A lot of schools across college football have collectives that provide student-athletes with an income coming from their Name, Image, and Likeness. Prior to this compensation, players received relatively little outside of the scholarship money coming from the school. At USC, the pathway to earn NIL money wasn’t there.
The collective market at USC didn’t exist in 2021, but things turned around last offseason with some changes to BLVD. Following the 2022 season, BLVD was gone, and a month ago, House of Victory sprouted. As a non-profit, alumni-backed collective with many former football stars behind the scenes, things are on the up-and-up. In addition, the non-profit’s licensing contract with Playfly Sports, the company the athletics department uses for their marketing, takes the collective to a whole other level — and separates them from any others around USC.
“It gives us some really unique branding opportunities where we're able to utilize cardinal and gold together in relation to USC, [and] we're able to utilize their marks in certain ways,” House of Victory’s executive director Spencer Harris told USCFootball.com. “So, for example, on our website, us being able to utilize an athlete in uniform showing the USC mark and the entire website really being cardinal and gold. No other collective is able to do that. … And then we're afforded some really unique advertising opportunities in-game, whether that's at the Coliseum this fall, Galen Center for men's and women's basketball, and other opportunities across USC platforms. … It just allows us to create some brand awareness throughout USC that some others currently are not able to utilize.”
The staff consists of Harris and Megan Mueller, the collective’s director of player relations, plus the alumni advisory council of businesspeople and an alumni athlete board of former athletes that “work in collaboration” together.
Harris worked at USC for over three years as the director of player personnel through all three heading coaching changes in 2021 and moved into the NIL space last offseason. He said working on head coach Lincoln Riley’s staff during the recruitment process of their big transfer class gave him “really good perspective on how things operate internally.”
“I've been discussing NIL and the potential of NIL, really, since 2019. Before the laws went into effect, it was a part of our pitch at USC forever,” Harris said. “Obviously we couldn't predict back in 2020 that collectives were going to exist, but we could predict that USC was going to be a really unique place for NIL opportunities. And I think that's coming to fruition today with some of the stars that have aligned at USC and the opportunities that they're getting.”
Mueller was USC’s director of recruiting operations in 2021 before transitioning into the NIL space last offseason. Her duties with the collective include communicating and coordinating contracted services with both student-athletes and any representatives they might have — though representation isn’t required to partner with the collective. Harris said some student-athletes have their parents, a family member, or friends review the contracts.
House of Victory has announced 21 football players to date, with six more students-athletes in sports outside of football.
“Obviously, there's a large quantity of football student-athletes compared to other sports, and that's maybe why you've seen in a larger number of football student-athletes so far, and we still have some others to announce, but we obviously hope and plan and are already working with other student-athletes outside of football,” Spencer Harris said. “We want to work with as many student-athletes as possible, but we also are restrained by budget restrictions, donor choice, donor interest. We have to make the best decisions for our group, so we weigh all those factors as an organization and to the student athletes that we partner with based on those factors.”
As of publication, the football players announced include quarterbacks Caleb Williams, Miller Moss and Malachi Nelson; offensive linemen Justin Dedich, Jonah Monheim, Michael Tarquin, Mason Murphy, Elijah Paige and Jarrett Kingston; running backs Austin Jones,MarShawn Lloyd and Raleek Brown; wide receivers Dorian Singer, Brenden Rice, Tahj Washington, Zachariah Branch, Makai Lemon and Michael Jackson III; defensive linemen Jamil Muhammad, Anthony Lucas, Jack Sullivan and Kyon Barrs; linebackers Tackett Curtis, Shane Lee, Eric Gentry, and Mason Cobb as well as defensive backs Ceyair Wright, Calen Bullock, Zion Branch and Christian Roland-Wallace.
Harris said they still have more to announce, and student-athletes can sign a partnership with them as time goes on.
The biggest payday for the student-athletes comes from corporate partnerships House of Victory says “can help brands and companies connect with USC’s fanbase” by using the collective’s platform and the student-athletes’ NIL. This includes social media advertisement posts, event appearances, brand placement within original content they produce, marketing items like signage at events, and more.
House of Victory has a general membership that is not tax deductible. The four tiers include the Cardinal tier that is $55 a month or $550 a year that gets you a personalized message and a 10% discount on their merchandise, the Gold tier that is $110 a month or $1,100 a year that gets the prior benefits in addition to an apparel item and exclusive content, the Heritage tier that is $550 a month or $5,500 a year that gets you the prior benefits plus signed team memorabilia and a 15% discount on the collective’s merchandise, and finally, the Victory tier for $1,100 a month or $11,000 a year that gets you the prior benefits in addition to a video call with an athlete, an apparel package, and an athlete’s signed memorabilia.
The House of Victory Foundation is a tax-dedictible donation that will go towards funding community events involving the student-athletes, ideally similar to the work Heisman-winning quarterback Caleb Williams does with the Boys & Girls Clubs in Southern California with his Caleb Cares Foundation.
In the end, support from donors is how the collective functions. Harris said they must be “competitive in the NIL space” in order to be competitive on the field.