DeAnna Bowers still struggles to understand how her son, barely two years after leaving Napa High, appears on billboards throughout Georgia touting an injury law firm. Or how he’s all over social media and television, extolling the virtues of a credit union and his favorite chicken sandwich.
“People are listening to him on the radio and watching him on TV ads,” DeAnna said. “It’s just crazy.”
Brock Bowers’ ascent in his first two seasons at Georgia earned him All-America honors at tight end while helping the Bulldogs win consecutive national championships. His success coincided with college athletes’ new freedom to profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL) by doing paid endorsements.
Although Bowers’ agent would not disclose his client’s earnings, Bowers entered the 2022 season as one of 14 college football players with an estimated NIL valuation of more than $1 million, according to On3.com, which analyzes college sports data. This made him the first Bay Area athlete to reach that plateau.
It would have been difficult to imagine such riches in fall 2020, when Bowers, now 20, simmered with frustration after the pandemic wiped out his senior season at Napa. He enrolled early at Georgia, quickly climbed the depth chart and soon was awash in touchdown passes and titles, conveniently at the dawn of the NIL era.
A Sporting Green series
Playing with money
How NIL changed sports
- Part 1: Making of the Bay Area’s first NIL giants
- Coming Monday: Collectives raise Title IX scrutiny
- Tuesday: The wild West of recruiting
- Wednesday: Barriers for Stanford and Cal football
- Thursday: What NIL means for women athletes
- Friday: Q&A with state Sen. Nancy Skinner
- Saturday: An unlikely path to NIL stardom
Bowers, in a Chronicle interview last month, complied with Georgia head coach Kirby Smart’s request that his players not comment on their NIL activity. But DeAnna Bowers and Dan Everett, a South Carolina marketing agent who represents Brock on NIL opportunities, offered a revealing picture of how one college athlete chose to navigate the new landscape.
Everett, whose company also represents Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor, among others, approached the Bowers family in October 2021, during Brock’s freshman season. His NIL involvement started with signing trading cards.
Then, in the offseason after Georgia won the national championship in January 2022, Bowers formally agreed for Everett to bring him potential deals. A few months later, collectives began to emerge.
These organizations, designed to connect college athletes with sponsorship and endorsement deals, are aligned with a particular school but not officially affiliated. When one approached Bowers, he made an uncommon decision.
He bypassed the chance for “a significant, six-figure collective deal,” according to Everett, with Classic City Collective, which supports Georgia athletes. Bowers wanted those funds to go to other athletes at the school, Everett said.
Bowers had become prominent enough to land profitable deals without needing the collective, and he has firsthand appreciation for college athletes who sailed below the radar. DeAnna was a softball pitcher at Utah State, Brock’s dad Warren was an offensive lineman at Utah State and his sister Brianna played softball at Sacramento State.
DeAnna Bowers coaches softball at Napa High School, where her son Brock played football. DeAnna played college softball and was part of Utah State’s softball team that won back-to-back NCAA national championships.
Brian L. Frank/Special to The Chronicle
DeAnna excelled enough to earn All-America honors and induction into her school’s Hall of Fame, yet she made only $8,000 for her first contract with a fledgling pro softball league in the early 1990s. Brock earned $20,000 just to put his face on those billboards.
Even so, he clearly could have made more by accepting Classic City Collective’s offer.
“He’s still making money,” DeAnna Bowers said. “He’s just not taking the entire pot.”
Brock’s portfolio includes deals with Associated Credit Union, Zaxby’s fast-food chain, NoBull (training shoes and apparel), Morgan & Morgan (the injury law firm), Topps trading cards and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Everett expects to strike another major deal in the coming weeks, in addition to securing extensions on Bowers’ existing agreements.
Everett declined comment on the accuracy of the On3.com valuation estimate. Bowers has since dropped to 36th in the ranking, with a valuation of slightly less than $700,000. That’s probably because he’s taken a conservative approach.
