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‘It still doesn’t feel real’: UCLA soccer star details NIL deal with Nike

UCLA soccer player Reilyn Turner is the first college athelete to land an NIL deal with Nike. Reilyn joins Yahoo Finance Live with her agent Spencer Wadsworth, Wasserman Global Soccer Senior Vice President, to discuss the sponsorship and how she plans to inspire other young people through her platform.

Video Transcript

REPORTER: Well, she just made history, becoming the first college athlete Nike signed to an NIL sponsorship and we are so excited to have her here on our show along with her agent who helped her score the deal Reilyn Turner, UCLA soccer player and Spencer Wadsworth, Wasserman global soccer senior vise president. Thank you both for being here.

Reilyn, first of all, I got to say congratulations and first question has to be, oh my goodness, what is your reaction to signing being the first college person that signed to a Nike contract in this way? How do you feel? What does it mean to you?

Did you ever think you would be in this sort of position? And then what sort of reaction from your family who is also struggled with to get here, I'm sure, your coaches and your teammates as well?

REILYN TURNER: Well, when I first found out that Nike was interested, I didn't think it was real. It was a dream come true like when you think of sports you think of like Nike, Nike the, the head of sports.

And it was crazy to think that they would want to partner with me and you know Spencer helped put the deal together and it still doesn't feel real. But yeah, me and my family are really excited to move forward with my career and see what I can do and inspire young kids if I can.

JARED BLIKRE: Reilyn, congratulations to you and I want to get back to you to figure out what NFTs you're buying right now. But this question, my next question here is for Spencer, and I'm just wondering this deal was signed with Nike and this kind of comes after a switch UCLA used to have Under Armor as a partner, how much of this is two to the brand power of Nike and just what other kinds of deals do you see manifesting in this relatively new sector?

SPENSER WADSWORTH: Well, I think obviously it's, it's a new thing for everyone. And everyone's just still trying to figure it out. But you know I think with anything like Nike just being trailblazers like they are they're always the first and doing most of anything, you know, I do think it'll, it'll push other brands to want to do more things similar to what, what they've done.

But I also think it shows that it doesn't have to be just, you know, the big money or guess what would be seen as a revenue generating sports that there's other things, you know, other sports that can have athletes that push the needle, especially on the female side.

REPORTER: And Reilyn, typically, Nike goes after you know these athletes with huge social media presences, that's not you. Although I'm sure on Instagram and Twitter accounts have grown since news of this came out and I'm just wondering what is it that you think that appeal to Nike about you and your brand and your worth ethic and what's motivated you to get as far as you have.

Because you are this role model for so many young kids now who, you know, the last two years if you're playing a sport have been really difficult to play through COVID, managed school, manage your social life put in all the training you need to do as well.

REILYN TURNER: I think that Nike wanted to partner with me, someone who doesn't have a big social media following. I think that they're kind of trying to focus on the community aspect like me being Los Angeles area, Native I guess and me being a Mexican-American and an African-American kind of getting back to those communities on a smaller scale like locally. I think that, that will be really important and I'm really excited to see what I can do with that.

JARED BLIKRE: And Reilyn, a lot of athletes that we have on this show, mainly professional ones go on to, successful professional ones go on to other businesses. They become entrepreneurs, they help people with personal finance, and I know it's a little bit early for you, but have you thought about any of these other things that you might want to do now that you have this contract and you have some money to work with yourself?

REILYN TURNER: Well, all this is really new. But I think that with everything with NIL, it really gives college athletes the opportunity to not only do what they love for a living but profit off of it and get those skills with their finances to help them in the future. But as of now, I haven't really gave much thought to it, but it's all so new. But I'm excited to see what I can do with that.

REPORTER: Spenser, I know you can't give everything away. I'm sure it's a highly lucrative deal unless you'd like to reveal to us how much money is involved. But how much interest is there now in, in this sort of, you know, how many athletes are now approaching you, let's say, and trying to be in a similar sort of position? And what can you tell us about how this deal actually came together?

JARED BLIKRE: You might be muted there.

REPORTER: I think you might be muted.

SPENSER WADSWORTH: Sorry about that. Firstly, I would say Reilyn performed on the field, which is, you know, what initially led to all this, right? So I think I as an agent where I get concerned as people jump into the marketing aspect right away and that was never you know what I saw or even what Reilyn plan as you hear, right.

So, you know, we've been following her for a while, you know kind of like what we do. We, you know, monitor and recruit but then as you perform and these things came together, you know it just made sense for her.

I think what's cool and important to note, too, is, is that this also allows kind of what Reilyn said it allows her to make money while being in school and also continuing our studies without having to feel the pressure to really go pro right away.

Where I think that'll help with a lot of different sports in that realm but you know look as soon as she signed with us, we, you know, I kind of was talking to her getting to know her and it made more sense, you know in knowing Nike and how they do they are about the trailblazing moments and they are about jumping into creative things like this. I think this, this made sense for all of us and you know there's a bunch of synergies that came along with all of it.

JARED BLIKRE: And Reilyn, this is all coming about in a unique time in history, with the rise of COVID and I'm sure this has caused umpteen obstacles for you I just wonder how you've been dealing with all the head fakes that we've gotten over the last couple of years here.

REILYN TURNER: Well, for me right when I started college it was an unusual year. So I don't really have anything that I can compare it to. But you know like my team, my family we've all adjusted to it and I would say I have a pretty good college experience given the circumstances.

But, but yeah these last two years I've been in college they've, they've been pretty normal to me I guess I would say with having a team, with having online school just like I did my last year of high school but nothing too out of the ordinary. But hopefully it can go back to normal sometime soon so I can get what most would call like the typical college experience.

REPORTER: Reilyn, 19 years old I'm not sure your life will ever be quite the same normal again. Congratulations Reilyn Turner, UCLA soccer player and Spencer Wadsworth, Wasserman global soccer senior vise president. Thank you both for your time and wishing you the best of luck in the new year.

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