In college sports, there has been an introduction of student athletes’ ability to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL), with the power in players’ hands.
City College’s baseball team has taken full advantage of the new era of college sports, with the players starting an NIL Club to earn themselves money.
While not affiliated with the school, the NIL Club has been used by the team for the last three years. A few players had signed up but it hadn’t gained much traction financially. Suddenly, over the last year more people had subscribed and the NIL Club was taking off.
“It just had a big snowball effect,” Utility player Parker Hellekson said. “We got a few people to join and all of a sudden we started getting a bunch of donations.”
Hellekson joined the club during his first year with the Vaqueros and didn’t think much of it. They would get occasional donations, but nothing significant. Then, earlier this year, Hellekson checked his account and noticed it had started gaining traction.
Eager to keep this traction going, Hellekson and the other third years on the team started convincing their teammates to join in. Currently, the NIL Club is up to 19 players and has raised over $900, closing in on their monthly goal of $1,100.
NIL money has been a huge help to players around the country. It has helped countless student athletes plan for the future, pay off debt, pay rent and afford living expenses.
This proves to be immensely helpful for the City College baseball team since student athletes already have a tough time finding work due to their busy schedules.
“It definitely benefits student athletes in Santa Barbara,” Infielder Nick Aguirre said. “It’s really hard to find part-time jobs as an athlete so NIL helps a lot.”
The club is ran mostly by the app itself, with the players themselves contributing their names and donor lists similar to fundraisers. The app sends out texts on behalf of the players asking the donor list to support the players by subscribing to the NIL Club service.
Subscriptions are paid monthly and when signing up one can put any amount of money into the players that you feel comfortable with. The payouts are split evenly amongst the players at the end of each month.
“It’s great that we’re helping the whole team out,” Aguirre said. “We all have to support each other.”
The forefront of the Vaqueros NIL success has been due to the community rallying around the players. Each player in the club feels as if none of this could be done without the lifeline that is community support.
“The support from the community has been the best it’s been in years,” Hellekson said. “We’ve never seen this from the community and our families. It’s special.”
