799: What YOU Need to Know About Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) - with Chase Griffin, UCLA Quarterback, & 2X National NIL Athlete of the Year

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to EdUp on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. This is Dr. Joe Sallustio back with you again and again and again. Who could believe that four years ago, as you guys listen to this episode, it'll probably be in January of 2024, close to our four-year anniversary of this podcast, nearly 800 episodes, 360 plus thousand downloads. Most importantly, bringing you amazing people in and around higher education for us to know, connect with, learn from, and really celebrate the work. That's what this is all about and why higher ed, I believe, is so valuable because you can impact so many people's lives in a positive way. 

We've got an amazing guest with us today who's doing that in a way that will be very unique to this podcast. He will be the first person that's doing what he's doing that we will have had on this podcast. And you'll know what I'm talking about in a minute, even though it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about. But before I get to him, I want to bring my guest host to bring him in. You've heard him before. He is my VP of strategy and innovation. He's I think he's everybody's VP of strategy innovation. He is the one and only Rob Westervelt, and he is the VP of strategy innovation at Lindenwood University. Rob, welcome back to EdUp.

Rob Westervelt: Thanks, Joe. Good to be back. And you're on vacation-ish.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And you're calling in on a phone in an echo room, which I would advise you not to be on a phone or in an echo room, but we're going to make it work. 

Alright, guys, let's get our esteemed guest in here right now and get right to the conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is. He is the one and only Chase Griffin. He is a quarterback at UCLA and he is a two-time NIL male athlete of the year award winner. Chase, welcome to an EdUp Experience microphone. How are you?

Chase Griffin: I'm doing well Joe, Rob. Thank you for having me man.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know what? This is so exciting to have this conversation because I don't think a lot of people really understand the world of NIL and what it means and how it works and all the bits and pieces. But before we go there to the technical parts, tell us about you. You're at UCLA, you're playing football. How long have you been there? How long you gonna be there? Give us a little bit of background on Chase.

Chase Griffin: Perfect. So I was born at UCLA Santa Monica Hospital and then grew up in Austin, Texas in a town called Round Rock. Ended up going to Hutto High School and starting there for three years. My senior year, I was a Gatorade Player of the Year, Ford Player of the Year and had won a couple other branded awards. So when I got to UCLA, I'd come in with some experience working with brands and representing a town larger than myself. And I wanted to make the most out of the UCLA network. A lot of my early offers were Ivy League and I felt like if I was passing on Harvard for UCLA because of certain football opportunities, that I had to eliminate the opportunity costs by maximizing the network in LA.

And I felt like I tapped into that before NIL. I got to UCLA in 2019. And once I built up that network and then on and off the field, was excelling. I have a good name and a good reputation and some experience on camera and some brand work that made me attractive to brands once Name, Image, and Likeness became passed.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: So you were really building your own personal brand before NIL kind of formalized itself. Was NIL for you on the horizon and you thought, you know what, I'm going to build my personal brand and maybe at some point I can leverage that? Or was this something you were just passionate about community and helping community before that even took place?

Chase Griffin: I think building my own brand and building a good name was something that I'd really learned to do as a child. I've been blessed to get media coverage for a long time. When I was 13, there was an ESPN article that labeled me the quarterback most likely to succeed. And I didn't really see that as pressure. I just saw it as a manifestation of me trying to do everything the right way, trying to excel the right way and working hard to be good at whatever I applied myself to. Whether, you know, at the time I was still playing the violin, my first sport was soccer. I've always been a beast in school. 

But whatever I put my mind towards, I made sure that I excelled in it. And I was blessed to come from two parents who believed in me, who both excelled in education and both have graduate degrees. And college was never something that felt outside of an expectation. So once I got to college, I felt sort of an onus upon myself while I'm on scholarship, while I chose a school with a storied history like UCLA that I think rivals pretty much anyone, especially when it comes to the contributions of athletes and Black athletes to society and social progress. I felt like I had a golden opportunity to build my own name out. And it was sort of independent of NIL, but once NIL was here, I definitely was early to the party.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Right. Rob, I'm going to pass it to you in a sec, but describe, Chase, what is NIL? Let's just pretend somebody's listening to this that's heard of it. Athletes, NIL, but I don't know any athletes doing this. How would you explain name, image and likeness for somebody that doesn't know what it is or doesn't understand it?

