Written by Foster Nicholas | Sportswriter
The sports card boom is proving to be a boon for athletes as players and schools continue to find profitable ways to navigate the ever-changing world of names, images, and identities. On February 14, Baylor men's and women's basketball partnered with her ONIT Athlete to provide licensed sports cards to the community.
ONIT has added trading cards and wall stickers where student-athletes can benefit from signatures and photos, with 60% of proceeds going directly back to student-athletes. In the fall, the company reported paying more than $1.6 million in NIL royalties to student-athletes across the country. The majority of sales came from soccer products, but due to the success, ONIT introduced men's basketball, women's volleyball and women's soccer cards in early 2024.
“Our goal is to work with over 10,000 athletes and make over $7 million in NIL payments to college athletes in 2024,” co-founder Sheridan Hodson said in a statement.
Baylor is one of 33 schools to partner with ONIT to create NIL-licensed merchandise to give back to student-athletes. Other schools include Gonzaga, Alabama, TCU, Texas, Oklahoma, Washington, and Oregon.
For some players, the opportunity at ONIT was the first time players saw themselves featured on a sports card. But for Baylor men's basketball freshman guard Milo Little, his first experience came just a few months ago.
Little's first card was released on Jan. 19 for the 2023-24 Bowman Chrome University Basketball season. This set includes officially licensed cards of some of college's best players before reaching the next level. Little's 1st Bowman is an extremely valuable card in the sports card community as it has a stamp in the top right corner signifying his first professional card, and is a very valuable card in the sports card community as it is stamped in the top right corner and is similar to USC freshman guard Isaiah's Collier. This product was produced alongside other of his NCAA star cards. Bronny James and LSU junior forward Angel Reese.
“I've had a lot of sports cards since I was a kid and loved collecting them,” Little said. “It was mainly about soccer. When I was in Europe, it was about soccer. But now it's a great feeling to actually see myself participating in soccer.”
Card production company Fanatics has not yet officially released the print version, but Little has signed 840 variant cards of various rarities and over 2,000 basic autographs. The photo shows the guard dribbling a basketball wearing a Baylor jersey with Finland's No. 10 on it instead of Baylor's Photoshopped number (No. 1), but Little was not used. I couldn't remember the exact photo.
“I feel like the numbers are crazy,” Little joked. “This is a picture of my national team in the Finland jersey. Next time I'll hopefully get the numbers, but the cards are difficult.”
Since then, he has barely been featured in another Fanatics set, 2023-24 Bowman Best University Basketball, released on March 13th. The guard is pictured wearing number 1 on the base card, with the credits slightly enhanced in Photoshop.
Little and senior forward Jalen Bridges, who was on the Bowman University set for the 2022-23 season, already had a chance to join their license cards, while senior guard Ray J. Dennis and redshirt sophomore guard Langston -Other Baylor student-athletes such as Love, senior guard, have already had a chance to join their license cards. Sarah Andrews feels she is profiting from her NIL on sports cards for the first time. While the opportunity itself is exciting, ONIT says student-athletes earn more than 60% of the company's profits, and it is looking forward to adding more programs and products to help engage fans and players. It is said that it is.
