Design Your Own NIL/Influencer Deal
By:  Jenn Lanphear

Project at a Glance :

Students in Sports Marketing A will dive into the world of NIL and being an influencer to see what goes into signing a deal to represent a company. They will look at things like what companies make sense for them to work with and ethically who do they want to work with. They will design a contract and posts for for the company. 
       
Driving Question:

How can you become the next great NIL athlete?           

Standards:

• Students will gain a better understanding of company branding, NIL/Influencer deals, and proper uses of social media for businesses.

Team / Culture Building:

• Students looked at favorite college athletes and tried to identify who might have the biggest NIL deals. Also, students analyzed posts from NIL athletes.
  

​Entry Event:

• Jake Daugherty, from Opendorse, met with students to give an overview and history of NIL deals.​

• Students will explore current NIL deals.

Stakeholders:

• Companies the athletes would represent
• Social media outlets
• The athletes
• Colleges they play for
• Possibly pro teams that may want to sign these players
• Marketing professionals

Empathy Building:

• Students will create Empathy Maps

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Use the Need to Know protocol.  Students can share out what they think they know about NIL and influencer deals and then come up with things they’ve always wondered. 
•  Analyze social media post and examine "The Why” behind what was in the post.
• Read the article 'Grand Rapids entrepreneur aims to simplify NIL deals for student athletes', by Kaylie VanWyk.
  
• ​Read GVSU's website about the NIL and what it means to student athletes.
  
• Use the Bracketology protocol
  
• Speedboat activity: what can hold back the success of these posts?
  
• Conduct interviews with people who construct these deals, athletes that have signed these deals, and/or companies that seek out athletes for these deals​.

Incubation:

• Using the Idea quota activity -  name 50 companies you would like to work with, name 50 companies you would not like to work with.
• ”Yes and” activity
• ”How would ____ solve this?
• ”What if….were….”
• ”I like, I wish, what if?”
• Create a Storyboard showing solution ideas.​

Checking in:​ 

• Create a Top 10 List: What are the top 10 things you need to focus on to come up with a solution to the driving questions?
• Use the SWOT Anaylsis to determine what are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to student's ideas.
• Fireside Chat: Chat with another group of students about what you are planning, questions you have, and see if it helps you generate more ideas​.

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Solution Building:

•  After using the Idea Quota, students will look at the ideas that they have generated and work to group them and see if there were some common themes that came up, any really out there ideas that could be tossed and any new ideas that they might want to focus on.

Critique and Revision: 

•  Use either Dot Voting or the $100 Test to narrow down ideas.
• The NUF Test is also great to see if the ideas they have come up with are truly new, usable and feasible
  
• Students will share an Elevator Pitch with either their classmates, students in other classes or possible people in their authentic audience to help them figure out if they are on the right track.
  
• Use I like, I wish, I wonder to have the students gain feedback on their ideas.​

Authentic Audience:

• Companies
• University representatives
• Fellow athletes
• Marketing professionals

Final Presentation:

• Students will use Canva to share their solution ideas.  Samples below and on Padlet.

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

• The teacher will develop a rubric for the project and the posts that the students will need to design. 
• Professionals in the marketing industry will be able to judge how successful the post they design will be.
• By getting feedback from the professionals the students will have an idea of the whether they have made a quality post that the businesses would like, and they will figure out the challenges that go into marketing themselves.​

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:
Jenn Lanphear teaches Business at Hudsonville High School. She teaches Sports Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Accounting and Financial Management. 

     "I love PBL because it brings such a great real-world aspect to my classes! My students have commented on how enjoyable it is to have so much freedom when it comes to they projects."