Hoops HD

The marketplace for college athletes to engage in Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) deals was created in 2021 after the NCAA v. Alston case and now it seems like every college is ready to start spreading the wealth. There are already more than 100 “collectives” either in operation or being formed. They allow alumni/fans/whoever to donate money to assist a specific school in creating opportunities for student-athletes to make some money off of their celebrity. We have reached out to many collectives and will try to interview representatives from as many of them as possible to see how each of them operates. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel continues our coverage with Mike Pittman of the Hoop And Holler Houston NIL Micro-Collective, who discussed what his group is about and what it has accomplished so far.

You are the Operations Manager at Star Pizza: how did you get into the business, and how do you like it? I got into the business literally at the ground level: Delivery Driver. I am dedicated to what I do and learned a little bit of everything. It is not like a job: it is like school every day, so you must keep learning. Once you think you know it all: you have failed. The industry is always a challenge, more than ever since the pandemic. People’s habits changed: how/when/what they eat changed. You cannot count on the things you used to anymore. Prices are all over the place, which makes it harder to ride the wave: you cannot increase prices every time a cost goes up. You must learn to ride the wave, keep your menu affordable, and keep your customer base happy.

You and your wife Jennifer are the founders of an NIL micro-collective called “Hoop & Holler Houston”: how does a micro-collective differ from a regular collective? We started our UH support group as the first NIL Collective at UH (an LLC) to go public but quickly realized that we were never going to have time to run another full-time business managing other people’s money as we already put 125% of our time into Star Pizza. The decision was made to keep our group very small, family-based, and put our support where we could/when we could. Star Pizza’s social media gives us a large platform to work from. This resulted in our ability to keep costs at almost zero and put any money out there 100% to the student-athletes. We never charged anything for our services no matter who we were working with from J-Bar-M BBQ to Tacos A Go Go or anyone else. We choose who we work with instead of just taking anyone’s money who wants to throw it at UH Sports: some things are simply not a good fit.

In addition to men’s basketball your collective works with football/women’s basketball: why did you decide to focus on those sports? Women’s hoops was a no-brainer because it is underserved and so deserving. We met a couple of UH WBB players, mainly Laila Blair (who became the 1st player in school history to be named All-Conference 1st-Team in 2023): we have a good relationship with her and her family. She is also a Film Production graduate and is working on shooting some NIL clips for us: it kind of comes full circle. Football was a fluke: D’Anthony Jones made a fun post online asking, “Where the NIL deals at?”, so we had no choice but to reach out. One thing led to another working with him: we got a great Star Pizza commercial and worked with the defensive line for a few years (and still do with Zion Taylor). Now we have a 2nd-year NIL deal with almost the entire Kick Squad.

Some of the deals you have created include social media endorsements, meet-and-greets, and digital content: which 1 of them has received the best response? The best response is social media engagement and endorsements. Houston is a BIG city, so it is hard to get anyone to come out in person to do much.

What kind of connection does your group have with Coach Kelvin Sampson? Coach Sampson’s family has been integral in a lot of what we do. I cannot say that we laid the groundwork, but we are told that 1 of our first NIL deals with Tramon Mark/Marcus Sasser was used as the “framework” for how the Men’s Basketball team wanted deals to look/feel: very personal. Kelvin’s daughter Lauren has been a big supporter and always makes sure to let us know how much they appreciate all the support we have shown, which means the world to us.

Your school hired Eddie Nunez last August to be your new Athletic Director: what do you know about him so far? I can say I have seen Eddie at every turn of every event we have attended from recent basketball “50/50 Club” support group socials to tailgates to off-campus charity events. He is everywhere and working hard to change our UH Culture for the better. It is going to be a rough go, but he seems like the guy for the job.

The Big 12 has undergone some major changes over the past few years: any thoughts on conference realignment? We really like the current state of the Big 12. I am not so sure I dig the whole SEC/Big 10 takeover in terms of football…but what can we do? The conference powers in football and basketball are so different anyway so it does not matter that much.

People are obviously free to do whatever they want with their hard-earned money…but do you ever have any second thoughts about whether you should be encouraging your donors to do something else like fight cancer/reduce homelessness? There is a lot of room for charity out there. The Men’s Basketball team is playing Texas A&M in a charity exhibition game next month with proceeds going to support Hurricane Beryl Disaster relief. Locally it will be a big help: the game is almost already a sell-out. This is also why we stayed a private or “Micro-Collective”: we do not openly solicit donors to give to any students in a UH NIL. If someone comes to us with the intent to donate to a particular student-athlete or team via NIL, then their mind is made up and they know what they want/need.

In recent years we have seen a basketball team’s season suspended (New Mexico State), a football team’s coach fired (Northwestern), and a swim team’s season suspended (Notre Dame) due to gambling/hazing: how concerned are you about entering contractual relationships with teenagers who might end up behaving badly? Young adults are who they are, many experiencing the “away from home” status for the first time, but we are very selective about who we work with. For one thing, Coach Sampson recruits whole families, so his group is already vetted, so you pretty much know the guys you get are good kids who will not/do not act wrong. The new Culture surrounding the UH Football team is great, but sports gambling has gone wild. The toothpaste is out of the tube, and I am not sure you can get it back in. You are just going to have to deal with it.

The Cougars have won at least 32 games for 3 years in a row: what are your expectations for this season? That is a loaded question!! The team is returning a few fantastic starters: some of the kids who played a little last year are returning with a great group around them. Now that our conference schedule has been released there are for sure some gauntlets in there, but that is what makes this team tick. Nothing is taken for granted: that is the CULTURE. One game at a time, one play at a time. We just want to go 1-0 in our next game. These guys play for each other, they are tough, and as always, we are looking to hang that banner.