‘Doing things the right way’: South Main Collective to open doors for athletes and alumni alike

By Diego Palos Rodriguez 8/27/24 11:22pm

As Name, Image and Likeness policies become the norm in collegiate athletics, its evolving influence continues to shape Rice athletics’ landscape. Rice was the only remaining university in the American Athletic Conference without an athletics-wide NIL collective last semester, but on Aug. 2, 2024, Director of Athletics Tommy McClelland announced the creation of the South Main Collective as the official NIL collective of Rice Athletics.

NIL collectives are independent organizations affiliated with the athletic department of a university to raise money to compensate college athletes for using their name, image and likeness. The South Main Collective is operated by former letterwinners Bobby Bramhall, Ben Westcott, Jimmy Comerota and J.T. Trauber. This one collective will unify the existing football, baseball and men’s basketball collectives, as well as incorporating all other Rice Division I sports.

“The South Main Collective will provide NIL possibilities to Rice student-athletes while also helping to prepare them for life after college through professional development and networking opportunities,” McClelland said in a press release.

According to Bramhall, Sports Attorney and General Manager of the South Main Collective, the delay between the creation of NIL collectives for football, baseball and men’s basketball and the South Main Collective comes down to the current administration’s interest in advancing athletics as a whole at Rice.

“I think it’s obviously been needed, because in my opinion, Rice is a top-tier national institution; we’ve proven in almost all sports that we can win at the highest level,” Bramhall said. “But for whatever reason, a school like Rice, I think sometimes athletics doesn’t get prioritized in the way that it can or should, until an [athletics] administration like we have now, President [Reginald] DesRoches and all the good athletic momentum we have right now [come together].”

Prior to the creation of the football team’s The Brotherhood in March of 2022, organization president Westcott explained that many of the modern pieces of the collective were already in place.

“I had been working with the football staff in a leadership and internship program for about 10 years prior to the advent of NIL, so we were already working with the football program and the kids to help them get summer jobs and line them up with interviews and help them get jobs out of school,” Westcott said. “When NIL became available, we just sort of transitioned from that leadership and internship program into our NIL program.”

McClelland also emphasized that the leaders organizing these collectives have their sights set on more than just NIL deals.

“[The collective] is not simply a transaction of funds, but rather tethered to internships, assistantships and making sure that they’re providing mentorships in the process,” McClelland said. “Yes, there is an exchange of money, but there is something deeper. How do we make sure that once sports are over with, how are they getting into the professional world of whatever it is they choose to do?”

Current Rice football offensive captain Dean Connors and former Owl JT Daniels both explained on the organization’s Vimeo website that they were able to secure opportunities with private lending and real estate companies through The Brotherhood network. The Brotherhood also facilitated an upcoming sponsorship deal between a “brand name, national telecommunications company” and a Rice football player.

“If your business is painting houses, you got to paint that first house so you can show somebody what your work looks like,” Westcott said. “I’m hoping that opens the door for us to get more national deals.”

Because of a third-party partner covering all administrative costs, the South Main Collective also guarantees that Rice athletes receive 100% of any sponsorship deals that they can secure through the collective, something that not many other school collectives do. If a company or individual chooses to sponsor a single athlete, that athlete receives the entire deal’s worth. If they choose to sponsor multiple or all athletes in a team, the money is divided equally amongst all the players.

As a former Rice baseball player, Bramhall explained that having NIL opportunities would have not only allowed players to be more engaged in the community but also provided them with more reasons to finish their eligibility at Rice.

“I think we would have had tons of retention,” Bramhall said. “We all wanted to be at Rice when we were there. We talked about this. A lot of my teammates had talked about NIL now versus when we were there; had there been NIL opportunities, you had some players that would have skipped going to the draft.”

Although one of the main goals of the South Main Collective is to allow student athletes a better chance at NIL deals, it also emphasizes enhancing the Rice experience as a whole, something that booster Randy Block ’94 believes sets Rice collectives apart from other schools.

“At some schools, [the schools] just pay [the athletes]; I can say that for the Rice basketball NIL collective, we’re doing things the right way,” Block said. “We’re not trying to give out million-dollar deals to student athletes when we think the better long-term play for them is to get a degree from Rice, go to graduate school, get a great job and use that Rice degree to make a lot more money than you can make from NIL, and I think that is a very unique way of looking at it.”

By reaching out to Rice alumni that may not be as familiar with athletics anymore, McClelland explained that the collectives are a great way to re-engage with the greater Rice community.

“I would personally invite [alums that haven’t been back to Rice in a while] to come and sit with me at a game ... and spend time with our student athletes,” McClelland said. “When you realize that our student athletes have their textbooks, and they’re studying because they have a physics exam coming up next week, it is by far the most inspiring thing, because the Rice student athletes are here for the right reasons. The core of what we’re doing is educating student athletes and preparing them for life after ball.”