ASU athletes learning benefits, pitfalls of NIL deals

PHOENIX – In the ever-changing world of name, image and likeness, the need for college athletes to seek guidance has become more pressing. 

The money is there, but so, too, are moving parts that many athletes struggle to manage alone.

In order to put everything into his on-field performance, Arizona State defensive lineman C.J. Fite sought out help to navigate NIL’s ever-changing landscape. 

“I didn’t realize how much business was in football,” said the 6-foot-2, 305-pound Fite, who will be a senior in the fall. “That’s when I was like, ‘OK, I need to have representation so I can be able to just play football, focus on football, but still know what’s going on outside of football.’”

Enter Young Buck Sports Management co-founder Ray Erario. 

Erario, who graduated from Arizona State in 2019, signed Fite when Fite committed to the Sun Devils in 2022. 

“Our first phone call was when he was graduating high school,” Erario said. “Now he’s graduating college, so it’s crazy to see how much he’s grown. He’s going to be the heartbeat for (ASU) next year.”

Erario knew Fite through other clients, and knew that Fite was a great fit and opportunity for both sides. 

Fite represented Young Buck Sports Management’s desire to expand more into NIL deals, while the support systems provided by the sports management company allowed Fite to direct his attention to both on-the-field and schoolwork.  

“We made sure it was a good fit,” Erario said. “We go off of people that other people refer to us to. When someone says, ‘Oh, this is a great guy,’ we take that very heavily, because we know these guys know each other.”

Erario focuses on financial literacy with athletes to help them avoid making mistakes managing their NIL money.

“First things first, whether they’re going to sign with us or not, (is) make sure you get your LLC set up and make sure someone is doing these (tax) write-offs,” Erario said.  “We’ve heard and seen horrible stuff for the kids, like having to pay six figures in taxes.

“I think a big part of it is, especially at the high school level, just educating them and their families and making sure their families feel comfortable with it.”

If athletes don’t have representation, that’s where groups such as the Sun Angel Collective come in.

“We are an organization that is set up to help ASU student-athletes secure NIL opportunities so we do a lot of different things,” collective president Brittani Willett said. “No two days are the same, but really at the heart of it, we’re here to be a support system for athletes as they are navigating NIL.”

They help athletes with a variety of NIL-related needs: securing deals, learning how to market themselves to potential companies and even establishing skills and habits that will help them succeed after college.

“We’re set up to support all 26 sports here at ASU,” Willett said. “We would love to work with all 650 or so student-athletes and will help in any way that you need us. Whether that’s putting together a pitch deck for you to go out and try to get your own NIL deals if you want us to solicit businesses on your behalf, we’ll help in that way if you just want best practices on how to establish yourself and your brand identity. We’ll help walk you through that.”

The NCAA has strict requirements as to what constitutes an NIL deal. 

According to the NCAA’s website, “An NIL deal is any agreement where you are compensated (money, products or services) for allowing a company, brand or person to use your name, image or likeness, such as social posts, event appearances or endorsements.”

“Pay for play” – payment without any specific plan or no plan at all for what the athlete will do in return – is not allowed. Compensation must also be similar to other related deals. 

“We’ve had businesses that have utilized athletes in different ways,” Willett said. “Some of our athletes are great public speakers and very motivational, so they’ve brought in athletes to come out and speak to their sales team as they’re kicking off for the season. Things that you wouldn’t traditionally think of – it’s not just social media. It’s not just putting an athlete on a billboard. 

“There’s a lot of different ways that the athlete can get integrated into what the business is trying to do.”

Fite credits ASU football coach Kenny Dillingham for the rapid growth of ASU’s NIL efforts, comparing the buy-in of supporting the program to how his players buy into the football program. 

“He knows how college football is now,” Fite said. “He’s been real. You get him in the media, he tells people what it is like. Somebody has to be real, and he’s that guy that’s real. People want to support the team and ‘activate the Valley’ and be around us.

“So the same way we want to play for him. People want to pay for him.”

When Dillingham says he wants to “activate the Valley,” business owners such as Tyler Sublette are whom he wants to help support ASU’s athletic programs.

“We’ve built the entire company over the last 18 months, literally via social media and referrals,” said Sublette, the co-founder of Nice Pest Company. “We’re not your typical pest control company that knocks on doors or pays for billboards or ads. We’re a little different. We market via social media, and then our customers are all affiliate marketers for us, and they send their friends and family referrals to us.”

One of the biggest factors for the company’s growth has been its NIL deal with players such as Fite and Justin Wotley, which Sublette credits as a big reason his business has grown as quick as it has. 

