How an NBA game and girls volleyball birthed Louisville's first NIL collective: 502 Circle

Marc Spiegel needed only two signs to start Louisville’s first name, image and likeness collective.

The first came April 13 when he was sitting in a suite at the Atlanta Hawks’ play-in game against former Cardinals Montrezl Harrell and Terry Rozier and the Charlotte Hornets.

The Louisville native and two-time U of L graduate heard the term "collection" floated around in conversation, then did some research and found the proper name was "collective."

The second came three days later while taking his daughter to a volleyball tournament. Spiegel, who lives in Atlanta, heard a radio broadcast mention an NIL collective for Georgia student-athletes called Classic City Collective.

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From there, Spiegel decided it was time for the Cardinals to have their own. After a couple of months of research and laying the groundwork, 502 Circle Collective was announced Thursday morning with an official launch set to take place in August.

Currently, Spiegel is part of a group of four people that founded 502 Circle Collective, though that number is expected to grow over the next couple of months.

“We have a group of younger people that wanted to build a collective to help the athletes monetize themselves and do it in a way that is forward thinking,” Spiegel said. “It's new age. It's not just a bunch of old money pulling together. It's digital. It's an experience.”

The emphasis will be on inclusivity between donors, businesses and student-athletes. Currently, 502 Circle, which isn't affiliated with the University of Louisville, has yet to start collecting funds or reaching out to student-athletes about signing deals.

There have been a few businesses contacted to gauge interest, starting with those in the Louisville community. It’ll be up to the businesses to decide the conditions of each NIL deal. Those responsibilities could be anything from requiring student-athletes to use their social media to promote the business they sign a deal with to making public appearances for the company.

“We certainly want to make it easy for businesses to get involved and interact and identify the student-athletes that they feel would best help their businesses and then obviously, help facilitate those transactions,” Spiegel said. “That's why it's important, from a technology standpoint, to really have that bridge, and not just do things in an old-school or archaic fashion.

"Some of the technology partners that we've already identified help with that. They also help with marketing outreach, and many of them have existing relationships with regional or national brands as well, so those will be brought into the fold as time goes on.”

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Spiegel said he tried reaching out to the university only a few days before president Neeli Bendapudi and athletic director Vince Tyra announced their resignations in December. Spiegel was frustrated with the school’s recurring scandals and declining attendance, and raising his hand to help. He forwarded his e-mail to then-interim athletic director Josh Heird and the two men met for coffee when Louisville’s men’s basketball team traveled to Atlanta for a Jan. 2 game at Georgia Tech.

Spiegel had recently been to two basketball games at the KFC Yum Center and told Heird it reminded him of attending a 10 a.m. semifinal in the Louisville Invitational Tournament.

“Everybody was half-asleep,” he said. “The stands were about empty and I couldn’t give away a ticket. I said, ‘There’s just fatigue and dejection from the fan base. I think we have to invest in the younger fans. We have to invest in that next generation and give them a reason to support, not just expect that they support because they grew up here.’"

During Heird's introduction press conference as Louisville's new full-time athletics director on June 3, he mentioned donors and supporters have shown interest in Louisville starting a collective. The conversations around that were mostly in regards to learning the rules of how a collective can and can't operate.

"For us, I would look at it as one more tool in our toolbox from an NIL standpoint," Heird said. "It's one more resource when we're having conversations with student athletes that says, 'Hey, that's an opportunity for you guys to potentially generate some revenue.'"

As recently as June 2, Ohio State coach Ryan Day estimated it will cost $13 million to keep his roster intact. Wednesday, Penn State coach James Franklin told reporters, it will take “more than the numbers you’ve heard,” and stressed the significance of finding those funds pronto.

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Heird said Friday to the Courier Journal, after 502 Circle was announced, he is dubious about some of the dollar figures in circulation, but he has made NIL a high enough priority to create a standalone NIL department “to show student-athletes we can maximize their earning potential during their time at Louisville."

“I don’t expect this collective all of a sudden to have multiple seven-figure donations,” Heird said Friday. “I just don’t think that’s going to be the case. I would contend that most of those numbers that got out there publicly somehow got inflated. I’m not sure how or why. (But) I would be surprised if the dollars that have been bandied about are actual dollars going to student-athletes.”

Spiegel's interest in creating 502 Circle stems from his love of sports. His ability to bring it to life comes from him being a business owner. In 2008, with his best friend Nate Morris, who he met at Eastern High School, he founded Rubicon. Per the company website, Rubicon is “the leading provider of cloud-based waste and recycling solutions for businesses, governments, and organizations worldwide.”

“Everything from understanding how to lay a foundation to how important technology can be to make an experience better, really focusing on that experience, it's been a key piece to it,” Spiegel said. “Also, my wife was extremely instrumental in giving me that push. It's like, hey, go do it. … But certainly experience, it's a lot easier now having over a decade of doing something, than it would have been if this was me as a 26-year-old.”

Including 502 Circle, there are currently 72 NIL collectives nationwide with some schools like Clemson, Virginia Tech and Florida State having more than one. On May 9, the NCAA issued updated NIL guidance for schools that included collectives being considered boosters. That would prohibit collectives from interacting with prospective student-athletes.

Spiegel made it clear that 502 Circle won’t work with U of L recruits. The collective will focus on current student-athletes.

“Our job is to make sure that we create the right type of environment that allows these student-athletes to really maximize their own brands, and how do we help them do that,” he said. “We feel strongly that we have a good plan.”

Reach Louisville football, women's basketball and baseball beat writer Alexis Cubit at acubit@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @Alexis_Cubit.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: 502 Circle becomes University of Louisville's first NIL collective