Alumni And Fans Push Grassroots NIL Collective
TXST NIL
COLTON MCWILLIAMS SPORTS EDITOR
Sunday, May 12, 2024
The M&G Collective signed 20 Texas State football players to Name, Image and Likeness deals. Offensive lineman Nash Jones is one of the players who will see the benefits.
“To me it’s super important,” Jones said. “It helps me out on a day to day standpoint, not worrying about food, groceries and things of that nature. It also makes me feel important to the team knowing that my coaches are trying to help me orchestrate these things.”
The M&G Collective is run and operated by the Texas State fan website Maroon and Golden with the board members consisting of Justin Shaffer, Josh Brenner, Richard Lopez, John Headrick, Thaddeus Watkins and Alex Kakhnovets Founder member of Maroon and Golden and board member of the M&G Collective Justin Schaffer saw the need for the collective with many on the website’s forum wanting to help the university they love.
“Once NIL became a thing, we had this platform that we created and was having a lot of success,” Schaffer said. “We got together and were reached out to by several members of the forum and social media. Everyone was talking about the need for a grassroots effort of a NIL Collective. We didn’t have anything like that at the time. Because we have this forum of what I would call ‘diehard Texas State Fans,’ that community was able to band together. We were able to establish the M&G Collective LLC.”
The M&G Collective is a subscription based collective where members donate money from $20 a month up to $500 a month. These funds then go into a pool that is used for NIL deals. In return, members are given different awards from free shirts, autographed merchandise from players or exclusive events with the players, just to name a few.
Unfortunately for the collective, time was not on their side with the transfer portal.
“We were able to form a board and get together with a bank to establish a bank account, getting that running within a couple of weeks,” Schaffer said. “We hit the ground running, because at the time, the [transfer] portal became a motivator to get things up and running as soon as possible. Once we got everything running, we went public, and since then we have grown to a point where we were able to fund these 20 additional players for the football team.”
Though the collective started off small with plans of expanding, the amount of support from the fans pushed expansion up more quickly than anyone had thought possible.
“Originally we were planning to sign one to two players,” Schaffer said. “We obviously had big goals and dreams, but we didn’t think it would happen that fast. It is a testament to the fans and the alumni at Texas State who are motivated for [the university] to step up in the role we all believe it is capable of but that we haven’t taken advantage of or fully stepped in that role in the past.”
The support from the Bobcat faithful was something even Jones was taken aback by.
“It is really nice to know that donors and fans want to keep us here,” Jones said. “Having that type of fan base and that type of interaction with the boosters, alumni and fans is something that I’m not used to. So to see this type of support from different people that want us to win games and do very well is nice to see.”
While the success of the collective has been led by the alumni and booster base, the direction of the university, led by the administration at Texas State, has also been critical despite the fact the university has no ties with the collective.
As Schaffer pointed out, the collective would not be possible without the support and leadership of the university.
“The catalyst for [the collective] has been the leadership at Texas State,” Schaffer said. “We are finally pulling in the right direction as a university where everyone in their power is trying to elevate Texas State, Texas State Athletics and Texas State football. Without a football coach, athletic director and university president who all have that same motivating factor and drive to be as successful as possible, I don’t think any of this is possible.”
Another factor for the collective’s success has been the 2023 football season.
The Bobcats opened the season with their first win over a Power 5 school before clinching bowl eligibility and finishing with a 7-5 record, the program’s best season record since 2013. The season ended with the Bobcats qualifying for the program’s first ever bowl game and defeating Rice in the ServPro First Responder Bowl to clinch eight wins in a single season for the first time since 2008.
“We saw G.J. Kinne say last year that the proof of concept is possible,” Schaffer said. “Without that, the fans don’t get as engaged as they are right now and without that support from the administration, none of this is possible. That has been the change over the past couple of years is the buy-in from everyone involved.”
With the increased buyin from the donors and support of the fanbase, the collective continues to grow in members looking to support the football program, which pays big dividends for the players themselves.
“A lot of people think when you get a scholarship, everything is taken care of,” Jones said. “But there is a side that people don’t know of that can be really hard. These deals just help even the playing field in that area. It feels like a reward for what we put in.”
