Christopher Aumueller: Helping Athletes Build and Protect their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) (Full Transcript)
Listen on Apple | Spotify | Google
Full Transcript:
Ronen Ainbinder 0:34
Today's Halftime Snack features a former Division 1 tennis player who runs a fantastic branding company!
Originally from Germany, joining the show from Nebraska is a self-taught entrepreneur obsessed with helping college athletes with tools for storytelling, networking, and monetization.
This is why he's the CEO and founder of FanWord – a platform that is helping college athletes to build, monetize, and protect their brand.
This man accepted our invitation to the show with zero hesitation, and I'm sure we're all going to learn so much from him!
Buckle up for today's Halftime Snack with the one and only Christopher Aumueller!
Christopher Aumueller 1:12
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Ronen Ainbinder 1:14
What's up, Christopher? How are you, man?
Christopher Aumueller 1:17
Fantastic. Never had an intro like this. I mean, well done. Appreciate it.
Ronen Ainbinder 1:23
Well, welcome to the halftime snacks. Man. It's a pleasure to have you here. I want to kick off our conversation with an icebreaker. I want to know what your favorite sports-related movie is?
Christopher Aumueller 1:34
Oh boy. On top of my head, I probably won't say Moneyball. Watch that one handful of times and always find it very, very insightful and inspiring to a degree so but I also at this point, now that I think about it, I have to list balls out Gary, the tennis coach. Not a lot of people have probably heard of that movie. But the right one of the writers as a friend of mine, and a lot about a lot in the movie, is about my head coach from Nebraska. So there were a ton of similarities. And it's just a blast watching that movie and knowing my head coach personally and seeing those parallels. So if you haven't seen that movie, go check it out.
Ronen Ainbinder 2:17
We have so many things to learn from that. But also so many things to learn from you, Chris. Man, so excited to have you on the show. We're gonna be talking about your story, your background, what brought you into collegiate sports, what made you start a FanWord; we're going to talk about all that. But first of all, I want to talk about this topic that is super trending at the moment, naming image likeness in college sports. It's all over the news. It's happening everywhere. So how about you just kick off the conversation by explaining to us what that very basic term is? Why is it important? And why exactly is it trending right now?
Christopher Aumueller 2:57
Sure. Yeah, happy to so I mean, and I L stands for name, image, and likeness. And in a nutshell, what it means is that student-athletes can now, for the first time ever, monetize their name, image, and likeness or their personal brand, if you like. It's been in the making for, I think roughly two years ago, almost a year and a half ago, was the first time we kind of heard conversations about this happening. And then, if you've been following the whole topic for a while, there was a lot of back and forth, and not a whole lot of clarity, coming from either the federal government or the NCAA, for that matter. More recently, and then the state started, Florida was the first state to enact a state law that would allow student-athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness. And then several states followed. Many states have followed by now the NCAA came up with an interim policy, and pretty much as of July 1, so roughly, like a week and a half ago, student-athletes all over the country can monetize their personal brands. And as you can imagine, it just kind of revolutionizes space. It's a completely new era. There are lots of uncertainties and lots of questions, lots of gray areas, lots of opportunity and excitement as well, obviously. So yeah, super stoked about what's going on in space. And yeah, it's going to be exciting to see how it all plays out over the next couple of months and the year.
Ronen Ainbinder 4:31
For you as a former tennis player, like an athlete at one of the highest levels before pro, How does that feel in terms of not being able to monetize your brand or get your name out there? Or get involved with different bands or projects? How does that feel? Is it like limiting everyone, or is it not that everyone gets chances because if I think about college athletes, I think about Zion or the big ones, like the most popular ones before they go pro? Still, I wonder if, at every level, there are opportunities and to monetize the NFL. So this one opens up the door for everyone, or is it more about the highest-performing athletes? What are your thoughts about that?
