In short
- Luka Garza’s career as an NCAA athlete is over and he can now profit from his name, image and likeness.
- Step one: sell your own NFT. He is the first university athlete to do this.
- Garza’s NFT comes with several physical items and passes for face-to-face events.
University of Iowa veteran Luka Garza has just added the Naismith Trophy for Male College Basketball Player of the Year to his long list of awards–a list that also includes the Associated Press university player of the year, the Oscar Robertson trophy and the Lute Olson award for best player of the year.
Garza has not yet graduated, but his senior season ended on March 22, when Iowa lost to Oregon in the second round of the NCAA tournament. When that happened, Garza became eligible to profit from his name, image and likeness – unlike his non-senior teammates, who are currently prohibited by the NCAA from doing so.
Your first move? Sell one NFT.
“This is the first time I’ve done anything to make money under my own name, so it’s really kind of new waters for me,” said Garza Decrypt in an extensive video interview this week. “I am studying economics in college and my father was great at technology throughout his life, so I saw the opportunity to expand my brand.”
Garza adds that he and his father Frank Garza, a technology veteran who founded software sales training company Conscious Selling, saw a lot of news about NFTs, including that NFL player Rob Gronkowski sold an NFT collection and “went deeper in the research on this. “
NFTs or non-fungible tokens are blockchain-based tokens that represent titles owned by any type of digital or physical asset, from virtual exchange cards to album art. They are proven to be scarce and are usually part of a very limited lot – or, in some cases, part of one. They have exploded in price.
Garza appears to be the first college athlete to sell an NFT, although professional athletes like Gronkowski, Patrick Mahomes, UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and former NFL student Vernon Davis have sold his.
Garza’s NFT will go on sale at OpenSea at 6 pm EST on Tuesday, and is a unique virtual exchange card with images of his playing career in Iowa.
The NFT will also have several physical rights with it. The highest bidder will receive an autographed pair of sneakers that Garza wore in the February 22 game, when he broke the Iowa scoring record, a private meditation session with Garza (he is in meditation), dinner and a movie with him, a HORSE game against him, and lifetime VIP passes to any basketball camp that hosts Garza (something he plans to do one day).
“It would be a great opportunity for any promising basketball player, or for a father who sees this as an opportunity for his son,” says Garza. “It would be amazing to be able to share that time with an Iowa fan, but whoever it is, I’m looking forward to being able to build a relationship with them.”
Garza says that he and his father had the idea of the personal elements when they saw the bands doing the same; Kings of Leon, for example, turned their new album into an NFT that included tickets for a future concert.
The NCAA’s NIL (name, image and likeness) rules add an interesting wrinkle to this story.
The famous – or infamous – NCAA does not allow student athletes to profit from their names, but it is close to changing that after the state of California won the NCAA and passed SB 206, a bill that will allow student athletes from that state to profit from its name, image and likeness from 2023.
Garza’s Iowa teammate Jordan Bohannon announced last month that he will not play another year in Iowa unless the state approves its own NIL bill, allowing him to make money from sponsorships. Garza, of course, would not have been able to sell the NFT if he had not just finished his career as an athlete in college.
“Now that I am no longer a college athlete, I am not representing the University of Iowa as a basketball player,” he says. “I am definitely in the future in favor of college athletes being able to do this, and I see this as a potential way for college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness. I hope I can help show people the way … I think that in the future, people can look at NFTs as an opportunity for college athletes when Name, Image and Similarity are passed on, because I am very confident that it will be so. “