Licensing company CLC has partnered with OneTeam to offer individual opt-in for co-branded licensing opportunities combining athlete name, image, and likeness (NIL) with collegiate branding.
The relationship enables OneTeam and its affiliates to provide a solution that facilitates individual opt-in for college athletes to participate in licensing programs that span across schools and sports using CLC’s Compass technology platform.
CLC’s Compass looks to be aided by its partner to offer athletes ‘broad scale licensing opportunities’ for products such as trading cards, video games, amongst other products.
Cory Moss, CEO of CLC, noted: “The platform will help ensure these programs that combine school marks with athlete NIL are done the right way by allowing individual college athletes to opt-in to opportunities from OneTeam, while protecting the IP of the institution through approved licensed merchandise.
“Learfields’s continued investment in Compass reinforces its commitment across the entire enterprise to provide innovative solutions for our partner institutions that deliver expertise and value to the college sports market.”
OneTeam, which specialises in athletes’ rights, promises to utilise its experience to maximise the commercial opportunities of athlete NIL for professionals across several leagues to develop select co-branded group licensing deals for college athletes.
Furthemore, the enterprise recently announced a multi-year agreement with Panini America to produce, distribute, promote and sell trading cards featuring current men’s and women’s college athletes who opt-in to the licensing program via OneTeam or its affiliate – Brandr.
“As we do for professional athletes, this agreement allows OneTeam to leverage our platform to create unique opportunities to help college athletes maximize their value,” commented Malaika Underwood, SVP of Licensing at OneTeam.
The business looks to use the Compass platform to ‘efficiently manage the inclusion of athletes’ in the trading card program and additional licensing deals across other product categories and licensees.
Underwood added: “The combination of the company’s expertise, along with CLC’s collegiate relationships and technology forms a best-in-class solution for college athletes to opt-in to licensing opportunities. We look forward to bringing these product opportunities to market.”
In recent years, changes have been made to the athletes rights, for example, in the Athletes Anti-Doping Rights Act, after the Sports Movement intervened in its passage at the World Conference on Doping in Sport.
This included the removal of a recommendation that sporting officials face the same consequences as an athlete for violations of the code with the addition of a sentence clarifying that the Act ‘is not a legal document’.
Moreover, 2019 saw the US women’s football team get paid a quarter of the men’s team. In protest, the women’s team filed a wage discrimination act against US football which resulted in a wage and bonus increase, better travel benefits, and improved financial support for pregnant or adopting players.