Volunteer Club inks team-wide NIL deal with Tennessee baseball ahead of College World Series
The Volunteer Club is making sure Tennessee baseball is making the most of their NIL window.
The Tennessee-driven collective has signed a team-wide NIL deal ahead of the College World Series. The Volunteers begin play Saturday night in Omaha, marking their second trip in three seasons.
Because of NIL, college athletes are now able to monetize their publicity rights. Not every player on Tennessee’s baseball team is the best fit to lead a marketing campaign for a brand, though. Collectives have populated the Division I landscape in the last 23 months, providing opportunities specifically for athletes at a given the institution.
As part of Volunteer Club agreement, each athlete will be compensated four figures for promoting the collective on social media and signing a few items. Spyre Sports Group operates the two chief Tennessee-driven collectives, Volunteer Club and Volunteer Legacy.
“It’s a celebration of their achievement,” said Will Watkins, who is Spyre’s vice president of athlete and brand marketing. “You can’t pay them for winning. But now that they’re going to Omaha, that makes them very marketable to Tennessee fans. We’ve signed them to a team-wide deal with all the guys that are traveling out there. They’ll do a social post, and then they’re going to sign some some items for us. We’ll have a limited edition autograph run for our fans to purchase to celebrate the trip.”
Since July 2021, the collective has worked with more than 200 Tennessee athletes across 11 programs, procuring over $13.5 million in NIL deals. The eight-figure number comes from endorsement deals Spyre has facilitated along with The Volunteer Club’s athlete partnership program.
The collective offers a tiered subscription program for donors, ranging from $5 to $500 a month which comes with a different suite of perks. Fans can purchase autographed baseballs for $75 on the Volunteer Club’s website.
Volunteer Club trying to grow Tennessee baseball audience
Touting a 43-20 record entering Saturday, Tennessee had to win two consecutive elimination games in the Hattiesburg Super Regional last weekend to make the College World Series. The Vols have made four straight trips to the NCAA tournament, but they have never won a national title.
In his sixth season in Knoxville, head coach Tony Vitello has turned around the trajectory of the program. Tennessee is expected to start Andrew Lindsey on Saturday against LSU. The right-hander has a 2.79 ERA and a 3-3 record on the season.
The Volunteer Club has done one-off deals with baseball players before, but this is its first team-wide commitment to the program.
“Baseball has been really good recently, but for a long time Tennessee hadn’t been to Omaha,” Watkins said. “So we’ve gone two times the last couple years, which is awesome, but our fanbase has really bought into Tony [Vitello] and what this team is doing. So we want to make sure the fanbase has an appetite for the team. We want to be able to connect the fan base with the team, this moment and this huge accomplishment that can bring everybody together.
“Luckily because of NIL, the guys can get paid to do that now, which is huge.”