CCU collective partnership helps student-athletes with NIL deals

CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — A new collective to help Coastal Carolina student-athletes get compensated through name, image, and likeness (NIL) started a partnership.

Coastal Sports Collective was established just this year and selected ‘Basepath’ as their software operations provider.

Back in November, News 13 reported CCU’s NIL collective for their football program, ‘Teal Collective’ was stopping. Now, Coastal Sports Collective is helping all student-athletes make money.

The CEO of Basepath, Thomas Thomas Jr., said when the new collective was starting, they were fortunate to find a way to support it.

Thomas said right now this software operation powers over 50 collectives nationwide.

“We primarily serve in two types of functions,” Thomas said. “Money in, so helping create memberships, fundraising, donations to these collectives.”

Just within this first quarter of 2024, more than twenty million dollars has been processed in athlete payouts, Thomas said.

“We’re a software provider on the operational end so as they’re bringing in members and as they’re bringing in donors,” he said. “We help them visualize ‘hey here’s where the funds have been attributed.”

Their partnership will help the collective’s staff to be more organized.

Thomas said as student-athletes continue to be more of a reason as to why people are going to a specific institution, they should get compensated.

“They’re delivering meaningful value in the form of promoting whether it’s a collective, for their school, a brand, having that ability to step into a world where monetarizing name, image, and likeness,” Thomas said.

Thomas said sometimes it’s hard for athletes to find time to make money between games and practice.

“If you go to www.Coastal SportsCollective.com , you go down to the donate button, you’ll be brought to a page that allows you to add in your details, select and amount you want to give, a cadence if you want to cover processing fees and then you can give to a specific team from football, baseball, men’s basketball, men’s golf etc.,” Thomas said.

Thomas said through this partnership, members and supporters from the community will be able to contribute to Coastal Sports Collective seamlessly and securely.

Count on News 13 for updates.

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Jackie LiBrizzi is a multimedia journalist at News13. Jackie is originally from Hamilton, New Jersey, and was raised in Piedmont, South Carolina. Jackie joined the News13 team in June 2023 after she graduated as a student-athlete from the University of South Carolina in May 2023. Follow Jackie on X, formerly Twitter, Facebook , or Instagram , and read more of her work he r e .

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