This Mizzou Tigers lineman isn’t a star, but that hasn’t stopped his NIL deals
How do you market yourself as a redshirt freshman offensive lineman who seldomly plays college football?
If you’re Missouri’s Drake Heismeyer in the NCAA’s new name, image and likeness era, you literally eat your way through endorsement deals. And wear No. 69.
Heismeyer’s Instagram page (@darealdrizzy69) over the past several weeks, since the NCAA approved players profiting from their own marketing deals on July 1, has essentially been converted into a virtual billboard. Pictures of him eating everything in sight — tacos, burgers, calzones, donuts — along with a logo of his face donning 69-stamped sunglasses pepper his account, of which you can buy clothing featuring it through a link in his bio. The food posts feature the hashtag #69eatslocal, which he and his mom came up with to further his brand.
It stands out, but the thinking is remarkably simple.
“I love food,” Heismeyer said. “ ... (and) every frat guy is going to want a 69 jersey, you know what I’m saying?”
Childish humor aside, Heismeyer is an intriguing example of college football’s NIL era in its infancy. He only played in two games in 2020 at an unglamorous position, and based on football performance alone probably wouldn’t be on the minds of many Tiger fans otherwise.
Heismeyer is aware of this, so he got to brainstorming. At 6-foot-3 and 290 pounds, he’s a big man with a self-admitted big appetite. He also knows a family friend that has many connections to restaurant owners in the St. Louis area, where he hails from. Whether it was for money or free food or clothing, Heismeyer said he “would do anything” to get his name out.
That included his choice of number, which was a calculated decision prior to his first year in Columbia in expectation that NIL legalization was coming. Between restaurant deals, clothing sales and various other ventures (such as with an insurance agency), Heismeyer said he’s already made over $1,000.
“In the beginning, it was a straight we contact them (situation),” Heismeyer said of getting endorsements. “I wasn’t super well-known or anything, I was kind of trying to build my following. I was like, ‘Hey, I’ll come here and do a shoutout post and I’ll take a free meal.’ … And things started going well and kept passing around (and) it kind of blew up, and now I’ve got people hitting me up.”
In line with his hashtag, the St. Louis area is where he’s done most of his posts so far, but he also reached out to Nothing Bundt Cakes in Columbia. He’s had a couple of posts promoting the bakery, one of which involves a “bundtini,” a bite-sized cake, being dwarfed in his hand.
Alexis Keeling, one of the bakery’s managers, was working when Heismeyer did a promotional appearance with the staff in July. For a few photos, he got a pink T-shirt identical to what many members of the staff wear along with a few cakes to take home. She said that there’s been new customers who’ve come to the bakery and cited Heismeyer’s post as the reason why they stopped by.
“He was really fun to work with,” Keeling said. “He was a little shy at first, but we are a bakery full of women and we all have big personalities, I think it was just a lot to handle. … We definitely enjoyed having him and he was really nice and sweet and polite to all of us.
“The athletes, obviously hundreds if not thousands know them and see their face every single day in football on TV or in games. They hear them, they see their numbers. But I think it definitely helps us to get our name out (and) for him to advertise.”
Heismeyer’s current reach is mostly local, but he’s thinking large. He’s a frequent visitor to national fast-food chicken joint Raising Cane’s, having done a promotional deal with a St. Louis-area location, and he’s been in contact with the owner of the location set to open in Columbia later this year in the hope for more promos.
The belief that NIL is going to turn college football’s stars into millionaires could very well turn into reality, considering the drawing power the sport’s elite bring to their universities. But it also creates opportunities for those lower in the pecking order.
For Heismeyer, all it took was a hungry stomach and a sense of humor.
“Guys like me … you play O-line, everyone overlooks us,” Heismeyer said. “But I’m also a young guy, I haven’t really done much for people to know my name. So that’s why I’m being creative, the number 69 is a huge marketing point for me. That’s like gold, and it sells to anybody from the age of 16 to 40.”
