How Utah Quarterback Rising Made 'Seven Figures' 2023 NIL

Salt Lake Tribune details how Utes injured signal caller Cam Rising leveraged NIL

Last year, Nebraska coach Matt Rhule made a comment about NIL that was provocative.

He told reporters one day that for his program to recruit and retain a top quarterback that he needed money — and a lot of it.

“A good quarterback in the portal costs $1 million, $1.5, $2 million,” Rhule said to a roomful of reporters during the lead-up to a Nebraska game.

For anyone thinking that Rhule was kidding, consider the case of Utah quarterback Cameron Rising, who will return to the Utes in 2024 after missing last season due to an injury.

The Salt Lake Tribune recently did a piece on NIL as it relates to the Utes’ starting quarterback. The publication’s goal was to find out just how much a quarterback like Rising could get in NIL money.

As the Tribune wrote, “Rising stayed with seven figures worth of NIL deals last year.”

So how did Rising do it, or perhaps more importantly, how did NIL benefactors around Utah do it.

The Tribune spoke to several participants that helped to push Rising’s NIL deals into seven figures. Among them:

• Rising received funds from Utah’s official NIL collective, the Crimson Collective;

• Rising received the equivalent of an appearance/speaking fee thanks to Nextiva, which underwrote Rising’s conversation with former Utes star Alex Smith;

• Rising participated in social media posts with design and real estate firm C.W. Urban;

• Rising did commercials for a local Toyota dealership;

• Rising was Utah’s representative in Mountain American Credit Union’s Utah-BYU ad campaign;

• Rising was the face of commercials that sponsored Utah’s offensive linemen;

• Rising also received NIL funds from CR England, a Salt Lake City trucking company owned by Utes alums.

With those deals, the Tribune reported, Rising was able to reach $1 million in NIL funds for 2023.

The Tribune also reported that Rising’s NIL deals for 2024 could top $1.5 million, with a minimum of $500,000.

The world of NIL remains murky as most athletes don’t publicize what they make. The Tribune did not publish exact figures from each of Rising’s deals. Rising never used the word “million” in the story.

But he did say the NIL deals were enough to keep him in Utah last season, and they will be enough to keep the former All-Pac-12 quarterback in Utah this season as it migrates to the Big 12 Conference.

“Probably I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t a thing, right?” he said. “I probably would have been gone last year. It is just kind of how football is.”