The Portland State athletic department announced its first step into the Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) space Tuesday, as the department partners with FanWord on its new FanWord Boost platform.
The platform allows student-athletes to consolidate their social media profiles and entrepreneurial endeavors into one location, easing the connection between them and interested individuals or businesses. The profiles will be collated into a student-athlete directory, which is accessible via the following link: https://app.fanword.com/teams/portlandstate. The directory will also be linked under the "Athletics" tab on the department's website.
Portland State is part of the first class of schools to adopt the FanWord Boost platform. In addition to the Vikings, Boise State, Oakland, Arkansas Little Rock, the College Gymnastics Association and two NIL collectives – Rising Spear and Think NIL – associated with Florida State and Texas Christian University, respectively, were part of the inaugural class of adoptees.
"We're incredibly excited to welcome Portland State as one of the first FanWord Boost partners and to launch their student-athlete directory," Christopher Aumueller, the CEO of FanWord and a former men's tennis student-athlete at the University of Nebraska, said of the partnership.
"It's always great to partner with organizations that genuinely care about helping their athletes with NIL and other professional opportunities. This directory is going to be another powerful resource for all student-athletes here at Portland State. We're already seeing a lot of athletes active on the directory and can't wait to get everyone else onboarded in the next few days and weeks."
In addition to linking their social media profiles, student-athletes may also link any camps or lessons they're offering, as well as any personal businesses they may have. External audiences may also filter the directory to view anyone offering lessons in a certain sport, or view which student-athletes are on which social media platforms.
Twenty-three student-athletes have already signed up for the directory at Portland State. Further sign-ups will occur as student-athletes begin to report back to campus in late July/early August.
Anyone interested in contacting a student-athlete through the directory may visit the individual student-athlete's page and click on the "contact" button near the top of the page. FanWord will then review the message to ensure its legitimacy before passing it along to the individual student-athlete.
In addition to the FanWord Boost platform, Portland State has also posted its institutional NIL policy here (PDF). Further announcements regarding the department's plans to address the new NIL legislation will come later this summer.
Any current or incoming Portland State student-athletes interested in signing up for the NIL Directory may contact Aumueller via caumueller@fanword.com.
Source: https://goviks.com/news/2022/6/27/GEN_20220628.aspx
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