Christopher Aumueller 5:26
Yeah, I mean, I have a very, very strong opinion on this. And ever since NHL became a topic of interest, we've been advocating for this from the get-go, like we were pretty loud about the NFL not just going to impact football and basketball players, but power five schools and the media, obviously when things became a little bit more interesting. It's just more and sexier, right to talk about, Trevor Lawrence could make $500,000 if oil rules were enforced today, or so it's just a headline that grabs a little bit more attention and says, hey, every athlete can make $10 or $20. Right. But long story short, I think what people need to understand is that, sure, will you see a tennis player at a division of a school sign a $100,000 endorsement deal? Probably not, right? But there's so much more to the NHL than just again, even just endorsement opportunities in general, right? I mean, they're there, you can give private lessons and camps and clinics, and you can start your own companies, you can go on cameos and sell personalized video shoutouts. So people that I'm making stuff up with you right now. But if you're a great singer or into poetry or whatever you can, you can monetize those skills, right? You can partner with brands, if you're like, have a passion for some sort of a niche area. And maybe that doesn't result in those high revenue numbers. But if you can help athletes, for instance, make a couple 100 bucks each year or a few 1000 each year, or even if they just get some free products and services in exchange for some love and social media. Those things are super noteworthy and important to talk about. So to answer your question, I 100% believe that NIL is for everyone. And it's just a matter of these athletes doing it the right way and wanting to do it too. And, sure, I mean, if you think once July 1, that hundreds of brands are going to hit you up, you're probably mistaken, right? I mean, nobody's going to hold your hand and do it for you. There's plenty of platforms out there that will help you. But at the end of the day, it's still up to you. And I'm 100% convinced that everybody can benefit from this.
Ronen Ainbinder 7:40
Now that you're mentioning it, I think this is also a big step for brands that are not as big as Nike or Gatorade or super huge brands. Why, and this is what I'm thinking, so tell me if I'm wrong. Still, you correct me because you're the one who knows but, but let's suppose that you're a small brand that you can always only work with smaller athletes, giving you a chance to make asymmetric bets. And what I mean is that you can bet on people who might eventually break out and be very successful and become the next Tom Brady. For instance, Tom Brady was drafted. I don't remember what round, right. And he was like, he's the goat, so this is your chance to bet or get involved with, with players that are not as big as, as of now that have the potential, the potential right, you can bet on potential. So that's something that you couldn't do before. Now you can't, so this is an opportunity for brands, not only for athletes, to get involved with these players, bringing more exposure for them later in their careers, if that makes any sense.
Christopher Aumueller 8:48
100% Yeah, I mean, that's a great way to look at it. I mean, in general, if you look at professional athletes, you may have like, like, 5000, and you have roughly 500,000 student-athletes, right? And sure, there's one way to look at it to work with somebody early now who doesn't have that star potential yet. Right obviously also in terms of price points, you pay a lot less now for college Tom Brady than for a professional Tom Brady. But even if it's not going to be somebody that that's going to explode like you can work with, because it's such a huge pool of folks, right, you can work with making stuff up right now again, but if you're a local brand. You partner with five student-athletes from the university in your town that all have 2000 3000 followers, for instance, or have some sort of affiliation to the city and maybe even the brain in some capacity that is so valuable. You don't have to pay huge amounts of money collaborating with them. A lot of those folks probably might work with you for some food products and services. So you're gonna have to pay for Agents at this point you don't have to pay for, like, when you're casting these student-athletes at an earlier stage in their careers, they're a lot more affordable is what it comes down to. And yeah, to your point, certainly the opportunity to get in early with somebody who you think might explode over the next couple of years. And there's plenty of stories right obviously in college sports. Even if they don't spotlight after college and maybe turned professional, there is still so much opportunity, particularly for local brands that may not have the marketing budget to work with a professional athlete. Still, athletes, in general, are the best influencers. They have more engagement, higher engagement rates, and every city has a university. These athletes are often a star in these cities or even in their hometown. So yes, it just opens up so much marketing potential for smaller local brands as 100% out.
Ronen Ainbinder 10:56
So I'm going to take away. Thank you for sharing that, Chris. What is the story of a fan were what you came up with was an experience of yours that made you realize there's an issue, there's a problem, there's an opportunity? And what are the specific products and services? I know that you have a FanWord coach, and I know that you like to educate people around the NHL. So just give us a little bit of an outlook of what you offer and how it is divided. And who is this for?
