This week, no news around Kentucky Athletics will be bigger than the news of the contract extension for UK with its media partner JMI.
A massive deal that will give the university $465 million over 15 years, the Cats now have their revenue share budget paid for. However, it is the other part of the deal that includes JMI taking over the collective that has many fans on edge to see how it works out.
Well, we heard from the President of JMI on the new deal to give some more insight. Paul Archey joined
Tom Leach on the Leach Report on Thursday, and had this to say about how they will operate in their new contract.
“We’re not a general manager at all. We’re not involved in roster management or the recruitment of athletes, only just with the respect as it would relate to their NIL value and getting some NIL deals,” Archey said. “It’s changed because the system has changed, starting with the House settlement and the new rules in place starting July 1. Every deal over $600 has to pass through NIL Go.”
He continued with this piece regarding their partnerships with the university:
“We’re best positioned because of our relationships with brands. We have over 200 brand partnerships with the University of Kentucky. It’s turnkey for us in that respect. We’re best positioned to take advantage of what I like to call hot markets. You only have a limited amount of time as an athlete. You have a great performance, hit a home run to send you to the College World Series. Well, you’ve got five days until that hitter could also go 0-4. How do you take advantage?
“We have built-in partnerships to allow us to take advantage of those types of opportunities, but also the brand prominence of the University of Kentucky on a local and regional level. We have more long-term partnerships, the value of those partnerships, than any other school in the country, and that puts, in this rev-share model, very low risk on Kentucky.”
It seems like JMI and UK really believe that Congress is going to pass some laws to put an end to the wild west that collectives have become in the NIL era. Now, if those laws never get passed, then things get dicier.
Going to be interesting to watch how this goes. Let’s all hope it is as successful as Club Blue had become.
