NIL Firm Altius Tries to ‘Future-Proof’ Itself on Campus

Earlier this year, Altius Sports Partners, the collegiate NIL consulting firm, signed a four-year “athlete services collaboration” agreement with the University of Michigan. A press release hailed it as part of a “forward-thinking” initiative to bolster UM’s name, image and likeness capabilities, in coordination with the school’s multimedia rights holder, Learfield.

Key to the Altius deal was the creation of a general manager position that would be based in Ann Arbor but employed by Altius. UM was the 18th such school to have enlisted in what Altius calls its “on-campus GM program.” Last month, Western Michigan became the 19th.

In addition to supplying a general manager, Altius also promised to create business plans to “Future-Proof” UM’s quarter-of-a-billion-dollar athletic department against the many hazards of the moment, from athlete organizing to Title IX litigation.

“ASP’s team of industry experts is helping institutions stay one step ahead of the inevitable change and positioning athletics departments for sustained success,” stated Exhibit C of the agreement, which was obtained through a public records request.

Left unwritten is that Altius’ own future appears no more certain than any of the schools it is advising. Indeed, one could surmise that the NIL concerns of Altius and its clients are inversely related—the more stable, or predictable, the space becomes, the less schools may need to rely on the expertise, or the onus, of outside companies.

Over the last two years—as the NCAA has begun lifting its restrictions on direct school involvement in athlete NIL—Altius has employed the strategy of close proximity, with a boots-on-the-ground approach reminiscent of the way multimedia rights companies like Learfield and IMG built their businesses by physically burrowing into athletic departments.

But the MMR companies had decades by which to do this and a valuable anchor—the schools’ IP—to their business. Companies like Altius—which was acquired last year by marketing services firm Underdog & Company, for an undisclosed sum—don’t hold any such rights, including those that would be necessary in executing group licensing deals.

One of its main points of leverage is that the NCAA has so far restricted schools from directly soliciting deals on behalf of their athletes. Yet that may not be the case for much longer.

Last week, the NCAA’s Division I Council unanimously passed a proposal that allows schools to increase their involvement in the NIL activities of athletes by “identifying … opportunities” and “facilitating deals.” The proposal, which would go in effect Aug. 1, still needs approval by the D-I Board of Directors.

As a consultancy oriented around NIL regulations, what is Altius’ value proposition in the face of the governing body’s ongoing deregulation? It’s hard to know for sure.  Neither Altius founder and CEO Casey Schwab, a company spokesperson, nor an Underdog representative responded to repeated requests for comment. In a statement last November accompanying its acquisition announcement, Underdog co-founder and managing partner Dan Mannix spoke of the current college sports era “brimming with potential,” adding, “the acquisition of Altius merges our collective experience, creating fresh opportunities for schools, athletes and brands.”

As with other college sports third parties, whether they be MMR companies or executive search firms, Altius offers athletic departments an ability to outsource risk. For public universities, which are generally subject to state transparency laws, Altius also provides a mechanism to engage in the NIL process in a way that is shielded from public scrutiny. (To that end, Wisconsin refused Sportico’s request to turn over its Altius contract, claiming that it was held by the university’s foundation.) 

These attributes could give the company staying power, even if schools eventually decide they can handle much of what Altius offers with athletic department staff.

Altius has a two-pronged business—ASP College, which works with schools, and ASP Brands, which works with companies seeking to do NIL deals with college athletes. Altius, for example, was credited last week with supporting the new five-year, $25 million NIL arrangement between FedEx and the University of Memphis.  It is unclear what kinds of revenue Altius derives from the brand side,  but a review of its current agreements with university partners shows the company making relatively slim margins on agreements that universities can opt out of midway through. 

For example, Michigan will pay Altius around $1.64 million over the next four years—$5,000 per month, as a standard consulting fee, plus annual payments of between $255,000 and $309,000 for the in-house general manager. A lion’s share of that money, however, will go to compensate the GM, who has yet to be hired. (The Athletic was the first to report the financial terms of the agreement.)