Bowers acknowledged his parents and Everett handle most of his NIL activity. They are careful not to encroach on his football and academic obligations, bundling his responsibilities to his corporate partners to seven dates in the offseason.
Here’s a glossary of common terms in college sports’ new lexicon.
NIL: Acronym for name, image and likeness. In July 2021, the NCAA reversed its longstanding policy and for the first time allowed athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness. Some examples of this include an athlete being paid to promote a product on social media, wish a fan happy birthday over a video message, or make an appearance at a corporate gathering.
Valuation: This is an estimate of what a given athlete could be expected to earn by taking full advantage of their NIL potential over a year. On3.com, which specializes in NIL news and data, uses an algorithm that factors an individual’s social-media following, known deals and athletic performance, among other aspects such as the size of the collectives supporting their university.
Collective: Often founded by prominent alumni, collectives are third-party organizations aligned with a university that connect current and prospective athletes with NIL opportunities. Boosters funnel money into collectives to support their teams. Although the NCAA has barred collectives from the recruiting process, the practice is believed to be widespread. Collectives must operate independently of universities, but athletic departments are allowed to promote them.
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Warren Bowers, partner of a Napa construction company, and DeAnna, a part-time math teacher and assistant softball coach at Napa High, review most of the NIL offers their son receives. She often reminds him to set aside a portion of his income, given that he’s an independent contractor and can expect a hefty tax bill.
One notable example of Brock Bowers’ caution: He spurned an offer from then-Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady to endorse his clothing line, according to DeAnna. That would have involved a commercial shoot in New York, she said, and Brock didn’t want to miss three days of offseason workouts.
“Brock is very strategic and successful in the NIL space,” Everett, the agent, wrote in an email.
As for the impact of Bowers playing at powerhouse Georgia, in the country’s highest-profile conference and in the football-obsessed South, Everett added, “He has helped lead UGA to back-to-back national championships. He’s in the mecca of college football, and that provides tremendous value for brands that want a benevolent ambassador who happens to be incredible at football.”
Najee Harris, a former Antioch High School standout football running back, talks about life during his first season in the NFL in his home in suburban Pittsburgh, Penn., on Tuesday, November 16, 2021. Harris was selected late in the first round by the Pittsburgh Steelers, the first running back taken in the 2021 NFL draft.Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle
Najee Harris didn’t enjoy the same economic good fortune in college. Harris, like Bowers, went from the Bay Area to the mighty Southeastern Conference — Antioch High to Alabama in 2017 as the nation’s top-ranked recruit — but he completed his eligibility in January 2021, just as Bowers arrived in Athens, Ga.
That also was six months before the NCAA, under the pressure of numerous states passing NIL-related laws, changed its longtime rules and permitted such deals. Timing matters.
“Yeah, I would have been able to help out my family a lot earlier,” said Harris, now a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. “It would have helped, for sure. But I wasn’t tripping, I didn’t get all mad I missed out. In a way, it helped me stay focused and grind more so I could get to the next level.”
Harris, who had a difficult upbringing including periods of homelessness, could have used NIL income to help his single mom pay the bills, probably even in high school. Harris’ status as the No. 1 recruit would have made him a prime candidate for early NIL deals and would have raised the stakes in the battle for his college commitment.
He chose Alabama over Michigan because of the high-level competition in the SEC, and the Crimson Tide’s history of sending players to the NFL. But Harris acknowledged NIL money now is “100% part of the (recruiting) conversation.” It just happened a few years too late for him to benefit.
“I feel for Najee and the kids who just missed it,” DeAnna Bowers said.
Her son, on the other hand, emerged just as the college sports galaxy — athletes, coaches, school officials, donors, sponsors — was trying to make sense of this new, unwieldy NIL thing.
Brock Bowers played football at Napa High School, where the team went 0-10 during his sophomore season in 2018.
