NIL Club Data Shows Brands Are Looking Beyond Follower Counts in College Sports
Oct 1, 2026
That distinction is particularly important in college sports, where most athletes are not national celebrities. A football star with hundreds of thousands of followers can deliver broad awareness, while a swimmer, volleyball player or Division III athlete may offer a smaller but highly relevant audience.
"The athletes driving real results for our partners are not always the ones with the biggest audiences," said Mick Assaf, CEO and co-founder of NIL Club. "College athletes have credibility within their teams, campuses and communities. When the right athlete reaches the right audience, that connection can turn into measurable action."
The clearest evidence comes from conversion. For SoFi, a campaign through NIL Club generated more than 47,000 new accounts, with nearly 60 percent of them funded. That funding rate was close to five times the roughly 12 percent industry benchmark.
A separate campaign for a major cryptocurrency exchange generated roughly 4,800 referred sign-ups and more than 2,600 funded accounts, about a 54 percent sign-up-to-funded rate, compared with roughly 12 percent from cold paid social. More than 1,600 of those customers went on to place a first trade.
Content campaigns have produced similar results. For a nationwide Subway activation, more than 170 college athletes created nearly 200 pieces of original content over three weeks, generating more than a million views and a combined engagement rate above 8 percent across TikTok, Instagram Reels and Instagram Stories. Rather than building the campaign around one athlete with a massive national following, Subway worked across athletes from different sports, schools and communities.
The approach reflects a broader change in creator marketing. Brands are increasingly looking at engagement, audience fit and measurable performance alongside reach when deciding which creators can deliver value.
"Reach will always matter for the right campaign," Assaf said. "But it should not be the only measure of an athlete's value. If an athlete can create effective content, connect with the right audience and produce a measurable result, brands should be paying attention."
For college athlete marketing, the shift gives brands more ways to define influence and athletes a chance to demonstrate it.
About NIL Club
NIL Club is a college athlete platform built by YOKE, an Atlanta-based technology company. NIL Club connects college athletes with fans and brands through NIL opportunities including fan communities, brand campaigns and merchandise. The platform works with athletes across NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA programs nationwide.
Fans can join their favorite athletes' clubs at https://nilclub.com/colleges
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Photos: (Click photo to enlarge)
Source: NIL Club
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