Thank you for your continued support of this newsletter. Please share with anyone who would be interested in this content.

If you are interested in NIL athlete representation, NIL education for your college or high school, and student-athlete personal brand coaching, please contact me: [email protected]

Join the NIL Slack Channel!

Join 600+ people to discuss NIL news, concepts, partnerships, and more.

Interested? Reply to this newsletter with your email address and I’ll add you.

The biggest men’s March Madness NIL star is NOT a player

Who is this person?

March Madness is here!

And while it’s hard to say who will be the breakout NIL star during the tournament, it’s clear who the frontrunner is right now before the tournament.

And it’s not a player.

Who is Amir Khan?

The Lake Charles, LA senior is in his second year as the McNeese State men’s basketball team manager.

Three weeks ago, a video was posted across social media of Amir leading the team from the locker room to the court while singing ‘In and Out’ by Lud Foe, word for word.

One word immediate emerged to describe him:

Aura

What’s happened since then?

• Four NIL deals secured to date

  • Insomnia Cookies, Tick Pick, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Rock ‘Em Socks have all partnered with Amir - with the possibility of more deals coming.

• Updated profile

  • McNeese State Athletics gave his page a glowup, which now includes ‘Aura’ as a middle name, his personal email address (presumably for NIL deals) and a photo carousel of his greatest moments to date.

How to carry over the Aura to March Madness?

• Team deals

  • With brands directly messaging Amir, this is perfect timing for him to bring in the entire squad for partnerships.

  • This can be a good opportunity for Louisiana-based brands (where McNeese State is located) such as Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers or Smalls Sliders to partner with the team, or an on-site deal for Dunkin'  as the game is being played in Providence, Rhode Island. (Dunkin has a significant presence in the northeast US, as they are headquartered in nearby Massachusetts.)

• Boombox partnership

  • Amir has been rockin various boomboxes lately from brands such as SOUNDBOKS & Bumpboxx. This is a natural partnership for either brand, and allows Amir to put their products on a national stage. (He's also been featuring brand partnerships on said boomboxes, as shown in the images below.

• Track with Lud Foe

  • While this may be a stretch, might as well capitalize on the moment and have Lud Foe recreate “In and Out’ featuring Amir, or a new song entirely.

  • Side note:

    • Number of monthly Spotify listeners for Lud Foe when this video first went viral: 332,000.

    • As of today: 538,000. (Will assume there’s a strong correlation here.)

Thank You for reading today’s newsletter

^{I discuss insights and news related to NIL and personal branding for athletes every Wednesday at 12p ET/9a PT.}

Follow Sports Court on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube for more NIL content!