McGowan’s opportunity was arranged through Athlete Direct, an NIL marketplace launched in April as a pilot program by NBC Sports at Temple, as well as Notre Dame and Vanderbilt. The platform, which connects NBC Sports’ advertisers with athletes, was developed out of conversations between the network’s representatives and school presidents, athletic directors, compliance officers, head coaches and parents after the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved new NIL regulations.
“Inclusivity is a big part of what we want to do,” Damon Phillips, NBC Sports’ senior vice president of strategic initiatives, said in a phone interview. “A lot of the deals you’re seeing are for that top 1 percent. What we’re focusing on is the other 99 percent. We think there’s an opportunity to bring deals to those student-athletes.”
The schools in the pilot program weren’t chosen at random. NBC Sports has a long-standing relationship with Notre Dame, having broadcast Fighting Irish football games for 31 years. Temple made sense because NBC has a local affiliate, regional sports network and Telemundo station in Philadelphia. Officials at Vanderbilt, Phillips said, shared what he called NBC Sports’ vision of approaching NIL “in a responsible way.” In addition to being notified of offers, athletes who register with the Athlete Direct platform are granted access to personal finance resources from CNBC.
The first Athlete Direct offer arrived last month — a tune-in campaign for the weekly Sunday morning MLB broadcast on NBC-owned Peacock. To fulfill the promotion, athletes who opted in were required to share a post and story on Instagram ahead of the June 19 game between the Phillies and Nationals, with specific information included for tracking purposes. Given the matchup, athletes from the Philadelphia and D.C. areas were targeted first, but the offer, which was capped at 75 participants, was open to anyone.
McGowan, who is from the Philadelphia suburb of Souderton, Pa., received an email and an Instagram DM about the promotion and decided it was a good fit.
“I was born and raised here, so the Phillies are a team that I’ve always rooted for,” McGowan said. “I think if it was two random teams or I wasn’t into watching sports, it would be a weird thing for me to post, so I wouldn’t have.”
NBC Sports provided a couple of recommended captions and a graphic for athletes to post. McGowan was one of the few participants who used a personal photo — of herself as a kid at a Reading Phillies game — so “it didn’t seem so robotic.” She said she received $70 for her Instagram post, $20 for her story and another $10 for providing a screenshot of the analytics of her posts.
McGowan, a rising senior, said NIL rules have made it easier for her to grow her brand and personal training business.
“It was like walking on eggshells with what I was allowed to post before,” she said. “I couldn’t post any pictures of me in Temple gear, because it could have made me ineligible. It was tough to promote myself and grow what I was trying to do when I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of things. … I know $100 doesn’t sound like a ton, but it’s definitely something.”
Among the other athletes to participate in the pilot campaign were Temple volleyball and track and field athlete Jaaliyah Evans, Vanderbilt football teammates Brayden Bapst and Justin Ball, Notre Dame tennis player Matt Che, and Notre Dame basketball alum and former Gonzaga College High standout Prentiss Hubb. Then there was Notre Dame pitcher Gerry Peacock, who, in addition to sharing a name with the streaming service he was being paid to promote while his team was in the College World Series, happens to be a huge Phillies fan.
NBC Sports plans to add more schools in the fall and offer additional ways for athletes to monetize their social media accounts through partnerships with local and national brands, including by promoting discount codes for NBC-owned products such as GolfPass and GolfNow.
“One of the goals here is to reach a younger audience, and to build a Gen Z network of student-athletes,” Phillips said. “We’re learning from the pilot and our goal is to pour rocket fuel on this in the fall, and be able to expand to student-athletes from all schools.”
