Florida Victorious alters its strategy to compete in the NIL arms race

Millions of drivers in Florida’s biggest cities have seen new messages on billboards the past couple of weeks.

C’MON GATORS GIVE UP & GIVE!  LET’S WIN. JOIN THE TEAM

HELP MAKE FLORIDA VICTORIOUS

That last one is a play on words. Florida Victorious is UF’s NIL collective. The name pretty much sums up the mission, and the new reality of college sports.

If you want to be victorious, you need NIL money.

As such, Florida needs your money.

This isn’t a fundraising plea for UF. You could substitute “FSU” or “Oklahoma State” or even “George Washington” for “Florida” and the story would be the same.

Every school has been swept up in a pay-for-play arms race. Two years into the NIL revolution, Florida Victorious has concluded it needs to rework its strategy.

Its war chest is somewhere in the top 10 of big-time schools, Florida Victorious CEO Nate Barbera said. That won’t win this war.

“Top 10 in NIL isn’t good enough, just like anything less than a national championship in football is unacceptable,” Barbera said. “We should be No. 1 in NIL.”

Florida Victorious has about 3,000 members who pay $15 to $250 a month. That’s about half the subscriber base of Ole Miss, which is considered an industry leader.

As for top-10 funding, Barbera wouldn’t put a dollar figure on that. But big-school NILs supposedly have $15 million to $20 million war chests.

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I say supposedly because nobody really knows. In the mere weeks after losing to Michigan, Ohio State’s NIL reportedly dished out $13 million on talent acquisition. That kind of thing prompted Florida Victorious to try to up its game.

It has brought in Freddie Wehbe as director of revenue. The name might sound familiar to Florida fans who like to eat.

Wehbe is managing partner at Steve Spurrier’s Gridiron Grille and a marketing consultant. His business career began in 1995, when he took over the struggling Domino’s franchise on SW 13^th Street and turned it into the busiest Domino's in the world, delivering 300,000 pizzas a year.

“Freddie’s incredibly hard working,” Barbera said. “He knows the ins and outs of Gator fans and is as passionate as any Gator fan you’ll meet. And he’s been successful in everything he’s tried.”

Wehbe’s focus will be on corporate donations, which he sees as the great untapped source of NIL revenue. About 400,000 UF graduates live in Florida.

The way Wehbe sees it, it only makes business sense for companies to appeal to that base. Even if the CEO has never even heard of Tim Tebow.

“Let’s be real here,” Wehbe said. “If you’re a business owner in Orlando and you’re a Seminole fan but many of your constituents are Gators, wouldn’t it be a smart move to invest and promote your business to that base?”

Wehbe’s hired two assistants, and their marketing campaign began two weeks ago. It involves blitzing the state with billboards, digital ads and social media promotion.

“It’s just like any other business,” he said. “You have to build brand awareness.”

Otherwise, NIL isn’t much like any other business. It’s a murky, largely unregulated paradigm shift that has alienated a lot of fans.

Florida Victorious has the added challenge of selling a struggling football program. It also must differentiate itself from The Gator Collective, UF’s original NIL that pretty much went up in flames.

And as astute as Wehbe and Barbera may be, every big NIL has savvy business people who are attacking NIL in innovative ways.

Oregon’s NIL has a “Ducks of a Feather” merchandise line created by longtime benefactor Nike. BYU has “Cruising With The Cougs,” a four-day Carnival Cruise where fans get to dine and play mini golf with football players.

Geez, what would a Bull Gator pay to do the limbo with DJ Lagway?

Wehbe’s campaign has already produced a partnership with Southern Chevrolet dealers. Some lucky fan is going to drive away with an orange-and-blue 2024 Chevy Silverado at the spring football game.

And the NCAA can’t do anything about it.

Investigations, lawsuits, countersuits and political gamesmanship have added to the fog of NIL war. Donor-based funding could be replaced by direct university paychecks to players in a couple of years.

Or the NIL model could be more ravenous than ever. Nobody really knows.

“What I do know is that if we put our heads in the sand and just wait for it to pass, others will pass us by,” Barbera said. “And that is not an option.”

Like it or not, NIL is like a runaway Silverado right now. If fans don’t get on board, their schools are going to be left in the dust.

David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on X @DavidEWhitley