Chase Griffin: So name, image and likeness rights were originally owned and managed by the NCAA and athletes, college athletes, while they were still NCAA athletes, could not monetize our name, image, and likeness. And what that meant was we weren't able to monetize for endorsements. In some situations where if we were gonna be given a job offer or a consulting gig because of our positioning as a college athlete, we would not be able to receive that offer. We were essentially barred from a large portion of college education, which is the business world. And we hear all these stories about athletes going broke, but we were literally banned from any type of business dealings while still in college. 

There were cases that really opened the door for us. One, shout out Ed O'Bannon. He sued EA Sports for utilizing his name and likeness in a game without fair compensation. This ended up being a case that he won and sort of set a trajectory for Austin versus NCAA. And Austin ended up being a 9-0 unanimous decision where the Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA and not only its restrictions on NIL rights, but the NCAA's business model as a whole. And now there's a couple of cases today that are still in formation right now and are leaning towards the athlete side that are looking at Austin as precedent. But Austin relinquished the NCAA's control over athletes' NIL rights and also stated that the NCAA's current model violated antitrust laws.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Thank you for that summary. I think that's an important background as we get into what this means and how you've leveraged it. It's the word capitalize but capitalize on your own name feels like a wrong way to say it, like you're just maybe getting what you're due for the work that you give. Rob, I'm gonna pass it over to you though because I know you have questions.

Rob Westervelt: Yeah, you know I'm a former NCAA athlete way back in the day. Way back. I actually went to UCLA football camp when Terry Donahue was the coach. Long, long time ago. So I have, I'm just trying to imagine what it's like to be an athlete that as you're going to school, you have all these business considerations that are constantly going through your head, I imagine. And then also you have the transfer portal. And so I'm just curious from your perspective, what, and maybe you can describe for the audience, what is it like for athletes now in terms of trying to balance getting an education and sort of almost running a business while you're a student athlete? That's gotta be a lot to handle.

Chase Griffin: I think it is, but I think even before NIL, athletes have always had a lot to handle. We've been expected to hold very good academic standing. And there are folks who stand against our academic standing, as well as now that there's Austin checks, we have the ability to profit off of doing well in school. Athletes have always had to do this, where we've managed school and then in season for football, 50 and 60 hour work weeks, not to mention social lives outside of that. 

The notion that it's an unruly burden on athletes to finally have the option to participate in business, I think is flawed because there's nobody on college campuses better at managing time than college athletes. And that's not just a college thing. To even get to college, you have to be able to manage your sport and schooling, your extracurriculars in high school and middle school and so on. I think for me, finally college is a truly cohesive education.

My first two years, I was thinking about business, but I was thinking about it in the sense of after I'm done playing football at UCLA, after I'm done with school at UCLA, because I couldn't really participate in business the way that I am now prior to NIL. And that's an issue that I think a lot of athletes recognize once they graduate. And they realized that they had focuses that they weren't able to gain any experience on while they're in college. 

And NIL, I don't think, is an advantage for athletes. I think it just levels the playing field between us and all of the other students on that campus who are meeting the folks they're going to start their business with, who are already running their own businesses, who are getting hours consulting, who are working at firms every single summer and getting called back. I see it as an opportunity to expand our minds and really explore all the things that we have to offer value on while we're still in college.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Tell it like it is. 

