The Business of NIL: Parents, Brands, and the Power Behind College Sports | Justin J. Giangrande

0:00If you're asking how you get your son or daughter out there, you named it Ryan Content Development. At the end of the day, social media gets it out. That's the truth. As Gary V's, hype matters. The more hype you can build, it's a monetization method. Now we're just dealing with college degrees and scholarships. Your kid's elite athlete, invest in him early, help him get his social media going. And then when you have real serious decisions to make, find a professional that you've vetted. You don't win by following the playbook. You win by rewriting it. 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real.

0:35No theory, no fluff, no shortcuts. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford. Youth sports, college sports, name, image, and likeness. We all know these terms and they're changing fast. The entire landscape. Athletes are truly becoming brands younger than ever. It's a reality that's here. We can't hide from it. We just got to learn to embrace it and know how to do what's right for the kids and for the brands. Justin Giangrande is the founder and CEO of Network, where he works with elite athletes and brands at the center of the shift. Justin, welcome to Right About Now. What's up, brother? What's up, man?

1:16Good to be on. I appreciate you having me on. I appreciate you for joining. The CEO of Network. A lot of the things you had done, I'd heard the name. You just own the fucking network. You are the CEO of Network. Serial entrepreneur. You've gone the track. I recognized a lot of names. What is Network? What are we doing today? Network is a collegiate sports marketing and management agency. We are located in Fort Lauderdale, New York City and Los Angeles, as well as Atlanta. About staff of 20 executives from all over bigger agencies and just a bunch of hardworking individuals. but we're laser focused on the business of college sports from youth, high school, which leads into college and then college, which leads into pro, but just really kind of through three lanes.

1:56One elite talent management, 44 men and women under management, representing them and negotiating with the schools, branding and marketing them. A true sense of NIL, thinking of their charities and PR, but really managing them 360. We have an advisory business that works with schools and conferences and brands on their NIL strategy. Some of my most proud work is Sacramento State, who's elevated to Division One. They've been a client of ours for two years, led by my partner, Doug Scott, of helping to figure out ways to raise a profile at school. And then production company, film and TV concepts, storytelling.

2:28We just had a show come out on Roku, on Sacramento State basketball with Omaha in overtime. We're a boutique agency, Pack-A-Punch, and really are helping people navigate this college space. Bet on it super early as we kind of go in. I was the first person to ever represent a high school athlete in the United States coming from my background and just have been bullish on what college sports as a business can be. We're just laser focused on really owning the space. It's a fascinating time with the whole NIL stuff. It's obviously still very fresh and new. The landscape has yet to be 100 % defined.

3:01It's fascinating as I look at, I'm a firm believer that it was a little late to the game. These guys, girls, whoever, athletes in any sport generate a lot of attention, a lot of awareness, a lot of dollars for the universities. And not being able to profit on that, all we saw was a miss. In some ways, our attempts to make up for the sins of the past or the wild west of the present. That's well said. People ask me, this is good for business, but obviously this is chaos. And one of my advisors, mentors of mine said, Gordon Whitener said, you know, where there's chaos, there's opportunity. And Justin, you're at the heart of the chaos.

3:32People ask me all the time, are you surprised this hasn't gotten right? And I'm not. I'm not because everyone, all the ADs, all the school presidents, all the conference, everyone knows where we're going. They just don't want to get there because it's painful. This was not set up for what needs to happen. You need to have a huge change of what happens and get a lot of stakeholders on board and reimagine the whole thing. Watching House of Cards set on fire with a basketball and football thrown in. That's where we are. And I wonder where it's going to land. Who's going to be the body that controls this?

4:06The NCAA sort of washed their hands from it. The people is not something that everyone doesn't know. The Big Ten and the SEC commissioners have the power. There's a piece that they like it. People are inherently selfish at the end of the day. The fact that they have control for their conferences puts their conferences in a good spot to win. If the goal is winning national championships, it gives them an inherent advantage. That's why we see at times tussle gets the AD from Tennessee has gotten into with the SEC commissioner a little bit, Danny White, because at times he's called him out for not necessarily thinking about the big picture, which is an interesting dynamic.

4:37People think it's untenable what's kind of going on in college sports, even though it selfishly on our side probably benefits our business. Where there's the fact that there's no collective bargaining, the fact that when I'm dealing with GMs, they don't know what the other side of the table is. They don't know if a school is spending 40 million or 30 million or 20 million. There's a complete lack of transparency going on of what these deals are and how much one university is paying for a player or whatever it is. It's all about their purview of risk tolerance. An AD and a president and the GM of schools have to decide what their risk tolerance is.

