What is NIL?

NIL stands for Name, Image, and Likeness, and refers to the rights of college athletes to profit from their own personal brand and likeness through commercial opportunities like endorsements, sponsorships, and social media content creation.

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Joe Moore Award Announces Partnership with The Brandr Group

Partnership expands opportunities for team-focused award to engage athletes

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – The Joe Moore Award, awarded annually to college football’s most outstanding offensive line unit, has announced an innovative partnership with The Brandr Group (TBG) that will open new doors to Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) opportunities for award nominees. The first partnership is with medical technology growth company Enovis™, as its DonJoy® brand will sponsor the award this season.

The Joe Moore Award is the only major college football award to honor a group of players rather than a singular student-athlete, and each season it recognizes the toughest, most physical offensive line in the country. Earlier this month, the semifinalists were unveiled for this year’s honor, including Florida State, Georgia, Kansas State, LSU, Michigan, Missouri, Notre Dame, Oregon, Oregon State, Tennessee, Texas and Washington.

The partnership with TBG lays the groundwork for multiple partners to engage with the Joe Moore Award, establishing it a trendsetter in embracing the potential of NIL to benefit its honorees, while also recognizing the value of teamwork.

“The Joe Moore Award gives the big men their due, paying homage to the tough, physical offensive lines who do the dirty work to help their team succeed on the field,” said Aaron Taylor, a two-time All-American offensive lineman at Notre Dame and Super Bowl winner in the NFL. “We’ve always been proud to honor a group of athletes, recognizing the importance of teamwork and collaboration. It’s a natural next step for us to push the envelope by building this innovative partnership with The Brandr Group, and we’re thrilled that DonJoy will be our first official partner.”

DonJoy will be featured as an official partner in the finalist and winner announcement videos narrated by Taylor, the award’s co-founder, executive director of the Foundation for Teamwork and a CBS Sports college football commentator. Scheduled for release in December, the videos are projected to reach millions of viewers via social media channels including Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.

“Offensive linemen must be in peak physical condition to excel on the field and ultimately win the Joe Moore Award,” says Terry Ross, President, Enovis Bracing and Supports. “This sponsorship highlights the association between our best-in-class product technology that helps protect the ‘best of the best’ offensive line units and epitomizes our dedication to Creating Better Together™.”

Nearly all college football teams use DonJoy products, and more than 95 percent of Division I linemen trust the DonJoy Defiance® knee brace to prevent injury. This sponsorship further demonstrates DonJoy’s already robust dedication to college football and highlights the critical role DonJoy products play in enhancing athletes’ stability and support to help them consistently perform at their best.

“This partnership allows Enovis and DonJoy to celebrate the season’s best offensive line units and is a testament to the team at the Joe Moore Award that they want to create opportunities for student-athletes to actively promote the award and their teammates’ success,” said Chris Marciani with TBG.

About The Brandr Group

The Brandr Group (TBG) is a brand management, marketing and licensing agency powered by a team with decades of collective management experience for some of the world’s largest brands. TBG has emerged as the leading agency in group licensing programs, with rights to more than 90 college athletic programs and their student-athletes in the Name, Image and Likeness category including the biggest brands in college athletics. TBG partners with prominent brands, colleges, sponsors, corporate trademarks, athletes and events to cultivate, diversify and monetize intellectual property through professional brand management and licensing endeavors. For more information, please visit tbgusa.com.

About the Joe Moore Award

The Joe Moore Award is named after Joe Moore, widely regarded as one of the best offensive line coaches in college football history, most notably for his work at Notre Dame and the University of Pittsburgh. Over 18 seasons, Coach Moore sent 52 players on to the NFL, including Bill Fralic, Mark May, Russ Grimm, Jimbo Covert and others. The Joe Moore Award trophy, crafted by legendary sports sculptor Jerry McKenna, is the largest trophy in college football, standing at a height of 6 feet and weighing in at 800 pounds. The perpetual trophy is made available for display by the winning university until the conclusion of the following college football season.  Past recipients of the Joe Moore Award include the offensive lines of Alabama (2015, 2020), Iowa (2016), Notre Dame (2017), Oklahoma (2018), LSU (2019) and Michigan (2021, 2022).

About the Foundation for Teamwork

The Foundation for Teamwork, home of The Joe Moore Award, is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering teamwork in all societal endeavors and bringing that spirit of collective achievement to athletics, education, and organizations.

About Enovis®

Enovis Corporation (NYSE: ENOV) is an innovation-driven medical technology growth company dedicated to developing clinically differentiated solutions that generate measurably better patient outcomes and transform workflows. Powered by a culture of continuous improvement, global talent and innovation, the Company’s extensive range of products, services and integrated technologies fuels active lifestyles in orthopedics and beyond. The Company’s shares of common stock are listed in the United States on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ENOV. For more information about Enovis, please visit www.enovis.com.