Rob Westervelt: Just to follow up on that, I appreciate that. So I'm trying to imagine maybe you can help others listening to imagine with, you know, things have changed pretty radically. I mean, look at what's happened with the Pac-12 and in college sports, especially at the FBS, you know, power five level, it's really become more business focused. And I'm just curious from your perspective with NIL and with the transfer portal, do fans see athletes different in the sense that it used to be if you were going to transfer, let's say to another Division One school, you'd have to sit out a year, there was almost a penalty or incentive for you to stay at your school. And now you can freely kind of move about and you can get offers, you know, not just a full-ride scholarship, but business offers. Do fans start seeing athletes differently? Like, that guy, he's out of here because he's going to get a killer NIL deal at a competing school. Those dynamics seem kind of new. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Chase Griffin: Well, I think they're only new for athletes. Every single other person in the college athletics landscape has been able to move around with free will. If a coach wants to take a different position the next year because they're paying more, they can get out of their contract and leave. If an AD wants to take a job at a bigger school, they can do that. I think the notion that because athletes are in college or in between 18 and 22, that they don't have the ability to choose what's best for themselves, comes from the same paternalistic view that led to the NCAA even forming in the first place and becoming exploitive of its major talent source. 

So when I think of the transfer portal, I look at it as a way for athletes and a way for students to get to the school and get to the opportunity that is best for them and their family. If it happens to be that there's another school that's willing to pay more, then I'd liken it to the workplace where if there's a job offer that's offering to pay more, no one in that office will frown on you for taking that job offer. It would be a logical decision. The whole notion that athletes while in college have to pass on things, opportunities that will better their lives and better set them up for the future, I think is not only ludicrous, but also if you're in higher education and your entire life goal is to make sure that these students have the tools and have the resources and best opportunities to set them up for success in life, then you are lying to yourself if you're not supporting this.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Is there a leverage factor to this, Chase? Like, by the way, it's pretty powerful arguments that you keep that you're making because it's like, yeah, what about all these other people that can do these things? And you're almost penalizing your athletes. If I'm a regular transfer student and I'm not a non-athlete transfer student, I decide I'm going to transfer and that school I'm transferring to offers me a better scholarship. I can take it and I don't have to sit out my academics for a year. I start right away. Right. So I think that we somehow we've tend to your point. The system has been created over time to look at athletes differently. But general students can move around freely without any kind of penalty. Right. So you make a good point. Does it give you leverage, you meaning the athlete, where you know, because those penalties don't exist, you're looking for certain treatment from the university you're at, right? Because one of the complaints that we hear from administrators or from coaches and you read is, well, how am I supposed to win if all my players are in the portal? How am I supposed to track how many athletes I have if I lose half my team to the portal? And is the answer, well, treat them better, create better support systems? I mean, is there a leverage change? You know what I'm asking?

Chase Griffin: Yeah, I think the leverage change is just any equity for athletes is a leverage change. That's sort of what NIL showed. Like, NIL was really just a freedom to work. And there's a whole industry created around that. We're still moving towards true equity, which is pay for play and revenue share through the media rights. So that's a whole, you know, that's really the realization of college athletes getting equity in the space. 

I think when it comes to being attractive for transfers or making sure your athletes don't transfer is like be a good spot to be at. If there's another school that offers more services, that offers more resources, they are better suited for that college athlete than your school. And I think the entire job as an administrator is to be able to provide the best opportunity and best resources and best home base for any student. And I think that's not only incentivizes folks to do better at their job for the athletic department, but it incentivizes folks to do better for their job for the entire university. And universities with good names will continue to get better and universities that take pride in this will end up winning more games.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: One more, Rob, then I'll pass it back to you. I want to talk about your two-time award for being the NIL male athlete of the year. How does this happen? First of all, it's amazing. I had to go find it. And it's a new type of award, obviously, because NIL is new. How did you win this? How did you - were you just selected out? How did this all happen for you?

Chase Griffin: So, I mean, I was nominated by two organizations giving out the award. And so that was sort of that process as far as the nomination. But I think I'm really proud of it just because I think it's a testament, not only to the work that I've done, which I know I've done a lot of work and, you know, family has been a huge support for me throughout that entire process and the folks that I work with in the space, but also a huge testament to the brands that I've worked with. I take pride in making sure that I'm representing and represented by brands that I truly align with on core values. And I felt like that alignment was communicated through the authenticity and consistency of my branded content. 

And over time, you know, I'm a competitor, so I wanna make sure that when I put together some content, it's better than everybody else on that campaign, or it's better than everything else that that brand has on their page at the moment. And I think it was a combination of my value system and aligning with brands that had quality core values and gave me the support and resources that I needed to do what I needed to do to attract viewers and attract engagement for their companies. And then also me being consistent in my content creation process.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Victory. Love it, man. Rob.

