Cisco Aguilar from Blueprint Sports, is interviewed during a suit fitting for UNLV football players at Maceoo inside Aria Hotel & Casino Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021. Through a partnership with Blueprint sports, Chudd is sponsoring a program (now possible under the new NCAA NIL rules) that will give each graduating member of the UNLV football team a custom-made suit from Maceeo in exchange for social media sharing.
Monday, Dec. 6, 2021 | 2 a.m.
A Las Vegas company is getting in on the ground floor of promoting and marketing college athletes, and a number of UNLV players are already cashing in.
A local car dealership is paying Rebel basketball players a monthly stipend for transportation, and a Strip clothing store is providing free suits for UNLV football players.
The company, Blueprint Sports, and the player perks were made possible by a National Collegiate Athletics Association rule change this year allowing athletes to receive compensation for marketing deals based on their name, image and likeness.
“We made a strategic decision to be about the athletes first and foremost,” said Blueprint Sports founder Cisco Aguilar. “The way to do that was to directly work with athletes rather than becoming an official partner of an athletic department, then servicing athletes.”
Though it was incorporated last year, Blueprint launched its operations in October.
The company, which has about a dozen employees, works with college athletes from UNLV and other Western schools, such as UCLA, Southern Cal, Utah and Loyola Marymount University.
The most important feature of Blueprint is that it works as a “digital marketplace” for athletes and businesses to pick and choose different opportunities, said Aguilar, a businessman, attorney and former member of the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Each player on the UNLV men’s basketball team has a sponsorship deal with Findlay Automotive Group for a monthly $500 “transportation allowance.”
In exchange for the money — which players can spend on anything from a car payment to Uber or Lyft fees — they must take a financial literacy course and agree to make appearances at a Findlay car dealership.
Aguilar said Blueprint is working on a similar deal for members of the UNLV women’s basketball team.
In another case, some UNLV football players are taking part in a sponsorship deal with Maceeo, a high-end men’s clothing store at Aria.
Tre Caine, a senior defensive back, and other players involved in the deal will get tailor-made suits worth some $1,800. The idea is that the players will wear the suits to their college graduation ceremonies.
In exchange for the clothes, the football players also had to agree to take a financial literacy course geared toward graduating college students.
Nancy Lough, a professor, marketing expert and coordinator of intercollegiate and professional sports management at UNLV, said allowing players to profit from marketing deals is generally a good thing.
College athletes fall into a coveted young adult demographic often attractive to companies, she said. If an athlete has a big social media following, that could make them even more marketable, she said.
“These athletes could potentially build a brand that could have longevity, so it’s very positive from that standpoint. It could also present some challenges. We haven’t seen that yet because this is all so new,” she said.
Since the NCAA rule change, a number of companies like Blueprint have emerged, with some working directly with college athletics departments.
With a background working for Adidas and tennis megastars Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf and their many charitable ventures, Aguilar said he has the knowledge to succeed in an athletics-based endeavor. He was the general counsel for the management company for Agassi and Graf, and the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education.
It was Steve Miller, CEO of Agassi Graf Holdings and Aguilar’s friend, who believed in the idea of Blueprint from the start.
“He told me I was onto something, and it kind of went from there,” Aguilar said.
Aguilar said he wanted to focus Blueprint on the task of capitalizing on what he thinks is a sports marketing gold mine in Las Vegas.
“In the last few years, Las Vegas has become a major sports market,” Aguilar said. “I wanted to focus almost solely on Las Vegas to prove the model and work through any issues we might have. Our goal is for athletes to be able to go to our platform to take advantage of deals that are ready to go.”
To do that, the company initially had to “knock on doors” to get support from local businesses, Aguilar said. That’s essentially how the deal with Findlay Automotive came together.
“The Findlay deal was a real test of our system and if we can work this,” Aguilar said. “We have a team that’s been together for about three months, and we need to make sure we can execute at a high level. We have high expectations, and we hope to partner with more businesses. That’s the goal.”
Aguilar’s company has also partnered with Logic Commercial Real Estate and has its sights set on some of the biggest names in the Las Vegas business world, such as MGM Resorts International and other hospitality companies with a large Strip presence.
In time, Aguilar said, he would like Blueprint to work as a marketplace where a business owner or athlete could simply peruse available opportunities with little or no assistance from a company rep.
He also envisions players potentially offering their time for private appearances, such as a UNLV baseball player putting on a hitting clinic at a youngster’s birthday party.
“If we execute like we have been in Las Vegas, we can grow,” Aguilar said. “There’s a natural progression to success.”
