Alabama Athletics Announces New NIL Collective

Early Thursday morning, Alabama Athletics announced their new NIL collective, 'Yea Alabama'

In a new era of collegiate sports, NIL has become vital for any program's success. In this football recruiting cycle alone, we've seen one player, ASU's Jaden Rashada, reportedly get $13 million from Florida in NIL money before he rescinded his letter of intent after he learned that Florida couldn't fulfill their promise. We also saw two anonymous recruits allegedly asked Nick Saban for a combined 1.3 million dollars.

According to the Yea Alabama website, there are three ways to contribute to the new NIL fund. The first way is to make a tax-deductible donation to the fund, which will go to the Walk of Champions non-profit. The second is to sign up for a subscription, which will grant the buyer exclusive content throughout the year. There are four tiers to the subscription, Starter, All-Conference, All-American, and Hall of Fame, each of which has increasingly better rewards and in hand gets more expensive. The final way to contribute is for brands looking for a student-athlete to endorse their company.

Assistant basketball coach Antoine Pettway had plenty to say about the new NIL fund, stating:

“As a former Alabama student-athlete, and current coach, I have witnessed the evolution of the student-athlete experience firsthand. It’s encouraging that, since my time in college, the opportunities for success, growth, and personal development have progressed to include name, image, and likeness. Our current and future student-athletes are fortunate to have an entity like Yea Alabama working on their behalf to help maximize potential NIL partnerships.”

This is just another sign of how NIL continues to evolve and the new era dawning on college sports.