Christopher Aumueller 11:26
Yeah, happy to know, of course. So yeah, as you mentioned already, I was a tennis player for the Huskers initially. And the idea for fame would come from my time as an athlete. I just happened to know so many friends and other teams and sports that did phenomenal things. And I felt like they deserved a little bit more of the recognition and the spotlight than they got. And what I wanted to do was to figure out a way to help these, again, athletes and sports and teams that weren't always in the spotlight get a little bit more of that recognition I felt like they deserve. And that's what sparked the idea behind the FanWord. And at first, and we still do a lot of that, it's what we're probably mostly known for. If you're familiar with the Players Tribune, we pretty much offered a picture of that as a service to the school, so we partnered with athletic departments. We call that product fan board stories, we partner with athletic departments, and we pretty much create a site. And these powerful and unique stories about their athletes, their coaches, their alumni, and we put it all on this site and try to humanize the brand, try to humanize these athletes, and allow fans to get to know them from a whole different level. So that's when we, I guess, as a company became known for. We do that for literal schools at every level from Alabama and Nebraska and an SMU to mid-major D schools like liberty or Presbyterian college or an Oakland or plenty of schools on that front. And then, once the NFL became a thing, we started reaching out to our partners and other athletic departments and just got a feel for what it is that they need. And then framework coach is the result of all of this, which is essentially an NFL education and compliance product. So we work with athletic departments to help educate their student-athletes on what they can do, what they can do, how to build their personal brands, tax implications, financial literacy, how to interpret contracts, podcasting, gaming like literally anything you could possibly think of. And we also help compliance staff kind of with the deal monitoring and tracking because they have to; they're required to pretty much manage it themselves at this point. So that's all part of FanWord coach. So technically, to answer your question, we have two business units. I guess for the lack of a better word, one is specifically geared towards athletic departments. And that is fan watch stories and FanWord coach right as two separate products. And then the other unit is more geared towards brands and helping them kind of navigate this space and execute campaigns. And kind of consult on just the student-athletes side of things and how they can work with student-athletes and what they need to pay attention to. You don't want to make the wrong type of headlines and get a student-athlete in trouble because they forget to submit their NHL activities. So just kind of it's a different market than professional athletes. And so we just help these brands kind of navigate that space as well and execute these campaigns. So, yeah, long story short, those are the kind of two big units, I would say.
Ronen Ainbinder 14:44
And in what ways do you expect the new rules for NIL to benefit or affect your business model? Or your business models?
Christopher Aumueller 14:54
Yeah, I honestly think not. Not too much. I think we were well-positioned with sandwich stories already. Which we kind of back in the day, pitched a little bit more as a fan engagement, kind of deal. Get your fans more and more engaged and make them become more loyal fans and music for sponsorships, et cetera, et cetera, which obviously still applies. But now we just add another layer of helping your athletes build their brains and get their story told, which they can leverage for monetization. And I also open up so many more stories to tell, right? I mean, you can now tell stories of athletes launching their own companies or launching their own podcasts or what it was like to learn from some of the best in the business and what it meant to them. Right? You, there are so many stories you can tell, like we always say athletes don't just have like, like that saying, everyone has a story, we kind of not hate it. But we completely disagree. We just always say every athlete has 1000s of stories, right? And it's just a matter of telling the right ones and picking the right ones. So that and I also am kind of amplifying, I think the need for that. And then obviously what we currently do the education and compliance side of things in full transparency, I think that is that might have a timeline or or or a deadline, I guess I say that product because at some point, every school will have something in place to monitor these activities to educate student-athletes, by far are not there yet. So they have plenty of opportunities there. But we're already there. One of the cool things about NHL, NHL, there's so much opportunity, and we get approached by individual athletes and brands. And we have to kind of navigate it the right way ourselves and stay focused on what we know best? But to answer your question, I think fame, which stories continue to be a big one. Now a FanWord coach certainly is going to be solving a big problem. And then there are plenty of other things in the making already. But it's all going to be geared towards helping these student-athletes build, protect and monetize their brands, and whether that's direct to athletes at some point or a separate product or if we bring it all together under one umbrella like time will tell, I think we're amongst the first movers. As a first-mover in any industry, you will have to adjust eventually. And for now, you're pretty excited about where we're at. But we'll see how things evolve. We think we're in a good position and certainly on the right track right now.
Ronen Ainbinder 17:35
So let me distill and tell me if I'm wrong, just to make it clear for everyone listening. So we have fan worth, coach, and we have fun word stories. Both are directed services for athlete departments or athletes themselves. What, like, who do you serve directly you serve the athletes and athletic departments.
Christopher Aumueller 17:54
Yeah, we currently don't serve anything or offer anything directly to athletes. Again, we got approached by a lot, meaning we think about possibly adding some services there. But for now, it's all geared towards athletic departments. Yep.
Ronen Ainbinder 18:11
So it's like a b2b kind of service. And then you also have a FanWord for brands, which is also b2b. And is where you kind of like to help brands do things right with sponsorships and collaborations with student-athlete campaigns?
