5 Big Ideas on Youth NIL

This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.

Today, we launched our new podcast with Brent Wall, co-founder and CEO of Student Athlete Score, an NIL platform.

You can listen and subscribe to the Buying Sandlot podcast with the following links:

What: Student Athlete Score is a platform that aggregates and analyzes athlete data — tracking performance, social metrics, and NIL (name, image, likeness) insights — with the goal of helping universities, brands, and athletes make smarter decisions. It serves as a centralized “performance + exposure dashboard” rather than a standalone tool, layering analytics and visibility over existing data sources to give stakeholders a holistic, actionable view.

Who: Brent Wall is the co-founder and CEO of Student Athlete Score. He brings experience as a serial entrepreneur and growth-oriented leader. 

Here are 5 BIG IDEAS from the podcast:

1) The opportunity for the 95%ers

The top athletes get access to bespoke deals given their heightened standing in the community or even nationally. But what about everyone else? That’s where data and AI come in. Platforms, like Student Athlete Score, can identify the long-tail of athletes and where they sit on the interest graph. Brands can work with them at scale through a series of micro deals. This is similar to how online ad networks, like Google Ads, work with small websites.

2) AI Agents to handle payments

If a larger brand buys into one of these campaigns to work with the long-tail of athletes, AI agents can easily identify the reach and engagement of each athlete and distribute payments accordingly.

3) Arbitrage opportunity for brands

If a brand wants to target a given geographic market, typically the best way to do that - outside of Facebook - is through costly radio, print and TV ads. But working with 100 local athletes who have built-in social media followings (ie micro influencers) can get the same reach for a fraction of the cost.

4) ROI will be non-negotiable

Digital advertising has directly-measurable results baked in. But so far there’s been little data to support NIL deals. Are they too big? Too small? Very quickly, the ability to prove ROI - which I’d define as both Return On Investment and Reach On Investment - will become table stakes.

5) The brand-ification of youth sports teams

As readers of Buying Sandlot know, I love me some Pottstown Scout, the influencer-led travel baseball team that sells every square-inch of athlete surface area with sponsor-laden swag bags.

What’s to stop brands from stealing this model and forming their own travel clubs with the best and most influential athletes in a 60-90 minute radius? Team Dunkin Donuts™ in Mass, as an example. I think the next step here is a white label club operator that works on behalf of brands, or a reverse-licensing company that facilitates these relationships with existing clubs. Like RCX does with NFL Flag for league operators. Only in this case, club operators are provided branded jerseys and other branded equipment.

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