YOKE adds Ole Miss to growing list of player-driven NIL collectives
Ole Miss can add another collective to its growing list. The football-specific Oxford NIL Club launched Thursday, with several Rebels players tweeting out a press release, including safeties Isheem Young and Ladarius Tennison.
This becomes the second Ole Miss collective to launch; The Grove Collective previously launched this past January. The Grove made a name for itself in its first few months, striking ambassador deals players in football and basketball including names from the transfer portal. School-specific collectives pool funds from donors to create NIL opportunities for student-athletes through an array of activities.
Michigan State’s East Lansing Club became the first player-led collective in June. These organizations are self-described as player-led and membership-based fan communities yet they are powered by YOKE.
Instead of launching access passes, which has been very popular with previous YOKE-led collectives, ONC is opening up donations immediately. Fans can have access to meet-and-greets with the team, members-only tailgates and an online community where they can interact with players just by making a donation. For the more money a fan pays, the more access they will receive to exclusive content.
The Oxford NIL Club is running a July sale, gifting new members a free Zach Evans jersey upon their donation. The organization is raffling away a signed Eli Manning Ole Miss helmet for those who joins the club on its opening day, too.
As of 4 p.m. ET, the Oxford NIL Club has raised $2,812.01 of its $50,000 monthly goal with 102 active members.
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YOKE’s website describes the company as the “premier web3 company providing technology for athletes to build community and receive equitable compensation” for NIL. The company is the third-party provider behind the the Oxford NIL Club and the various other player-run groups.
Role of YOKE with Oxford NIL Club
These player-driven collectives are not truly independent of outside parties. And it’s inaccurate to describe the group as player-run if there’s middleman.
Michigan State rising sixth-year senior right guard Matt Carrick recently explained how YOKE approaches to On3.
“The stuff that we’re sending out, they make,” Carrick said. “We push it out.”
It started with YOKE employees sending direct messages to a few Michigan State players, Carrick said. Then the company contacted the team’s leadership council.
“We were kind of held responsible to get everyone on board,” Carrick said.
At Michigan State, Auburn, Arkansas, Kansas State, Texas and now Ole Miss, players are not required to join these collectives. They have the option to opt-out and not take a cut of the profit.
As the company has increased its scale, its platform fee has dropped from 25% to 18%, according to co-founder and CEO Mick Assaf. He said he hopes the platform fee can reach the single digits in the future.
Growing trend across college football
Experts are not surprised players want a seat at the table. The move also gives student-athletes the opportunity to have the cash funnel directly to them.
“I’m not surprised that they are giving it a try,” said Mit Winter, a sports attorney at Kansas City-based Kennyhertz Perry LLC. “With players running the collective, theoretically more of the revenue generated by the collective will flow to the players than with a collective run by a third-party business.”
And on top of that, the accessibility to coaching staffs is much easier.
“So we can talk to them about it, but per NCAA rule, they can’t help us with it,” Michigan State safety Dillon Tatum told On3. “So we can say something, but they’re not gonna say, ‘Oh, I can shoot you here or you should talk to this person.’ Everyone’s excited and is on board. When we meet about it, we only meet as players never meet with coaches. It’s very good for us.”