SJ Tuohy to depart UCF, take charge of NIL collective to support Knights

[AGLamb]

SJ Tuohy to depart UCF, take charge of NIL collective to support Knights

In the two years since Gus Malzahn was hired as coach for UCF football, it became normal for him to have SJ Tuohy by his side. More often than not if Malzahn was in a staff meeting, attending an ev…

www.orlandosentinel.com

I'm making this its' own thread because it really is a important development for UCF athletics. The whole article is a great read but here's interesting quotes i pulled (it's like 3/4ths of the article)

“A lot of people say that but it’s achievable here,” he said. “Not largest financially but largest in terms of people who have skin in the game as a part of the Kingdom. We want everyone to feel a part of it. Whether they’re at the biggest level or the lowest level, there’s a place.”

Previously, annual donation levels on the group’s website were listed from $12,000-$48,000 — although it did accept custom donation amounts, too.

Visit the website now, it lists monthly donations as low as $25 per month and as high as $250 a month. The $12,000 annual rate didn’t go away either.

If this subscription service sounds familiar to another NIL service that’s tied to UCF, that’s because it is. Earlier this week, McKenzie Milton’s Mission Control merged with the Kingdom NIL, a move that Tuohy called helpful.

“The clarity that it creates provides us a chance for consistency,” Tuohy said. “Having a unified collective, there are not as many questions about competing or doing different events and players being pulled in different ways. Our only agenda is to help all athletic programs at UCF, not just football.
“That’s our goal and that was Mission Control’s goal. We just felt like we could help fast-track it from where they were.”

The combining of collectives is part of a new trend in the NIL world. In February, two collectives that support athletes at Ohio State — THE Foundation and The O Foundation — announced a merger.

Milton as well as McNamara will remain heavily involved with the larger NIL collective. Both are listed as board members on the group’s website, joined by donors John John Euliano, Kevin Wydra, Ron Thow, and Mike Palmer. Former UCF running back and NFL veteran Latavius Murray is also listed.

In addition to growing the collective’s membership, Tuohy aims to work with companies in Orlando that might already have a connection to UCF.

The Kingdom NIL was announced as a corporate sponsor of UCF Athletics on Wednesday.

In January, UCF athletics director Terry Mohajir released a statement showing his support for the collective and urging fans to donate, but this new relationship with the athletics department takes things even further, according to Tuohy.

“A statement shows that you’re connected to the program and you support it but a sponsorship shows that you’re committed to it. And that’s what we are,” he said.

Tuohy also wants to recruit more donors who could contribute on a large scale.

“It’s three groups. It’s the individual level, it’s your high-end booster and it’s your corporation,” he explained. “It’s in place here. We have those individuals that are really involved, we have those corporations and we have such a big base that we can build on those three things.”

Malzahn supports all of this. It’s part of the reason he handed over play-calling duties to new offensive coordinator Darin Hinshaw when he hired him in January.

“That’s a big part of everyone’s success and our success here, how well we’ll do with the collective,” Malzahn said Monday. “It’s keeping up with the rest of college football. That’s really been my major focus.


“It’s just the new age of college football. I’m doing everything I can to help us be competitive in that area.”

Malzahn is able to help more than ever before. That’s because last month, the state law was amended to allow more institutional involvement from universities and colleges regarding NIL opportunities.

Tuohy believes his move from UCF to the collective shows just how much Malzahn supports NIL.

It’s expected that recently-hired advisor Will Healy will be promoted to assistant head coach to help fill in for Tuohy, a source confirmed to the Sentinel. Brandon Marcello of 247Sports first reported this move.

“As hard as it was to move, I did this because coach [Malzahn] is all in,” Tuohy said. “Having his support is going to be the only thing that gives our collective a chance to work. Without the head coach all in, you shouldn’t even have a collective.
“He’s all in and it’s going to be fun.”

First, wow - this is a huge pivot for SJ and shows his dedication to UCF and commitment to being here long term. We are very lucky to have him as part of the UCF family.

Also, Malzahn's dedication to this is really cool.

Thirdly - all of you who got your recurring payments ended by Mission Control make sure you sign back up for Kingdom. It's really unfortunate they didn't transition this better - I wonder how many 'set and forget' subscribers they will lose in the churn? I got an abrupt paypal email cancelling my payments and you wonder if they would have been better served proactively telling people what was going on and offering to transition them over more seamlessly. The Mission Control website isn't even updated. They should at least just flat out redirect it to the Kingdom's site.

Lastly - if you don't subscribe PLEASE consider doing so. I know NIL is a minefield and there is skepticism around it, but I'd just ask folks to reconsider hesitation now that a guy like SJ is running it and the price points have been reduced to make it accessible to all. Coach Malzahn seems like he is building the only true high integrity NIL program in the country and we should all be proud to support that.

 

[Brandon]

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