NIL

An interview with the co-founder of Michigan’s NIL collective

Last week, a federal judge made a landmark decision that transformed the world of college athletics. Schools were granted the authority to compensate athletes directly. The court decision also regulated rules concerning name, image and likeness (NIL) payments, a ruling that came as Michigan’s NIL collective, Champions Circle, continues to thrive. Before the ruling, many […]

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1 month ago

June 20, 2025

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Last week, a federal judge made a landmark decision that transformed the world of college athletics. Schools were granted the authority to compensate athletes directly.

The court decision also regulated rules concerning name, image and likeness (NIL) payments, a ruling that came as Michigan’s NIL collective, Champions Circle, continues to thrive.

Before the ruling, many payments mirrored a “pay-for-play” model, where boosters and non-profit collectives would pay athletes significant amounts of money for minor services with the intention of bringing them to a certain school. Now, all NIL deals must pass through a clearinghouse to ensure athletes are receiving compensation for no more than their “fair market value.” Deals that don’t meet this criteria will be denied by the NCAA.

Like collectives around the country, Champions Circle is looking to adapt to the new NIL world. The Michigan Daily’s Jordan Klein sat down with Champions Circle co-founder Jared Wangler to discuss the collective’s strategy in the revenue-sharing era.

Responses have been edited for clarity.

Jordan Klein (JK): Players now have to be compensated for their “fair market value,” as approved by a Deloitte clearinghouse. How does that change the deals and other things Champions Circle does to get athletes to the University of Michigan?

Jared Wangler (JW): It’s a great question. I think everything you’re looking for is tailored around athlete compensation in this new revenue-sharing world, with increased oversight from the clearinghouse, and a little bit more regulation around athlete compensation outside of what the university can offer. With the new House settlement, universities are now permitted to share up to $20.5 million worth of benefits in Year 1 one. That will increase by 4% year over year, all the way to Year 3. Then, it will reset based on the equation that they came to, which is 22% of the average annualized revenues of the Power Four schools. That’s what the schools are now permitted to share.

What’s difficult is that the market for athlete compensation currently outweighs what the universities are able to bear. If you look across college football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, softball, wrestling … If you want to be competitive at a national-title level or a conference-title level, you need to have adequate funding for what the talent costs.

I could walk you back four years when schools couldn’t provide anything, and the only money that could be provided was from brands and collectives. Most of the major markets created these collectives as a way to aggregate capital to pay the student athletes. The cap at that point was zero dollars, and there wasn’t regulation around how much money you could pay the student athlete, and what the exchange of services for. It was very laissez-faire. Now, the cap is $20.5 million, and any dollars above the cap that are being used for talent acquisition and talent retention. Those are going to be more regulated by the Deloitte clearinghouse, as you reference.

The Deloitte clearinghouse will be reviewing any deals that come from associated entities at the universities. Associated entities can mean a lot of things, but primarily they’re going to start with collectives and the multimedia rights holders. The multimedia rights holders, those are the Learfields of the world, the Playflys of the world. Think of it as the corporate sponsorship arm of these athletic departments.

In this current state, I’m bringing it back to where talent costs have gotten. You might have seen Texas Tech pay over $55 million worth of contracts to its student athletes. That’s football, that’s men’s basketball, it’s women’s basketball, baseball, softball … that’s their pool. That’s $20.5 million of revenue share from the university, and about $35 million coming from affiliated entities. It might be their collective, it might be Learfield, Playfly, whatever their MMR holder is, or a combination of the two. In this world, where there’s a clearinghouse to decide whether the deals are fair market value or not, it is the job of these collectives and associated entities, to have enough deal flow for the athletes that will pass through the ‘sniff test.’ That can be used in conjunction with the revenue sharing to come to a total compensation package that is agreeable to.

It’s probably not a secret like right now that most college football budgets, if you’re trying to compete at the top level, are between $20 and $30 to $35 million. That’s just football. And then basketball. Men’s basketball is anywhere between $10 million, and in some markets, up to $20 million. When you’re adding all these budgets together across multiple sports, you need more than just $20.5 million if you’re at a place like Michigan, Ohio State, Auburn, Alabama, Southern California, Texas.