“NIL is supposed to give student-athletes exposure to build their own brand versus just handing them a stack of money,” Sublette said. “So we gave back, but it also created an opportunity for us in the ASU community to use their NIL to market our services.”

As part of their NIL deal, Fite and Worley shot a video for social media, along with other promotional materials. 

“We partnered with Sun Angel as well as Youngbuck Management, which is a management group, who happened to manage Justin and C.J.,” Sublette said. “And we did a fun video where we dressed up as cockroaches. and we let them tackle us literally full speed.”

The ad ended up getting 27,000 views on Instagram, continuing to help the growth of Nice Pest Company, Sublette believes. 

On top of the growth opportunity provided through NIL, Sublette also wanted to help contribute to the growing NIL fund for ASU to help the program thrive.

“Selfishly, I just want to see ASU win a national championship,” Sublette said. “That’s my goal, in my lifetime, my kid’s lifetime since I’ve been taking them to the games. I’ve always had an idea that when I own a company and I’m successful enough, if I could put my name on a building in ASU, that would be really cool for me.”

Sublette noted that the best programs in the nation also contribute heavily to their NIL fund, but he believes that ASU can do it better than anyone \because of how well its NIL program is connected with the local community.

“You look at the top NIL programs and look at who was in the playoffs last year, Texas Tech was  one,” he said. “We were lucky enough to take him down this year, but they’re going to be a behemoth because they’re spending like crazy and they’re getting a ton of talent. So whether you’re doing it true to NIL fashion or you’re handed in a bag of money, all of that’s happening out there.

“But, I think ASU can really do it the right way.”

Another local business owner that’s a key part of ASU’s NIL efforts is Burrito Express co-owner Angel Marin.

“I did it all by myself,” he said. “I’m a big-time Sun Devils fan. So, when we had the opportunity to work with players directly, I thought that would be fun for me being a fan, and for my kids … and that’s really the reason I started.”

NIL marketing has helped grow the Burrito Express brand while directly benefiting athletes, Marin said 

“I figured that it would be a way to get our name out there, to get a little bit more notoriety out there,” he said. “That’s been a goal of mine for the last couple of years. I graduated from ASU with a marketing degree, and so I wouldn’t say I’m a master marketer, but my goal has been to get the Burrito Express brand out there and in front of people’s faces and people to see it.”

Marin also wants to make sure that when he does NIL deals with athletes, all of the rewards they get for putting in the work goes to the players, not their representatives. 

“I don’t work with any agencies or any agents. I want the player,” Marin said. “When I work with the players, I want them to get every single penny. I don’t want anybody else getting anything of the money that they help generate.”

Burrito Express has multiple items named after ASU football players past and present: the Boo-rito for Cam Skattebo, SIPP Lemonade for Kyson Brown and The Sack Lunch for Fite.  

“I think it’s cool, and I get a kick out of it,” Marin said. “I like it, I’m just trying to get more creative. It just gets hard when you’ve been doing it for so long, and you just keep running out of ideas, you know. And the players really like us to create burritos, so I don’t mind doing that.”

Marin emphasized the importance of letting athletes know that, while Arizona State doesn’t have the biggest NIL budget, if they put in the effort, they can still get a lot out of what NIL has to offer. 

“I tell these kids, ‘Hey guys, this is ASU. This is not Alabama, this is not the SEC. I’m not going to be able to give you a billion dollars, but you’re going to eat for free,’” Marin said. “‘You’re going to make a little bit of money and you learn how to do that. You go out and you market yourself, and you go get yourself 10, 15 deals. Now you’re making the same amount of money some of these other guys at other universities are making.’”

Fite said the impact of working with different businesses has been an invaluable experience in learning how to navigate the world of NIL.

“You get to meet so many different people, whether it’s a small business owner or big business owner, every connection is a blessing,” Fite said. “Being able to meet those new people every day and have the opportunity is big. So it’s making a big impact. Just meeting new people and surrounding yourself with good people that can help you and you can help them.”

As high school recruits and college athletes look to obtain NIL deals, Fite advises all of them to make sure they focus on their side of the deal first, and the rewards will come soon after.

“Handle your business first,” Fite said. “So many people get caught up in NIL, but it comes down to you. Once you do what you need to do on the field, once you build that name for yourself on the field, people start to figure out who you are.

“You’re starting to make plays. So it’s more just handling what you have to handle. You have to have your priorities straight, your schoolwork, your ability to play your sport, and then everything else will come afterwards.”

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