Continuously on the cutting edge in college athletics, Kansas Athletics has officially launched Jayhawks Ascend. At Kansas, we aim to empower and educate our student-athletes in all phases of NIL, brand development, and professional opportunities.
Name, Image & Likeness, also known as NIL, is the ability for student-athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness for personal gain in ways permitted by institutional, state and NCAA legislation. At Kansas, we aim to empower and educate our student-athletes in all phases of NIL, brand development, and professional opportunities.
Mass St. Collective is a corporate sponsor of Kansas Athletics and is proudly representing Kansas Jayhawk student athletes. Mass St. Collective supports KU student athletes by raising funds through donations as well as working directly with businesses and individuals interested in partnering with them through Name, Image, Likeness activities. For more information on Mass St. Collective, visit massstrategies.com/
Kansas Athletics launched its official NIL Marketplace through Opendorse, one of the first licensed Kansas marketplaces in college sports.
The Opendorse-powered marketplace will maximize NIL support for student-athletes and promises to mobilize the KU fan base and local organizations to best-support its student-athletes. Kansas is among the first programs nationwide to provide a single marketplace to send supporters to access student-athletes and offer compliant opportunities. Now, Jayhawk fans, brands, sponsors and donors can browse, book, pitch and pay any KU student-athlete for NIL activities in one compliant platform, built specifically for the athletes’ needs.
Since July 1, 2021 when the NCAA permitted student-athletes the opportunity to monetize from their name, image and likeness, Kansas Athletics has launched several new and innovative initiatives to capitalize in this new space of college athletics. Some of those initiatives for student-athletes include:
Kansas is parterned with Adidas through 2031 in one of the largest, most collaborative parternships in all of college athletics.
In addition to gearing up the Jayhawks on game days, Adidas partnered with Kansas Volleyball’s Lauren Dooley to help unveil the Ultraboost 1.0 Kansas color way, which was made possible through Name, Image and Likeness.
Kansas represented well at the NIL Summit it Atlanta, Georgia, with more representatives than any other school in the country. The NIL Summit was intended to both celebrate the great achievements of student-athletes, while also equipping them with the tools, resources and information necessary to maximize their outcomes both in the near term, and well after they are done playing sports. Kansas Athletics had seven student-athletes attend the INFLCR NIL Summit in Atlanta June 13-15, and was nominated for an NFT Award. Football student-athlete Jared Casey was a finalist for the Breakthrough Athlete Award.
Men’s basketball head coach Bill Self and student-athletes David McCormack and Jalen Wilson signed NIL deals with Wendy’s that included billboards and other materials with their images on them as well as a special crimson and blue painted Wendy’s location in Lawrence Hosted a joint event between Wendy’s and Kansas Athletics for the Fryday Fanfest at the Phog that included Head Coach Bill Self and student-athletes Jalen Wilson, David McCormack, Christian Braun, Remy Martin, and Ochai Agbaji.
Kansas Basketball’s Mitch Lightfoot, Jalen Wilson and Christian Braun partnered with Raising Canes for an in-person promotion in Lawrence. Fans had the chance to meet national champions through the drive-thru as they passed out chicken fingers and Cane’s sauce.
Kansas Athletics’ partnership with Rally House allowed men’s and women’s basketball student-athletes access to sell personalized jersey t-shirts and caricature shirts tallying almost $500,000 in combined sales The men’s basketball team sold 500 autographed basketballs totaling $100,000.
Kansas Athletics partners with Altius Sports Partners, a leader in the NIL activity space, providing resources, knowledge and expertise that helps KU Athletics in a variety of ways, including:
In addition to the Kansas NIL Marketplace, Kansas will continue to provide its student-athletes and staff with Opendorse’s best-in-class compliance, content and education tools.
Get in contact with one of Kansas Athletics' NIL Directors.
Tate Gillespie
Director of NIL Strategy
tate.gillespie@ku.edu
Casey Seberger
Director of NIL, Athlete Brand Development and Partnerships
casey.seberger@ku.edu
