TROVE: It might be good to start with a sort of state of NIL at Seton Hall. I know that the school has launched the NIL marketplace and there have been some smaller events like a camp and meet and greet with the men’s basketball team. I don’t know how deep into the weeds you can get regarding figures and specifics, but I believe G3 Marketing’s total were near $500,000 toward the end of November. Where does SHU’s NIL situation sit currently? What has been raised for NIL and how much has been spent and where?

FELT: With us and NIL, we’ve always emphasized two critically important aspects – education and opportunity. We provide the education to our student athletes, so they understand the opportunities, while also ensuring opportunities are available to them, so they may earn income from their NIL. We partnered with a company called Compass, which provides education modules on various aspects regarding NIL including tax implications and contracts. We have another system called Game Plan, which provides an interactive and engaging curriculum on how they get started, how they manage money, how they deal with debt management, all that kind of stuff. We also have guest speakers visit to discuss financial planning and marketing strategies as they relate to NIL.

So, certainly we are doing our best to provide as much education as possible to our student-athletes as it relates to NIL. In terms of how we are helping with the opportunities, we have the Open Dorse marketplace, which has been a good vehicle to provide any student athlete that has an interest, an opportunity to put their name and their brand out there so that it can be connected to local businesses, corporations, alumni and our fans and that's worked well so far. I think we've had a lot of students take advantage of it.

The other opportunity we are providing is through Hall Ball Events. We've endorsed Hall Ball events as one of the most significant vehicles for NIL with our student athletes. Hall Ball events is a creation from G3 Marketing and the Team First Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3), tax deductible foundation. They’ve worked with other schools, such as Xavier and Cincinnati, and Kansas. I know they've done some work with some Big East schools like Villanova, Georgetown and Creighton over the years, so they're very familiar with this space. Essentially, they are a professional event company, they run events for professional athletes, teams, and they certainly now have gotten into the college space.

The President of that company is a Seton Hall alum, Eric Liebler. I knew Eric from our days as students as did Shaheen [Holloway]. He was a member of the basketball staff as a student manager and later as the Graduate Assistant when Shaheen played here, so we have a good relationship with Eric, which made it a natural fit to endorse this opportunity. To date, Hall Ball Events under Eric’s leadership has done an excellent job raising funds that have provided several opportunities for our student-athletes in the form of camps, autograph signings, appearances at stores and local business as well as social media promotions. The latest offering is a website where fans can contribute directly to these initiatives: www.hallballevents.com. Fans and alumni can make tax deductible contributions via the site that will go to supporting student-athletes and their NIL. Eric and Hall Ball Events have done an excellent job connecting with supporters and raising a considerable amount of money to provide these opportunities to our student-athletes. As we all know, NIL is an important aspect of the student-athlete experience and remaining competitive, so they will continue to work to build on the work they have done, and I encourage anyone who has interest to support to please contact Eric or visit the website.

Trove: I completely understand you not wanting to share exact figures on that front. I know that it can be a detriment or hindrance to the student athletes as they may look or demand for a significant cut of that or fans may push back and demand student athletes return that money if they do not perform to a certain level or expectation.

Now, I know that some think the school moved too slowly into NIL because of prohibitive laws at the state level. How is the university working to amend/improve those prohibitive measures? What other challenges are you running into that fans/supporters should be aware of?

Felt: We knew NIL was coming, we jumped right in the pool like everybody else. We knew we had to, but we were always strategic about it and wanted to make sure we were making educated decisions not to put the university or our athletic department at risk in any way. We obviously worked with our general counsel here and other leaders within the university community, everybody was understanding of the challenges with NIL, but knew we had to embrace it. From the start of NIL we had a plan and have continued to expand and enhance our offerings within the NIL space. I tell people all the time, we're just building a bigger menu every day. We've taken the time as a department, not only myself, but our compliance staff and external staff, to stay current on every latest trend in NIL.

We’ve been holding monthly NIL meetings with the department staff to monitor what we are all seeing as it relates to NIL, what can we do in this space that we're not doing already, what's the feedback we're getting from student athletes, etc.... There are so many companies out there trying to profit off NIL right now, some of them, quite frankly, aren’t a great fit for us and some of them are, which is why we’ve partnered with them. I think we'll probably see some more partnerships as we continue to enhance our offerings.

You mention other challenges, I think when we talk about education – it simply doesn’t just apply to student-athletes. We have spent a lot of time educating donors and our fans on how they best can be involved with NIL. The concept is one that is not only new to our supporters, but it may seem awkward to some. We’ve spent a good deal of time educating donors and fans that want to get a better understanding on what NIL is and how it can benefit us.

