105 Notre Dame Football Players Get NIL Deal with Ikonick
The Notre Dame Instagram world was flooded with football players posting artwork from Ikonick on Thursday afternoon.
105 Notre Dame football players participated in the deal, which marks the first team deal for the Irish and it's thought to be the first of its kind anywhere in the country.
Notre Dame kicker Harrison Leonard, who started Our Playbook, a platform to help student-athletes, businesses and schools connect, reached out to Ikonick Co-Founder Mark Mastrandrea and the deal was finalized in a matter of weeks.
"Harrison DM'd the brand and with NIL coming out a couple months ago, not many people were taking the approach we discussed.," Mastrandrea told ISD. "A lot of individual athletes were striking deals, but not many were looking at it from a team perspective.
"I emailed him back that night and got on the phone. He just really has an entrepreneurial spirit and I see a lot of myself in him. We started brainstorming ideas and he told me about the company he had in Our Playbook. He explained from a student-athlete perspective how he wanted to help, but also protect student-athletes while bringing them deals."
The deal, in principle, is simple. Ikonick allowed Notre Dame players to pick out one piece of art and in return, the student-athletes posted it on Social Media with a discount code. The participating players will then get compensation from the promotion.
"He reached out to his team to see if they liked the product, and we got the green light the same day." said Mastrandrea. "The website has over 1,000 pieces, so we wanted the athletes to choose the one that resonated with them most."
Mastrandrea and his content team then shipped out over 100 pieces of art and headed to South Bend.
"Myself and my content team traveled to South Bend two weeks ago," explained Mastrandrea. "We stayed there and went to the game. We met the team and working with the university was an amazing experience.
"It's interesting working with the school; it's new for them, us and new for the athletes. I think getting in these meetings has been huge for all parties involved. I think all the athletes were very excited about the art alone, but then we're going to give them a kickback."
In July, the NIL world opened its doors without any guidelines, so it's still the proverbial 'Wild West' in most situations, but Mastrandrea did his research and used one of the world's top resources.
Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee) is an Ikonick investor and strategic partner and has dipped his hand in the NIL market.
Vayner Sports has signed several student-athletes, including Notre Dame's Ademilola twins - Jayson and Justin - and Jarrett Patterson.
"There is no other way to put it. Gary has world-class judgment skills. He sees things early." stated Mastrandrea. He and AJ (Vaynerchuk) going into the NIL market was further confirmation that something was there.
"Some of the guys they rep were actually on the Notre Dame team and they posted on their (Instagram) story and it was 'Gary Vee x Ikonick' and they chose Gary's collection. It was cool how it came full circle."
Mastrandrea was also impressed with how Notre Dame's players were entirely on board as a team.
"There is an enormous opportunity there with NIL," Mastrandrea said. "The fact that the team came together to do something, I really haven't seen that yet. The players as a whole coming together is innovative and it might be the first clean sweep of a whole team. They should definitely look at themselves as innovators in the space."
And after seeing how team deals can be successful, Mastrandrea believes it could open the door for other companies to jump in as it's mutually beneficial.
"It's kind of like a one-plus-one-equals-three thing and that's always better," said Mastrandrea. "From a business efficiency perspective, it was one day. We went to an off-campus house and 54 guys just came over. It was just super-efficient.
"I really think it's a testament to the team that they obviously care about each other in the fact they all got involved. It makes a lot of sense that the team is having success on the field, due to there off the field camaraderie."
"We hope that this is the start of something bigger with the team and the University."
