When five-star prospect Nate Ament signed a multi-year NIL deal with Reebok in October 2024, he didn’t just make history, he reshaped the future conversation around player-brand partnerships in college athletics.

Ament became the first male high school basketball player to ink a deal with Reebok, aligning himself with the company’s strategic re-entry into the performance basketball market. At the center of the partnership is Reebok’s new Engine A shoe, a model Ament not only wears but now headlines with his own Player Exclusive (PE) colorways.

But Ament’s arrival in Knoxville raises new questions for Tennessee, especially as the school approaches the end of its Nike apparel deal, set to expire on June 30, 2026. Originally signed in 2014, the Nike partnership is currently worth $1.2 million in base compensation and includes a product allotment of $4.5 million annually.

Now, the Volunteers are reportedly in talks with both Nike and Adidas, sparking debate over whether a brand switch is imminent and how that might affect athletes with independent NIL deals like Ament.

So far, Ament’s Reebok deal appears independent of Tennessee’s apparel choices. Unlike some athletes restricted by team-wide sponsorships, such as Cooper Flagg, who couldn’t wear New Balance at Duke, others like Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper at Rutgers have been allowed to wear Nike even though the school partners with Adidas.

For Reebok, Ament represents the centerpiece of its basketball relaunch—a multi-million dollar endorsement that brings flash, credibility, and long-term potential. For Tennessee, his presence could further complicate or possibly influence the school’s apparel negotiations, especially if Reebok seeks deeper collegiate partnerships down the line.

With Ament poised to debut in orange and the apparel clock ticking, Tennessee finds itself at the crossroads of brand loyalty, athlete autonomy, and NIL-era strategy.

Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet. (Want to get MoneyCall conveniently delivered to your email every Wednesday morning? Easy sign-up here.)

Hot off the presses Wednesday morning: Andrew Marchand on ESPN’s muddled NBA Finals TV commentator situation, including exclusive new reporting on the future of Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson. 

Name-dropped elsewhere today: NiJaree Canady, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Presti, Saquon Barkley, Sha’Carri Richardson, Peyton Manning, Austin Ainge, Pablo Torre, Manute Bol and more. Let’s go:

Driving the Conversation

Let’s talk about return on investment

About a year ago, Texas Tech boosters offered (and paid!) $1 million to the best pitcher in college softball, NiJaree Canady, to leave Stanford and come to Lubbock.

The payoff? Canady has thrown every Red Raiders pitch during the program’s first Women’s College World Series appearance — which includes leading them past juggernaut and four-time defending champ Oklahoma on Monday to advance to the WCWS championship. (And, yes, one costly intentional walk gone wrong against Texas tonight.)

In a time with plenty of open spending on college players, that feels like the best $1 million invested in college sports this year, whether your metric is exposure for the school and program, setting a new bar of earning power for women’s college athletes or simply a wealthy booster getting to feel better than if they’d spent on, like, a bathroom reno.

That got me thinking about a couple of other pretty good ROIs in sports over the past few weeks:

The OKC Thunder: Before they play in the 2025 NBA Finals tomorrow night, let’s rewind to 2007. Thunder GM Sam Presti took on $8 million of the Phoenix Suns’ undesired player salary in exchange for two future first-round picks. Here we go …

One of those became Serge Ibaka … who eventually was in a deal that got OKC a draft pick that turned into Domantas Sabonis … who eventually was traded for Paul George … who was eventually the key piece of the trade with the Clippers … that yielded the Thunder its NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, along with a draft pick … that turned into SGA’s All-Star teammate Jalen Williams.

OKC went from being valued at less than $300 million in 2007 to more than $3.6 billion as of 2024, with this season’s trip to the finals assuredly tacking on substantially more. Not a bad ROI for eating $8 million.

Wrexham: Actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought the team for $2.5 million in 2021. Three promotions later, it’s now worth more than $100 million and ready to spend bigger — with the chance to earn promotion to the Premier League. (Naturally, the popular TV show “Welcome to Wrexham” will be back for Season 5 to capture the effort.)

• For more sports-investment analysis, check out my colleague Asli Pelit’s latest column, on the “multi-club organization” investment strategy accelerating in women’s soccer in the U.S. and globally. A clear-eyed, well-sourced look at the biggest trend in the sport.)