Rob Westervelt: Yeah, I'm really curious from your perspective, what do you see as the future of amateur sports in college. Do you see like - tell us what you envision the future being like. You've already given us sort of a glimpse into the sort of new status of the athlete, athlete building up equity, building their brand, building their business and the like. So do you see the future of college sports being amateur or - I'm sorry, being professional and the amateur is just gonna be pushed to the lower level? And do you envision sort of a haves and have-nots? Like, let me give you an example. Let's say an FCS player gets really good and performs well in the FCS. And then they just jump into the portal and then they just go to a higher level organization. Do you see this sort of bifurcation starting to happen in the future where there will just be professional college sports and then amateur college sports? Or do you think the whole thing will get professionalized?

Chase Griffin: I think, and really when it comes to revenue share, which I think is the biggest catalyst in all of this and is really all the question comes down to which athletes are getting paid, where are they getting paid from, and how much are they getting paid. We have to look at the House case and we have to look at the Johnson case. The Alston was basically the end of the NCAA as we know it. But House is deciding the amounts and process and Johnson's deciding employee status or not. And I think there's a lot of ways to go about it. 

I'm really focusing on Power Five, Division I and revenue generating sports. Those are the ones that are going to set the model for the rest. I think the NCAA released their first take on everything, sort of conceding that revenue share will be here sooner than later. And it was a good first start, but we need to start being more bullish on it. I think the athletes will get paid from revenue generating sports. Let's take football, for example. They will be paid a certain percentage of the media rights. 

Now, whether it's through employee status, through a third party, whether it's through a union, I think the most simple way is to pay athletes the same way that they've always been paid, through stipend checks. We're already paid our stipend checks every single month. During season, we're paid per diems directly through the school. We're paid Austin checks three times a year directly through the school. There's no reason why we can't just juice up the amount in the checks with adding money from the media revenue share. So as far as the process of actually being paid, I think it can be rather simple. 

Now you asked a good question as far as haves and have-nots. A lot of detractors of revenue share are bringing up Title IX. But I think anything that pays attention to increasing equity for athletes only serves to benefit and revamp Title IX. And Baker actually alluded to this in the letter that the NCAA put out a few weeks ago. But I think it'll look like revenue share sports, meaning revenue generating sports will be paid directly off the revenue share. And then similar to now, other sports outside of that will have the class of their compensation similar to now.

Rob Westervelt: So do you think, I think last I looked, there was something like only 20 colleges in the country that actually make money that have football. Given what you described, do you envision that there's just gonna be fewer colleges that are gonna, like you're gonna see football programs just closing left and right because they're just not gonna be competitive given sort of where things are going?

Chase Griffin: No, because I think by conference, schools are pretty much alike. I think for the teams that are actually playing each other, they are, you know, they will be able to compete because they'll be in a similar status. We're not asking the schools that can pay out their athletes $90,000 a year to compete, you know, in 10 game conferences against 10 teams that can't pay their athletes 5,000 apiece based off media revenue. The thing about the media revenue and the amount that the schools have to spend is already the precedent. That's already happening. There are some schools that are playing other schools right now and their budgets look almost like reciprocals. So that's already the case.

As far as an FCS player, the example you gave of an FCS player playing so well that they get picked up by another school, that happens every single year now. Revenue share has nothing to do with that. It all just comes down to a bigger stage and better opportunity to get to the next level. And if an athlete is performing well at their level, they're gonna have their choice to do that. So I don't think revenue share has a way of accelerating those issues. The money is already there. The money is already being spent. Now it's just about reallocating a larger portion of that directly to the athletes' pockets.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Are you kidding me? Chase, take a step back for us. You said you were really early to the game in NIL. Did you just wake up one morning and go, you know what, I think I'm going to get in the game here? And so that's the first part of the question. What triggered you to go, OK, I need to look at this like a business now right away?

