Texas Tech Football & Women’s Basketball Teams Sign NIL Deals

Every single player on the 2022-23 Texas Tech football team was recently signed to a Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) one-year, $25,000 contract from a local collective called the Matador Club.

The deal will be for all 85 scholarship players plus 15 of Texas Tech’s walk-ons, according to Cody Campbell, an oil and gas executive who is a member of the Matador Club board of directors and a former Texas Tech offensive lineman, according to a report from Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

Campbell said that players will be expected to do community service and charitable work in the Lubbock area, and that payments will start to go out the first week of August.

“Collectives have done things a number of different ways,” Campbell told the Avalanche-Journal. “You see some of them paying large amounts to individual players. You see others doing different things. But what we want to do, really, is support the entire program. This is kind of a base salary for the guys. They’re not going to be restricted from doing any other NIL stuff with anybody else. In fact, we’re going to encourage and help them to do that.”

The football program’s NIL deal sparked a similar deal for the Red Raiders’ women’s basketball team. According to a report from SI.com, each member of the women’s basketball team will also receive a one-year, $25,000 NIL deal via Level 13, a local marketing agency.

“We are proud to announce that Level 13 Agency has committed $25,000.00 per Lady Raider in the Women’s Basketball Locker Room! We see you, we hear you, and we support you, ladies!” Level 13 said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

A video shared on social media by KAMC’s Mason Horodyski captured the moment the Lady Raiders players received word of the deals during practice at the Dustin R. Womble Basketball Center. Players can be seen smiling and embracing in the short clip as assistant coach and former WNBA player Plenette Pierson made the rounds to hug and congratulate the entire squad.

Happy tears at the Womble after the @LadyRaiderWBB found out they would receive $25,000 each thru an NIL deal with @LEVEL13Agency. A historic deal for #TexasTech and women’s college athletics as well. #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/RsAShbRerf

— Mason Horodyski🌵 (@MasonHorodyski) July 28, 2022

As NIL deals continue to emerge around the NCAA, Texas Tech’s landmark agreement could usher in more significant developments for women’s college athletics in the months ahead. It could also jumpstart a return to prominence for the Lady Raiders after the team finished seventh in the Big 12 in each of the past two seasons under coach Krista Gerlich.

To read the full story from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal or SI.com, click here and here.