That’s where you’re seeing these collectives and multimedia rights holders work together to get as much capital as they can, to then use and underwrite contracts for the athletes that will be above the cap. They have to be done in a way that can pass the clearinghouse standards for fair market value.

In practice, let’s say it’s a women’s basketball player, starting point guard, making $1 million. Let’s say $500,000 of it was going to come from revenue sharing, and $500,000 of it was going to come from the collective. The payment can’t just be a lump sum payment of $500,000 — show up to an event and then be on your merry way. There has to be actual work done and actual services rendered for the $500,000. That might be spread out over 12 months. It might look like 20 different commercial activations. They might do signing events, they might have merchandising promotions, they might work with brands that are affiliated with the collective or the multimedia rights holder, there might be media appearances.

There’s a whole host of services that groups like us have the athletes do to justify their NIL payments. That becomes even more critical if you want to be one of the schools ‘above the cap’ space, because that’s really the new name of the game. How much capital can you put together, and how many deals can you get to the student athletes that can make their way through the clearinghouse and be used in a way that helps underwrite competitive teams? That’s where a lot of this is moving.

JK: Deloitte estimated that roughly 70% of deals would not have passed through their clearinghouse standards. Where would that number sit for Champions Circle deals? How is the Champions Circle changing its approach so 100% of your deals meet the clearinghouse standards but also keep athletes at the compensation levels they were looking to get before these new rules?

JW: It’s hard to know for sure how much of our total deal volume would have gotten through the clearinghouse. I’d say with high confidence that we would bat at a significantly better percentage than only 30% of our deals getting through. That’s because our business was set up as a sports marketing agency before we built the collective. Valiant Management Group, which is the holding company to Champions Circle, was built as a group licensing agency, a talent rep agency and a merchandising company. It all spun up in 2021 around real commercial activity. It wasn’t until 2022 that we set up Champions Circle as a fund that dollars would come in, and then we would use that to help underwrite payments for the student athletes. All of our agreements with our athletes read as real commercial services agreements.

For the amount of money we’re paying the student athletes, are we getting that much in return for the work that they’re doing? If you took a peek behind the curtain of our event calendar, our brand activations and our merchandising, we’ve generated significant revenue of commercial dollars based on the services of the athletes. We’ve had over $7 million worth of NIL merchandise sold over the last four years. Over $3 million generated around fan events. So think golf outings, think signing events, think private meet and greets. We’ve brought in over $4 million worth of brand deals. When you look at these different parts of our business, we’re one of the few collectives, marketing agencies, that you could point to to be like, ‘Oh, they were actually using the athletes’ NIL to generate real commercial revenue.’

(Other groups) tried to capture as much money as possible and get it out the door before there’d be more regulation. Those groups are now either folding or trying to restructure as a marketing agency.

That’s really where most of this moves — putting more infrastructure and bones behind the athlete marketing agency component of what you do. There is real commercial value that the athletes’ marketing services bring, if done correctly. Not everyone is Bryce Underwood and can demand a large sum of money for an appearance or a post around the brand, but the athletes collectively can drive revenue, if done in a way that is capturing everybody’s rights together to promote a good or a service.

An example would be the starting point guard for the women’s basketball team. On her own, she couldn’t demand a $1 million budget for a brand activation. But that starting point guard in conjunction with seven of her teammates, and then becoming a Michigan women’s basketball partnership, the sum of the parts are greater than than the whole. It’s more of a collective mentality around utilizing all of their NIL together to promote a good or service, using all of their social media handles to distribute that content, using their voice to elevate whatever product or service we’re working with. It’s a different type of marketing. It’s more viewed around the property itself and aggregating all the talent together.

The really strong groups are going to separate themselves if they understand how to do this specific type of marketing. That is where you will be able to make a justifiable case to move significant sums of money through a clearinghouse, because you are a legitimate exchange of services.