Christopher Aumueller 18:26
Yeah.
Ronen Ainbinder 18:27
Okay. Okay. Any ideas for a future product for b2c? Something that you work directly with the athletes or not?
Christopher Aumueller 18:37
I mean, again, like there's, there's a lot that we're working on, to be honest with you in the background. Because we don't want to spread anything. And then it just doesn't happen or whatever. But let me mean, again, there's a lot of opportunities. And it's always great when you get approached and asked for a service that you can provide them just now. Maybe you aren't thinking about adding that to your portfolio. Still, at the same time, we don't want to go in like 1000 different directions, right. So it has to align with who we are, what we stand for, and what we're good at. But yeah, there are a few things in the making. And one will be sure in the next couple of months. There's maybe something else coming out. Yeah,
Ronen Ainbinder 19:24
Super exciting. Super exciting. Thanks. Okay, for all the athletes listening and the episode wondering, okay, so I don't know anything about brand management. I don't know what to do with my own brand. What is some advice that you say that you would say that is very common in the industry you disagree with? Or what is some advice that you think athletes shouldn't follow? What were some myths in brand management for athletes that you disagree with, and why just how they should think about and how they shouldn't think about branding?
Christopher Aumueller 20:01
We talk about their brands, and something that we talk about a lot right now, one of the big flaws that we see right now is that student-athletes think they're skipping the most important step a little bit. And all they're trying to do, or I shouldn't even phrase it, maybe that way. But we see a lot of athletes kind of only thinking about the dollar sign, they see an opportunity to see these early opportunities with brands to get involved with these brands, and they just want to jump in on it, make a couple bucks here, make a couple bucks there. And take advantage of these rules. And we urge athletes, student-athletes, I should say, to take a step back. And think about first and foremost, what kind of brand they want to build who they are, and kind of come up with a plan, because the last thing you want to do, and we see a lot of that already happening, athletes just randomly posting hey assigned an endorsement deal with x, and this is their product, and it's just no brand fit. And you can tell they only did it to make 20 bucks, right? So their audiences are not going to buy in, meaning there's no value for the brand. The brand, probably many brands, does it for the PR right now just to be amongst the first. But long story short, when other brands approach in the next couple of months and years, they will look at the partnerships that you've done in the past. And if they see you just pretty much saying yes to any product, they know, at least a lot of the brands will know why there's not going to be a whole lot of value because you just assume there's no authenticity, right. So they're lacking this authentic brand fit, which has a lot of impact on the results of a campaign. So, in general, like I think the messaging right now a lot is about all you got to post, or you got to jump in on these opportunities now that they're available, etc. And they always kind of skip that, or you got to be on Tik-Tok. And they kind of skip the most important one, which is just coming up with a plan for yourself once again. And understand the type of brand you want to build and who do you want to work with? What do you stand for? What are you passionate about? What does your audience like? Why do they follow you? And, then based on those insights, understand the type of brands you should partner with and the type of activities you should take advantage of. And just you don't want to do, like, you don't want to do anything that gets your audience upset or pissed off. Because you just do it for a quick buck. A lot of these athletes also just kind of don't read the fine print right now. And a lot of these deals, and they just give away their rights for, like, infinity for a couple of bucks. And just in general, like, again, I think if I have to summarize this, like, don't rush it, like take your time, understand. Once again, I'm repeating myself, the type of Brian you want to build who you are, what you're passionate about, what you stand for, and then go from there, like NIL is not going anywhere. And it's perfectly okay if you didn't strike a deal in the first nine days. Perfectly okay. And NIL is here to stay. It'll be here in years to come. So that's probably the biggest thing I would say to that question. I know. I kind of rephrased it a little bit or approached it from a different angle. But hopefully, that still works out?
Ronen Ainbinder 23:28
No, I think I agree with you not rushing and preparing and planning is probably one of the first pieces of advice they give you in the military, right? You never go into war without a plan. So think about it. Same way, probably a little bit extreme with my example over here, but it kind of gets the point through in your experience. Most athletes need someone to explain to them how it works, or most athletes like a kind of like get it or at long as long as they are in socials and see what everyone else is doing kind of like get their idea of where they stand or what do you think like consultants or, I don't even know how to say it like managers are the ones that are supposed to be knowing about these and explaining their athletes or athletes? Or is there any book that athletes should go and read? or any type of other content that you suggest those athletes go and look for to learn and understand more about it or just better if you go and assess yourself with a professional or company or someone that you like, what do you suggest?
