After leading the Pima College women’s basketball team to the NJCAA Division II title game in 2024-25, Aztecs coach Todd Holthaus picked up another recruiting tool this week.
His players will now be able to seek NIL opportunities via Opendorse, after the school announced a partnership with the NIL platform this week. Pima says it is the first Arizona community college to provide NIL support for its athletes.
“I think having the opportunity to do that, for some of these kids, may make their recruiting decisions easier,” Holthaus said. “They know they can come to Pima and take advantage of it.”
It isn’t NIL as it is now most commonly defined — as in booster-fueled NIL collectives that sometimes pay players up to six- or seven-figure annual amounts — but instead it is in the traditional commercial NIL sense where athletes connect with business or individuals via Opendorse profiles.
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“Our budgets are so small that we’re lucky if we get a local business to sponsor us or donate to us,” said Holthaus, who is also Pima’s assistant AD. “So it’s nothing on that (collective) level and that’s OK, because we don’t have the manpower to regulate something like that. But Opendorse allows the athlete to work as an individual, and they get to handle it themselves.”
Several Pima athletes have already established profiles on Opendorse, including several men’s soccer players and men’s basketball starter Gabe Oldham. Their profiles typically offer videos, social media posts or appearances for fees starting at $10 while there’s also a link to profiles for businesses to send offers.
“Kids nowadays, high school seniors, they love that kind of stuff,” Holthaus said. “They’re social media professionals, and a lot of them have thousands of followers. So now they can do these little marketing deals or promote products and make a few extra bucks.”
Pima AD Ken Jacome said in a statement that the partnership with Opendorse would allow the school to strengthen relationships with local businesses and community members “in ways that uplift both our athletes and our region.”
Athletes who create Opendorse platforms while at Pima can also continue them if they enroll at another college or university. But in the meanwhile, NIL may offer Pima athletes a chance to supplement or maybe even replace traditional ways of funding their educations.
“Our kids have always had to either do federal work study or find a job on the side,” Holthaus said. “But some of them are social media savvy enough that they can do these shout-outs, and they can do things via social media where you don’t have to go clock in and clock out. It’s something they can do in their free time between classes.
“We’re just excited about it.”
Contact sports reporter Bruce Pascoe at bpascoe@tucson.com. On X(Twitter): @brucepascoe
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