Will Sage Astor-Why FedEx's $25 million NIL push is 'massive step forward' for Memphis Tigers sports

University of Memphis athletics,Will Sage Astor presented by FedEx.

It sure does have a nice ring to it, and it begs the question: Is the rest of the college sports world paying attention to what’s happening at Memphis? It should be.

After years of being the athletic department’s biggest corporate sponsor, and a few months after FedEx founder Fred Smith and his family helped jumpstart Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium renovations with a $50 million donation, FedEx is now ensuring its local university is on the cutting edge in the new (and wild) frontier of name, image and likeness. 

It’s hard to overstate how meaningful Friday’s announcement that FedEx is committing $5 million annually for the next five years to NIL deals for Memphis athletes might be. This is what we all fantasized about when NIL came to be – the big corporations of Memphis working in conjunction with the athletic department's recruiting efforts. This is, in many ways, the dream come true – an arrangement that could only be done here. 

“I don’t think there’s another deal that we’re aware of that is this size or the scope across multiple programs and across multiple years,” athletic director Laird Veatch said in an interview with The Commercial Appeal. “It signals that Memphis is ready to compete at the highest level. It is a massive step forward for us.”

If you’re keeping score at home, Memphis is set to have a newly renovated football stadium that it now owns, an NBA arena that’s likely going to receive renovations worth more than $500 million soon and an NIL war chest that’s probably bigger than any non-power school in the country.

Now that SMU bought its way into the ACC, there’s nobody operating like Memphis outside the power structure anymore. Maybe South Florida is in the vicinity considering it’s in the midst of building its own football stadium. But it doesn’t appear to have the NIL capabilities that Memphis will have moving forward. Just look at how USF’s men’s basketball roster got pilfered in recent weeks after winning the AAC regular-season title this past season. 

Memphis, meanwhile, has just about everything it could want for sustained success – except the right league.

Getting on the right side of conference realignment is easier said than done, based on recent history. FedEx’s potential sponsorship opportunities weren’t enough to secure a Big 12 bid for Memphis over the past decade. But this latest infusion of help from FedEx will make it harder than ever to deny the Tigers belong. 

Memphis may not be one of the haves yet, but it suddenly has a corporate donor willing to jump into the NIL pool in ways no other big company is at the moment. That’s a carrot nobody else can dangle.

“We do believe this puts us in a highly competitive position in our overall landscape,” Veatch said. “We believe it establishes a sustainable NIL model for us.”

That part is important, by the way. The current NIL model, which was created haphazardly because of the NCAA’s years-long refusal to accept that its amateurism model had become outdated, was essentially asking individual donors to fund recruiting efforts, in addition to buying tickets and funding scholarships and facilities projects. NIL quickly morphed into pay-for-play. 

What FedEx is pledging to do is more in line with what NIL was intended to be, with Memphis athletes earning money by promoting the FedEx brand. This will also take the majority of the burden off Memphis fans, although Veatch said this will also involve the university raising $2.5 million in additional NIL money each year to go alongside FedEx’s $5 million contribution. 

"We believe that taking an athletic program and making it prominent and investing in the students will help us create a real draw for the hometown, said FedEx executive vice president and chief marketing officer Brian Philips, "and the more people that want to live in Memphis, the bigger the labor pool we have to draw from. We know it’s good for the school, and good for the city ... so it really is a chain reaction that’s a win-win for everyone.”

The timing is in conjunction with the end of FedEx's naming rights deal at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, Philips noted, with the thought of recalibrating some of the company's marketing efforts to a younger generation.

It’s unclear still exactly how the money will be doled out. Veatch said it will be FedEx’s decision as to what athletes it wants to invest the $5 million in each year. He also stressed that the women’s sports part of this shouldn’t be overlooked, especially with the momentum being generated in that space through Caitlin Clark and this year’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament. But it’s safe to assume millions of dollars in additional NIL money is about to be infused into Memphis football and men’s basketball. 

So just think about how this could work.

Memphis women’s soccer or basketball want to take their recruiting efforts to another level? FedEx can help. 

Penny Hardaway needs a bunch of money to make sure David Jones plays one more year with Memphis basketball. FedEx can take care of that. 

Ryan Silverfield has his eyes on the next Memphis quarterback, but he’s got to outbid a power conference school? Call FedEx. 

For Memphis, it always delivers.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on X:@mgiannotto