The ironic twist to the House v. NCAA settlement agreement is now, starting on July 1, everything Name, Image, and Likeness related when it comes to athletics, will be in-house for the University of Washington.
Through Dawgs Unleashed — founded in October 2024 to serve as UW’s internal NIL operations — will now be the go-to for fans and the university alike when it comes to contributing to the ever-evolving arms race in the world of intercollegiate athletics — most of which is centered around the cash cow that is college football.
According to the Seattle Times, who spoke with Montlake Futures’ executive director Andrew Minear — the previous official third-party collective used by UW student-athletes since NIL came into existence legitimately in July 2021 — on Monday, there is a changing of the guard for the better.
“We feel pretty good about what we did. We’re just going to continue to encourage our donors and fans to love Husky athletics and support them the best they can so we can continue to be dominant in all of our sports,” Minear told Andy Yamashita.
With the school moving its NIL operations in-house it will allow athletes to use UW branded merchandise and smoothen out other red-tape factors that Montlake Futures and other NIL entities didn’t have the ability or capacity to facilitate, especially with a reported $20.5 million figure floated for each athletic department to allocate throughout football, men’s and women’s basketball and other sports programs.
Joe Kelly, who previously served as the head of major gifts for UW, is leading the charge for Dawgs Unleashed, which should also help assist major companies create NIL partnerships with athletes who dawn purple and gold, with Amazon, Alaska Airlines, Boeing, Costco and dozens of other major businesses within the city that could separate the Huskies from most other college football programs that don’t have a major metropolitan city near campus.
As part of the House v. NCAA $2.8 billion settlement reached last week, previously agreed to deals through entities like Montlake Futures, won’t be subject to the same scrutiny as new deals signed after July 1, which was a significant factor for many spring and winter portal transfers to frontload deals with agents knowing the settlement was expected to come before the start of the 2025 season
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