Michael Loccisano / Getty Images

Get Caught Up

Relax about the NBA Finals. Plus, a beloved show’s next chapter

Big talkers from the sports business industry:

• “Small-market” NBA Finals — not a big deal! My colleague Mike Vorkunov had the best reporting and insights on this whole “concerning” (or concern-trolling?) sub-plot that two small-market finalists spells doom for the league or ESPN.
  • Short version (but read the whole thing): Everyone will be fine. As usual, the longer the series goes, the better; and this is a great way to introduce fans to the aesthetically fascinating ways both the Thunder and Pacers play the game.
• The end of NBA on TNT: The pioneering, decades-long relationship between the network and the league is over, but — it’s worth the reminder — “Inside the NBA” moves to ESPN. (Fans can only hope ESPN lets the “Inside” crew cook.)
• Caitlin Clark even drives ratings when she’s not playing: Friday night’s Sun-Fever game on ION averaged 851,000 viewers, up nearly 120 percent from a year ago. Again: That’s with CC not playing.
  • That could be welcome news for CBS, which is broadcasting the highly anticipated Fever-Sky game this Saturday in prime time, a contest that was poised to break the WNBA’s all-time regular-season TV record but now might “only” do 1-2 million.
• Salary transparency in the PWHL: Players in the pro women’s hockey league voted to share their salary info with other players, agents and media, in the hopes of helping players navigate future negotiations with teams.
• In memoriam: John Brenkus, who created a sweet spot for fans between sports and science with his award-winning ESPN programming. Gratitude to his family for including in their announcement that Brenkus battled depression and for promoting an overall destigmatization of significant mental health challenges.

Other current obsessions: MLB investing in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League … the Big Ten’s obsession with four auto-bids to the College Football Playoff … annoying ads shown incessantly on TV in Canada during the Stanley Cup … the $20,000 Manute Bol basketball card … Saquon Barkley on the Madden 26 cover doing this (with some help) …

Saquon hit his iconic reverse hurdle for the Madden cover

(via @saquon, @NFL, @EAMaddenNFL, @ari_fararooy) pic.twitter.com/yjfpfsfNvv

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 2, 2025

What I’m Wondering

Could anyone challenge the Premier League?

While we’re on the topic of “return on investment,” earlier this week The Athletic published a thought-provoking dive by my colleague Dan Sheldon into this fascinating question: Why has there never been a challenger to the Premier League like LIV Golf to the PGA Tour or the USFL/XFL/etc. to the NFL?

The answer turns out to be a combination of the Premier League’s “sheer popularity,” the “well-established history of its biggest clubs” and some significant structural barriers, including membership rules and massive broadcast revenues.

Part of it is that the Premier League itself was originally less of a challenger brand than simply a new organizing principle. Former league CEO Richard Scudamore noted:

“Nothing changed, right? It’s not like LIV Golf, the IPL (cricket’s Indian Premier League) or the proposed European Super League. The Premier League didn’t come along and say they were going to compete head-to-head with the existing structure of English football. The smartest thing about it was that it was all change, but nothing changed. It was really just a marketing arrangement. … so it disrupted only in a governance sense — it didn’t disrupt in a footballing sense.”

But could it happen? What would it take?

Charlie Stillitano, football’s “Mr. Fixer,” told Sheldon this about how a Premier League rival might emerge:

“Let’s be honest, there are enough billionaires in the world, and they might say, ‘Let’s scrap this relegation and promotion thing in England.’

“You need to have a country that is really robust. One country that you could do it in is the United States. Players would come here, you can pay them the money and they will have a good life, and it’s the biggest media market and commercial market in the world.

“But we also have sports fans who like football. You could get billionaires here together to do it, but you need the courage to do it.”

The entire story is well worth your time.

Grab Bag

Name to Know: Pablo Torre
The former ESPN talent, occasional “Morning Joe” co-host and full-time podcaster has made headlines in 2025 for his reporting on the Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson story, along with plenty of more esoteric topics on his eponymous pod. My colleague Zak Keefer has a phenomenal profile of one of sports media’s most unique talents.

Investor of the Week: Sha’Carri Richardson
The Olympic track mega-star was announced as an “adviser-owner” of Athlos, a startup women’s pro track league co-founded by prolific women’s sports investor Alexis Ohanian.

Runner-up: Peyton Manning, who became a part-owner of NWSL Denver.

Data Point: $9.55M
What LAFC earned last weekend from a play-in victory to send the club to the FIFA Club World Cup.