JK: It seems like in the last year or so, Michigan’s NIL really took off. With the new regulation, is Michigan more uniquely positioned to succeed in the NIL space?

JW: I believe that Michigan’s always been primed to succeed in a world where it can level the playing field and start compensating its athletes. I long felt like we were fighting with one arm tied behind our back, because that’s an area where we were never active compared to some of the teams we were competing against. I do feel like we have had a leg up for quite some time.

The bad rap we got early on wasn’t because we were not doing NIL, we just weren’t using it in recruiting the way most other schools were. Almost all of our NIL money was predominantly used for the current student athletes, and not used in recruiting for prospective student athletes. That’s changed as rules and regulations have adjusted over time. Now, we do communicate NIL opportunities, and we do have those compensation conversations on the front end in recruiting, whereas we wouldn’t before. But the resources have been there. There’s been greater alignment with the athletic department over the last two years that’s really elevated the fundraising efforts.

Michigan has always been a place that demands brand attraction, and fan and donor engagement. We’ve had a competitive advantage over the last four years now that we can pay student athletes, and I believe that will only continue to grow that competitive advantage over time, because we are at a place like Michigan. It has the largest living alumni base. We have more brands that want to partner with the ‘block M’ and partner with the athletes in conjunction with the ‘block M’ more than any other school in the country. We sit in a robust business market in metro Detroit, but have national ties into different markets because we have alumni in New York and alumni in California.

We’re able to make a compelling pitch to brands when they want to do real NIL activations with our student athletes. Our friends down the street, in Michigan State and Columbus, don’t quite have that same competitive advantage because they’re so much more of a regional, localized brand than Michigan, which is more national. I do think that Michigan only stands to benefit from that.

You can’t discount the educational piece of it, and the relationship value of it. When the sum of money for these student athletes has gotten so significant, then you really have to start peeling back. What the advantage is now, if you have money, then how can you multiply that? Some of the best multipliers of compensation are relationships and education. How are you going to take those earnings in that window while you’re in college, and multiply that year over year. That’s our goal with what we’re trying to do, and I know that’s the goal with Michigan athletics — create great infrastructure, develop relationships.

As they’re earning that money, it’s not about how much you make. It’s about how much you can keep and how you can multiply that over time. There’s no better market in college sports than Michigan for that. You might be able to look at Stanford or Notre Dame. I’d say those are up to par, but Michigan is just so much bigger, and the engagement is so much more significant than those two other schools. I really do believe we check all the boxes, if you’re a prospective student athlete. … There’s a whole host of reasons, and we’re at the level now where we can compete from a compensation standpoint. It’s not like it was five years ago, six years ago and all the years before that, where some schools might have something under the table, and we had nothing. Now there’s an equalizer there. Michigan is very well positioned for the future of college athletics.

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MLB Players, DraftKings ‘Close’ to Settlement in NIL Lawsuit

A unit of the Major League Baseball players’ union and sports-betting platform DraftKings Inc. asked a federal judge to pause the union’s right of publicity lawsuit as they work to finalize a settlement. MLB Players Inc. and DraftKings “believe they are close to” a resolution of the September lawsuit over use of players’ names and […]

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4 minutes ago

July 25, 2025

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MLB Players Inc. and DraftKings “believe they are close to” a resolution of the September lawsuit over use of players’ names and images on the betting site, according to a joint letter filed Thursday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The letter to Judge Karen S. Marston requests a pause on discovery for 30 days and comes after the parties previously agreed …

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Recruiting rivalry is brewing between two college football powerhouses with different

The 2026 recruiting cycle has been an intriguing one for both Georgia and Miami, as the two college football giants continue to battle for some of the nation’s top prospects while seemingly using different NIL strategies. The recruitment of five-star offensive tackle and No. 1 overall player Jackson Cantwell came down to Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs […]

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39 minutes ago

July 25, 2025

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Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal / Rich Barnes-Imagn Images

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On MLB draft day, Tyler Bremner was thrilled to go second. And he wished his mom was there

Instead of celebrating a milestone strikeout record with his teammates, Tyler Bremner took the historic ball in his possession, packed up his car and drove south. There was only one person he wanted to see that evening. This was on May 9 — two months before the Los Angeles Angels would make him the No. […]

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60 minutes ago

July 25, 2025

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This was on May 9 — two months before the Los Angeles Angels would make him the No. 2 pick in the MLB Draft.