Chase Griffin: Well, I think I always looked at business with a forward thinking sense. And when I heard I could do it while I'm still in college, I was like, man, there's a dream date. And I was also blessed with the opportunity of working with the Degree Breaking Limits team very early on, I think within the first month of NIL. I didn't really know how my NIL was going to go, but I knew I was coming off of being the highest - I had the highest pass rating in the PAC-12 and I was coming off of graduating with my undergrad in two years and I had built up a good LinkedIn and Instagram following. So I knew I had some good tools that would be attractive to brands and I wanted to make sure I was ready. 

But when Rob Master, who was at Unilever at the time, reached out to me and asked if I'd submit my name for the Degree Breaking Limits team, I was like, this is something I want to be part of. And it was groundbreaking, A, because of the timing. It was right after July 1st that they got to it. But it was also groundbreaking because we generated a billion hits. It was a public case study by a number one brand that NIL and investing in it works. Not in the PR sense, not in the goodwill sense - it works as marketing by any type of analysis. And so being part of that gave me a good experience with NIL. I did well with my piece in it. And it proved to brands that I'd work with in the future that I could be part of campaigns that generate ROI for them.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: What's the, is there, when you think about this from an athlete's perspective, I'm sitting next to you know, I'm at UCLA, I'm on the football team. I don't have an NIL presence. Maybe I could get one, but it seems really intimidating because Chase is right next to me and he's got 50 brands calling him. How do I even do this? Like, how do I get started? Am I going to make any money? Is it a fool's errand for me if I'm not getting people knocking at my door?

Chase Griffin: I think the first thing to recognize about NIL is that it's name, image, and likeness. It's extremely personal. The brands that I do, if we're not similar in personality, are not going to be the brands that you do, or shouldn't be, because then they will be inauthentic to you. I would pursue brands that are brands that you align with not only in core value, but are actually representative of your consumer habits. When I talk to athletes, primarily my teammates who asked me what they should do as a first step, I asked them about their hobbies. Like what outside sport are you interested in or what about sport are you interested in? What about you do you really identify? Because those will be the brands that when you speak to them, you can authentically say why you fit their criteria to be representative. And then you'll also make sure that you create good content because it'll be something that you care about. And it'll be something over time, you'll be consistent with your content. 

Authenticity is huge for me. And when you ask somebody that question, sometimes they recognize I haven't even identified my core values. I haven't even really looked at myself outside the scope of playing sports. And so sometimes that's a wake up right there. Like I gotta even figure out what I'm about before I can say what I want to represent.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And Rob I'll kick it to you just a sec, but I gotta get all these out man. Cause I got a lot of questions. Are the brands coming to you Chase? And if I'm not you, am I going to the brand saying hey, man I'm sitting here. You should look at me and here's how many followers I have or what I can do for you. Is it different? Is it you know what? Because you got to build yourself first?

Chase Griffin: I'd say as far as the major brands, a lot of the folks are being reached out to, it's pretty inbound. And that's because they've either established themselves in the brand space or they're assigned to an agent or assigned to some type of manager that's able to be a point person for these brands. For me, it's primarily inbound. And it sort of has been from the jump just because I was blessed with the opportunities that I had early. 

But for someone who's just starting out and if they're not signed or they don't have a large following, I'd say focus on that first. Just to make yourself attractive to brands in the first place. Like if there's the brand that you identify you wanna work with and say they're in the hiking space, start doing hiking videos. Start building up a base and saying, look, every single time I post something about hiking, I get a thousand likes, 50 comments, the people who follow me will check in for what I say about hiking. And then boom, once you reach out to REI or whatever, like a brand like that, then you can credibly say, look, I would be a better marketer than you currently have right now in the college athlete space.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: It's like a senior living community reaching out to you. Probably going to turn that one down. 

Chase Griffin: I don't know. I'm old for college now.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I don't think so, my friend. That might be perfect. Yeah, Chase, what could you tell us about your highest high with NIL and your lowest low with NIL? And do you ever, when you're in like the fourth quarter and you're like, my gosh, if we lose this game, this is going to hurt my business. Do you ever have those kinds of feelings?

