Mikey Williams signs with Excel Sports for NIL deal expected to 'generate millions' for high school basketball star

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per ESPN:

Explosive scoring guard Mikey Williams won't be eligible for the NBA draft until 2024 and still has nearly two years to decide on college basketball or a pro pathway.

Yet his massive social media following -- more than 5 million followers across multiple platforms -- has allowed Williams to become the first prep basketball star to sign with a major sports representation agency to pursue name, image and likeness endorsements and sponsorships.

Williams, a San Diego native who will attend Lake Norman Christian in Huntersville, North Carolina, and play for Vertical Academy, has signed a deal with Excel Sports Management that Excel vice president Matt Davis said he believes "will generate millions of dollars for this young man."

"Mikey's relevance around his peers in the basketball community is off the charts," Davis told ESPN. "He's one of the most relevant personalities in the basketball community. His digital and social following speak for themselves."

"He's a rare, one-of-a-kind athlete in this space," Davis told ESPN. "We're going to build out his national profile and take big swings."

www.espn.com

HS hoops star inks historic NIL deal with Excel

High school guard Mikey Williams has signed a NIL deal with Excel Sports management that is expected to generate millions of dollars for the scoring phenom.
www.espn.com www.espn.com

Go Gophers!!
 



Blackhammer said:
Show me the money. Not sure about the economics of this new age. Be interesting to see how it plays out. Jelly Jam was born too early
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Yes he was. He would have had a nice endorsement deal well before he stepped foot on campus.

Go Gophers!!
 

Is he going to be enjoying the benefits as a prep, or does he have to wait until he is in college?
 



GopherPete said:
Is he going to be enjoying the benefits as a prep, or does he have to wait until he is in college?
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He can reap the benefits now. The only reason people avoided this in the past was to preserve NCAA eligibility. It wasn't (and isn't) a legal issue.
 

BarnBurner said:
The destruction of college athletics is accelerating.
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I see how it could kill my love of college athletics. Bad enough to lose a big game. It would really suck if Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin or whoever had someone playing who was also making a million or more while playing.

You certainly can't blame the player but I just think the competitive unbalance is only going to grow between the haves and the have-nots.

Or, hopefully, I'm totally wrong and some sort of a deal a kid can make might it more likely Ben or PJ get a coveted local kid.
 

Probably won’t be much of a benefit for average players. In as far as basketball it will diminish team play and probably take the NBA prospects out of college ball eventually .March madness a fan’s nirvana may have seen its better days. Unfortunately this may set the stage for some kids being millionaires at 17 and broke at 25.
 



We already have young people who have an outsized view of their importance in the world as they have always been the "star" through AAU, recruiting, etc. I think this just magnifies it. I can't imagine trying to coach a kid who comes in having made millions already and wants to continue to build his "brand".
 

Ozzy&Ray said:
We already have young people who have an outsized view of their importance in the world as they have always been the "star" through AAU, recruiting, etc. I think this just magnifies it. I can't imagine trying to coach a kid who comes in having made millions already and wants to continue to build his "brand".
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Great point. I wonder if this ends up chasing a lot of the elite coaches out of the college game and into the NBA. If you have to deal with unleashed prima donnas, you might as well get well paid to do it.

It's possible you could have kids getting paid better than the coach; can you imagine that dynamic in the locker room?
 

Jelly Fam came along a few years too early...
 

It may be that in some states a high school athlete would be ineligible. Gonna be interesting how this all plays out.
 



Kids barely old enough to run paper routes are gonna make more money than their parents for making all city soon 🤦‍♂️.

I understand college athletes considering university athletics exploit their talents and make millions. But kids in high school? How much money is their high school making off of them? Lol. I’m just not with the times I guess.

this might ruin sports as a whole, not just college athletics.
 

GoldenMAV30266 said:
Kids barely old enough to run paper routes are gonna make more money than their parents for making all city soon 🤦‍♂️.

I understand college athletes considering university athletics exploit their talents and make millions. But kids in high school? How much money is their high school making off of them? Lol. I’m just not with the times I guess.

this might ruin sports as a whole, not just college athletics.
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it's the joy of social media and that these kids get 10s of thousands of followers now (same as all this weird tiktok stuff and "influencer" culture). my nieces and nephews spend crazy amounts of hours on their phone watching tiktoks and instagram (and they're in an incredibly active family who does multiple sports, etc) but every one of those watches makes revenue. That's why this kid is getting so much hype is due to his instagram following and this company knowing they can exploit/leverage that
 

Pretty soon middle school kids will demand compensation. God forbid a person does something without monetary gain
 

I don't see a cause for panic.

If the U is in a great city, if it turns out great alumni, if its academics are top-notch... if all of that is true, how many schools could compete? The U should have an alumni base that could pump more money into the program than others, the U should have a city that could pump more money in the the program than others, and the U should have academics that outstrip all others. If all of that is true, why the worry? The freer the markets, the greater the success of the truly best institutions.

I don't get it?
 

touchdownvikings said:
I don't see a cause for panic.

If the U is in a great city, if it turns out great alumni, if its academics are top-notch... if all of that is true, how many schools could compete? The U should have an alumni base that could pump more money into the program than others, the U should have a city that could pump more money in the the program than others, and the U should have academics that outstrip all others. If all of that is true, why the worry? The freer the markets, the greater the success of the truly best institutions.

I don't get it?
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I would go with most of the "great alumni" probably don't define success by how much money they donate to a kid to play sports as is evidenced by our inabilty to fundraise for years. the city and academics remain the same as they always have been. I'd imagine the worry is that we don't have the big money (or people who define their worth by giving some amounts of money to the ahtletic program) like some others do
 


howeda7 said:
Jelly Fam came along a few years too early...
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Just looked up his stats, and it looks like he’s been pretty successful at Iona and LBSU. Shooting % is way up. Coaching or decreased level of competition?
 




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