KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The cost of getting a spot on a Vol Network radio broadcast back in 2000 was pretty simple for a business: Tee up two 30-second commercials, pay for an ad in the souvenir program and a set of season tickets was yours.
“Our world does not resemble that at all,” said Brandon Parks, the Learfield rep at the University of Tennessee who helped arrange some of those deals after graduating from the school.
Five years into the name,
image and likeness era, the business of college athletics indeed looks nothing like that. Athletes now can be paid like almost any other celebrity, from modest deals with a local burger joint to multimillion-dollar contracts for star quarterbacks, and many of those agreements are now aided, if not actively brokered, by people on campus.
Learfield, a multimedia and sponsorships giant that works with hundreds of schools, offered The Associated Press a behind-the-scenes look at a NIL media “carwash” day designed to make producing commercials and ads easier for both companies and athletes. The first of many this fall at Tennessee in late July featured 29 different brands and some 50 football players.
Think of the event as something like back to school night, with visits to different rooms to meet different people, many of them with some kind of multimedia role.
Players in their official uniforms roamed from photo shoots on the indoor practice field — with props like a bag of potato chips set to the side for quick access — to curtained pop-up rooms to record content that will be used on game days.
Upstairs, someone from the Vol Network was interviewing players, stocking up for football broadcasts, and across the hall in the Peyton Manning room players took turns recording promotions for the likes of Uber Eats, Pilot, Food City grocery store, a bank and roofing company. Props here included chicken tenders and, naturally, an orange.
Over in the Virtual Reality Lab, a green curtain hung in the room with a teleprompter, lights and a camera. Players took turns reading a series of ads for companies. One thing was clear: It is easier than it's ever been for athletes in official uniforms to do commercials and ads with their school's blessing.
All of this is the result of months of planning between Tennessee and Learfield, which has employees embedded with universities around the country. Parks said Learfield had an 11-person team working those two July days at Tennessee.
“It’s quite a production,” Parks said. "They are very organized. They’ve got radio scripts, TV scripts, photo sessions that we’re going to do with props from our partners. They’ve been very thoughtful about that, and I can’t wait to see it all come to life.”
Fans start seeing the results of these media days quickly. The turnaround for the content produced at Tennessee starts showing up in August.
This is what business looks like for college athletes everywhere when it comes to NIL: School, practice, knocking out required NIL assignments, building a brand.
“We actually do a lot of appearances," said Louisville quarterback Lincoln Kienholz, who reportedly has a six-figure deal with adidas. “”I have to go to a construction company and do a little video. The week before the Fourth of July, I did one at the Louisville Thoroughbred Society. ... Card signing next week as well."
Opendorse, a NIL monetization platform for athletes that also works with many schools, predicts that NIL spending in 2026-27 will reach $4.5 billion. By far the most popular deals are “media creation” arrangements — think of an athlete video talking about a product — on season-long contracts.
The July event at Tennessee was the first of 58 such NIL media days planned this fall for Learfield partner schools involving approximately 1,500 athletes. Over the academic year and all other sports, Learfield anticipates up to 200 of these brand-athlete meet-up days.
Grant Jones, director of content at Learfield, said the company did its first media day two years ago at Ohio State. The company works with smaller leagues like the Big Sky Conference and sees even smaller schools leaning into these one-stop setups to produce NIL content.
“I think we’re going to see in the next two to three years, this is going to be something that’s done upwards of 300, in aggregate, 300, 400 days a year,” Jones said.
Jones used to work at the NFL Players Association, which held its own media days with players. He said players get really good with the repetition of signing gear and being on camera.
“We wanted to do what frankly a lot of professional leagues have been doing for years and professionalize it with the NIL and everything that was happening on campus,” Jones said.
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