Chase Griffin: So I'm sort of a person who tries to stay away from highest highs and lowest lows period. I think sort of in my nature, I'm even-keeled. And I think that's been something that's not just helped me through the NIL process, but it's just helped me through life. Like even getting to UCLA, there was a long road there. I think for me, anytime I work with a brand that I really believe in and I really like either as a consumer or just talking to them and hearing their mission, that makes it really fun for me. I have a lot of autonomy over my creation process. So because of that, when I have passion with it as well and really believe in the brand that I'm advertising, I try to be as meticulous as possible. And I enjoy the production process, but when it's for a brand that I really believe in or really use a lot, and I think my followers will really align with, it just makes it a little bit more rewarding. 

As far as the lowest low, I think I don't, I haven't really had a low, you know, thank God, but in the time in between deals, you have to make sure that you're staying just as consistent as you would if you had three deals that week. And I think that's not really just an approach for NIL, but that's an approach to business. There's gonna be lows, there's gonna be times where people are checking and then the next month they're not really checking for you at all. But if you're able to stay consistent, then the opportunities will keep on coming.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's a fact, that's a fact. I appreciate you sharing that. I'm just thinking about my own college experience, hanging out with the guys and you're a young guy. You're having fun, but you weren't very good, right? You weren't very good in your experience.

Chase Griffin: No, I was terrible.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: But do you, or have you been in situations where you're like, guys, I'd love to, but I've got some NIL deals right now. I can't even be around this right now. Is that, is that like a part of your process where you're like really happy to check yourself because you've got NIL deals or deals you're trying to make?

Chase Griffin: I think that's sort of just been how I've always operated. And I think that's part of the reason why early on in NIL I did well, because I was always, you know, I had big dreams for myself, way bigger than anything I've even ever come close to achieving at this point in my life. God willing, I'm nowhere near being capped at 23. So, you know, literally from the jump. If I didn't align with somebody as far as morals or values, or I felt like they were doing something where if I was seen doing that with them, you know, even I would feel out of place, then there's no reason for me to be there. So I'd say not just for NIL, but just for life, aligning with folks who were doing similar things to me has always put me in better positions than I think not having conviction on that would have.

Rob Westervelt: You know, the part about that, that's so - that's really mature of you, but maybe not of everyone else is, you know, if and I surely won't bring up my college experience, but I was certainly in situations where if I had a brand associated with me, I shouldn't have been in that situation, right? Where you know, I've gone out or you know, maybe I had too many drinks when I shouldn't have and it's like, wow. So maybe the question is are you looking at it through the lens of the brand as you're going throughout your day? Or is that too much pressure and you say I'm Chase's life and that's - that's who's gonna be with me is gonna be with me?

Chase Griffin: I'd say I hold myself to a higher standard than any brand could. In the beauty of NIL, it's about you. And for me, I work with brands that I align with in core value. So I don't even really have to see it from their side. By seeing it from my angle, I'm already doing what I need to do for them. You know, but the brands I work with, I think care about the talent they work with, but nobody, you know, cares about me like I do. And if there's a situation I shouldn't be in or there's something I shouldn't be doing, I'm not going to do it because I care about myself in a way where I want to protect myself from certain situations. And so I think when you align with brands that you truly share core values with, the way you operate would be the same way that brand would operate in that situation.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: There's a - Rob, you know, there's a slight, I mean, you at 23, maybe I was starting to get there, way more mature than I would have been in college, right? Running a business, yourself, running yourself as a business and capitalizing. There's no way I would have been able to do that. Maybe there's athletes that would have been able to do it back then. I say back then, but I'm only 25. So just a couple of years ago. That wasn't just self-management. Managing myself in college was hard enough and I wasn't an athlete. And you think of how much that has to be and you think about the pressure that's there. Rob, but there's a maturity factor if you're managing yourself and your business seems to prepare you for life, perhaps.

