College football powerhouse University of Oregon has student-athletes primed to benefit from proposed NCAA NIL rule changes. With nearly 1 million combined Instagram followers and a national brand, players like dominant DE Kayvon Thibodeaux and incoming freshman LB Justin Flowe are set to thrive under new NCAA rules.
Instagram is currently the go-to platform for social media influencers. Although Twitter and YouTube will offer the opportunity for NCAA student-athletes to monetize their brands once NIL rule changes go into effect, Instagram remains the 800 pound gorilla.
After analyzing the current University of Oregon football roster, along with incoming freshman who have signed their NLI, we performed a basic search on Instagram using a player's first and last name. Our research resulted over 839,000 followers and yielded 31 verified accounts.
In recent news, a valuation model of about $.80 per follower on Instagram has been thrown around to determine a student-athlete's potential market value on the platform. The above image highlights Oregon football's Top 20 players according to their Instagram following. At the top of the list is incoming freshman All-American linebacker Justin Flowe from Upland High School (CA).
Justin Flowe rose to national prominence due to his natural instincts, size and aggressive play on-the-field and finished his HS career as one of the most sought after recruits to ever come out of California. As a result, Flowe has amassed an enormous social media following, including over 201,000 followers on Instagram, which is nearly triple the amount of the next most-followed Oregon football player Kayvon Thibodeaux (70k).
Two other incoming freshman Noah Sewell and Kris Hutson ranked 4th and 5th on that list. Sophomore WR Mycah Pittman is third on the list with over 64,000 Instagram followers, and after the launch of his new YouTube channel Pittman already has over 7,400 subscribers.
Oregon football also has 31 current players who are verified on Instagram, which adds another level of value to a player's name, image and likeness. We predict future classes of college recruits to arrive on campus with larger than ever social footprints and the sky is the limit with respect to how much they'll be able to potentially profit once NCAA NIL rule changes go into effect.