The Hokies NIL Store is ππ π πππππππ ππππ!Shop now: https://t.co/63ggQEOoK6 pic.twitter.com/HRkT6bFu2Yβ The Virginia Tech NIL Store (@HokiesNILStore) December 2, 2022
For now, just looks to be generic player branded VT Merch but apparently over the course of the year they'll also have player worn gear that will be available as well.
Worth a bookmark to keep your eye on over the course of the school year.
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Finally, I was looking for bball jerseys at the start of the season and couldn't find anything. I just thought is was typical fanatics BS.
How much do we think the players make per sale?
Might need everyone to buy a Mansoor Delane Sweatshirt.
All this time passes, and this is what we have to show for it? How incredibly underwhelming; zero of these options interest me. How the hell do they not have jerseys!?.
The jerseys are probably exclusively tied to Fanatics, which....good luck getting the correct item.
A Phillies friend of mine ordered a hat and received a towel, got customer service involved and then received a blanket.
It's incredible how inept they are.
Couple years ago I ordered a sexy Tech throwback logo trucker hat. Got a 6&7/8in new era 59/50 Cincinnati Reds hat. It was early on in covid and just so happened to have the coco at the time so didn't even bother sending it back, nor did they ever respond to my emails.
It's kind of OT, but my wife did an order for an away Caps jersey and a patch. Super simple. They got the patch right, but sent a hockey fights cancer jersey and it's been the biggest headache to try and get it resolved. With my full chest on every platform, F--- Fanatics and F--- their monopoly.
And on top of this, in the event you get lucky and actually have them send you the right thing, their sizing is so inconsistent that half the time whatever you get won't fit properly.
If anything, their existence causes me to use as many brick and mortar stores as possible for sports merchandise. I only buy Carolina Hurricanes gear at the arena, and if I'm buying anything Tech related it's either from Campus Emporium or Alumni Hall, preferably when I'm up for a game.
I got a lot of VT gear on its way from Fanatics right now and y'all are scaring me, lol.
We ordered a kids Colorado Avalanche jersey for my son for Christmas (among MULTIPLE other things, though the others were from the authentic store) and ended up with a women's Seattle Seahawks scarf.... And when we called to correct them, they said, and I directly quote- "we were sold out of the avalanche jerseys so we substituted for you." Wtf?
That's horrifying that they thought it would be okay. I hope it was a joke, but also that's not exactly the time to make that joke
I could somewhat understand if they had subbed it with something ELSE Avalanche related for kids, but to TOTALLY switch not only teams, but women's for kids AND leagues? Wtf.
Fanatics isn't even trying to hide their monopolistic tendencies anymore. They know we have nowhere else to go and when they mess up, their stance is "the fuck are you gonna do about it?"
As much as the government is justifiably going after Ticketmaster in 2023, they need to turn their attention to Fanatics as well. The sports merchandise market is a shithole right now and it's all because one company controls it all.
They really aren't. Every goddamn merchandise site you visit now has "Fanatics experience" or something of the sort plastered all over it. It's annoying as hell.
I haven't paid much attention to the news. What's the Ticketmaster thing? Summary-sized, don't go too crazy.
Taylor Swift tickets went on sale. People had to wait in queues to get tickets. People kept getting through to checkouts and it would crash. Repeat. Tickets sold out from under people who had the presale codes and stuff including people in power's children. Now Ticketmaster/LiveNation are facing a class action.
All my homies hate Ticketmaster. Power to the working class.
Damn, that's nuts.
Glad we use TickPick or Vividseats if we do go to shows/games. Haven't tried gametime yet...
No jerseys, but Commonwealth NIL has a slightly better selection IMO.
Not too many options, but nothing generic. Some of the player shirts are neat. I like the chef Sean and March Maddox shirts.
There really needs to be a "Butts For Mutts" t-shirt on this.
I kinda like the Hokies Basketball shirt with the player name and jersey number on the back (it's clean and simple), but a Cattoor jersey would be an instant buy. Same for chef Sean P but he's not even listed.
