UConn to assist athletes with NIL deals
UConn Athletic Director David Benedict announced Monday that the school is adding an athletic administrator to act as point person for name, image and likeness activity.
The move comes as the athletic department officially unveiled its plan to work with UConn’s Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in an effort to support student-athletes in the NIL space. The Werth Institute’s Championship Labs subdivision will assist athletes in “creating a personal branding plan, mentoring through brand development, early-stage business coaching, and assistance with financial planning and evaluating brand partnership offer,” according to a release from UConn.
UConn also announced the school is “working to explore and identify collectives that align with the best interest of student-athletes.” Collectives are outside entities — often groups of alumni, donors or boosters — that raise money to fund NIL activity for college athletes.
Norwalk native Marc D’Amelio, a 1991 UConn graduate and patriarch of a family of social media influencers, recently formed the D’Amelio Huskies Collective.
“Marc D’Amelio will help provide opportunities for student-athletes while also lending his expertise in the personal branding space,” UConn’s release said. “Additional interest from UConn supporters exists in this area and the overarching goal is that the product of this exploration is something that can endure, for the benefit of all Husky student-athletes.”
UConn has been working with the outside company Opendorse to help guide the school and its student-athletes in the NIL space. Opendorse recently announced it is partnering with Learfield, the sports marketing and media production that already works with UConn.
The athletic department is adding longtime college athletic administrator Jason
Butikofer as special assistant to Benedict, serving as “the internal point of contact for student-athletes, coaches and staff in the NIL space, while interfacing with Learfield, Opendorse, the Werth Institute, and potential collectives in this area.”
Butikofer was most recently chief operating officer at Washington and deputy AD at Purdue after serving as AD at Benedict's alma mater, Southern Utah. Butikofer has also worked at Arizona State, Minnesota and Army.
UConn's athletic department will also work with the school's International Student & Scholar Services to “assist international student-athletes with the nuance in the NIL space that precludes international student-athletes from monetizing their NIL, based upon their visa category.”
International students such as Nika Muhl and Dorka Juhasz — along with many other athletes on other UConn teams — are prohibited from profiting through NIL activity because they are attending school on a student visa.
“UConn will exhaust every avenue, within the guidelines of immigration laws, to allow international student-athletes inclusion in the same NIL opportunities as their domestic teammates,” the school said.
UConn successfully lobbied state lawmakers to change Connecticut's NIL law, allowing athletes to use school branding and marks in NIL deals. The new law goes into effect Friday.
“There is an abundance of resources on campus that will help us navigate the NIL landscape, as we endeavor to provide our student-athletes with the necessary knowledge and tools to succeed in this space,” Benedict said in a statement. “I want to thank David Noble and the Werth Institute faculty for their expertise and willingness to assist our student-athletes in monetizing their NIL.”
Noble, associate professor and director of the Werth Institute, said: “Name, Image, and Likeness provides student athletes with an accessible means to entrepreneurial behaviors that will evolve over time. UConn's Werth Institute will provide the highest level of creative support, start-up structuring, and mentorship for studentathletes while creating opportunities for many students to further enhance their skill set for careers in social media, content creation, and entrepreneurship.”