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Sports Court #63 | Johnny Football x NIL (Part 1)
The fastest 3 minutes in name, image and likeness
Tariq Ahmad
August 16, 2023
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Today’s Case
How much money would Johnny Manziel have made if NIL was in place during his college playing days? (Part 1 of 2)
Former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
*Today and Friday’s newsletters will take a slightly different approach from the standard NIL news story, while still keeping within the 3 minute theme (hence splitting the topic into two posts).
This past weekend I watched Untold: Johnny Football on Netflix. Among all the games and moments I remember (and some I didn’t), it got me thinking:
How much money would Manziel have made if NIL was legal in 2012?
The Verdict (NOTE: There are spoilers from the documentary below):
Facts we (definitely) know
The Texas A&M Foundation eclipsed $740 million in donations in 2012, $300 million more in donations that any other year in the university’s history.
Texas A&M's media exposure value was approximately $37 million courtesy of the Manziel publicity after his Heisman-winning 2012 season.
Facts we (kinda) know
In the documentary, Manziel is quoted as saying: “I was tired of not having any money. And I sure as hell saw 45 million #2 adidas jerseys sold and it didn’t make any sense.”
Although that number is pretty high and I couldn’t find any validity of this number, I’ll take Manziel at his word for this hypothetical scenario.
Potential opportunities
Jersey sales
Let’s take the supposed 45 million #2 adidas jerseys sold, which went for $60 each, which totals over $2.7 billion (!!!)
Generally schools receive $3-4 dollars in royalties per jersey sold (this number is higher now, but factoring in rules in 2012 for this scenario). Using the conservative $3 royalty per jersey, this comes to $135 million.
If Manziel earned 10% of that per jersey sold (a paltry 30 cents each), he still would have made $1.35 million on his jersey sales alone.
T-shirt jersey sales
Manziel could have also made a fortune on his t-shirt jersey number sales.
Assuming 100,000 shirts sold at $25 each = $2.5 million, with Manziel earning 10%, meaning he would have taken home $250,000.
Tune in again on Friday for Part 2 with an additional breakdown of potential revenue streams and my NIL payout guesstimate for Johnny Football.
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