Answers to six burning questions facing Wichita State’s first NIL sports collective
It didn’t take long for the power of a Name, Image and Likeness collective to be displayed in Wichita.
On the first day Armchair Strategies launched on April 26 as the first NIL collective backing Wichita State athletes, the group founded by a pair of former Shocker baseball players convinced starting point guard Craig Porter to exit the transfer portal and return to WSU with an NIL deal that included a signing bonus, a car and more money-making opportunities down the road.
The collective was able to tap into its own resources to make the initial splash. Tyler Weber works at Aegis Group, which paid for the sponsorship to deliver the car, while Tymber Lee owns Wichita Sports Forum, where future money can be earned.
But in order for the collective to reach its potential, which both founders say can make Wichita State a significant player in the NIL space, the group is asking for the Wichita community and WSU fan base to rally together.
“We believe we can compete with anyone in the country because Wichita State has as good of a fan base as any of the blue-bloods out there,” Weber said. “We know there’s a lot of people who love and care about Wichita State sports, but for us to compete on that national level, we need fan engagement, we need business engagement. We want to make sure our players feel loved and that we can give them the same opportunities as the best programs in the country right here in Wichita.”
What is an NIL collective and who is behind Armchair Strategies?
While it is the first NIL collective formalized to support Wichita State athletes, the group operates independently of the WSU athletic department and with non-exclusive contracts with the athletes.
Because schools cannot facilitate NIL deals for its own athletes, NIL collectives have popped up all over the country to help players earn money from their name, image and likeness. Collectives are essentially an organized group of donors who pool their money together in a pot and then redistribute those funds for money-making NIL opportunities for athletes.
The public faces of Armchair Strategies will be a pair of former WSU baseball players in Weber, a catcher for the Shockers from 2005-08, and Lee, a pitcher at WSU from 1996-00. Both are active members of the Wichita business community who were more than motivated to start the first NIL collective for WSU athletes.
“I’ve served the last four years on the SASO board and I was president last year, so I care very deeply about the success of the university,” Lee said. “I lived it as an athlete and now being a member of the business community, I see how important a successful athletic program is to the community.”
“I played at Wichita State. My wife (former WSU softball standout Britnee Barnett) played at Wichita State. So it’s in my blood,” Weber said. “We care about the Wichita community and we care about the growth and success of Wichita State.”
The duo has been planning the launch of the collective for several months with plenty of help behind the scenes. WSU has joined other American Athletic Conference schools like Memphis, Houston, SMU, Tulane and UCF with dedicated collectives helping provide NIL opportunities.
While Lee and Weber have taken the lead for the group, Matt Baty plays a supporting role in the background with compliance issues. He is a Wichita native who worked a three-year stint in WSU’s athletic department as an assistant athletic director of development, giving him experience from the college end of working on compliance issues. He also has experience running an NIL collective of his own with his work at 6th Man Strategies to support KU athletes.
The rest of the team at Armchair Strategies is rounded out by Wichita business leaders in Andy Frieze, Ryan Baty and Chrissy Robben.
How can fans get involved in the collective?
Armchair Strategies suggested Wichita State fans follow its Twitter and Instagram accounts and look on its website for ways to support WSU student-athletes.
Fans can join the “Armchair Army” with monthly subscriptions of $10, $25 and $50. There is also an option to give a one-time donation.
“This is the chance for everybody to get in the game and help,” Weber said. “$10 a month doesn’t sound like a lot on its own, but it goes a long way when you have 1,000 people giving $10 a month.”
The “Century Club” will be an exclusive group of 100 supporters who commit to donating $1,000 per month with the goal to generate $1.2 million for an annual fund to support WSU athletes in all sports. Perks of joining the club will include opportunities for autographs, watching practices and having dinner with players.
Before the collective was introduced, donors could not receive a tax write-off when they made donations to help fund a team event. Because Armchair Strategies has a non-profit arm to its organization, donors can now go through the collective’s website to donate their money to fund the same team events (or even a player individually) and receive a tax exemption to avoid paying income taxes on the money donated.
Armchair Strategies will take the money donated and connect the desired WSU athletes to work with local 501(c)3 organizations like League 42, Wichita Children’s Home and Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters, or whatever the donor’s preferred preference for a non-profit, and arrange appearances that the athlete will be paid for.
“We’re going to have a business plan for every kind of fan,” Weber said. “You can get to a big financial number in many ways. It can be with small-dollar figures with a lot of people or big-dollar figures with not so many people. We need the everyday fan just as much as we need the large donors. We want everyone to feel like they can be a part of this and make a difference.”
How does the money get to athletes?
Anyone who chooses to donate to Armchair Strategies has the option to designate where they wish their money to be directed, whether that’s a specific team of athletes or one athlete in particular.