5:07And then also they have to decide how much does the College Sports Commission actually matter? Do we even care that we're being governed? There's some schools that have never even signed the PAC as far as the College Sports Commission. The NCAA has put this thing in place that some people are paying attention to, but there's other people who just don't even think it exists. I'm a firm believer that the athletes should be paid. The argument is, are we rotting from the inside out, the whole amateur athletics, with what we're doing, monetizing everything, having no guardrails? If you've got kids in middle school or high school, you already know.

5:37Homework can turn into a whole situation. What should take 20 minutes somehow turns into two hours, and half the time it ends with frustration on both sides. I've got four boys, three of them right in that middle and high school range, so I see it all the time. They hit a problem, get stuck, and it's not that they don't want to figure it out. They just don't know how to get there. That's why I've been looking into Brainly. Brainly is basically a 24-7 AI-powered tutor that actually walks them through problems step-by-step, not just giving answers, by helping them understand how something works so they can build confidence and keep moving.

6:14And as a parent, that's the part I care about. It's not about the shortcuts. It's about them actually learning the material. It's also just practical. You don't have to deal with scheduling a tutor or trying to find things that line up around sports and everything else. It's there whenever they need it. And it's a lot more affordable than traditional tutoring. Honestly, it just takes a lot of pressure off. Finals are coming up. Build your teen study plan now. It only takes minutes. Go to brainly.com backslash Ryan to get 50 % off your first Brainly subscription. with my code Ryan. That's B-R-A-I-N-L-Y dot com slash Ryan.

6:54If you've got kids in middle school or high school, you already know homework can turn into a whole situation. What should take 20 minutes somehow turns into two hours and half the time it ends with frustration on both sides. I've got four boys, three of them right in that middle and high school range. So I see it all the time. They hit a problem, get stuck, and it's not that they don't want to figure it out. They just don't know how to get there. That's why I've been looking into Brainly. Brainly is basically a 24-7 AI-powered tutor that actually walks them through problems step-by-step, not just giving answers, by helping them understand how something works so they can build confidence and keep moving.

7:35And as a parent, that's the part I care about. It's not about the shortcuts. It's about them actually learning the material. It's also just practical. You don't have to deal with scheduling a tutor or trying to find things that line up around sports and everything else. It's there whenever they need it. And it's a lot more affordable than traditional tutoring. Honestly, it just takes a lot of pressure off. Finals are coming up. Build your teen study plan now. It only takes minutes. Go to brainly.com backslash Ryan to get 50 % off your first Brainly subscription. With my code Ryan, that's B-R-A-I-N-L-Y.com slash Ryan.

8:19Your agency sits in getting the best deals for your clients and taking care of them. How do you respond to that criticism? They didn't create this system. The powers that be, Ryan, could get on the same page whenever they want. It's on them. Players are just reacting. The reality is the people who say they want organization are the same ones that are, oh, man, Michigan spending 30. Well, here's another 10 million for Ohio State. They keep moving the goalposts because people want to win. It's about getting everyone on the same page. Who's going to be the leader? We've kind of seen it. We've had Trump come out and announce some things.

8:51Normal citizens like, oh, my God, it's all going to end. And we're like, that means nothing. That's basically him writing an email saying, hey, I would like college sports. You have to get everyone on the same page and the stakeholders. And also when this decision came down, this was a Supreme Court decision. It's not as easy to just tell people what you want. They've taken some shots. Nick Saban's went up there, been a part of these things. Man, if Nick Saban can't get it done, we got issues. The biggest thing that I would like to see, the marketing deals and all that stuff. Hey, whatever. Get as minutes as you can get.

9:19If you've got influence and you've got impressions and eyes, then hey, sell that stuff, baby. How do you build a roster and a team? You thought the pros were bad with free agency. The changing rosters every year, seemingly no guardrails on that. That needs two-year minimum. It needs to be good for the athletes and fair for the athletes. We can't kill the sport and the fandom and the interest. Everyone puts it on the athletes. At the end of the day, the powers that be need to decide the rules that we're playing by. And they actually stick to them. The talent and the agents are just reacting to what the opportunity is.

9:52That's just it. Who is in charge here? Who is the adult around here? And honestly, I point the finger. It's the SEC commissioner and the Big Ten commissioner. They have all the power. I mean, they do. Justin, talk to me about network. I've mentioned this on a few shows. Shameless plug for a book I haven't finished yet. Raising a Brand, which is how parents should navigate this world of name, image and likeness at an early stage to both take advantage and not go crazy. I'm curious how network you're obviously identifying athletes, individuals earlier, helping them guide them through this more deals for high schoolers.

10:25People were apprehensive to do deals with high schoolers, real NIL high schoolers. So real NIL deals were watching. And if you look at my client, Malachi Tony, gets 18 years old, has the world at his fingertips. Well-deserved, had just an absolute monster of a season, called a shot and went out and did it. And that's remarkable. What I realize is all of these kids, 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old kids who live on social media and drive eyeballs, who are they looking up to? They're looking up to college kids, but even high school kids. There's a kid, Amir Sears, who's a high schooler, 20, 28. You got 10, 12-year-old kids that are trying to be him.

