Intro (00:00):

Welcome to the Taylor 10. A fast-paced, 10 minute deep dive into the minds of those shaking up the marketing world, bringing you the sharpest insights, boldest ideas and breakthrough trends driving the industry forward. So tune in, get inspired, and stay ahead.

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Meg (00:17):

Welcome to the Taylor 10, I am Meg Scott, an Account Director here at Taylor. And today we're diving into the business of college sports because that is exactly what it is and these business numbers are growing by the day. Joining me today is my husband, Trey Scott, nepotism alert. He is the Director of Editorial at CBS Sports. He spent over a decade covering everything from recruiting, name, image and likeness and some really cool athlete stories. Hi Trey. Thanks so much for joining me.

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Trey (00:46):

Hey Meg, thanks for having me.

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Meg (00:48):

I think you have a very unique perspective kind of across the aisle from where I sit in the PR marketing world and a lot of the time we're pitching people just like you, the decision makers at these big outlets. So you're kind of the perfect person. And I'd love to kick off with, you see so many NIL campaigns - some are really great and some are super forgettable. I'm curious what makes a deal feel authentic to you? You want to say, call up your writer and be like, “Hey, we got to cover this. Let's say yes to this”, and then what's just a total pass flop? Not interested

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Trey (01:29):

For us, it doesn't matter how big of a deal the player is, what the brand is. If the player acts like he cares or she cares about what the product is and that comes through in the advertisement, that's a win and that's something that we're going to cover and want to do. If the player, even if it's the best player in college football covering a big brand, acts like this is just another paycheck and there's something they're checking off their list for that day, then we're not going to have any interest in doing that.

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Meg (02:01):

I know you and I have talked a bit in the past, we get excited every year for the Dr. Pepper Fansville campaign commercials. What sticks out to you about those and how do they continue to reinvent them every year and make them newsworthy?

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Trey (02:18):

They're funny. They lean into the personalities of the pitch people. So two years ago they had Caleb Williams who had just won the Heisman. So a, that's a huge get, but also Caleb really showed off his acting chops and there had been the conversation that the commercial was cursed because the last few guys had either been hurt or didn't have a good year. So Caleb did a commercial about not believing in curses as he walked under a ladder and a black cat walked past him. And then last year, Quinn Ewers, the Texas quarterback. Memorably said, we don't need to call in any backup. He was acting like a state trooper or something. And that's of course a reference to his backup being Arch Manning who's the most famous player in college football even a year ago. And it's good writing. It's also a willingness of the athlete to have some fun. We don't always see that. We don't always see that in press conferences. You don't always see that in media executions, but when you do get it, it's magic and it cuts through and it is something that people will remember two to three years down the line and it makes it stand out. So having good writing and having athletes who are not afraid to poke fun of themselves or lean into what people are actually saying about them, I think that's pretty key.

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Meg (03:36):

Yeah, that's such a good point. It just shows that Dr. Pepper is very in tune with their audience, the social conversation happening in the world around them, and they just continue to lean in and find talent who's down to clown, so to speak. So I think we'll be looking forward to that one in August. Again, curious, if you were advising a brand on where to look for the next big voice in college sports, where would you look? I know the women's NCAA college softball World Series really caught our eye. There's so much that Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reese have done for women's college hoops, and of course football just continues to be the big beast that just gets bigger and bigger. So if I'm a brand, where would you consider dipping my toe in? If I want to get into the NIL world,

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Trey (04:32):

Meg, I'm sure you're going to agree with me. Isn't it athlete reach or, and that's on social media or it's in the moment striking while the iron is hot. You mentioned the Women's College World Series. There were players who no one had known nationally who they were two weeks earlier who became big deals overnight, like NiJaree Canady, the Texas Tech pitcher. And so maybe it's being nimble and saying, Hey, what do we have and how do we get NiJa Canady to do something with us now would be big. Outside of that, it would be recognizing who's going to have a big season, who's going to be part of the national discourse and being choosy. I think about saving some to strike while the iron's hot. You would know better than me, but that's what I would do because that's what I see reaches and resonates. It's a few times every year we get one athlete that has a period of fandom that lasts longer than the 15 minutes of fame. And if you can capitalize on that or better yet predict who that's going to be based on team success, athlete, skill athlete potential to go viral, I think that's where you're going to have your biggest wins.

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Meg (05:42):

Use the word nimble. And I think sometimes with corporate clients there's a lot of red tape, a lot of planning ahead for next fiscals, but as an agency to these corporate clients, we're always trying to push in that stay loose, stay on your toes, get in Newsjacking when you can insert yourself into the conversation strike while the iron's hot. So I love that you said all that. I understand we're in July and there's been a huge transformation. We're kind of in uncharted territory, so to speak, with revenue sharing between college athletes and schools now taking place. I would just love if you could talk us through what that actually means, because I think a lot of people are like, well, NIL was already legalized. So what is the difference between rev share and kind of just map out for us this new house settlement and what's taken place over the past couple of weeks?

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Trey (06:39):

Yeah, I'll try to keep this simple. NIL four years ago was supposed to just simply be players getting paid off of their value of their name, image, and likeness. It turned into schools finding ways to give players gobs of money, and I mean multiple millions of money based on their value on the field and not at all about do they even do a commercial? The NCAA is powerless to stop it. And so what we had last few months in last year was the House NCAA settlement that there was the concession that the NCAA says, okay, you know what? These players do deserve to get paid. So while we're not going to call them athletes, they're going to get a rev share cut. Each school is going to have about $20.5 million to divvy up between its programs. Anything extra is still legal now.

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(07:32):

Anything extra now needs to be, if it's over $600, it needs to be audited and approved by a Deloitte. They brought Deloitte in. So if Meg, for instance, someone wanted to give you, and you're a star wide receiver, a million dollar NIL deal, well, you better have some actual social media following. You better actually be doing brand marketing for that brand. You better actually be doing commercials and going to events and rocking the gear. So there's an opportunity now for players to lean back into NIL as it was supposed to be, and schools are going to be more aggressive than ever on finding legitimate NIL deals from the biggest brands in the country to local community mom and pops, because that's the only way their players are going to make extra money now because we believe there is going to be enforcement on anything over $600 for NIL.

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Meg (08:29):

Well, I definitely learned something new today, the new cycle with all this NIL rev share. It just felt like there was something new every day. So thank you for coming on and giving us the TLDR on all the sweeping changes, the new era we're in. This time next year, we'll have to have you back and kind of do an evaluation on how things have changed. Is it for the better? Is it for the worse? Have we finally figured it out? So more to come. We'll keep eyes close to this and just appreciate your expertise in joining us on the Taylor 10 today.

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Trey (09:01):

Thanks for having me.

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