I mean, I guess you can call this baby steps but if I'm being honest this entire thing feels half-assed. From what I could tell we're committing a handful of shirts and hoodies that are mostly copy-and-paste the same with the only difference is the name/number printed on the back. Looking around at what the other ACC teams are doing with their NIL and it's night and day. In Clemson's NIL store you can buy autographed baseballs, and UNC is leveraging Fanatics jerseys into their online NIL store. (I mean, it's all ugly UNC blue but my point stands.) Hell even Syracuse has integrated a decent NIL shop into their main online store.
Clemson running circles around us in making money... you don't say.
Still wondering when VT will copy IPTAY and start doing this fundraising thing correctly.
Heard a radio ad for iptay the other day its $60 a year now for their entry level. I think the ad was during the clemon bball game on siriusxm
That's great. They are raking in the dough and will continue to be an elite program. Meanwhile our students still know nothing about the Hokie Club. We have a great student body and rabid fan base and continue to fail to capitalize on it.
I got a text the other day that I'd get 10 extra points if I could donate that day. I tried, and the site continued to freeze up on every attempt. Eventually, I stopped trying.
Yes, they really do need to try harder. I'm willing, and even have a fair amount of fan energy, but I'm not limitless.
Seven Hokies at Christmas yesterday, two of us knew what the Hokie Club was, and that includes a current student.
My sister still thought it was a sandwich from West End. The effort is seriously lacking.
How old, and where from? I didn't know what Hokie Club was until I was a few year graduated, and didn't donate until a few years after that.
I also wonder how common this is at other schools? The only other donor club I know by name is IPTAY at Clemson - and that's just because I have close friends from Clemson who wore shirts that said IPTAY on them, and I asked what it was. Furthermore, I think I'm the only one of my friends who does NOT have season tickets but still periodically donates to their alma mater - I have close friends who graduated from GT, Tennessee, Florida, Clemson, Vanderbilt, most of whom are pretty big football fans. Most of us have been working in the tech space for nearly 10 years now, so we all have disposable income. I just think there's not much incentive to donate if you're not going to get season tickets.
Ages from 21 to 67. The two oldest def wouldn't know what Hoke Club is, but the rest should, simply from going to games this season or going to VT during the glory years of the mid 00's.
The only other donor club I know by name is IPTAY at Clemson
I have been beating this drum for awhile now that VT should copy Clemson's IPTAY and take advantage of our rabid fanbase to get them in the habit of donating and learn what the Hokie Club is. But nope, the athletic department won't do it, and seems more concerned with spending their time screwing up the stadium entrances for fans. We fall further and further behind with this ineptitude.
Everyone says this, but I don't think it's that simple/I don't think IPTAY is effective as people seem to think. IPTAY was started in 1934. Additionally, VT was doing better fundraising than Clemson until 2014 (source: Knight Commission - see graph below). To me, this suggests that either (a) IPTAY took 80ish years to start being successful, or (b) Clemson's fundraising success is due to something other than IPTAY.
Now, it is worth mentioning that the Clemson student body (but not necessarily fanbase) is smaller than that of VT, so it is possible that, due to IPTAY, Clemson is pulling in more $/donor, but I have not seen any evidence of that. Additionally, one could also hypothesize that IPTAY better positioned Clemson to take advantage of their eventual success, but again, there is no data (to my knowledge) suggesting that.
Edit: Grammer
The graph is nice and all but sometimes raw data lacks context.
Dan Radakovich took over as Clemson AD in late 2012 and overhauled IPTAY with new leadership during 2013, resulting in a jump in 2014 and continued rise after that. Not just to continue casting a wide net, but also to convince donors to give more to lean into and maintain the athletics success they were seeing on the field.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2017/06/12/In-Depth...
