My love for college football runs deep. There is just something about the combination of fall weather and the sound of thousands of fans cheering on their favorite teams that is magical to me. I don’t really know how it started. Maybe it has something to do with growing up in Iowa during the Hayden Fry era? Regardless, you can be sure when the season starts in late August, my Saturday activities shift to prioritize watching my favorite teams.

The entirety of college sports has seen some significant changes in the past few years. There is the transfer portal for one (don’t even get me started!). Major conferences have broken up or expanded, largely due to TV contracts or other monetary pursuits. And now? there is NIL, which, for those of you who don’t follow college sports, stands for “name, image and likeness.” Essentially, it provides permission for college athletes to get compensated for publicity, something that until recently was prohibited for college athletes.

Couple NIL with the transfer portal, and some will say college sports has gone off the rails. And, admittedly, I have been somewhat in that camp. After all, I like the “old days” when you could count on your favorite player being on the team for all four years. Now, rosters feel more like the NFL in some ways, with players changing schools any number of times. No matter how you feel about NIL though, we can agree it has been a game changer in many respects.

Think about the OPPORTUNITY marketers now have to tap into the fans who follow college sports. You can reach multiple generations of college sports fans at a more local level – which can be incredibly powerful – while also helping college athletes pay their way through college, an increasingly expensive endeavor even if you have scholarships. The effectiveness of this type of marketing has a lot of potential. A July 2022 study by influencer marketing company Captiv8 showed that student-athletes outperformed the engagement benchmarks of standard influencers on social media through the first year of the NIL rules. In fact, the study showed that college athletes were the best-performing subset of influencers available to marketers. Powerful stuff!

I was so excited to see the Iowa Pork Producers Association do just this in a partnership this fall with four Iowa State University football players: Tommy Hamman, Myles Purchase, Caleb Bacon and Tyler Moore. When cleverly arranged, the young men’s last names create quite the directive: Purchase Moore Hamman Bacon. A perfect campaign for Pork Month and the entire pigskin season. The original social media campaign is now also a t-shirt and even received recognition by ESPN, who said, “The perfect NIL deal doesn’t exi---”

Pennsylvania Pork Producers also jumped in on the action, huddling up with “Chop” Robinson, a defensive back for the Penn State Nittany Lions to promote pork chops. I bet he had no idea his childhood nickname would net him a spot repping the proper cooking temp (145 degrees) for perfect pork recipes.

The reach of these student athletes is generally local-to-regional, but it seems that “hyperlocal” is the way to market nowadays. The term refers to precise targeting of particular geographical areas with localized and relevant promotions — most often on a mobile device. (This is when you talk about going to a spa and all of the sudden, your Facebook feed is filled with ads for spa packages. And yes, I think it’s creepy, too!) Hyperlocal is effective because it meets us where we’re at with immediate gratification — goods and services we can buy in our own backyard. Imagine how it becomes even more effective when it involves the people behind our favorite sports teams.

So, don’t wait — get on the NIL bus before that athlete with the perfect tie to your product is already tackled. (My Hawkeyes’ Caitlin Clark just signed with State Farm, but many very popular athletes won’t break your bank.)

What clever local or regionalized campaigns have you seen using NIL? Do you have any experience that could help others in the meat industry as we work to grow domestic demand?

There is NIL reason not to explore this new avenue for marketing

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