One of college baseball’s elite arms, Tyler stayed at UC Santa Barbara for his junior season so he could be close to his mother, Jen, who was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in 2020. He’d received interest and NIL offers to transfer, but rebuffed those opportunities at every turn.

Those five-hour drives through the night were what mattered most in his life. Not power programs, TV exposure or extra cash in his pocket. He wanted to see her, and sit by her bedside and play guitar to ease her pain.

On that night, his mom was no longer strong enough to attend games, as she had countless times over his baseball journey. The cancer was making each day more and more painful. She knew, and her family knew, that her life would soon end.

Tyler with his mother, Jen. (Photo courtesy of Tyler Bremner)

She watched on a stream as her son struck out 10 batters — surpassing the school’s all-time record on a Friday night against Loyola Marymount. Bremner didn’t stay after the blowout win. They had two more games that weekend, but he had somewhere more important to be.

He had a baseball to deliver to his biggest fan.

“It was hard,” Tyler said. “But it was the right thing to do. I was happy I was able to have that opportunity. That time was huge for my mom. Everyone told me that when I got here, she lit up and she had a lot more energy. I’m happy that I was able to bring her that joy.”

Jen Bremner died on June 11, five years to the day after she was first diagnosed.

When Bremner was taken in the draft, barely a month later, it was a moment of pure shock and joy. He wasn’t supposed to be picked that early. And the video of him finding out captures the emotion better than words can describe.

What the video didn’t show were those same people just 72 hours prior, all gathered in the exact same location, inside that same San Diego home. There, they held a celebration of life ceremony for Jen. She was 55 years old.

Tyler Bremner and his family’s reaction to being drafted No. 2 overall by the Angels in the MLB draft ❤️ pic.twitter.com/cDlfquPkHb

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 13, 2025

Growing up, everyone always told Tyler that he and his mom were one and the same. She was an emotional person, expressive of how she felt at all times. That’s why she became Tyler’s most important confidant. He went to her with everything.

“I feel like we were really connected in that way,” Tyler said. “If I had a problem off the field, if I had a problem on the field. Mentally, trying to get through struggles as we all do, she was that person that I went to all the time.”

Triple negative breast cancer is a rare form of the disease, where typical breast cancer treatments aren’t effective.

Following Jen’s diagnosis, Tyler’s father, Jason, held a family meeting with their three kids, then much younger. He leveled with Tyler and his two sisters. He told them that every moment with their mother would be “bonus time.” They didn’t know how much time she had left.

“We have to make sure that we’re making that clock count,’” Jason said. “‘As a family, we all made the decision that, when it’s needed, we’re all going to have to make sacrifices. To make sure that we push the clock as far as we can, and that the time we have is useful and meaningful.”

Her battle teased hope of a full recovery. Following 18 months of chemotherapy treatment, the cancer was held at bay. Not in remission, but for more than two years her condition remained stable.

It was only a year ago that she received a stage four, terminal diagnosis, indicating that her cancer had spread.

She continued rigorous weekly treatments, but not because it would increase her chance of remission. At that point, recovery was not medically possible. Those treatments were to extend her time, as physically painful as it was. She wanted to make it as long as she could, specifically to make it to July 13.

“That was her dream,” Jason said. “To see her son drafted.”

Now, after her death, Tyler is determined to keep her story alive, and to fight for a cause that has become extremely personal to him.