Brian L. Frank/Special to The Chronicle
David Carter, a USC business school professor and founder of the Sports Business Group, called the onset “a honeymoon” and the current phase “more of a steady state,” as collectives take shape. Carter described the next stage as a “reset” — some NIL deals inevitably will fall apart, some brands won’t pay and some athletes won’t perform as expected.
“The industry is going through iterations,” he said. “I think you’ll see big law firms and consulting firms become involved, and then you’ll see the industry become professionalized. Right now, it’s very loose. As we’ve seen, it’s kind of everything goes.”
The NCAA’s apparent disinterest in regulating the NIL landscape — amid different guidelines in different states — sparked this everything-goes climate, as Carter noted. That also could change under the leadership of new NCAA President Charlie Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts.
All the while, DeAnna Bowers marvels at her son’s place in this transformative period in college athletics. Four years ago, in spring 2019, Brock Bowers was light years from contemplating endorsements — his Napa team went 0-10 the previous season (when he was a sophomore), so he had trouble landing an invitation to the Nike camp in Oakland.
Nate Kenion, Bowers’ seven-on-seven coach, ultimately persuaded the camp director to include Bowers. He promptly ran the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds at the combine-like event, instantly drawing attention and skepticism (given his relative anonymity). Then he ran 4.5 again, launching his rise on the recruiting circuit (he had only one offer, from Nevada, before he went to the camp).
Bowers took most of his recruiting visits in 2020, during the thick of the pandemic. That shaped his decision: He liked the University of Washington, for example, but much of the city and campus was shut down during his visit because of pandemic restrictions.
The SEC was another story.
DeAnna Bowers coaches softball at Napa High School, where her son Brock played football.
Brian L. Frank/Special to The Chronicle
College football reigns supreme in the South, as Bowers and his parents quickly learned. NIL wasn’t on their radar yet, but the chance to play in the country’s top conference was too tempting to resist.
“I wanted to practice with the best and play with the best,” Bowers said of why he chose Georgia.
His first two seasons with the Bulldogs validated the decision. He described the “insane atmosphere” for home games at Sanford Stadium, raucous and filled to capacity (92,746) for every game. Bowers even found road games exhilarating, given the intensity and passion of SEC fans.
This creates fertile ground for NIL opportunities, especially for one of the most accomplished skill-position players on the two-time defending national champions.
“It is a little different (in the South) — people just care a lot more about football,” Bowers said. “It’s like a religion out here. Sometimes, it can be a little much, but once you take a step back it’s kind of cool.”
A cutout of Brock Bowers, used as part of an advertising campaign, is seen at the Bowers household in Napa.
Brian L. Frank/Special to The Chronicle
The journey has been a bit jarring for DeAnna and Warren Bowers, far removed from their long-ago college experience in Logan, Utah. The family attended one Georgia football game during Brock’s senior year of high school, but pandemic restrictions limited the crowd to less than 30,000, socially distanced in groups of four.
A year later, when Bowers made his Athens debut with two touchdown catches in a romp over UAB, the place was full and loud and more indicative of the true SEC.
“We had no idea what being a football player in the South really meant,” DeAnna Bowers said. “There was never any plan — this has just unfolded in front of us. It’s kind of like being in Grade 5 rapids and trying to paddle.”
The family has sought to minimize the turbulence by making NIL decisions based largely on the time commitment. Will Brock need to spend a full weekend away from campus, or can he fulfill his obligation in a two-hour window in Athens?
Complications inevitably arise. One prospective deal emerged in his freshman season, when a company in Napa wanted to plant grapes and sell wine with Bowers’ name attached. That seemed like a logical idea, but the NCAA prohibits athletes from endorsing alcohol-related products.
The whole process still leaves DeAnna shaking her head. Her son mostly wants to play football, and suddenly he’s also taking a real-time crash course in business, marketing and advertising.
“He’s such an easygoing kid with a great sense of humor, so I look at some of this stuff and think, ‘How fun for him,’ ” DeAnna said. “On the other hand, how did this happen?”
Reach Ron Kroichick: rkroichick@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @ronkroichick
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