Welcome to the NIL game: Collective launches to help Wichita State athletes make money
Wichita State has officially joined the newest arms race in the world of college athletics with its first NIL collective.
Armchair Strategies, LLC, headed by two former Shocker baseball players, confirmed to The Eagle on Tuesday morning that it will begin immediately representing Wichita State student-athletes in all sports to help them start earning money from their name, image and likeness.
The Wichita-based company is owned and operated by former Wichita State baseball players Tymber Lee (1996-00) and Tyler Weber (2005-08). Both are active members of the Wichita business community and have tapped into those contacts to gain a head start, reaching out to boosters and community leaders this past week with plans to announce opportunities for WSU fans to become involved later this week.
They have also been in touch with current WSU student-athletes and already have a plan in place to help them start earning money from social media, appearances, memorabilia, merchandise, NFT technologies, as well as corporate and car dealership endorsements.
“Wichita State athletics is fundamental to this community,” Weber said in a statement. “It is important that WSU student-athletes are supported with strategic NIL opportunities that financially maximize the brand they have worked hard to develop. One of WSU’s biggest assets is the Wichita community and dedicated alumni base. We look forward to showing our student-athletes that there is a powerful network that will help them optimize this NIL opportunity.”
Not having an NIL collective, which is loosely defined as a group of boosters and businesses who pool money to create marketing deals for student-athletes, has adversely affected the Wichita State men’s basketball program during this recruiting cycle. The lack of NIL money-making opportunities in Wichita is believed to have played at least some kind of role in key players such as Ricky Council IV, Craig Porter, Dexter Dennis and Morris Udeze deciding to enter the NCAA transfer portal.
On Monday, WSU athletic director Darron Boatright expressed regret to The Eagle about his cautious approach when the NCAA allowed athletes to profit off their NIL last summer and promised the Shockers would become more aggressive in the NIL space.
Enter Armchair Strategies, which allows WSU to join fellow American Athletic Conference schools like Memphis, Houston, SMU, Tulane and UCF with an NIL collective in place. The collective believes the group could be a potential game-changer for Shocker sports.
The Wichita-based company is not affiliated with Wichita State and operates independently from the sports teams, but plans to keep an open dialogue with the WSU athletic department. Armchair Strategies also does not have an exclusivity deal with the university, meaning another Wichita State NIL collective could eventually be on the way, which Boatright hinted was a possibility. But the advantage Armchair Strategies has is not only being the first NIL collective to market, but already having big plans in the works.
The group plans to launch multiple platforms, but the two most prominent will be “The Century Club,” which will be made up of 100 WSU fans and businesses who want to be leaders in the NIL space, and “The Shocker Exclusive,” an organization that will take tax-deductible contributions.
“Wichita State athletics play a very important role, not only for the university, but the city of Wichita as a whole,” Lee said in a statement. “I believe as emotionally vested as our fan base and community is about Shocker Athletics, a robust and strong NIL program can be realized very quickly.”
Lee and Weber are also working with Matt Baty, a Wichita native who has worked with both before and has experience running an NIL collective with his work at 6th Man Strategies, an LLC that provides the same services to the student-athletes at the University of Kansas. His team at 6th Man Strategies includes a Wichita-based leadership team in Ryan Baty, Chrissy Robben and Andy Frieze.
Baty was instrumental in 6th Man Strategies signing all 18 players on the KU men’s basketball team, which is currently cashing in on its national championship win by touring the state and making money from ticket sales, memorabilia sales and signing autographs. Their first stop on the barnstorming tour was in Wichita over this past weekend and attracted more than 3,000 fans with a line that stretched outside of Wichita East back to the intersection of Douglas and Grove.
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 8:57 AM.
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