The Colorado Springs Gazette final

Levis balances NIL gains with long-term goals

ATLANTA • Heading into last season, the most notable moment of Will Levis’ career as a college football player just might have been eating an unpeeled banana.

A year later, the Kentucky quarterback with the active and entertaining Tiktok account has become an intriguing NFL prospect. That combination of personality and athletic potential has never been more valuable in college athletics.

The first year of college sports’ name, image and likeness era has allowed thousands of athletes to cash in on their fame and Levis is among the most prominent. But as the adage goes: With great power comes great responsibility.

“I think if anything, NIL really helps young individuals become men and become women earlier and just make those big, adult decisions and to understand kind of how the world works,” Levis told AP recently at the inaugural NIL Summit held in Atlanta.

For Levis, that has meant balancing short-term gains with long-term goals and making sure the brand he is building as a player can successfully transition into being the face of an NFL franchise.

“If you’re in college, doing a million deals, who are you?” said Beth Levis, Will’s mother. “Maybe you don’t care. But with Will, I think that he does have a strong identity. So we have to make be careful how we navigate the waters.”

The NCAA lifted its ban on athletes being compensated for use of their name, image or likeness a year ago this Friday, one of the biggest changes in the history of college athletics. It did so without detailed guidelines in place and with a patchwork of state laws leaving the market lightly regulated and lacking uniformity.

The results have been mostly positive for athletes, but angst-ridden college coaches and administrators are worried about how NIL has already seeped into and corrupted recruiting.

Levis, a native of Connecticut, said he has signed about 13 endorsement contracts over the last year, working with an agency called Athlete Advantage based in Lexington, Kentucky, home of the Wildcats. The deals include a Lexington car dealership, a national apparel brand and a race horse named Will of War from one of Kentucky’s thoroughbred farms.

He said he has also turned down plenty of opportunities, too.

“With the current setup right now, we got to protect ourselves,” he said. “But we need to understand how doing certain deals, how the amount of deals we do, what kind of deals, what kind of companies we’re working with, how that reflects our brand and our image and the consequences that can come with that.”

Even before college athletes could be paid for things like autographs, appearances and endorsements, Levis was interested in the benefits of brand management.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

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2022-07-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-07-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/282089165464905

The Gazette, Colorado Springs