Christopher Aumueller 24:39
I think that there are two things you need to think about. First of all, when it comes to if you're a student-athlete, there's like the test brand building right which you can surely learn from experts. You can learn from books, you can learn from just google research, you can learn from others, right, and then there's the compliance side, the protective side Right now like, there are things you have to do to not lose eligibility to not run into any sort of compliance risks. You have to educate yourself about this. And that is the school's responsibility at this point, right? Whether the schools do it themselves or partner with a company like us to enforce that. We're not trying to say everybody needs to partner with us, right. But that's what we do, right? We try to help on that front, on the brand-building side, the same thing, right? We also help with that, right? But at the same time, there are resources out there. And that athletes can look at themselves, and we encourage them to do that, right. I mean, what we tell them is not going to be Mendez. Everything you will ever need to know will tell you, right? I mean, we encouraged them, we referred to certain resources out there and people to follow and people to look into to do that. Because I mean, the best way to learn it is to learn it yourself, right to do it yourself. But at the same time, once again, I want to emphasize this, when it comes to student-athletes, there's more to just building your brand and making money like you have to protect yourself first and foremost. And that is something that you probably might understand some of the rules, but you have to understand state laws, NCAA law. You have to understand your school's internal policy. So there are things you probably need to educate yourself on by having folks talk to you about it. And I think most student-athletes should work with their coaches and work with the athletic department on answering some of these questions, whether it's of brand building or compliance, and whether those schools don't have a partner like us to manage it in a house that's obviously up to them. But yeah, I think it's a little bit of a combination of both, to be honest with you.
Ronen Ainbinder 26:54
Man, I do want to come back to this conversation in a year and sit down together with you to see what's changed, what has grown, what's different. I think that since we're at the beginning, things are going to move so fast. And you're going to see so many new different types of companies, technologies, and partnerships being made during the next couple of months. So I think it's going to be fascinating to see where fans are going to be then. So I'm going to just write it down in my agenda right after eating this super delicious snack. Kristof, but I can't. I can't leave without asking you a more personal question. You can just to get more of like your spirit and who you are, who you see yourself as, so let's suppose that the year is 2050. That's about 30 years from now. What do you see yourself doing? What do you see? Where do you see yourself? What's happening? Around you, what, what are you what, who you who you're dealing with? Who are you talking with? What? So what's up with you in 30 years, Chris?
Christopher Aumueller 28:03
Lots of gray hair, that's for sure. Given the entrepreneurial route so far, but no, I genuinely think that this is where I excel. I've always had an entrepreneurial plug my whole life. Even as a 16-year-old when I launched a graphic design discussion board, I'm a self-taught graphic designer. I launched a graphic design discussion board back home in Germany. We grew into the third-largest in the country, with over 13,000 members. So I've always had this entrepreneurial plugin. I feel fulfillment and work and Korea. And obviously, there were plenty of roadblocks along the way already. And then pivots and all that, which I think is just a normal schedule for an entrepreneur. Still, I am in an industry that I don't think there's anything out there that I'm more passionate about than I feel more. I mean, shouldn't say more qualified for because there are other areas that I like to think I know my stuff, but call it sports, student-athletes kind of entirely changed my life. And it's just something that I see myself doing for the rest of my life. To be honest with you, in a perfect world, this is a framework. And just because again, this is not people who start businesses, all sorts of reasons. Some do it for they see an opportunity. They just want to make money. Some do it out of passion, which is what my case was, and just seeing if we can help these athletes with that, like navigate this space, make money, tell their stories, and help all these different players in the industry. It's such a huge reward and so too lame as it sounds. In a perfect world, I see myself doing what we do today. Helping athletes, helping us lead departments, helping brands, and the college sports space. telling stories building brands 2050 I'm so hopefully founder of FanWord.,
Ronen Ainbinder 30:09
It's so inspiring to hear you talk about it that you can hear your passion and your devotion towards it, man, and that is contagious and inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing, Chris. And I want to thank you so much for coming to the halftime snacks. It has been a pleasure to host you, man. It has been a fun experience, and man, you have so many things in your head that bringing them into a podcast format is quite an experience. And I appreciate you coming and sharing everything you did, shared, man looking forward to discussing in a year and in 2050. Man, we got to be talking about this again.