Rochester, New York. That’s where the Chick-fil-A mentorship program was created with a local franchise owner.
Plenty of questions exist about the “value” of non-star athletes on the college level, let alone the high school one. Can young men and women monetize their Friday Night Lights exploits? NIL deals are built on notoriety and high school athletes naturally don’t have the platform that established players at higher levels have.
But it’s not all about the reach or even the adults, according to Hyman.
“You should hear some of these conversations, it’s like out of the movies,” he said. “These guys are literally hometown heroes. And you’ve got to remember; they influence their peers. High school social influence is a real thing. And for local businesses, they’re able to tap directly into the influence of that athlete.”
One of the athletes that were part of the Chick-fil-A partnership, Jackson Green, has seen the results firsthand.
The Rochester native from Pittsford-Mendon High School is headed to Princeton next year to play receiver for the Tigers. He represents the goal of name, image and likeness opportunities in many ways. He’s not the high four-star nationally known recruit, but his On3 NIL Valuation is $15,400. He’s a quality football and basketball player who can now make money off of his exploits to help fund his life. Green takes it a step further by having a charitable mindset about his influence.
“Rochester, some parts are high income, and some parts are low income,” Green told On3. “And the parts that are low income are really not doing well right now. So, I’m able to bring in this new up-and-coming company called Champions Academy with Chick-fil-A. Champions Academy provides support for low-income households and kids. They’re just trying to get out and see what the world is about safely,” Green said.
Local high school stars resonate in their communities
For Glory2Glory, Green is the type of person they’re looking to represent. He’s the local high school star that’s not going to have a long list of top brands knocking on his door.
“It’s very complicated,” Hyman said. “Before I talk about race, I’ve got to talk about faith.”
Hyman is a man burdened with vision, and those with such a purpose typically speak like preachers. Hyman falls somewhere between salesperson and prophet when speaking about Glory2Glory. As an African American, the opportunities he wants to provide are based on his faith, believing that God has set him on this path. Yet, things get messy when you involve athletes with high visibility to power five schools and what their expectations are.
“From a racial standpoint, the majority of these kids are African American,” Hyman said. “It’s extremely difficult because it’s a new industry. They never imagined the person that could open the door for them would look like us. Initially, I would never work with the top-level kids. I played 12 years of pro basketball. They’re already thinking about the league and seeing themselves as a business without knowing everything. Even though they act like they do.”
But it’s more than that. With the advent of NIL and collectives, the higher-regarded players now have an avenue for quick money. For most sports fans, NIL isn’t about the student-athlete but the sports team they support. The focus is on enticing these athletes to their schools to survive in the new talent acquisition business.
But for Hyman, it’s about the high school athlete first.
He wants to help those players understand their skill level and business value beyond pay-for-play situations. Hyman played professional basketball overseas and spent his years after that in the economic sphere.
“After playing basketball, I worked for Meryl Lynch, so I used to teach athletes financial literacy,” he said. “For example, after a certain point, businesses have to treat athletes as employees, so they get 1099’d. So, for the kids that are making over $10,000, we try to offer financial literacy.
“We instruct the athletes on how to handle themselves as businessmen and women. We want them to understand how to align yourself with a brand because once you do, you’re not representing just yourself. You represent that brand.”
What is the ROI with local stars vs. top recruits?
In many ways, this represents the ideal vision of NIL. Not only is it a vehicle for players to gain compensation, but it’s also a way to teach young athletes about business and responsibility. For high school student-athletes, that education is even more critical.
But what about the return on investment by the business? After all, there are two clients in this equation. So, while the athlete is getting compensation of some sort, is the business receiving tangible results?
“We have a code,” Green said about his deal with a local specialty protein shake shop. “It’s called the Jackson Green Code, where people get 10% off on any purchase of Body Fuel, and they keep tallies of how many people are using that and how much traction I’m actually bringing into the stores. So, I think I brought in around 200 new customers in three months for each store.”
In instances like this, Hyman claims the return for the business was four to 10 times the investment in his experience. So, while the athlete’s platform might not be expansive, it’s hyper-local and can still yield results.
“The business wants to be seen as supporting a local athlete, and the community responds in turn,” Hyman said.
But it’s not just a hyper-local approach that draws interest. Hady Rayes founded Prodigy Fitness, a 100% e-commerce fitness apparel startup in Arizona, that recently got into the NIL business with several of Glory2Glory’s athletes. This is where the rubber of the brand and business aspect meets the road of producing a return. Rayes helps athletes develop their own line of custom clothing apparel.
“Most of the athletes already have a logo in mind,” Rayes said. “We’ll do mock-ups where we’ll go back and forth and bounce some ideas off each other, and then we’ll launch it onto the website. And then they just rep that gear, or rep the Prodigy gear or whatever it might be.”
Rayes, another former athlete, loves helping young athletes show the world what they’ve made and how they view themselves from this perspective. However, it’s a new business environment, so it’s not always smooth sailing.
“As far as the return, I used a lot of the athletes as a marketing way to go about it,” he said. “Now, we do have the sales aspect of it, and that’s been a rocky road to be 100% honest with you. But you have to think; these are young athletes. They’re still trying to learn the ropes. Technically, they have their own business, right? They have their own clothing line. So, it’s hard for them to kind of grasp that and catch on to that,” Rayes said.
Glory2Glory has big plans for future
Whether it’s Glory2Glory or Prodigy Fitness, the enticing aspect of high school NIL is growth. Hundreds of thousands of young athletes across America have notoriety in their small towns. While established agencies work with the “names” in high school recruiting, these businesses can expand to the rest. Once again, Hyman’s vision for Glory2Glory isn’t small.
“I see my purpose as twofold,” he said. “The second part is to create an industry. We see an opportunity to empower ex-athletes as agents. Youth sports is a $9 billion dollar business. People that can eat in this industry erect programs in the suburbs.”
Hyman sees the rising cost of admission to AAU, personal training for players, and other income-heavy approaches to high school athletics as a new barrier for low-income families.
“When I was kid, you could go down on the corner and sharpen your skill playing against other kids,” he said. “Eventually, if you were good enough, you could get a scholarship. Almost no kids are playing outside anymore. It’s all AAU. We can create social justice, irrespective of race, by empowering these kids with NIL.”