During South Carolina's 2023-24 athletic season, Garnet Trust, the official NIL collective of Gamecock Athletics, landed two large donation match campaigns during its football and men's basketball seasons in an effort to encourage more Gamecocks to get involved with donating.
The challenge was to "inspire more Gamecock fans to join the surge of those already investing in University of South Carolina athletes," according to the university's press release for the football campaign.
The NCAA changed its policy in June 2021 to allow athletes to receive financial compensation off their name, image and likeness (NIL).
Now that three years have passed, fans like Jeff O'Hara — the co-owner of CB18 Bar and Grill and a Gamecock fan involved in NIL — and Brad Sales — a Gamecock fan who donates monthly towards NIL at South Carolina — believe the meaning behind NIL in college sports has drastically changed.
But both believe NIL has become another donor-funded industry in college athletics when it was originally originally intended to be centered around player sponsorships.
“The fact is: this is college sports today — without money, you’re not going anywhere,” Sales said . “I think this completely turned into, the perception is, if you don't give as the average fan, you will not be successful.”
Sales said he believes the NIL space was originally supposed to help college athletes gain sponsorships and create a brand for themselves, not to receive donations from fans.
“I think NIL was rolling out for a lot of situations like (EA Sports') College Football 25,” Sales said . “I think it was rolling out for (fifth-year punter) Kai Kroger wanting to go do a commercial with Kubota."
O'Hara said he believes the original design of NIL wasn’t to obtain money from the average fan. But he said he understands the need for universities, collectives and fans to be aligned in their vision.
He also compared the market to the "wild west" with its lack of uniform rules. If a program doesn't have a large donor fund in the NIL space, it will be left in the dust, O'Hara.
“When NIL was first created, it was named image and likeness, and it was an opportunity for players to be able to capitalize just on that: their name, image and likeness,” O’Hara said. “And somewhere along the way, it has gotten a little bit misconstrued about schools paying players to get there and things to come."
Garnet Trust and the Gamecock Club
The South Carolina Statehouse passed a bill in May 2024 that allows in-state colleges and universities to have more oversight over their athletes' NIL deals.
The change allowed for greater collaboration to exist between Garnet Trust, South Carolina's official NIL partner, and the Gamecock Club, Gamecock Athletics’ in-house non-profit organization that has financially supported the university’s athletes through scholarships since 1940.
Garnet Trust is an extension of what the athletic department does through the Gamecock Club, said Hilary Cox, the executive associate athletics director for strategic initiatives for Gamecock Athletics.
“It is really important that we're all kind of in lockstep from a priority standpoint,” Cox said. “They basically handle what we call 'deliverables' that our athletes have to do associated with, basically working hand in hand with the Gamecock Club.”
Deliverables are marketing activities athletes complete that help promote the Gamecock Club, said Jeremy Smith, the director of operations with Garnet Trust.
The Gamecock Club has taken the lead in donor funds for NIL at South Carolina now that the university is allowed to be more involved in the NIL dealings of its student-athletes. Cox said that the donors are the "lifeblood" of their operation. And the change in state law allows the athletic department to make sure those donors are taken care of, such as incorporating a subscription-based streaming service that features exclusive Gamecock Athletics' content.
With these changes, Garnet Trust has conceded the donor-funded side of NIL to the Gamecock Club, opting to focus solely on finding sponsorship deals for Gamecock athletes. The collective also partners with Steel Hand Brewery to sell a "Gameday Lager," where a portion of every beverage sold goes directly to Garnet Trust to benefit Gamecock athletes.
“In March, we were 80% donor funded. Now, we're not doing it, or we're not participating in these donor funds, right?" Smith said. "We're having to educate the donor that they should be going to the Gamecock Club for NIL.”
Smith said in a world with ever-changing rules, that vision can get misaligned and can sometimes break down, forcing both Garnet Trust and the Gamecock Club to pivot whenever those regulations are modified.
“Way back at the building, everybody’s on the same page," Smith said. "But to the customer, to the fan, to the donor, to the business, it sometimes can get a little bit confusing.”
Cox said the Gamecock Club and Garnet Trust are in constant communication to ensure their vision stays on track. The two entities talk every day and meet several times a week to troubleshoot any issues they may run into.
While communication is constant internally, Cox said it's difficult to be fully transparent with the public and Gamecock Athletics can't share NIL-related details because of recruiting.
"You can't go out and say how much money you've raised or how much money you've earned because then the other schools can either use this against you or, you know, try to beat it down or something," Cox said. "It is a really delicate dance of trying to share as much information as possible ... you’re at the top, and there's a lot of pressure here.”
Pressure to get involved
Donors see their direct impact in NIL through player recruitment in college sports, O’Hara said.
That knowledge comes with pressure.
“You look at Tennessee's recruiting class right now, they just landed David Sanders, the No. 1 offensive tackle in the nation. He went to a school based on what NIL offered," O'Hara said. "How much you willing to give? You know, if you're not willing to give it all, ultimately, you can't really have expectations on our athletic programs."
Sales said he wonders if the pressure is this high everywhere, and he wishes there was more transparency regarding where his money is going.
"I love to see some sort of financials," Sales said. "Where is this money going? So, maybe a quarterly newsletter, a monthly, that says, 'Okay, we were donated X amount this month. Here's where some of it went. Here's where some of it went. Here's one story that was able to touch' ... Those are the types of things that make me and other average fans continue to give."
Gamecock fans make their mark
Sales got his start in the NIL space, with help from O’Hara, by facilitating a one-time NIL deal for former Gamecock catcher Cole Messina during the 2023 season. He was looking for a way to get involved, he said.
Sales saw a post O’Hara put out on X, formerly known as Twitter, looking for someone to help with individual NIL deals. O'Hara's idea was that NIL could be great for local businesses to reach their target audiences directly and help their business.
O'Hara has found multiple ways to get himself involved from hosting "Garnet Nights Unplugged" — a live call-in show featuring Gamecock players that took place last season at CB18 — to taking his profits from his Gamecock-themed Airbnbs to put into NIL deals.
"I said, 'Hey, how I like to do our NIL is I'll take my players who have the exact week I'm looking for with Gamecocks fans help them promote local businesses,'" O'Hara said. "And, in turn, they get to make those marketing and revenue and advertising dollars that these big corporations will typically, you know, you would eat right off of an algorithm."
Small individual deals like this are important, Smith said, because they align heavily with the original intent of NIL and are extremely helpful for the average athlete.
"(O'Hara) created a lot of these opportunities for athletes like Cole (Messina) to capitalize on a moment within their career and capitalize on that name image and likeness,” Smith said. “It helps a lot more athletes out than many people know.”
O'Hara participates because he is a "superfan" who wants to support his favorite college sports teams. For him, he wants to see the University of South Carolina to be known as a place where student-athletes have creative ways to be able to earn money.
"The more money you generate in NIL, the better product you're going to put out on the field," O’Hara said. “Just like in Netflix, you pay that subscription service, you're going to see better movies.”
Cox said it’s a personal decision on whether or not to donate at the end of the day.
"It's individualized," Cox said. "That takes time, so that's just what we're kind of trying to work through database, work through questions, work through fans, and try to help explain, one by one, in hopes that that person will turn around and then go share that with the next three people."