South Carolina names Garnet Trust as its official NIL partner. Here’s what that means

The University of South Carolina and LEARFIELD, it’s multi-media rights partner, are officially partnering with the Garnet Trust collective to handle its name, image and likeness needs, the school announced Thursday morning.

“This multi-year relationship will give the Garnet Trust access to gameday activations, events and promotion throughout the college athletics season to help educate fans and enhance our student-athlete experience,” the news release explained.

The move is the latest for a university and athletic department that continue to adjust to the changing climate of college athletics, most notably the ability for student-athletes to profit off their NIL.

“We’re behind other SEC schools, and we really need the fan base and community and businesses alike to come together and really help support us in this new world,” Garnet Trust director of operations Jeremy Smith told The State. “Facilities were the importance in the past. Today, it’s NIL. I do think that landscape will change a little bit over the next few years and you might not see it as big of a deal. But I think, for right now, athletes are looking to us to provide them some image and likeness opportunities.”

What is NIL and why does it matter?

Name, image and likeness (NIL) largely refers to the ability for collegiate athletes to profit off of their marketability. Such an idea was not allowed under previous NCAA rules, but college sports’ governing body changed its stance in June 2021.

That has since allowed for NIL collectives — such as the Garnet Trust — to sprout up around the country as a way for boosters and fans to contribute to a fund that is then disseminated to participating student-athletes through such obligations and deals as autograph signings and appearances, social media mentions, commercials or even larger promotional opportunities.

“We’re super excited to have the Garner Trust onboard as the official NIL partner of South Carolina athletics,” South Carolina senior associate athletic director for administration Hilary Cox — who oversees NIL compliance for the university — told The State. “Because what that does is, it allows us to create and generate exposure for them that may not have been possible prior to that.”

The rules for such deals, though, have shifted multiple times over the last few years as college sports’ most prominent power brokers grapple with the ability for student-athletes to make money. The state of South Carolina, for example, previously passed a law allowing for student-athletes to be compensated, but it outlawed schools being involved in the process. That legislation has since expired, and there aren’t currently any laws on the books governing NIL in the state.

“It’s a very bumpy roller coaster,” Smith said. “There’s ups, there’s downs. There are straightaways, there’s going backwards. It’s just really hard to navigate this new space, because there’s changes being made daily. We just have to be nimble enough to be able to pivot when we need to and not be so concentrated that we’re going to do it this way. We have to be flexible to do it in many different ways.”

Why does the partnership matter for South Carolina and Garnet Trust?

Garnet Trust has operated as a separate entity from the university since its inception in November 2021 largely due to rules in the state and at the NCAA level that previously precluded official partnerships like that announced on Thursday. Last year alone, it worked with roughly 150 student-athletes at South Carolina and hopes to move that number over 200 this year, Smith said.

Under the terms and conditions of the new agreement, the Garnet Trust will now be the exclusive NIL collective the school will market. (The other primary NIL collective that has procured deals for South Carolina athletes, Carolina Rise, will still operate independent of this deal.)

“Being able to be the official collective of USC is obviously very important, because it shows that there’s one collective that people can rally around,” Smith explained. “And then it allows the school to be more proactive in their support. It makes it easier on them. Instead of supporting multiple (collectives), they can just put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak.”

In practice, that means fans can expect advertisements for the Garnet Trust on places like the scoreboards at Williams-Brice Stadium, Colonial Life Arena and Founders Park. Garnet Trust is also building out its membership program with varying giving levels that then grants fans access to student-athletes.

“We have a membership platform that allows people to give a certain level and they get certain access to certain things, and that’s going to be vital to our success,” Smith said. “Everybody thinks that a low dollar amount does not go very far, but it does in big numbers. That’s what we’re really trying to show people is $10 a month can go very far, if we get enough people to do it.”

The partnership also gives the university more flexibility to be involved with the collective moving forward and represents a shift across the nation in how other schools are working hand-in-hand with some of their collectives. Along with South Carolina, Oklahoma, Florida State, Tennessee and Virginia have taken similar approaches of late.

“We’ve done everything that we could within the parameters that we had up until this point, but it did take taking that next step — which was a significant one — for the Garnet Trust to get to the spot that we’re at today,” Cox said. “And that’s exciting, because there’s 20-ish schools around the country who are in this position now, and we’re one of them.”