STILLWATER – Oklahoma State University athletics sent out an email to it’s donors, season ticket holders, and Posse members on Wednesday afternoon detailing a new entity designed to make it easier and more enticing for Oklahoma State supporters to get involved and help with the NIL effort. It is not a secret that Oklahoma State has been outplayed by many Power Four programs, as have many of the programs at that level. It is hard to keep pace with the Ohio State, Texas, Texas A&M, Mississippi, Georgia, and Oegon type of programs that have fueled their teams, especially football to the tune of $40 plus million dollars. The hope that the College Sports Commission and the ruling that “capped” revenue sharing to be paid to athletes at $20.5 million did not do much to even the field. Schools have run through that like a blinking yellow light.
Oklahoma State has to find an answer as even schools in their own conference, the Big 12, have powerful billionaire donors like Texas Tech, or have become engaged to private equity firms like University of Utah, or have religious affiliated donors coming to arms like BYU.
Oklahoma State is combining the power of their athletic department and University with their media partner Learfield, and the longtime fund raising arm for scholarship in athletics in the OSU Posse.
The “alliance” is aiming to foster the importance of funding the financial benefits of student-athletes and provide them new tools and resources for success on-and-off -the-field. It’s interesting because one of the most successful programs athletically so far this season in men’s basketball went rogue last spring and launched their own independent fund raising effort to get more money in order to pay more to players available in the transfer portal. It worked to a degree and the results are still out there to achieve. Steve Lutz’ team in its’ second season is 9-1 heading into a hame game on Thursday night with Kansas City. The team added 11 players through the portal or in recruiting and it has been successful in that the team has played better on the court.
Robert Allen - Pokes Report
Chad Weiberg with new head football coach Eric Morris.
“At Oklahoma State, we have long empowered our student-athletes to achieve success in academics and athletics,” said Weiberg in the release. “The launch of The Alliance represents a tremendous opportunity for our student athletes to become entrepreneurs in commercial activity driven by their brand. By streamlining our efforts and expanding our NIL initiatives, we’re aligning the brands of our student athletes with the strength of OSU Athletics brand, our business partnerships, and the power of our loyal fan base.”
The department has promoted one of their own to head up this effort.
Oklahoma State Athletics
Brakston Brock heads up the new Oklahoma State NIL alliance.
Brakston Brock is now the Senior Associate AD of NIL Strategy and Revenue Generation. He was formerly in the fundraising department under Senior Associate Athletic Director Larry Reece.
According to the release, again sent to Posse members, donors, and season ticket holders. One athletic department official told me the effort is really targeting businesses that can provide substantial NIL opportunities for major player acquisitions. Pokes Report learned that they had a strong day on dec. 17 in raising funds and NIL opportunities and that new head coach Eric Morris was on the phone with a number of business owners working on the project. Part of the effort was to try to raise money for a quarterback.
Brock will lead the coordination of all OSU NIL Alliance activities across OSU Athletics and associated entities. This will ensure alignment and a streamlined effort across all of OSU Athletics' revenue generating units and commercial partners in an effort to maximize the brand opportunities for all student athletes. In addition to this, he’ll ensure OSU continues to maximize compliance alignment, brand development, external partnerships, and student-athlete education. His experience in revenue generation and strategic partnerships will be instrumental in elevating OSU’s position as a national leader in NIL innovation.
The response and success of this operation will likely go a long way in determining how competitive in the future that Oklahoma State will be in all sports, but especially key sports and football.
