Right About Now with Ryan Alford - The Business of NIL: Parents, Brands, and the Power Behind College Sports | Justin J. Giangrande

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Ryan Alford sits down with Justin J. Giangrande, Founder and CEO of NETWORK, for a wide-ranging conversation on how NIL is reshaping college sports from the inside out. Justin explains what athlete representation actually looks like in the NIL era, why schools, conferences, and brands are all still figuring out the rules in real time, and why the real power in college sports now sits with a handful of decision-makers who still have not fully aligned. He also breaks down how his firm approaches school negotiations, why the best deal is not always the biggest one, and what parents need to understand before trying to navigate this world alone. Ryan brings the business and brand lens, Justin brings the operator and agent lens, and together they unpack why NIL is both a mess and a massive opportunity. This episode is especially useful for parents, athletes, marketers, and anyone trying to understand where the business of college sports is actually headed. Topics Covered NETWORK’s role in collegiate sports marketing and NIL Why regulation still has not caught up The tension between athlete opportunity and roster chaos How brands should think about NIL and athlete partnerships Why high school NIL may be the next big unlock What parents need to know before picking representation How schools can create more real endorsement value Why some sports still have massive untapped upside Connect with Justin J. Giangrande / NETWORK NETWORK: thenetworkadvisory.com Justin J. Giangrande bio: thenetworkadvisory.com/team/justin-j-giangrande Justin on Instagram: @jg.network NETWORK on Instagram: @thenetworkadvisory Connect with Ryan Alford / Right About Now Right About Now: ryanisright.com Right About Now YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCc8gmekIb1SS1s216ASNT_w

If you're asking how you get your son or daughter out there, you named it, Ryan, content development. At the end of the day, social media gets it out. That's the truth. As Gary Vee's hype matters. The more hype you can build, it's a monetization method. Now we're just dealing with college degrees and scholarships. Your kid's elite athlete invest in them early, help them get his social media going. And then when you have real serious decisions to make, find a professional that you've vetted.

You don't win by following the playbook. You win by rewriting it. 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real. No theory, no fluff, no shortcuts. This is right about now with Ryan Alford. Youth sports, college sports, name, image, and likeness. We all know these terms and they're changing fast, the entire landscape. Athletes are truly becoming brands younger than ever.

It's a reality that's here. We can't hide from it. We just got to learn to embrace. it and know how to do what's right for the kids and for the brands. Justin Gian Grande is the founder and CEO of Network, where he works with elite athletes and brands at the center of the shift. Justin, welcome to write about now. What's up, brother?

What's up, man? Good to be on. I appreciate you having me on. I appreciate you for joining. The CEO of Network, a lot of the things you had done, I'd heard the name. You just owned the fucking network. You are the CEO of Network. Serial Entrepreneur, you've gone the track.

I recognized a lot of names. What is Network? What are we doing today? Network is a collegiate sports marketing and management agency. We are located in Fort Lauderdale, New York City, in Los Angeles, as well as Atlanta, about staff of 20 executives from all over bigger agencies and just a bunch of hardworking individuals, but we're laser focused on the business of college sports from youth high school, which leads into college, and then college, which leads into pro, but just really kind of through

three lanes. One, elite talent management, 44 men and women under management, representing them, negotiating with the schools, branding and marketing them, the true sense of NIL, thinking of their charities and PR, but really managing them 360. We have an advisory business that works with schools and conferences and brands on their NIL strategy. Some of my most proud work is Sacramento State, who's elevated to Division I. They've been a client of ours for two years, led by my partner, Doug Scott, of helping to figure out ways to raise a profile of school, and then production company, film and TV concepts, storytelling. We just had a show come out on Roku, on Sacramento

state basketball with Omaha and overtime. We're a boutique agency, pack a punch, and really are helping people navigate this college space, bet on it super early. As we kind of go in, I was the first person to ever represent a high school athlete, United States coming from my background and just have been bullish on what college sports as a business can be. We're just laser-focused on really owning the space. It's a fascinating time with the whole NIL stuff. It's obviously still very fresh and new, the landscape has yet to be 100% defined. It's fascinating as I look at, I'm a firm believer that it was a little late to the game. These guys, girls, whoever, athletes at any sport generate a lot of attention, a lot of awareness, a lot of dollars for their universities,

and not being able to profit on that, I always saw it was a miss. In some ways, our attempts to make up for the sins of the past or the Wild West of the present. That's well said. People ask me, this is good for business, but obviously, this is chaos. And one of my advisors, mentors of mine said, Gordon Whitner said, you know, where there's chaos, there's opportunity. And Justin, you're at the heart of the chaos. People ask me all the time, are you surprised this hasn't gotten right? And I'm not. I'm not because everyone, all the ADs, all the school presidents, all the conference, everyone knows where we're going. They just don't want to get there because it's painful. This was not set up for what needs to happen. You need to have a huge change of what happens.

and get a lot of stakeholders on board and reimagine the whole thing. Watching House of Cards set on fire with a basketball and football throwing. That's where we are. And I wonder where it's going to land. Who's going to be the body that controls this? The NCAA sort of washed their hands from it. The people is not something that everyone doesn't know. The Big Ten and the SEC commissioners have the power.

There's a piece that they like it. People are inherently are selfish at the end of the day. The fact that they have control for their conferences puts their conferences in a good spot to win. If the goal is winning national championship, It gives them an inherent advantage. That's why we see at times tussle gets the AD from Tennessee has gotten into it with the SEC Commissioner a little bit Danny White because at times he's called him out for not necessarily thinking about the big picture, which is an interesting dynamic. People think it's untenable what's kind of going on in college sports. Even though it selfishly on our side probably benefits our business where there's fact that there's no collective bargaining, the fact that when I'm dealing with GMs, they don't know what the other side of the table is. They don't know if a school is spending 40 million or 30 million or 20 million. There's a complete lack of transparency going on of what these deals are and how much one university is paying for a player or whatever it is. It's all about their purview of risk tolerance. In AD and the president and the GM of schools have to decide what their risk tolerance is.

And then also they have to decide how much does the College Sports Commission actually matter? Do we even care that we're being governed? There's some schools that have never even signed the PAC as far as the College Sports Commission. Theory, the NCAA has put this thing in place that some people are paying attention to, but there's other people who just don't even think it exists. I'm a firm believer that the athletes should be paid. The argument is, are we rotting from the inside out, the whole amateur athletics with what we're doing, monetizing everything, having no guard rails.