(Open question: How much will qualifying U.S. teams’ players actually see of that bag? Answer: $1M per team, total, and the players are, rightfully, not happy.)

Branding of the Week: Orlando Magic
A- for bringing back the ‘90s-era pinstripes.

introducing a new generation of Magic basketball pic.twitter.com/V8DWuZdpSG

— Orlando Magic (@OrlandoMagic) June 3, 2025

Date to Know: June 1
When the calendar flipped last Sunday, Bill Belichick’s buyout to leave UNC football dropped from $10 million to $1 million. To clarify: That’s the number Belichick — who hasn’t yet coached a game — would have to pay to walk away, not what UNC would have to pay to fire him, which comes in around $30 million, a guarantee he gets the first three years of his contract.

Filed under ‘two things can be true’

1. The just-hired Utah Jazz president of basketball operations Austin Ainge has 16 years of solid experience working in an excellent Celtics front office.
2. His dad, Danny Ainge, is the CEO of the Utah Jazz, and this qualifies as what reasonable people could call a “nepo-hire.”

Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition

Puzzle #254




00:31

Hint: Fun, timely hockey theme! Try the game here!

Worth Your Time

Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:

Longtime friend of MoneyCall Joe Drape of The New York Times had an incredible feature this past weekend profiling an eighth-grade football star, his NIL opportunities and the moment we are living in when deals are coming for not just high school athletes, but even younger ones. Read it here.

Two more reads worth your time:

• More football: Joe Rexrode with a dive into the world of “QB Dads” that has emerged with NIL dynamics (along with an amazing ending that goes in a totally different direction than you think it would, for the better!).
• “Is it possible for Canadians to root for a rival?” As the Stanley Cup finals start tonight (perfect Red Light newsletter preview here), my colleague Dan Robson digs into that question: “If there’s ever going to be a moment for Canadian hockey fans to coalesce under a single NHL team banner, maybe we’ve found it.”

(Photo: Nathan J. Fish / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

One of college football’s breakout stars in 2024, Ryan Williams emerged as one of the faces of the sport. That high profile helped put him alongside fellow star receiver Jeremiah Smith on the standard cover of EA Sports College Football 26.

But when the Alabama star found out, he wasn’t quite sure what was happening. He received a text with the news, but his iPhone summarizes his texts. That led to some confusion about what exactly it said.

At the time, Williams was with his mom. That means she got to see the confused look on his face when he read the summary.

“I was just at home with my mom,” Williams told Rece Davis on the College GameDay podcast. “We were just spending some time together because that’s, like, my best friend. … I got a text, and my messages, they’re summarized. All my messages get summarized.

“So I got a text that said, ‘Cover 26.’ And I was like, ‘Huh?’ I thought someone was asking me the difference between Cover 2 and Cover 6. … So I tap on the message and I’m reading it, and my mom’s looking at me and she was like, ‘What? What’s wrong?’ I was like, they asked me to be on the cover. She was like, the cover of what? I was like, the cover of College Football 26. And my mom, she’s just a big fan of me. She doesn’t really know what’s going on, but she knows what’s going on because of me. So she was like screaming and super excited.”

For Williams, the chance to be on the cover of the highly anticipated video game proved another opportunity to represent his family, as well as Alabama. Being with his mom when he learned the news made it even sweeter.

“That moment pretty much summarized all my feelings going into it,” Williams said. “Because even though my mom doesn’t know what’s going on, she’s super supportive of me, and the rest of my family, they’re always super supportive.

“Just being able to represent them and my home state and my school, it just means a lot. I’ve just been super excited and blessed to even be able to be a part of this.”

More on Ryan Williams, Jeremiah Smith as cover stars

Ryan Williams and Jeremiah Smith both arrived as Five Star Plus+ recruits in 2024. Smith was the No. 1 overall player out of the 2024 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. Williams came in as the No. 5 overall prospect and No. 3-ranked wide receiver from the class.

The two players are also some of the biggest names in college football. Smith has a $4.2 million On3 NIL Valuation, which ranks No. 3 in the college football NIL rankings, and Williams’ $2.7 million On3 NIL Valuation sits at No. 13. The duo also come in at No. 3 and No. 15, respectively, in the On3 NIL 100 – the first of its kind and defacto NIL ranking of the top 100 high school and college athletes ranked by their On3 NIL Valuation.

EA Sports College Football 26 is the second installment since the franchise returns last year. It releases July 10.

Patrick Mahomes is a man of his word.