A group of Texas Tech alumni are signing 100 Red Raider football players to one-year, $25,000 NIL contracts.
The Matador Club, a non-profit collective formed in 2022, is taking on the players with the goal of providing community service outreach and raise awareness for local charities in the greater Lubbock, Texas area.
In a report from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, each contract is renewable at the end of the year and payments to players will occur monthly beginning August 1. All contracts are non-exclusive, meaning players as high profile as quarterback Tyler Shough to walk-ons will receive the same benefits.
Cody Campbell, one of the founders of the Matador Club, told the Avalanche-Journal that while the goal of the collective is to give much needed services to the community, they’d also like to support their alma mater, starting with football.
“What we want to do, really, is support the entire program… This is kind of a base salary for the guys. They’re not going to be restricted from doing any other NIL stuff with anybody else. In fact, we’re going to encourage and help them to do that,” said Campbell. “We want [the players] to feel supported by the Texas Tech community.”
This isn’t the first instance of a team-wide name, image and likeness deal, particularly with an emphasis on charity. Universities such as Texas-Austin and Ohio State have worked with non-profit on NIL deals focused around community service as well.
With a collective like the Matador Club at their disposal, Campbell and Co. hope that this will make Texas Tech a desirable spot for recruits to build their personal NIL brand, while bolstering the team as a whole.
The Matador Club has yet to release how much the collective has raised, but On3.com suggests that with their contracts at $25,000 for close to 100 players, the organization has gathered at least $2.5M. Not a bad start for a program looking to become one of the elite programs in the newly-molded Big 12 Conference.