Because we see the importance of NIL in addition to obviously supporting all the other areas of the university, so it's really trying to enhance that. That's the other significant challenge. I think every AD in the country will tell you, ‘I'm working so hard on raising money for our annual giving program for the athletic department or capital projects and now we are asking our donors to also support NIL. You've just got another bucket you've got to raise money for and that's the challenge. Specifically for us we are in the midst of raising funds to build a basketball practice facility right now. That is incredibly important to what we're trying to do and our supporters are being asked to not only contribute to that project, but also continue their Pirate Blue giving and giving to NIL.

Trove: I think that is a valid point. Having covered institutional investing for close to a decade now, a lot of people say they’re not going to spend their hard-earned money or invest in something they don’t fully understand or comprehend, and I don’t see why that would change in this regard. Given the restrictive nature of the current rules/laws in New Jersey, how can the athletic department and Shaheen work compliantly with NIL groups? How can the school advise NIL groups that a current player is important to the program and deserves higher NIL payments?

Felt: First and foremost, we rely heavily on our athletic compliance staff. Tatum Colitz who's our senior women's administrator and head of the compliance area has done a tremendous job. She's very well researched on this and she works closely with other groups across the country, the Big East compliance group and so on. So, we have a good sense of what's going on across the landscape, how other schools may be interpreting new legislation or NCAA guidance etc...

We’re certainly always monitoring state laws and consulting with government contacts. New Jersey's law doesn’t go into effect until 2025 and quite frankly, I think that law will probably change and evolve a bit, just like what we're seeing across the country in other states. We talk to local schools within the state and have great relationships within the conference. All of this is important to ensure we can communicate to supporters of our program and NIL that we remain compliant to NCAA rules and that they are permitted to participate.

Since NIL came out, we've already seen changes. Part of these conversations I couldn't even have in the beginning. Perfect example, schools couldn't endorse any NIL entities or collectives, but that changed in October and over the last several months, that's all schools have been doing. I see a new AD communication daily from various schools promoting their endorsed NIL collective or initiative. As you know, we sent one out back in early December and continue to promote our NIL plan. Certainly, the most significant rules of NIL are “pay for play” and not using it for recruiting purposes. While these will always remain paramount, I do think things will continue to change from the NCAA guidance standpoint. I think we're going to continue to see evolution in the entire NIL space over the next year and as a department we will remain up to speed on the latest guidance.

Trove: How does NIL put SHU and other Big East schools at a competitive disadvantage to some of thelarger state schools with an abundance of alum and funding sources on top of state coffers?

Felt: Basketball is certainly what drives the bus here and we understand that. We don't have football like the large state schools, so we've always been competing against that. I don’t think it’s any different now with NIL. You are comparing apples and oranges when it comes to resources and that’s always the way its been. Look at a lot of the schools in the BIG EAST and with us specifically – we aren’t always getting five star recruits every single year.’ Of course, we get a five star every now and then, but where we have excelled is recruiting the threes and the fours and coaching them up. You could point back to numerous teams and student-athletes in our history that define that. Our goal is to always be competitive within the conference and nationally and we have successfully done that as you look at our history and most importantly our recent success. We obviously have to remain competitive within NIL, but that disadvantage is the same it’s always been with the large state schools that have football.

Trove: Now, what guidance are you getting from the Big East on navigating NIL and making the conference more competitive regarding NIL initiatives? How are the schools looking to leverage sponsors like Fox and Under Armour for future opportunities?

Felt: We’re very fortunate the commissioner of our conference, Val Ackerman, has been at forefront of a lot of things for the NCAA and certainly with NIL. She was the chair of one of the first councils to really review NIL and introduce it. As ADs, we meet regularly and I'm not sure there's been an agenda where this hasn't been a topic of conversation in the last few years. We learn and we share with each other a great deal, which is excellent.

When you speak of our sponsors, our Open Dorse relationship came about due to our partnership with Learfield IMG, who handles our sponsorships. Bringing Open Dorse to us was a big help and I think we continue to work closely with our current sponsors, so that they can integrate themselves into the NIL dealings that we have now.

Trove: Obviously you have quite a bit of experience fundraising dating back to your day working with Pirate Blue. What is Pirate Blue doing to extend its corporate involvement with the school and how can you leverage Pirate Blue to grow corporate outreach to include NIL?