In an interview, Kurt Svoboda, UM’s associate athletic director, says he had originally pitched handling much of the NIL work within the athletic department, something he believes Michigan was already well positioned to do.

“I have been greatly frustrated by this really exciting prospect and changing environment with NIL, balanced by really restrictive measures from the NCAA,” said Svoboda. “The Altiuses of the world can come in and provide resources that existing experts are not allowed to provide. My frustration aside, if this becomes our path forward and our path to more intricately support student-athletes, we need to investigate that path until the structure within the NCAA changes.”

The fundamental challenge for Altius is no different than the whole cast of NIL-focused consulting and technology businesses that emerged in the wake of California’s 2019 law enshrining college athletes’ right to do publicity work while playing. How many of these nascent companies will still be in existence in a couple years is an open question.

However, Altius, with its bold-named roster of executives (including chairman Oliver Luck) and subject-matter experts, has asserted itself as a durable force. 

The company, founded by Schwab in October 2020, entered the NIL space touting its ability to guide athletic departments and athletes through the regulatory abyss. Its early pitch was sufficient to land a number of five-figure commitments from Power Five athletic departments, which were scrambling to get their bearings after the NCAA’s interim NIL policy went into effect on July 1, 2020. One of Altius’ earliest deals, for example, was an 11-month contract with LSU that paid $56,000.

In an interview with Sportico in September 2021, Schwab acknowledged his own surprise by how quickly NIL had turned into an “open market, laissez-faire system.” With that in mind, he predicted that by the following year, there were going to be “very few restrictions on purchasing of NIL rights.”

Altius formally launched its on-campus GM program in summer 2022, as Sportico reported at the time, beginning with six schools: LSU, South Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma State, Northwestern and Cincinnati. Two years later, about half of its 41 school clients have availed themselves of this expanded service.

Among Altius’ more lucrative deals is with Oklahoma, which signed a second amendment to its original five-year agreement in August 2023. The current arrangement, which runs through 2028, had OU paying Altius consulting fees of $15,000 per month for the first half year, then $5,000 per month for the remainder of the term. OU’s on-campus package includes both a general manager position—which starts at an annual salary of $225,000, then increases 5% each year—as well as a $75,000-per-year “revenue analyst,” who can earn discretionary bonuses of up to 20%.

To fill those two positions, Altius receives a 25% annual administrative fee that works out to between $150,000 to $200,000 per year. All told, the administrative and consulting fees stand to net Altius $1.3 million over the next five years in Norman, Okla.

According to the agreement, Oklahoma has “favored nations” status with Altius, such that it is entitled to renegotiate the agreement if Altius offers any other Power Five school a new kind of pricing model or services. Oklahoma, like other schools, also has the right to terminate the latest deal within two years.

On the other end of the financial spectrum is Altius’ deal with South Carolina, which was due to pay Altius $80,905.23 this year, suggesting that its on-campus NIL GM is earning about a third of what Oklahoma’s is. South Carolina’s agreement, which goes until June, stated that if at least three Altius employees weren’t on the Gamecocks’ campus as of this past December, the parties would use best efforts to agree to terms of an extension. As of now, there is only one Altius employee, a general manager. A South Carolina spokesperson said the school is “actively exploring future opportunities with ASP,” adding that the company has been a “great partner in this space.”

Other Altius GM program participants include: Rutgers, which pays Altius $137,849.99 per year; Cincinnati, which pays $173,092.60 per year; and Iowa’s, which pays $546,555.28 over three years.

It’s hardly chump change, but nor are these the kind of returns that necessarily satisfy private equity. (Five months prior to its acquisition of Altius, Underdog & Company was acquired by PE firm NewSpring Capital.) 

Altius’ other clear challenge in cashing in on its on-campus GM program is finding people to do the job. Though it has signed GM agreements with 19 schools, the company has so far placed people on only 13 campuses, according to Altius’ website. Svoboda said that there is currently no timeline as to when the GM role will be filled at Michigan, but if history is a guide, it could take some time. Consider Altius’ announcement earlier this month that it had filled the NIL GM position at Rutgers, more than a year after the parties executed their agreement to create the position.