By: Madeline Alexander INDIANAPOLIS- As a so-called social media influencer with a TikTok following of about 380,000 people, social media has changed my life by giving me amazing connections that I will use for a lifetime. https://www.tiktok.com/@alexandermaddie Shown is Maddie Alexanders large TikTok following. I started TikTok in 2019, during my freshman year of college. Using the platform was my way of coming out as gay. At that point in time, I hadn’t shared with many people who I really was, so TikTok was my way of showing that side of me to the world instead of having to have maybe tough individual conversations. Pictured is Maddie Alexander taking video of the Franklin College Softball team for the school social media. Photo by Brandon Eads. My first ever video blew up immediately, and the more LGBTQ+ content I made, the more DMs I would get from people thanking me for helping them come out. I remember this exact message that changed my view on everything: “I just wanted to reach out and say thank you. Thank you for being yourself and being so open about being in the LGBTQ+ community. You helped me come out to my family and if it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be here today.” I got hundreds of DMs like this and the fact that I could help even one person made me want to keep posting. It was more than just posting random videos; it became a way to express myself and my lifestyle to a wide audience. As I started posting more about my life, I began gaining an audience of not only LGBTQ+ people. But as a College Athlete who plays soccer, I was able to reach a sports audience. As a Public Relations and Journalism major, I also started showing my work behind the camera at sporting events. Since the start, I have had hundreds of brands reach out to me for paid collaborations which has allowed me to make a job out of it. Social media has allowed me to create a brand for myself, but I am not unique. Now that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has helped pass the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) law, many athletes have had the opportunity to make a name for themselves. The controversy on whether college athletes should get paid has gone on for years. Previously students couldn’t profit from promotional activities or get sponsored products in exchange for promotions, and all the money earned from athletes was being taken by the university. According to the new (NCAA) rules, “Name, image and likeness (or NIL) are the three elements that make up “right of publicity”, a legal concept used to prevent or allow the use of an individual to promote a product or service.” The NIL policy now allows college athletes to receive compensation through promotional endeavors and marketing. Athletes can be compensated for things like social media posts, autographs, advertisement campaigns, modeling apparel, endorsing products or services, and more. Pictured is Texas football player Quinn Ewers promoting Wranglers on his Instagram page. Photo on https://www.instagram.com/p/Chpq-C5uSqx/. DAVIS: HOW IT WORKS, WHY IT’S BENEFICIAL Ramsey Davis, a soccer player who just transferred from Ole Miss to play at the University of Houston, works with several big brands such as Raising Cane's, Bio steel sports drink, Lulus clothing company, Slate Milk protein drink, and Novashine. Pictured is Ramsey Davis in a post she made for her Raisin Canes paid partnership. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cclv0htLQgA/ Davis thinks that having the opportunity to do NIL deals is beneficial to college sports because it gives motivation to players on and off the field, “for me and my teammates it motivates us to be better, to be more competitive, and to win more games. Because we can get NIL deals as a team and not just only as an individual. Davis talked about how it sheds light on the players who don't necessarily get a lot of playing time. Not all college athletes get their name known from playing their sport. There are also college athletes that have a social media following that might not play a lot, “I think it gives them an opportunity to do what they want with their following,” Davis said. Pictured is Ramsey Davis during one of her games at Ole Miss after a viral video went out of her on the field. Picture provided by Ramsey Davis. As a women's soccer player Davis said she hasn't seen a huge difference in crowd appearance just because the sport is not as popular as sports like basketball and football. She mentions that if it wasn't for NIL, players like Angel Reese from LSU wouldn’t have become who she is now. When it comes to getting these deals through companies Davis works with one of the most popular ones, Post Game. The app gives a list of your roster, and whatever your NIL yearly is supposed to be. You get offers through the app by people or companies that want you to work with them. “That’s how I got the lulus, and the Bio steel deals, was through Post Game” Davis said. As far as specific social media outlets Davis said she mostly uses Instagram. She said that many brands will reach out and send specific campaigns with the hashtags and captions they want her to use. Pictured is Ramsey Davis playing during a game at Ole Miss. Photo provided. KUNKEL: IT WASN’T FAIR, THIS NEEDED TO HAPPEN Dr. Thilo Kunkel, a sports business professor at Temple University, and a founder of the “SPRTER” sport content experience app has conducted a lot of NIL related research. Kunkel believes that athletes being able to profit and have the right to build a personal brand is long overdue. Dr. Thilo Kunkel is pictured here. Photo provided by Dr. Thilo Kunkel. Kunkel talked about the amount of work it takes to develop your personal brand on a consistent level and how having a large social media following is important. “Brands are partnering with athletes that can help the brand achieve their goal. So whether that athlete is also scoring goals, buckets, or performing on the gymnastics beam, that is almost secondhand”, he says due to the fact that having a large engaged following is more important. Pictured is Dr. Thilo Kunkel a sports business professor at Temple University. Photo provided. ZION SANDERS: MORE LOGISTICS/BENEFITS Zion Sanders, a former basketball player at Iowa who now helps coach women's basketball at Tennessee, talked about how much NIL has changed college sports from a coaches perspective. Sanders talked about how many of the girls on her team work with a local collective that helps them get deals. A few of those deals include big companies like Mercedes Benz, Weigel's Gas Station, and Krystal’s. “NIL allows these athletes to make more money than they would in their respective professional sport”, she says. Zion Sanders coach picture provided by the University of Tennessee. The transfer portal is crazy right now, with many athletes wanting to transfer to another school. Sanders says she believes the transfer portal is so crazy because of athletes leaving to try and get more NIL money. “I thought it was going to be about athletes making money from jersey and T-shirt sales, I never imagined it would be from getting sponsorships from big brands”, Sanders said. Pictured is Zion Sanders, assistant women’s basketball coach at Tennessee. Photo provided. Athletes are now staying in college even longer because they are now able to make a profit. For example, icon source found that, “Marshall offensive lineman Will Ulmer is hoping the new NIL rules will kick off his music career. On the other hand, with something tailored more specifically to sports, Dontae Allen announced his own line of custom merchandise.” What people don’t know is that NIL deals are actually very common in the college sports world. According to CBS News, “At the University of Minnesota, 20% of student-athletes participate in NIL. Of those deals, 43% are represented in women's sports and 57% in men's. There is at least one student-athlete from every Gopher sport.” Pictured is Katelynn Duff who has a large TikTok following and plays soccer at Franklin College. Photo by Sydney Bostic. It’s not as easy as it looks, but it’s worth it. I had to learn how to go about this influencer life myself, as a teenager who started out knowing almost nothing. Most people don’t take classes or work a job that teaches you how to run a large platform account so you kind of have to teach yourself. As someone who is about to graduate with a degree in Journalism and Public Relations taking this social media route has given me a lot of prior knowledge and put me ahead in classes. It has given me more connections and made networking easier. When brands started reaching out it was sometimes and is still sometimes hard to tell if its legitimate. Dealing with different managers and companies is not easy but the benefits do make it worthwhile. I have been able to make money that I have used to get equipment to get even bigger and to make content that people want to see and be entertained by. Many NIL athletes are doing the same things and would agree that the work is worth it. Pictured is Maddie Alexander and Genesis Munoz getting social media content for the Franklin College pages. Photo by Brandon Eads. Story by Maddie Alexander