And I'll tack on -- Drive for 25 was all about casting a wide net and then leaning into the basketball successes and HOPEFULLY our turnaround on the football field. Hokie Club memberships effectively tripled from the start of Drive for 25 to the end. Our "Drive Year 2022" giving numbers were record highs for us. The football turnaround didn't happen under Fuente (remember Drive for 25 started in 2016) but hopefully it does under Pry
This is the context I was looking for! These paragraphs are super interesting (emphasis mine):
Based on your comment above, it sounds like Hokie Club is in a similar place to where IPTAY was in 2013? We've gotten some big gifts lately (most publicly from Bruce Arians), which is great.
You hinted at this above, but it's also worth noting that Clemson had already started their ascent when Radakovich started hitting up donors. It's a lot easier to get money when you just had your third straight >10-win season (with bowl wins over bluebloods LSU and OSU) than it is after a 3-win season.
Could not agree more. Thanks for the link!
edited to reflect above comment.
I've mentioned this before, but the optimal intersection of program performance and donor giving just isn't happening yet unfortunately. With Clemson, it was a way easier sell when your program is recruiting lights out, just coming off an Orange Bowl win, and then makes a national championship appearance in 2015. I think a lot of VT fans are in a 'show me something' mindset at this point. We had a great surge in 2016 in Fu's first year, but we have been on a steady decline since.
We have seen some basketball success, however, for Hokies looking for a way to justify their donations, and we're still trying in football. There's a good story to tell.
I lowkey think that we're in a better place than clemson was in 2013 infrastructure-wise. Higher number of donors, just with program excitement commensurate with our current situation (gut job and 3 year rebuild) vs Clemson's (three straight ten win seasons). IF Pry is the real deal, we will see the engagement amd excitement (and donations) skyrocket
I grew up knowing about the WVU version even though my parents never donated and I never went to wvu.
Hokie club from west end slaps though.
Also glad that people see how inept our administration is. They're the embodiment of investing in scratchers instead of a 401k.
Oh it's a great sandwich. We talked about it for a few minutes instead of donating to the Hokie Club lol
Why not both? gif
Dang. I thought my scratcher investments were a wide decision.
Edit: wrong thread
Still no jerseys? Glad to see the ball is rolling but this is a weak start
Yikes...hate those shirt designs personally.
Hey, any Athletic and club sports people lurking here.
You need to ad VT Rugby jerseys. They won the Natty Last year. Get them guys some love.
I know this isn't from last year, but this is probably the coolest Hokie apparel item I own.
Do you have a link to anywhere that sells these?
They were only sold for one season direct from rhino rugby. I searched eBay and a few other resale sites for a while before I found one in my size.
If you have a link for some VT rugby shirts, post the link!
I'd buy one, particularly if the Rugby team gets a cut.
I'd absolutely support these guys.
Why is anyone trying if this is the outcome. It's the same shirts across the board. WTF
Ia there an option to buy the shirt, pay the Athlete and have it immediately donated to some one in need.
Why isn't there a shirt with a graphic of Mansoor Delane holding the lunch pail with his signature across the graphic? Buf makes some money, Mansoor makes some money we get an awesome looking tee.
Softball pitchers have cool stances for a shirt, same with batters. get some personalized shit. Get some game worn auctions going.
This feels like some one did it to check off a checkbox. Big programs have NIL stores, check!
Do some quick googling - it looks like most schools outsource their NIL stores to other distributors. LSU's NIL store just redirects to their fanatics page. Ohio State's redirects to Rally House. Looks like VT did a deal with Campus Ink (off topic - Mark Cuban is an investor of theirs).
My guess (hope) is that this is just the first iteration (or MVP as we say in software). Standardized designs are the quickest way to go to market, and athletes can just have a generic agreement. I would imagine (aka hope) that over time we'll see more specialization.
All that said, I don't feel great about where we stand in NIL. Pry talks about it plenty, and Whit was quoted (prior to the season) saying that him and Pry speak about it pretty regularly. I'm not sure how much of the issue is funding vs infrastructure vs something else. There's very little transparency anywhere in the NIL market, so it's tough come up with any meaningful takeaways.
But I agree... this is not inspiring.
Even for an MVP this is a total let down. All by myself I could've done a custom sport-relevant shirt for each of the NIL store athletes and thrown it on a custom Shopify storefront in the time they've had to get this together.