“She would tell me all the time, ‘If you’re able to have that platform later in life, and you have eyes on you, I want you to use it for good,’” Tyler said. “‘I want you to spread awareness on cancer, and spread awareness on my story.’ I’m definitely going to try to honor that.”

He had come into the year after an elite sophomore season, going 11-1 with a 2.54 ERA, and was projected as a potential early draft pick. But the start of his season threatened to derail all of that. By the end of March, he’d posted a 4.24 ERA, without any double-digit strikeout performances.

The Angels considered both his on-field performance and his personal situation, knowing that his family’s tough times might have impacted him. They still believed in him. And over Bremner’s final seven starts, that faith paid off. He posted a 2.91 ERA, while striking out double-digit batters six times. There’s a correlation, he believes. As his mother’s condition worsened, his pitching got better.

“I think it got real for him and everybody around the program really fast, what was going on,” said UC Santa Barbara head coach Andrew Checketts. “I feel like he had another gear, and he left it all out there on the field.”

That’s because pitching wasn’t an escape for Bremner. It was a way to connect. Every time he took the mound, he’d get on a knee and have a conversation in his head. He’d remind himself, “She’s proud of you. She’s watching you. She’s fighting for you.”

Jen Bremner followed every one of Tyler’s games closely. (Courtesy of Tyler Bremner)

He’d draw a heart on the mound — the same way she drew it. He plans to get a tattoo of it, as well.

In the moments where things got tough, he’d go back to that. He’d look at the heart and internalize his reason for drawing it. That would reset him, he said, in a way that’s tough to explain.

If he can make it to the big leagues, he’ll do the same thing. He’ll draw that heart, he’ll have that conversation. And he’ll know that she’s right there alongside him for a moment she made possible.

“I’m not a religious person,” Bremner said. “Up until this point, I haven’t thought much about what the afterlife is, or if that’s even a real possibility. But this all unfolding this way has genuinely strengthened my belief in the whole thing.

“I know she’s here.”

(Top photo courtesy of Tyler Bremner)

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Martin Supports Trump Executive Order to Better Protect College Sports, Student

HARRISBURG – Sen. Scott Martin (R-Lancaster) voiced his support for an Executive Order signed by President Trump on Thursday that will help protect student-athletes and college sports, including paving the way for uniform standards for Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) agreements. The Executive Order creates a national standard for NIL that prohibits third-party, pay-for-play payments […]

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1 hour ago

July 25, 2025

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Martin Supports Trump Executive Order to Better Protect College Sports, Student

The Executive Order creates a national standard for NIL that prohibits third-party, pay-for-play payments to college athletes while protecting the practice of athletes being paid fair-market compensation for making brand endorsements.

Martin sent a letter to President Trump in May requesting review and consideration of a federal solution to address NIL agreements to protect student-athletes and address urgent threats facing college sports.

Martin also sponsored Senate Resolution 350, which was approved by the Senate in October. The resolution urged Congress and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to work collaboratively to ensure NIL policies nationwide have uniformity, fairness, transparency and oversight.

NIL deals allow student athletes to make money by selling rights to use their name, image and likeness. These contracts were prohibited by the NCAA until a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (NCAA v. Alston) reversed the NCAA’s restriction.

A fact sheet published by the White House pertaining to the Executive Order notes: “Without Federal action to restore order, ongoing lawsuits and a patchwork of state NIL laws risk exploiting student-athletes and eroding the opportunities provided by collegiate sports.”

“As an author of one of the first NIL laws in the country, it became evident quickly that if all states aren’t playing by the same rules, then state lawmakers would continue to have to play whack-a-mole and react to whatever every other state tries to do to gain an advantage each year,” Martin said. “That definitely doesn’t create a level playing field and is not good for the long-term health of college athletics across this country. I’m grateful that President Trump’s Executive Order puts us on the right track to protect college sports, and more importantly, protect our college athletes.”

