Michigan football announces intriguing new NIL partnership

The Michigan football program has been working hard lately to up their NIL game, and the school now has a partnership with Passes. Passes is a way for student-athletes to provide content for fans, and they can make money off of it. Athletes will have profiles on Passes, and fans can subscribe to their pages. Athletes can profit off of the subscriptions, they can also create and sell custom merch.

“Michigan has partnered with a venture that aims to ‘revolutionize’ NIL for Wolverines athletes in football and across various sports,” A report from 247 Sports said. “Announced Tuesday on The Michigan Insider, Passes has an agreement that will allow them to use Michigan’s brands and trademarks in representing student athletes in direct marketing campaigns with sponsors on its platform.”

This will help the school with numerous different athletic programs, but NIL news is most important for the Michigan football team. Lucy Guo, the founder of Passes, thinks that this will greatly benefit the Wolverines.

“We think they’re going to make tons of money,” Lucy Guo said.

This news comes at an important time for the football team as Michigan is currently working hard to flip Bryce Underwood, the #1 player in the 2025 class. Underwood attends Belleville High School just outside of Ann Arbor, but he is committed to LSU.

“It’s definitely something we care a lot about,” Guo said in regard to Bryce Underwood. “Yes, we have been in discussions in contributing to an NIL package that will bring Bryce to Michigan. … People want Bryce. Michigan is really his hometown. He has the opportunity to be a hometown hero. He has the opportunity to make more money. To me, it seems like a no-brainer.”

Michigan is taking NIL more seriously

In this new era of college sports, you have to adapt or you will be left in the dust. Last year, Michigan athletic director made a promise about NIL, and now it appears the Wolverines are taking it all more seriously.

“What we promise students at Michigan is that we’re going to support you with NIL and your ability to make money off NIL,” Warde Manuel said. “But we’re also promising is that we’re going to teach you how to use NIL for life. This is not just about the money you get now — but educating them so that for the rest of their lives, they can make money off their name and who they are, they can understand contracts, they can understand how to market themselves, they can understand how to get jobs and use that to their benefit and benefit of their family, how they can network and use that connection to do the things that they need to do.”

Up until recently, it seemed like the Michigan football program was behind other big schools in terms of NIL. However, it doesn’t feel like that is the case anymore. The Wolverines have clearly been able to find more NIL money based on what they have offered Bryce Underwood, and they feel confident about this partnership with Passes as well.