Sports Marketing for Today’s College Athlete

Program Description

For the first time, student-athletes can directly benefit from their personal brands—creating new opportunities for athletes, universities, and the sports marketing industry. This online course demystifies the complex NIL landscape and equips you with the knowledge to navigate its legal, ethical, and commercial dimensions. You’ll gain a deep understanding of the right of publicity, the unique challenges across NCAA divisions, and the strategies that enable student-athletes to maximize NIL opportunities responsibly.

Who should take this course?

Designed for aspiring sports marketing professionals and early-career leaders, this course blends real-world case studies with practical insights to help you build a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving field. You will leave with the tools to recognize exploitation risks, advise on brand-building strategies, and connect NIL issues to broader marketing and digital identity considerations. Whether you envision a career working with athletes, agencies, or athletic departments, this course will strengthen your expertise and position you at the forefront of the future of sports marketing.

Why take this course?

There are videos, readings, interactive case studies, knowledge check questions, and discussion boards. There are also module review questions at the end of each module. All of it is meant to help guide you through the topics and concepts in this course. 

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Understand the legal concept of right of publicity and apply the changing legal landscape to NIL and student athletes.
• Evaluate the options that student athletes have during recruitment and throughout college to maximize their opportunities and avoid being taken advantage of.
• Understand common terms and phrases in contracts and evaluate sample contracts according to the goals of student-athletes.
• Discuss strategies to monetize NIL opportunities, and apply these strategies to personal branding considerations.

Course Topics

Format & Structure

The course is completely self-paced. It will take you approximately 15 hours to complete all three modules. Activities include video lessons, readings, and self-reflection activities. Upon completing this course, you will receive a certificate of completion.

This is an asynchronous, self-paced course. That means that you can work at your own speed. There are review questions after most videos and reading. These questions are ungraded and designed for you to check your understanding of the content before moving on.