Felt: With this position you have to be very involved in fundraising. I’ve been raising money for this athletic department for 20-plus years and I certainly have gotten to know the fan base very well as well as our most loyal supporters

.I'm usually visiting donors several times a week, and I get asked the question, ‘I want to make a contribution to this, but I also have interest on the NIL front, what's more important?’ While it may sound like an easy answer, I always tell them both are incredibly important. Both are impactful to our student athletes and to our athletic department. We’ve been fortunate that a majority of our supporters have chosen to support both by giving to both, Pirate Blue and NIL.

I know eventually we will have donors make a choice to support one over the other, that’s a reality no doubt, but in the end giving to either area has a positive impact on our student-athletes and that’s what is most important.

Trove: I am certainly not envious of you all being in that position and having to relay the mission and structure for each sort of bucket or fund you are trying to raise capital for.

Felt: The best example of this is really the practice facility. We're trying to build a state-of-the-art men’s basketball practice facility and enhance the women's basketball practice facility to help both programs. It comes at a time where NIL has come onto the scene, so we are a victim of bad timing in that regard. We need both, there’s nobody that would disagree with that. But the time has come where we need to really upgrade our facility, so the balance of that and NIL is something that we must deal with.

Trove: Certainly. I am curious how the development of the practice facility is coming along? How doyou plan to balance the major projects of NIL and the facility to keep the basketball program competitive?

Felt: Fundraising has gone well and continues for the facility. We’ve also been busy with continued planning on the design and logistics of the space. I know it's been a project discussed for the last several years, when I arrived here as AD we had some plans in place and since re-designed much of that. Certainly COVID slowed down several facility projects within the University, but we are excited with the direction of the project at this point and look forward to sharing more as we near our fundraising goals for the facility.

Trove: It’s been reported that to field a top 25 caliber team it would costs approximately $1 million a year in NIL. I wanted to see what you think the university will need from its NIL to be competitive in recruiting high school players and transfers as well as retaining current players?

Felt: There may be some truth to the number you mention, I wouldn’t venture to put a number out there, but I think the most important thing for people to understand is that NIL is going to be an annual thing. We're going to need to raise considerable amounts of funding to support NIL initiatives for our student-athletes and that will be an annual thing – similar to Pirate Blue giving.

Trove: I am curious if you guys are thinking about ways that to maybe create an endowment for the NIL funds to help invest any excess or leftover funds to help grow that account over time and ultimately accrue enough capital through investing to have the NIL fund set to last over the long-term or in perpetuity?

Felt: That is certainly an interesting thought. I remind you that the University itself can’t provide NIL funding as it would need to come from an outside source.

Trove: That will be something I will see if I can get across Eric’s desk for future consideration, although I am sure it will be more difficult to implement at a smaller school like Seton Hall. Beyond the NIL collective with Eric and his G3 Marketing, I know of at least one other collective that has popped up to support Seton Hall’s NIL -- Hall Hands On Deck. I have seen other schools endorse multiple collectives, including UConn, Creighton and Rutgers - why has the school decided to only endorse Eric’s initiative at this point in time?

Felt: I'm always happy when I see our fans wanting to support. If there's other entities out there that are trying to create more fundraising opportunities and things like that to support our NIL, that's great.

I will say that we've endorsed Eric and Hall Ball Events because we felt that this was the best model for our program and it was one that we felt was the best fit.

I am aware that some schools have endorsed more than one collective, but with every school you see doing that, you will also see collectives merging. Look at larger schools like Oklahoma, Texas, and I think Florida State – they’ve had multiple collectives that have combined forces as opposed to competing against each other. It's a more manageable approach and doesn’t confuse the fan base or student-athletes. I think this will be a trend you will see much more of moving forward. I would hope that any other collectives or groups out there would look at partnering with our current set-up as we can only be more successful working together.

Trove: I know you had mentioned previously that there is a lot of competition for donations among the finite pool of alum and fans from Hall Ball Events to Hall Hands on Deck to Pirate Blue and other university-programs. Ultimately, what is the optimal donation strategy for supporters of the basketball program and athletic department?

Felt: As it relates to NIL, the best way to support is to visit HallBallevents.com where you can contribute online. You can also contact Eric Liebler whose information is on the website. You can also support student-athletes via the Open Dorse website: https://opendorse.com/setonhall-pirates

Certainly, supporting through the Pirate Blue Athletic Fund and purchase of basketball season tickets is a tremendous help to our program. Supporting all these initiatives is critical to our success. I'm hopeful that we'll continue to get support in all these areas as they all help our student-athletes.

Trove: Bryan, thanks for carving out some time and sharing some insights and your perspective on the NIL landscape.

Felt: I appreciate your interest, thank you for the opportunity to share and connect with Pirate Nation.

Go Pirates!