NIL Subsidiary Group Park Avenue Announces Return

Through social media on Friday afternoon, Park Avenue announced their return to South Carolina's NIL scene through a partnership with the Garnet Trust.

Back in late August of 2022, the University of South Carolina sent shockwaves throughout the NIL landscape in intercollegiate athletics by becoming the first school to partner with an outside marketing agency, Everett Sports Marketing, to create an in-house NIL firm that could both facilitate deals for student-athletes and represent them free of charge. 

Just two months after the massive announcement, the NCAA, through "rule clarifications," disallowed schools from being able to directly provide NIL services to their student-athletes, effectively nullifying Park Avenue's ability to do what South Carolina was paying them to do in the first place, at least for the time being.

On Friday morning, news broke regarding a new NIL deal between the smoothie company Clean Energy and three female student-athletes at the University of South Carolina: tennis player Sarah Hamner, track and field athlete Rachel Glenn, and soccer player Corinna Zullo.

Did you miss us? 🤙🤙 @TheGarnetTrust pic.twitter.com/g6hEWwW6Yt

— Park Avenue (@parkavesports_) February 24, 2023

One of the most intriguing details regarding this NIL deal was that it was brokered by Park Avenue, which then announced not long into Friday afternoon via social media that they were partnering with the Garnet Trust, a NIL collective that also works to facilitate deals with student-athletes at South Carolina, but isn't directly associated with the university itself.

While the specific details of the partnership are still murky at this time, this is huge news for South Carolina's student-athletes, who'll now have an even easier time navigating the NIL landscape and figuring out ways to capitalize on their name, image, and likeness. 

It's another feather in the cap for all major sports coaches: Shane Beamer, Dawn Staley, Lamont Paris, and Mark Kingston, who can offer this as a supplementary selling point to prospective recruits from the high school and transfer portal ranks.

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