🔒Game changers: Maine athletes, schools navigate new economics of college sports

When college basketball star Cash McClure wasn’t scoring points for the Bentley University Falcons, the Readfield native was making money from his branding side hustle. By the time he graduated this May, McClure had landed deals with nine different businesses for use of his name, image and likeness, or NIL, in social media posts and promotional appearances. Clients included a Gardiner-based wealth management firm that capitalized on his fitting first name to promote financial literacy and a mental performance coach that paid him to improve his free-throw shooting. While the $17,000 income from those deals is a fraction of Cooper Flagg’s estimated $4.8 million NIL value during his year at Duke University — Maine’s most famous modern-day athlete is now playing for the Dallas Mavericks in a four-year, $62 million NBA contract — the extra income has come in handy for McClure. The experience also gave the 23-year-old business and economics major a grounding in entrepreneurial skills and useful sponsor contacts as he launched youth basketball clinics and camps in his home state. Without ruling out a pro career later on, McClure has this advice for today’s college athletes who want to turn their personal brand into dollars: “Get started as soon as you can and jump on any opportunities presented to you,” he says. Speed matters in a landscape changing faster than University of Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning of football’s famous family throws a pigskin in a commercial for Warby Parker eyewear. Manning tops NIL values ranked by sports media firm On3 at $4.8 million, with WNBA rookie Flau’jaye Johnson of the Seattle Storm leading the women at $1.5 million. Sports marketing expert Dan Lobring expects the emerging “superstar economy” to put more dollars in players’ pockets. “For elite quarterbacks and athletes with national appeal, $5 million-plus valuations will likely become more common as NIL programs, sponsorships and performance measurement continue to become mature,” predicts Lobring, of Chicago-based Stretch PR. In Maine, personal branding is gaining traction on a much smaller scale as athletes and schools adapt to new economic realities, five years after an NCAA rule change that triggered a “gold rush” of NIL deals nationwide. The University of Maine has also joined other schools in the NCAA’s Division I paying athletes directly under a year-old revenue-sharing model that’s being tested in the courts.

Athletes courting brands

While colleges have been awarding scholarships to athletes since the 1870s, it wasn’t until 1956 that the NCAA allowed them regardless of academic ability or financial need. Fast forward to 2021, when the NCAA allowed NIL compensation for student-athletes, sparking a wave of endorsement and appearance deals. Fans and alumni also began forming independent collectives to help student-athletes at schools of all sizes find paid opportunities. As a sports branding expert who founded Pliable Marketing in 2021, Greg Glynn has had a front-row seat to the advent of professionalism in collect sports. “Amateurism is over, but it was over in my mind long before NIL,” in part because of the money that athletes and parents spend on training and travel, he says. When the door opened to compensate athletes for those expenses, that drew attention to how colleges had been using athletes for self-promotion for years. Anticipating similar momentum in younger grades, he adds that “if you’re looking for amateurism, go support your high school. And in five to 10 years when NIL really starts to take hold on the high school level, go support your youth sport program.” Glynn, a former sports broadcaster who’s worked in marketing for close to 20 years, represents 35 athletes who’ve racked up more than $115,000 in NIL contracts over the past five years. Clients include Maine football player Noah Carpenter, who recently signed a national deal with Dr. Pepper, and Maddie Niles, a field hockey player at the University of Southern Maine and freshly minted brand ambassador for Crumbl Cookies. Glynn’s clients also work with Maine-based companies like Aroma Joe’s, a Scarborough-based coffee and energy-drink chain with a target demographic of 15- to 35-year-olds. The company has teamed with Glynn to create a Community Ambassador program that pays high school and college athletes to promote the Aroma Joe’s brand on their social media channels while raising awareness of fundraisers and causes they support. For Crystal Brown, community marketing manager for Aroma Joe’s in Maine and New Hampshire, the program goes beyond marketing. She says it’s an investment in young leaders who may someday own businesses of their own. “Yes, we are building our brand,” she says, “but ultimately, it’s about the people. There’s also loyalty – maybe they’ll be a customer for the rest of their lives. Kind of like a trifecta.” Lulu Rucinski, a 19-year-old rising sophomore who plays ice hockey at the University of Maine, was already a fan of Aroma Joe’s signature energy drink when she connected with Glynn to land an NIL deal with the company. Since then, she has hosted fundraisers at Aroma Joe’s locations benefiting Ronald McDonald House Charities of Maine and launched an “I Love Orono” merchandise fundraiser for the charity, selling T-shirts and other items online she designed with Glynn and raising around $1,000 to date. The slogan pays tribute to her college town as well as her hometown in Orono, Minn. The sports management major is selective about the brands she works with. “I’d be useless partnering with a dog food company,” she says, “but a woman’s hockey product or Aroma Joe’s getting fuel and coffee – that’s where I can bring value and connect.” Looking ahead to bigger sponsorship prospects, Glynn quips that “we’ve got to go for Lululemon. “That’s my next one.”

