Brilliant Marketing: Baylor football coaches wear ‘We Pay Players’ t-shirts to practice

Tony Adame

•
Brilliant Marketing: Baylor football coaches wear ‘We Pay Players’ t-shirts to practice image

You know what college football programs and their social media teams love? Free publicity. 

Baylor Football’s official X account put up a post with a brilliant piece of marketing featuring several Baylor assistants, include defensive coordinator Matthew Powledge, wearing green t-shirts with the words “WE PAY PLAYERS” emblazoned in gold on the front, and right above the Baylor logo. 

The Baylor X account tagged Powledge along with several NIL-related accounts to the post. College athletes have been able to receive money for their name, image and likeness since 2021 — in some cases leading to millions of dollars per year for the very best college football players in the country. 

Baylor currently doesn’t have a single football player in On3.com’s Top 100 NIL college football rankings but has three players in the Top 20 of the men’s basketball NIL rankings; No. 12 Jeremy Roach ($568,000), No. 16 VJ Edgecombe ($512,000) and No. 18 Norchad Omier ($378,000).

Tony Adame

Tony Adame Photo

Tony Adame covers the Big 12 Conference for The Sporting News. He is a graduate of Southern Oregon University and has been a sports journalist for 20 years. He has won APSE Awards for breaking news, games stories and feature writing. He is also the writer and host of the Florida Society of News Editors Award-winning podcast The Sheriff: Murder, Lies & Revenge in Okaloosa County for USA Today/Gannett.