11:01What it is is they consume online, overtime culture, Snapchat culture. Ultimately, it becomes aspirational. As 12 years old, you got to make it to 22 to be an NFL player to have a life-changing moment. What's crazy about high school or college is 17, 18 years old could be life-changing for the family. I'm more interested as a youth in something that seems very close and obtainable to me. And that's why we're seeing a shift of the eyeballs. There's no question if I'm a brand, I'm way more interested in elite college and high school players than I am pro at this point. Pro players have made their money.

11:34There's no limit to what college sports can be. Men's basketball and men's football. We're going to see private equity coming in. We're seeing mixed-use retail come in. We're in the third inning here of NIL. Well, at the end of the day, might be a decent transition to a gentleman you worked with, Gary Vee. All attention is monetizable on some level. And so don't hate the fact that attention is a fleeting and scarce and valuable resource. When you can garner it for your skills, your looks, whatever is, and as long as it's done in the right way, especially for young athletes and young people, mature adults, then don't hate the player.

12:07You can hate the game, but it's life. It's always been that way. It's just manifesting more because we have social media. and we have these outlets. We have this democratization of content and scale. You worked with Gary. You're the president there. You're now in the network. I mean, talk about some of that transition. I know we're going in reverse order here. I got connected to Gary and AJ. Honestly, I was not familiar with them in 2016. I had a previous company, Inclusive. It was a sports marketing and management company, very similar to what network is now, but really focused on pro. 30 NFL and NBA players off the court, off the field.

12:37Free first run NFL picks in 2015. Gary and AJ approached me because they had just started VaynerSports. I call it, I came in a month two. They truly had one NFL agent and two clients at the time. AJ, the younger brother, had decided that he was going to be focused on this. I have such an appreciation for scaling business. My dad owns a Burger King. We can go into that. It is so hard to build process and team, not be completely beholden to it as a owner. And I was so impressed with what they built with a media agency at such a young age. And so I thought to myself, life's about journeys. Why not go on this journey?

13:08You're going to learn something really great. It was a lot of fun. I got to watch how they maneuver. People ask me all the time what it's like to work with Gary. It's pretty crazy exactly like you think. I also tell people that AJ doesn't get enough credit. AJ is as smart as Gary and Gary will tell you that. Unbelievable with people. His emotional intelligence. So I took a lot of takeaways from that. A lot of fun building a sports agency with two serial entrepreneurs who love competition. We got after it. And every day we swung the sword. They really did. You know, it's just a lot of fun. I had the same birthday as Gary.

13:36How long were you with them? 2016 to 2020, about four and a half years. Got to build that the NFL side with them pretty sturdy. A lot of fun though. Just Wizards sharp. The most impressive thing is with all the success Gary and AJ have, they work their asses off every single day. Gary once said to me, I love the game. The best game of all time is business. It's not playing basketball. It's not football. It's business. People are maneuvering. Learn a lot from those guys, not how to overhire, just what people you need at what time in your company's life cycle. A lot of people don't think about that, when to take on capital, when not.

14:06Really, if you put the clients first, cool thing with them is because they had so much success, they were definitely not doing it for the money. That's for damn sure. If you really can build about doing the right thing by your clients, usually it has a good compounding effect. And that had a really good effect on network. We're very lucky. A lot of our clients and really the parents of the clients are so loyal to us, not because we're giving them marketing guarantees, not because anything else. They believe in what we're doing. They believe that we give a shit about their kids. And these are children.

14:33We're recruiting kids that are 16 years old. That's where you have to be. If you're trying to land an elite high school quarterback, basketball player, you got to basically be in it 16 to 17 year old establishing a relationship with them before they go to college. And I don't lose sight of that. These are people's kids. It was more important to build a relationship with the parent, 80 % parent, 20 % kid. Define for me, the difference between marketing agent, sports agent. You have to be a lawyer to do this. Unfortunately, I never wanted to have the term agent. I truly think of myself and our company as management, thinking about all areas of their business, negotiating with the school, doing endorsement deals, thinking about PR, true career management.

15:09However, in the NIL era, we got to call these people something. They were like, all right, you're agents because in certain states you had to get your agent license. Unfortunately, I am considered an NIL agent. I really fancy myself more a marketing and branding person, but I also have a high aptitude in the company does of negotiating with the schools. My whole life has been negotiating endorsement deals and deals for talent. And this is the same. People ask why we have a competitive advantage. Here's on the negotiating with school. I'm not stupid. There's probably people that are equal to what we do.