‘Wild West’

College sports experienced another major shift last year with a landmark settlement — stemming from three antitrust cases against the NCAA brought by Arizona State University swimmer Grant House — that allows schools to distribute up to $20.5 million annually to athletes. In addition, the Power Five athletic conferences agreed to pay nearly $3 billion in back damages and adopt new policies permitting direct revenue sharing. As larger schools continue to bankroll athletes, particularly in high-profile sports such as football and basketball, a separate antitrust suit pending in California is seeking to lift caps on college athlete pay in 17 states. “Everybody expected the House settlement was going to settle things, but it didn’t,” says Paul Greene, founder of Portland-based law firm Global Sports Advocates, who notes that schools in the Big Ten and Big 12 conferences are still paying millions per player and laments the lack of legal clarity for athletes. “A lot of schools are giving athletes money, then cancelling the contract before they pay them. It is the Wild West,” he says.

UMaine’s game plan

While the University of Maine initially held off on revenue sharing, it shifted course a few months after the House settlement and began compensating Black Bears for the use of their name, image and likeness. Maine’s only Division I school works with Van Wagner, a New York-based sports advertising and entertainment agency, and the Icon Source digital marketplace to connect student-athletes with branding opportunities. The university’s NIL policy, last updated in January, requires student-athletes to disclose all deals of $600 or more once a contract is signed and to ensure NIL activities do not interfere with academic obligations. Athletes are also responsible for managing their own NIL arrangements, including legal, tax and immigration matters, with the university providing only general support and guidance.

On the direct compensation side, the school has raised more than $500,000 from private donors for a new Black Bear Student-Athlete Experience Fund. UMaine has also paid $1,000 each to about a dozen athletes to use at their discretion for scholarships, travel, meals and other expenses, according to Jude Killy, the school’s director of athletics. Killy underscores that the university is not using tuition dollars or state funding for the effort, a point he says makes the program more appealing for athletes who want to stay in Maine rather than chase bigger offers out of state, even without the deep pockets of larger programs. “If you’re coming to Maine to get rich, don’t come here. We’re not going to get in a bidding war with anybody,” he says. “We’re going to be sensible about what we’re doing. If you’re in it for the transaction and for the higher dollar value, then you probably don’t fit our culture.” While Greene calls $1,000 per player “unbelievably non-competitive,” he notes that booster-funded fundraising groups known as collective – which started sprouting up in 2022 – can play a role in raising funds for sports such as ice hockey.

Building depth at UNE

Despite being barred from offering athletic scholarships or paying athletes directly like Division I heavyweights, Division III schools like the University of New England are helping student-athletes build their personal brands. The Biddeford-based school is home to 21 varsity teams. “Our goal is to provide student-athletes with the best and most comprehensive experience possible, and opportunities related to NIL are an important part of that commitment,” says Heather Davis, the school’s director of athletics. To support those efforts, UNE is updating its NIL policy and educational materials for student-athletes while exploring partnerships with online platforms known as third-party marketplaces. They allow student-athletes to monetize their brand through officially licensed, personalized merchandise such as UNE-branded team apparel with their name and number. Davis notes that even modest earnings from endorsements and related activities can have an outsized impact for recipients, helping defray the cost of textbooks, travel home during school breaks, professional attire for internships and other educational or living expenses. “Those opportunities are less about generating significant income and more about providing financial support that helps students thrive both on and off the field,” she says. An often-overlooked benefit of branding for student-athletes is the ability to tout their athletic experience or achievements to market their services as paid coaches or trainers, Davis notes. As college sports becomes increasingly professionalized and competitive in top-tier schools, UNE business professor Aimee Vlachos sees a chance for smaller institutions to stand out.

Vlachos says the revenue-sharing model reinforces the need to view athletics as part of a student’s overall educational experience, with direct implications for programs like UNE’s. “At UNE, success is not measured solely by wins and losses but also by preparing students for leadership, professional careers and lifelong engagement in sport and recreation,” she says. “That mission may become an even stronger differentiator as college athletics become increasingly commercialized.”

New playbook

As colleges in Maine and elsewhere adapt their NIL playbooks and courts test the limits of player pay, Glynn predicts the branding generation will get younger and younger. “I already have stories of eight-year-olds that are getting hockey stick deals and tape deals and the whole nine yards. When we look at high school sports in five to 10 years, it’s going to start to have the same impact that we’re starting to see at the Power Conferences now.” His client Cash McClure has more modest ambitions, like opening a gym with his girlfriend – a soccer player – for his youth camps and clinics. “We’re hoping to one day build something together here she can run classes out of and I could do basketball stuff,” he says. “That’s the ultimate goal.”