The fact that they contracted it out to a 3rd party that's sole product is to do this, yet we still end up with this? That's a failure on the athletic department to either 1) understand the product and our needs or 2) do our due diligence.
NIL is escalating fast, and we don't have the luxury to keep falling behind everyone else.
As the great Reed Hoffman says, "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late." /s
I agree, and I am concerned.
The thing is, I get that these designs are kinda lame, but this isn't where big NIL money is coming from. The big NIL money comes from collectives. Student athletes are not making much money from apparel sales. But, it's not like we have a lot of money in our collectives (I don't know this for a fact, but I feel like i we did, we'd hear about it).
I feel confident some company is going to figure out how to make some money for themselves, while getting a little bit to the players.
That's how this always works, no?
I went to the VT-Liberty game and at half time they had a long ad for their quasi-official NIL program on their Jumbotron.
I am probably in the top 1% of engagement in VT sports (many of us on this forum and others are). It is a problem that I have no idea who give money to. If I don't know, the average fan doesn't know.
I agree. I'm in the same club. Where do we look? Someone is missing some opportunity.
Apparently I agree.
Which I do.
I have had no real idea how this was being implemented and how to purchase until recently.
I saw somebody with a Pedulla jersey on Sunday.
This is a pretty rough launch. It says "Every sport. Every athlete." when they must have meant every player gets the same generic style.
Boom Santa brought me my Mutts shirt I love it!
Everyone in this thread bitching about the store and selection lol maybe if there was good initial support that selection and investment in new designs would grow idk.
I'm not an economist but I'm pretty sure selling stuff people have explicitly stated they dont like is a bad business model from the start
Edit: I am glad you like your shirt though. I legitimately have no dog in this fight
They should sell canvas prints of athletes that way fanatics can update their caves every year to reflect the new teams.
...You're welcome
That's bitchin' idea.
Setup like a collector showcase type of thing to spur continued purchase.
Fanatics just dropped three VT hoops NIL jerseys. Link, Link, and Link.
I'm still going to buy a
CattoorPedulla (apparently you can't get a Cattoor option) white jersey to support the NIL but just a heads up yall IMHO these are bad. REAL bad. It looks like something you'd see in create a player for College Hoops 2K5 for the PS2. None of these look anything close to what our team is actually wearing in 2022. It's very underwhelming.No Mutts, Cattoor or Kidd... weird.
Yeah I went back and edited my post when I realized that Catoor wasn't an option on any of the three versions. I agree...weird.
And what is this? They call this a football jersey, but how is this a VT jersey?
It's a, "we don't have the licenses to the actual jerseys, and we're hoping enough people don't know the difference" VT jersey.
Here's what's crazy: they actually have the maroon football jersey available as an option.
https://www.fanatics.com/college/virginia-tech-hokies/virginia-tech-hokies-nike-pick-a-player-nil-replica-football-jersey-maroon/o-16+t-35709884+p-059982226178+z-9-2574420428
I think they can get the rights, they just want to sell a design of their own so they can keep all the profit to themselves.
Also, white football jerseys are available, but not as an NIL option. And no orange ones at all.
And it doesn't look like you can buy the basketball jersey template, whether that be in an NIL format or not.
That's a sneak peek at next years Jersey design
Haven't we suffered enough?
This situation is so sad and pathetic that it could drive a person to make their own VT stuff
Fortunately I have enough polos, hats etc but shoes and belts shopping is like a wasteland.
You did that yourself? Damn you got an Etsy shop?
No Etsy shop because the last thing I want to do is meet Fanatics' lawyers up close and personal (probably the one thing they do really well). Belts are actually work to make but the shoes are easy peasy. On the cloth portion of the shoe print what you want on TransOurDream Upgraded Iron on Heat Transfer Paper (amazon) cut and iron under teflon paper for 20 seconds. I've made a lot of personalized golf hats for my golfing buddies using that paper and those were my first two pairs of shoes. The white ones have become my second favorite pair of golf shoes.