15:37I've just had a lot of reps. I had the first high school athlete in the United States sign Malachi Nelson. So that just means I've been at this longer. That's 2021. We're still sitting here, Alabama and Texas. Alabama still does not allow high school and NIL in any form. Think about that. You got kids in California, one of the biggest states, can monetize themselves whatever way. July 21st of 2021. And you're still sitting here with everything we just went on with the craziness of college sports. Kids in Alabama cannot monetize themselves at all in high school, which how's that fair? Has it even, what's that look like?

16:07Texas is crazy. Texas is crazy. Do you know the rules in Texas? No. Texas, you can get high school NIL from a school that you're going to if it's an in-state school. If you go to Texas A &M, Houston, Texas, and you live in Texas, a high schooler, they can pay you in advance. But if you want to go to Oklahoma, absolutely not. Your company exists and makes money by negotiating deals for young athletes. How do you balance what's good for the goose and what's good for the gander? The role that you play in that. It's pretty simple if you think about it through this lens. I mean, I have a lot of clients like this.

16:41The most important thing is putting the kids in. If you look at it through the lens that if you put them in the right situation or school, fit culture to be successful, money will come. Don't think of it through one transaction. At the end of the day, to really get paid, and even in college, you have to produce. That's when we see these big numbers, after you produce. There's lots of times that I put kids at schools where there's a lot more money on the table. I tell families all the time, my job is to get you paid the most from the school that is the best fit and you want to go to. That is my job.

17:13My job is not to get you paid the most money. When you think of it through that lane, no, there are absolutely people who do not. There's bad agents out there who control the flow of information. There's kids that probably never know what one school is offering versus the other. We share everything. Our job is to have those conversations, put it together, share it with the family. The parents usually then decide how that information gets to the kid. Do we want a 16, 17-year-old kid known what the offers are? I have some clients that their decision, some very high-profile clients in this last class, that the parents wanted me to have all the conversations, let him go through the recruiting process.

17:45Within the last five days when he was down to two or three, hey, share with me. we're now going to share him the financial difference. If I do my job and our team does our job, most times those offers are pretty close. We're an agency that doesn't fall in love with having every conversation with every school and just trying to drive the price up. That's not our game. Our game is that ultimately these guys are trying to get to the NFL or the NBA as well. I have a very related to my fandom question. Why was Dabo Sweeney so late to the game? And has he caught up? Are they going to catch up? You know what I'm talking about.

18:17It's uncomfortable to watch. He's accepted this and he hates it, but doesn't want to leave being a coach. I went to Clemson. I'm a Clemson guy. I love Dabo. We'll put a statue up. I respect his morals and his values, all those things. But the game changed. He didn't. We got behind. Now we're trying to play catch up, but I'm not sure we will. And that's just being honest about it as a Clemson fan. It's one of the more interesting moves we've ever seen to push back on an ecosystem. I see what he's saying, but exactly. It's like you saw this coming. This wasn't a surprise to think that you're going to sustain the culture you have.

18:51The whole landscape's changing. Do I think they can catch up? I don't know if they can get to where they were. They got a lot of money. The success that they did have and the base and the contracts that they have in place from that success, the revenue share and all that, it seems like they should be in the top 10 competitively when they want someone. That's fascinating. Sort of related, I mean, as you do your job, I mean, because have you had a deal directly with Clemson in any deals or anything? I dealt with them early. It was uncomfortable. That's not how we do it here. I get it. And don't get mad at me the way this was played.

19:21I don't think they've adapted that well. They're starting to, but the proof's going to be in the pudding. We'll see. Yeah, Davin knows it. I'm a firm believer in some ways that he should control his destiny, but there's just too much money involved and too many other variables. Two things can be true. You can be loyal to everything that he did, and you can also go, well, we can't go down in flames. You're taking away from everything he built. What needs to happen is we're going to see what the season is. You guys, same thing with South Carolina. temperature is getting pretty warm over there too.

19:47Talking with Justin Gian Grande, Big John, he's the CEO of Network. Where's this all headed on the youth athletes? Education around content management, it drives me crazy. I have a wife that's an administrator. I see what they teach kids. They need to get the playbook right for what's going to help in the future. Learning content development, learning their role because the kids that are athletes that can develop content and then be structured and disciplined about it and creative, that's your probably rock star client And it's good for them. We're actually starting to see some of the programming in classes at college become more real life.

20:20I think colleges saw a dip where people weren't applying to college as much because they were being serial entrepreneurs. I actually will give some of these schools credit. Syracuse has done an unbelievable job of marrying their communications with their business school and journalism school and how that all comes together. But you're absolutely seeing in school, schools need to basically give these kids resources. And the good schools that are doing it are figuring out how they leverage their college students to support their NIL efforts and teach. Starting something new isn't just exciting. It's honestly a little terrifying.

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