Oklahoma's First-of-its-Kind Athlete Services Division to Enhance NIL, More

The University of Oklahoma athletic department announced Thursday the creation of a first-of-its-kind Athlete Services Division to take its NIL program beyond the typical collectives model schools have embraced over the past two years.

As reported by The Oklahoman, the new division is aimed at helping athletes “understand and command the value of their personal brand,” educating businesses about NIL, assisting athletes in understanding how to fulfill NIL agreements, creating content, growing their media presence and educating in applicable laws and NCAA compliance.

OU's official announcement can be found on the athletics website.

The creation of the division expands OU’s existing partnership with Altius Sports Partners, which began in March 2022, according to Ryan Aber of The Oklahoman. "Altius has worked with programs around the country, offering consulting to athletic departments on NIL issues," Aber wrote. "Some schools have used Altius for expanded services, offering a more personalized and dedicated approach."

“The change that we’re seeing — we’re not going to reverse course as an industry,” said Andrew Donovan, executive vice president of Altius Sports Partners College, as reported by The Oklahoman. “And whether change is dictated by federal legislation, through litigation, through the National Labor Relations Board or some other method, things are going to continue to evolve.

“The way I try to approach this is take what we know about the current system, the structure of campus and the operations of campus, and try to start to think a little bit differently about how you’re going to approach this. Have respect and appreciation for where we’ve been as an industry and what the collegiate model represents but have an open-mindedness to the fact that change is OK.

"At the end of the day, the changes we’re talking about is in large part meant to benefit the 18-to-22-year-olds we’re serving. Being open to that, which obviously Oklahoma is through an initiative like this, and trying to be positive about how you’re evaluating your adjustment to that change is the way I approach this role and certainly I would say Oklahoma is approaching the change as well.” 

According to Aber, OU executive associate athletics director for NIL and operational advancement Toby Baldwin will coordinate the division’s athlete-facing education, advocacy and transactional services. An Altius athlete revenue analyst will focus on optimizing athlete revenue streams while also serving as a liaison to coaches and other stakeholders in the department.

"The division is designed to offer experienced professionals to support athletes and identify how to maximize and diversify revenue opportunities for athletes, overall strategic alignment, athlete education, adaptability to the changing landscape of college athletics and to leverage Altius’ national perspective with OU’s athletics department’s  local knowledge," Aber wrote.

Athletic director Joe Castiglione emphasized the OU wont' be involved in brokering NIL deals, and that such deals won't be the sole focus of the Athlete Services Division.

“It really transcends NIL because it’s focusing on a much more comprehensive and personalized support for athletes so it’s requiring us to invest more resources to help them and then by helping them we’re helping them help themselves,” Castiglione said.  “We know that our efforts in the past, while very good, need to continue to grow too. We just wanted to think proactively of where we believe this particular world is going and not just react to an immediate, incremental next step. It’s what can we do to really help our athletes be more successful in this space.

“This is more of a skate-where-the-puck-is-going vision than just waiting to see how things evolve. There are things that we know, there are things that we don’t yet know, and there are things in some categories that haven’t yet been well-defined but we know something out of the world of the unknowns will present itself in the not-too-distant future, so we think this model’s going to be the right structure for us to be best positioned to evolve and pivot and adapt to the world going forward.”