ONIT taps into The Brandr Group portfolio of athletes for launch of collegiate trading cards lineup

Initiative expected to create NIL opportunities for more than 7,500 athletes

The Brandr Group (TBG) is pleased to announce the launch of a new partnership with ONIT, an innovative, new type of entrant into the trading cards and sports memorabilia space focused on creating high-end trading cards tailored to the NIL marketplace. Over time, ONIT will be releasing sets of team-specific trading cards featuring large sets of men’s and women’s student-athletes from approximately 50 school partners of TBG, starting initially with the various athletic programs at Ohio State, Texas, Auburn, Nebraska, Michigan State, and at least 15 other universities.

ONIT seeks to build sets of collegiate trading cards with as close to full participation as possible by inviting entire teams to participate in the voluntary program. This approach allows fans to have access to potentially every player from their favorite teams with each player on each team being compensated. Ohio State, for instance, will have 12 of its teams – six men’s teams and six women’s teams –represented in the upcoming release.

Nebraska volleyball will host the largest NCAA women’s volleyball event ever held with more than 90,000 tickets sold for an open-air match on Aug. 30 at Memorial Stadium. The teamwide pack for the Huskers will be launched today to coincide with this historic moment, allowing fans to buy ONIT packs of cards featuring every player on the team.

The launch of these card sets represents an engaged, fair approach to NIL compensation as student-athletes will receive guaranteed NIL revenue through their voluntary participation in the program. Athletes are compensated based on a competitive revenue share per pack, and the program is expected to ultimately impact thousands of male and female student-athletes in the coming year. It is projected to generate more than $2.5 million in revenue for participating student-athletes throughout the course of the college football season alone, in what will become one of the largest NIL group licensing programs.

Select athletes will be afforded the opportunity to insert autographed cards into team packs, allowing them the chance to earn additional revenue for signatures on top of the compensation rate issued to all participating athletes. One in every 10 packs will feature an autographed card. Lastly, athletes will also be provided the opportunity to receive additional compensation for selling cards through their social and digital platforms.

“ONIT takes an innovative approach to engaging with and benefiting student-athletes, one that prioritizes the success of the athlete in a fair, competitive way, and that is something we greatly appreciate and respect,” said Wesley Haynes, CEO of The Brandr Group. “Not only are their cards among the best-rated in the industry by professional sports authenticators (PSA), they also utilize a model that relies on a rising tide to lift all boats by creating equitable opportunities for each athlete who decides to participate in the program. We believe this can be a lucrative group NIL program for athletes and one that fans of an individual school plus their favorite team can fully support.”

TBG, a brand management, marketing and licensing agency, manages and administers group licensing programs, as well as develops licensing opportunities on behalf of the student-athletes. With decades of collective management experience for some of the world’s largest brands, TBG, who was named to Sports Business Journal’s prestigious “Power Players” list for NIL, has also managed the group rights programs for the NFL, NBA and MLB players’ associations in the college space.

Ibotta Announces New Partnership to Champion Female Collegiate Athletes

We’re thrilled to announce a first-of-its-kind collaboration with female collegiate athletes between Ibotta, Inc., Pearpop and our team at The Brandr Group. This new NIL program will showcase some of the top women’s student-athletes, including UConn All-America basketball player Paige Bueckers.

Partnering student-athletes will create original social media content, including a fun new series call “Fridge Raiders” where players will critique their home fridges and provide their parents with a grocery list of food that keeps them happy and fueled.

Hally Hair launches NIL activation with SEC softball teams

The joy and individual personality of college athletes shine through NIL opportunities.

It’s tournament time, and we’re excited to continue our partnership with Hally. We’ve connected with three of the top softball programs in the country for a one-of-a-kind partnership that will let athletes from Georgia, LSU and Tennessee let their school spirit shine.

These talented players will be donning Hally ShadeStix, a temporary hair coloring, that will enable them to represent their teams on the diamond. Each team filmed in their official team gear showing how they like to get game day ready, incorporating Hally’s Shade Stix into their looks.

Keep an eye out for Georgia’s Sydney Chamblay, Jaiden Fields, Dallis Goodnight and Jayda Kearney; LSU’s Danieca Coffey, Ciara Briggs, Madilyn Giglo and Ali Kilponen; and Tennessee’s Mackenzie Donihoo, Kiki Milloy, Karlyn Pickens and Ashley Rogers this week and best of luck to all the teams!

The Brandr Group, Hyperluxe strike partnership with Ole Miss’ Grove Collective

“NIL done right” is about finding the right partners, fair market value for student athletes, and stories that fans can connect with. This new partnership with The Grove (Ole Miss) and Hyperluxe.gg powerfully delivers on those via eSports engagement.

The best is yet to come!

University of Mississippi Athletes Kick Off May With Day of Service

Thanks to a group NIL program between The Brandr Group, The Grove Collective and Wheels Up, more than 25 Ole Miss student-athletes were able to participate in a day of service supporting the Mid South Food Bank.

The organization provides foods to local agencies and food distribution sites in 31 counties across Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. The Meals Up initiative has led the fight against rural. Hunger, raising nearly 90 million meals for Feeding America.