Rob Westervelt: Yeah. And part of my question was really around, I'm imagining the times when you're with your guys, you're just playing video games, you know, and you guys now - you live in a different world where everybody has a cell phone and people can take a clip of you and put it into a different context, let's say, and maybe you're even in a room with people you kind of know, but don't know really that well. And so I was just curious, like, I'm imagining it would add another level of, I don't know, alertness or concern. And do you ever, are you ever in a situation where you're like, all right, guys, let's not have any phones in here, you know, no videoing anything, let's just relax and have a good time or something like that. Does that ever occur?

Chase Griffin: I definitely think, so I mean, the way I operate, like I always try to live as clean a life as possible. But I will say this, now that you say that, my friends have, especially the ones who understand what my goals are, have always taken precautions whenever I'm around. Where maybe if they were doing something and they're like, Chase is pulling up, they're gonna stop doing that like an hour before I pull up. So I do really appreciate it when my friends do it, because it shows a care for what I'm about and what I'm doing. So now that you say that, it definitely does come up where if you live your life a certain way and you have certain things going on, the folks that care about you will make sure that they're not trying to whatever you have going on whenever you're there.

Rob Westervelt: That's cool, man. Thanks.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, it sounds like what's been really key for you is having a good sense of who you are. You said your core values and the values of those people you associate with and that they even have clarity, which I think is amazing that like you were saying, your friends know what your goals are. Like, and I think when I was your age, one, I didn't have goals and two, certainly my friends didn't know anything about it. So, it's very commendable. 

Chase, want to give you, as we end these episodes, we like to open mic for our guest to say anything you want to say to your audience. Like we said at the beginning of this episode, when Rob gave you that scenario that think about the college president that's listening to this, that is exactly who could be listening right now. Presidents, chancellors, VPs of whatever in higher ed, say what you want to say about NIL, about Chase Griffin. You got an open mic, man, to close us out.

Chase Griffin: I came on this podcast today. I really enjoy talking with folks who get in front of the higher ed community just because on my father's side, my great grandmother, my great grandfather, my great great grandfather, my great great grandmother were all principals and teachers at Yates High School. That is amazing. My mother is a teacher and the best teacher in the world, a teacher by heart. I would not be where I am today without my commitment and my expectations surrounding academia. 

I really hope that every single person listening here remembers why they got into this world. It is to serve the students and provide them with the resources and opportunities for them to be the best, most high functioning members of our society going forward. College athletes are not excluded from your general body of students. And as regulations pass, we're joining more and more alongside the rest of that student body. When it comes to college athlete equity in the space, this is the best opportunity, the best era for college athletes since the creation of college athletics in the first place. Anyone who stays true to why they got into this field will be in favor of anything that is in favor of your college athletes because it is in favor of your college students.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: What's next for Chase Griffin when you get your last year of eligibility? Starting an NIL consulting company, going to be in DC, you know, manipulating policy for the benefit of athletes. You must have some idea of what you're going to do with all this power frankly that you've amassed.

Chase Griffin: So some of my interests outside football are music. I'm a producer. So I have actually some sessions coming up this winter where I'll be traveling to do music with artists and producers. And then I'm continuing crossing over from branded content, both on the production and talent side over to more traditional long form content. So hosting, producing TV and film. And then probably the coolest thing that I'm doing at the moment is I'm a fellow at the UC Investment Office. And there I'm learning firsthand how to run an institutional fund. The folks there have been amazing. The CIO there truly believes in me. And anytime you find someone who's willing to invest time and knowledge into you at a young age, I've been taught to continue pursuing that. So that's a huge priority on my list.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, we'll be watching my friend. What an honor to have you on this podcast. And you bring the perspective of a student athlete to so many of us that deal with student athletes on a daily basis and remind us why student athletes are student athletes and how they should be able to benefit in your opinion. And I think it's an opinion that many, many of us share. So, thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen, he is an amazing man. He's Chase Griffin. He is quarterback at UCLA and he is a two time, two time winner of NIL male athlete of the year. Chase, thanks for coming on, man. We hope you had a good time while you, while you got to talk.

Chase Griffin: I had fun. Thank you so much, Joe. Thank you so much, Rob. Have a blessed holidays.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You do the same. 

Rob Westervelt: You too. Thank you, Chase.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, you've just EdUpped.