Armchair Strategies is very particular about making sure WSU follows the NCAA guidelines of ensuring the money donated is not a pay-for-play scheme. For every check deposited in an athlete’s bank account, a service in line with the amount paid must be performed — whether that’s filming a commercial, hosting a basketball camp, signing autographs or promoting a brand on social media.
Matt Baty, who handles compliance for the collective, said there is a simple workaround to avoid using NIL money as a recruiting enticement to come to WSU. That is to establish NIL deals for current players such as the one for Craig Porter.
“We can’t talk to recruits, but when he comes to campus he’s going to ask one of the players on the team, ‘What are they doing for you in NIL?’” Baty said. “We want that answer to be very positive. If that answer is negative in any way, the odds of landing that recruit are slim. So it has nothing to do with us having a conversation with recruits. We want to let our numbers speak for themselves.”
It’s also important for Armchair Strategies to work closely with athletes and their families to educate them about the tax implications of receiving large sums of money. That’s why it will be their preference to spread out NIL payments over the course of a year or a season, rather than giving the total sum upfront to athletes.
“The NCAA just threw this out there with no structure and no education for these kids,” Baty said. “These kids aren’t businessmen and women. They’re student-athletes and their focus should be on making sure they perform in their sport. I think they should make it mandatory for the athletes to take some kind of business class on how to handle taxes, but that’s where we come in as a collective.
“The last thing you want is for these kids to get a large sum of money and then all of a sudden April 15 rolls around and they have a tax liability and they don’t know what to do. We’ll be working with the student-athletes and their families about how to handle those things and business strategies.”
Athletes must properly log an NIL deal, within four days of signing the contract, with WSU’s compliance department. Other than that, there is only a short list of things athletes are not allowed to do in the NIL space.
According to WSU’s internal NIL policy, athletes cannot use the WSU logo or school facilities, cannot promote rival athletic brands to the university’s sponsor during team-sponsored events, and cannot promote brands involving tobacco, alcohol, gambling, adult entertainment, weapons or banned substances.
Is the NIL collective in direct competition with the WSU athletic department?
The short answer is yes, Armchair Strategies will be competing for money from the same donors as the WSU athletic department.
However awkward the arrangement might be, both sides agree that they must coexist to thrive together.
Baty said it will be a top priority for Armchair Strategies to work closely with WSU and its compliance office to make sure the partnership is strong and that the university isn’t left in the dark with what the collective is doing.
It remains to be seen how smoothly it plays out in the WSU donor base, but Baty was confident that there will be donors who are motivated to give to both: the NIL collective to put money in the pocket of the players and also to the university.
Is the collective focused on just men’s basketball or all sports?
The collective is dedicated to providing money-making opportunities for all athletes in every sport at Wichita State.
There’s no doubt the men’s basketball team is the top ticket in town and the top money-generating sport for the Shockers. It’s likely a good portion of the collective funds will be focused on men’s basketball, especially with the increased importance of NIL money available in the sport.
But Armchair Strategies is dedicated to helping all athletes and the collective says it has already secured NIL deals for WSU softball players and there is also interest already in supporting players on the WSU volleyball and baseball teams too.
As previously mentioned, donors can specify on the Armchair Strategies website which athletes in which sport they wish their money to be funneled to.
Is the collective really taking a cut out of the donations?
The collective can take up to a 20% cut of the funds it raises for the student-athletes, depending on how much work it put in, but a chunk of that money goes straight to Opendorse, the tracking website that logs all NIL deals for student-athletes, to pay for processing fees.
Baty didn’t shy away from the criticism.
“I know a lot of fans are probably asking, ‘Why are these guys taking a percentage of what they bring in?’ and I think that’s a fair question,” Baty said.
“So we only take a cut from the money we bring in for the student-athletes. So if a donor or a business wants to try to slide into the DM’s of a student-athlete and try to Venmo them $1,000, they can do that without ever going through our collective. We’re non-exclusive for a reason, but that also puts the athlete at risk.”
This is where Baty said having an established collective is valuable: not only do they do the legwork for the athletes to find and create NIL deals, but they also make sure everything is above board.
“We have to make sure these student-athletes are doing something for the money, so it’s not a pay-to-play thing,” Baty said. “They can’t just receive $1,000 just because. That’s not how this works. They also have to report it and how many times do you think a kid is going to report everything 100% accurately if they’re getting Venmo payments. Now we’re talking about potential eligibility issues. That’s why we take a percentage of what we do in our business because there has to be a paper trail to this stuff and we put the paper trail in place.
“Our mission here is to put money in these kids’ pockets and for them to finally be awarded for their efforts and their marketability. It is our job to put those programs together, provide resources to attract those dollars and unfortunately those resources are not free and must be paid for somehow.”
This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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