CONTACT: Jason Thompson

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Trump signs order to clarify college athletes’ employment status amid NIL chaos | Washington

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July 25, 2025

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Greg’s Five Takeaways from the Belichick Takeover at ACC Kickoff

CHARLOTTE — On the final day of ACC Kickoff 2025, the conference’s big preseason event, North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick‘s presence created quite the scene at the Charlotte Uptown Hilton. Inside Carolina’s Greg Barnes and Tommy Ashley got together afterwards to discuss their takeaways on Belichick and the Tar Heels from Thursday afternoon’s event. Watch the full […]

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2 hours ago

July 25, 2025

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CHARLOTTE — On the final day of ACC Kickoff 2025, the conference’s big preseason event, North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick‘s presence created quite the scene at the Charlotte Uptown Hilton. Inside Carolina’s Greg Barnes and Tommy Ashley got together afterwards to discuss their takeaways on Belichick and the Tar Heels from Thursday afternoon’s event. Watch the full conversation above and scroll down for Barnes’ five key takeaways.

1. The Belichick Takeover

Barnes: “This is probably ACC Kickoff No. 20 that I’ve been to, and the the sheer number of media members following Bill Belichick was just something to behold. The room that we were in is 1,800 square feet – a partitioned off ballroom – and right around Bill Belichick, there were more than 100 media members crammed in. It got to the point where there were so many people in there, the ACC made the decision that instead of it just being your typical media scrum where everybody was trying to ask a question at the same time, they had to set up a (moderated) Q & A session, which I’ve never seen before in these breakout sessions. It speaks to the volume of interest around Bill Belichick and around this North Carolina program.”

2. Different Media, Different Belichick

“It is a different type of media than the pro crowd. The Northeast media for NFL can be brutal, and I don’t think he’s seeing that here. … We see examples of how Belichick is embracing the college football landscape as it is right now. Of course, we’re still six weeks away from kickoff, so a lot will change between now and game one for Bill Belichick and how he handles the media. But so far he’s been very receptive. He was willing to meet with the UNC media separately this morning, kind of spur of the moment, which is a very nice thing to do. So it is a little bit different than what we’ve come to expect of Belichick during his New England time.”

3. Players Staying Focused

“Thad Dixon was at the table beside Belichick, and I thought it was very funny that when you had this huge media scrum around Belichick, there’s maybe six or seven guys talking with Dixon, and he was asked about it, he just looks over to his right and kind of laughs and says, ‘Hey, look at this, this guy’s a living legend.’ So the players understand that. You can hear when they talk about their coaching staff, especially Belichick, they understand who he is and what he’s done, and there’s the utmost respect there. I think the ability to function beneath the surface and let Belichick handle all the PR stuff is a very good thing, because there’s going to be a lot of pressure on this program this year. If Belichick can take that attention and own it for himself and let the players do their thing underneath, that’s going to be best for the program in the years to come, because they’re going to receive more spotlight than they ever have.”

4. Showcase Opportunity

“I was in school for for Judgment Day, and I was covering the team during the 2010 offseason hype, but I don’t know that I’ve seen what we’re seeing right now. That 2010 team had the potential to be really good, like top 10 good. I don’t think this team’s anywhere near that, but because you’ve got Bill Belichick and his staff, that just brings in so much more interest. It’s going to be an opportunity to really showcase the program. Belichick made an interesting comment when somebody asked him about what he’s doing to impress recruits that come in for visits. He said, ‘We’re not trying to over hype anything.’ The opportunity is through the roof, and so I think that’s what this year is about. Can this work? That’s the question, and that’s why there’s so much interest.”

5. Pressure to Win Starts Now

“When you look at what North Carolina has done in terms of financial commitment for the program, you don’t pay a guy $10 million just for his name. You pay somebody $10 million as a salary because you expect them to win quickly. Now even Nick Saban at Alabama struggled a little bit in year one, but I think there’s an expectation that the team is going to show that they are much better coached, that they are going to be better. I do think they are going to win games this year — the ACC, the schedule are not strong. When you talk about financial commitment, you’ve got to see some results. We’re already seeing results in terms of the media and the PR, now they have to put some wins behind it.”