’Huskers’ deals hard to match
Bianchi: Ex-UCF coach’s team is on cutting edge of luring recruits.
Just as we suspected, the soon-to-belegal bidding war is on for all of those marquee college football recruits looking to profit from their name, image and likeness and, believe it or not, it’s the unlikeliest of candidates — the decadesdormant Nebraska Cornhuskers — at the forefront of the movement.
Coach Scott Frost put UCF football on the map with his cutting-edge offense, but now he and the ’Huskers are on the cutting edge of luring recruits with promises of fame, fortune and the newest catchphrase among today’s social mediasavvy athletes: “maximizing your brand.”
Nebraska announced earlier this week that it is partnering with a company called Opendorse — founded by, ahem, two former Nebraska football players — to help current and future ’Huskers build and monetize their social media followings.
“We believe social media is at the core of this next frontier for player development,” Frost said in a statement released by the school. “There’s an opportunity for our players that transcends compensation today. We as coaches and leaders can provide our student-athletes the tools to maximize their future value while they’re competing for the University of Nebraska.”
Translation: Come to Nebraska and we’re going to to show you how to get
paid more than if you go to Alabama, Ohio State or Florida.
It’s only a matter of time now before Dan Mullen, Nick Saban, Kirby Smart and head coaches of college football’s other big-time institutions of higher earning follow suit and hire marketing companies that will help their players get lucrative endorsement deals. Not surprisingly, Nebraska — whose once-proud football program has struggled for years to regain its past glory — made the partnership announcement with Opendorse as a way to “open doors” heading into a major football recruiting weekend this Saturday.
“Today starts a new battle in the next decade of recruiting in college sports,” Blake Lawrence, a former Nebraska linebacker who co-founded Opendorse, told the LA Times.
“Just as, 50 years ago, Nebraska was the first to build a weight room and say strength training matters to winning football games, today Nebraska is saying brand building matters to setting students up for life.”
It’s about time Nebraska football did something innovative and — don’t kid yourself, this is brilliantly innovative. Just as legendary coach Tom Osborne used to pulverize the competition with his brutally efficient I-formation offense (Memo to the Gators: Tommie Frazier just scored again) and a revolutionary strength, conditioning and nutrition program, the modern-day ’Huskers are visionaries once again.
You wonder too if this new frontier of
recruiting might actually even the playing field and benefit programs in mostly rural states such as Nebraska.
In Florida, the Gators, FSU, UCF, USF and Miami are not only competing against each other, they are competing against the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball and MLS for endorsement dollars. In Nebraska, where there are no big-time professional sports teams, the Cornhuskers are the only game in town. Which is why their football team, despite not having won a conference championship in more than two decades, has the longest sellout streak in the nation at 375 consecutive games, dating to before JFK’s assassination.
The ’Huskers might not be able to sell recruits on warm weather and lazy rivers, but they might be able to sell them on cars and cash. It’s not unreasonable to think the star quarterback at Nebraska might actually be able to make more money off his likeness than the star quarterback at Florida or USC.
And what’s to stop the Nebraska Farm Bureau from signing a lucrative endorsement deal with the entire Cornhuskers offensive line? Or, under the new order, wouldn’t it be legal for Nebraska Chevy Dealers to provide brand-new Camaros to the team’s entire incoming recruiting class in exchange for Instagram influencing?
Says Frost: “There are very few places in the whole country where players’ [names, images and likenesses] can benefit them more than at Nebraska, just because of the fan base and the excitement around here.”
You wonder what might have happened if Frost and his staff were still at UCF and had come up with this brilliant marketing and recruiting idea? It probably would have died a miserable death, like UCF’s recent stadium naming-rights deal with Roofclaim.com — vetoed by state politicians who are in the pocket of the insurance lobby.
Sigh.
Nebraska, like Florida, is one of many states that has followed California’s lead and is in the process of passing legislation that will allow collegiate athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness.
The question is: When will the athletic administrations at Florida, Florida State, UCF, etc. announce similar initiatives to let potential recruits know the school is going to do everything in its power to enrich them not only academically but FINANCIALLY?