Stanford football joins forces with Fanatics for NIL Jersey Sales
On Tuesday, Stanford football announced that they are entering a partnership with Fanatics, allowing players to monetize sales of their own jerseys. This is all possible due to the NCAA now allowing student athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness (NIL). Below is the release put out by Stanford Athletics:
Stanford Football student-athletes will now have the opportunity to monetize their jersey sales ahead of the 2022 college football season by opting into the Fanatics and OneTeam Partners co-branded player jersey program. Stanford is one of the schools selected to participate in this option for its student-athletes.
"We are excited about this new opportunity to bring our student-athletes' name, image and likeness value to market through co-branded, licensed football jerseys" Bernard Muir, Stanford's Jaquish and Kenninger Director of Athletics, said. "I believe this will be a wonderful opportunity for our student-athletes and our fans, and we hope to lead the way in partnering to develop similar opportunities across more Cardinal sports programs in the future."
Fanatics will offer customizable Nike football jerseys available on www.fanatics.com prior to kickoff this fall. More information about how fans can purchase the jerseys of their favorite Cardinal football players will be announced at a later date. OneTeam will administer the group rights of the college athletes included in the program, and athletes will have the opportunity to opt into the program. More information can be found HERE.
This is obviously good news for Stanford as they look to navigate the waters of the new NIL era. There have been some questions about how Stanford will take advantage of NIL given that their world class educational opportunities remain at the heart and center of their recruiting pitch. This announcement helps answer that question and shows that Stanford is open to getting creative and coming up with ideas that allow student-athletes to benefit from this era while also remaining committed to their core principles. It’ll be interesting to see how players benefit from this, what they'll say about it, and also how it helps Stanford recruit in the coming years.
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