Dear Obie Sanni,

I’m reaching out to you because I know your background of being a running back for the ODU football running back the team from Aurora, CO. On the field, you are football focused, but from a recent interview, I’ve found out about your interest in self-care and fashion content.  

Your interest makes you very marketable, as they tend to a certain niche. To make brands notice and want to work with you, the best approach is to post like a social media influencer. To build your personal brand I suggest you post multiple times a week with vlog-like content. This would be helpful as it shows viewers relatable content. Some content examples I have to include:

• Get Ready with Me – Content showing a preview of pregame day, practice, and even a day off
  • This type of content is likely to attract self-care brands, especially as you show the products your using
• What I eat in a day – content showing what you eat during the day to fuel your athletic body.
  • This type of content will make it more attractive to sports drink/food brands to reach out for collaborations and brand deals.
• Behind-the-scenes/workout videos – content showing what workouts and recovery stretches.
  • This is a way to interact and build with his following base because his fans are more than likely to follow him to see what workouts he does.

By maintaining content and a posting schedule, you can profit a lot from building your brand presence on social media. In fact, the highest brand deal in the NIL goes to quarterback Bryce Young, earning close to $1 million with 263K followers. Getting high revenue from the NIL is not impossible, it all starts with building your personal brand through content. A brand I would like to pitch to you is ASHOC energy drinks. It’s an energy drink company that helps athletic performance. This would be easy for a beginner brand collab, as this brand is known for collaborating with athletes. There is an abundant amount of content you could create for this brand, from as simple as a picture on Instagram, to incorporating it into the content ideas I listed above.  Here are some examples of how the NFL and other athletes made content for the brand below.  

I think this would be a good footstep in the door of brand collaborations and promotions. Then you can further your brand deals into your interest with self-care and fashion brands. The NIL is an opportunity for athletes to profit off endorsements, which I think should be taken advantage of and used to make more money off building your personal brand. There are some ground rules when posting with NIL. You may not endorse gambling, tobacco, alcohol, or adult entertainment. There are more rules which you can find in this link.