NIL MarketingTHE EVIDENCE
Verified performance data from real campaigns. 650,000+ athlete network. Zero wasted spend.
Context
Subway sought to drive brand awareness and in-store traffic among Gen Z consumers through authentic athlete-generated content.
The Challenge
Traditional advertising feels inauthentic to Gen Z. Subway needed peer-driven content that would actually resonate on social media.
The Solution
Partnered with 174 Gen Z athletes who created 183 unique pieces of content in Subway restaurants, showcasing their genuine experiences and favorite orders.
Platform breakdown
Engagement rate and share of views by channel
🏆 3.7× industry (ind. 2.5%)
🏆 15.6× industry (ind. 0.5%)
🏆 10.2× industry (ind. 0.6%)
Industry benchmarks: Socialinsider 2025 Social Media Benchmarks
Content performance
Output and engagement
Athlete Content Library
Click any video to explore the full collection
Why This Matters
Athlete-created content outperformed paid ads by generating organic virality and authentic peer-to-peer recommendations that drove measurable in-store traffic. 100% Ad-Blocker Immune.
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SoFi achieved 50,000+ funded accounts. A 76% account funding rate from verified student-athletes.
Legacy paid social delivers 12.4% funding rates. Industry-standard is 35%. Most sign-ups never complete onboarding.
Verified athletes become real customers with real deposits at a 76% funding rate, 6.1x the legacy baseline. They are also in college, so you are opening accounts at the very start of their financial lives. Primary banking is the stickiest relationship in consumer finance, and these customers hold it through their first paycheck, first car, and first mortgage.
Athletes referred peers to a leading crypto exchange, driving 4,814 referred sign-ups into 2,614 funded accounts, a 54.3% sign-up to funded rate, with 1,680 going on to place a first trade.
Cold traffic from paid social converts at just 12% for crypto. Trust barriers make first deposits rare.
Peer-to-peer referrals broke through skepticism. When a teammate recommends a platform, hesitation drops and conversions soar.
Amazon Prime Student acquired 17.4K new student sign-ups with $658K in first transaction volume.
Legacy paid social wastes 42% of spend on bots and algorithm fatigue. Traditional digital marketing yielded low conversion quality.
NIL Club athletes are high-intent users who trust the platform. That trust transfers to vetted brand offers, turning athletes into loyal customers.
Peer-to-peer performance achieved a 63.8% funding rate: 36,617 new accounts, 23,362 of them funded. Peer-to-peer referrals ensure brand trust.
Standard paid social delivers 12.4% funding rates with significant waste. Most sign-ups never complete onboarding.
Leverage peer-driven trust to achieve 63.8% funding rate, 5.1x better than paid social baseline.
Upside counts a completed app signup as a conversion, with no purchase required, which makes it the lowest-friction offer an athlete can pass along. 8,353 athletes signed up.
Cash-back apps live or die on install volume, and paid install campaigns buy users who never open the app twice.
We paired our student athletes with Upside, an app that makes sense for them, and incentivized them to experience the app beyond just downloading it. 53% of clicks finished signup, and 34.6% of those went on to actually use it.
A fully managed athlete content program for Hardee's generated 2.3M views and 93.5K engagements from 129 cross-posted pieces, with IG Reels engagement at 7.83%.
Expensive influencer campaigns have gone stale, and micro-influencer campaigns are hard to manage and keep brand safe once you run them at scale.
Our white glove service vets brand fit for every participating athlete and runs content approvals end to end. What comes back is unique content with real viral potential, made by novel influencers who are genuinely excited to work with a new brand.
Coinbase required high-capital users. NIL Club delivered 4,118 verified depositors with $200+ minimum deposits.
Standard paid social wastes significant budget on low-quality traffic. Most accounts remain unfunded or below threshold.
Tap into NIL Club's uniquely high-intent user base. Athletes already trust the app. That trust transfers directly to vetted brand offers.
Tempo Meals put a meal-delivery subscription in front of athletes who cook for themselves between practices, producing 1,846 paying subscribers and $824K in confirmed revenue.
Meal subscriptions are a considered purchase with a real monthly commitment, so awareness alone does not move them. The category converts on trust, not reach.
Tempo Meals is a logical fit for college students. Over 1,800 signed up for new subscriptions and have spent almost $1 million to date. Because the product is a subscription, that lands as recurring monthly revenue rather than one-off orders.
17,848 college athletes activated a free trial offer built for how students already read, study, and commute.
Students are a hard audience to reach for a subscription trial. Generic placements find them nowhere near the moments the habit actually fits.
Meet athletes inside a platform they already open every day, with an offer that costs nothing to try and pays only on performance.
12,668 athletes referred 5,323 friends and family, driving 1,884 sign-ups at a 35.4% referral conversion rate.
Referral programs stall when the referrer has no real audience. Most people can reach a handful of friends at best.
Athletes carry genuine local reach. A peer-to-peer offer converts because the recommendation arrives from someone the audience already trusts.
650,000+ Verified Athlete Users
Nationwide coverage across all 50 states.
50
States Covered
~5%
Of All College Students
1,900+
Colleges
The Complete Portfolio
Author your own legacy.
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