From March Madness to Music Royalties: NIL Deals, Biggie’s Legacy, and the Vedder Cup

Welcome back to the Spotlight! Just as Spring arrived yesterday, so too did the NCAA’s crown jewels: the NCAA Basketball Championships. The former has the potential to usher in hay fever while the latter has the potential to bring fans (whether alumni, or bracket pool participants) to a fever pitch. Undoubtedly, much of the allure about March Madness comes from overlooked and largely unknown schools and individuals who find themselves thrust into the national spotlight—and lucrative marketing opportunities. Usually, the individuals from these schools are the players who help teams play David to the Goliaths, but in the NIL era, it could apparently be a team manager. Case in point, the team manager for the McNeese State University Cowboys, Amir “Aura” Khan has seen his star rise in recent days, having signed first-ever student manager NIL deals with national brands Buffalo Wild Wings, TickPick and Insomnia Cookies. With the Cowboys’ improbable victory over the Clemson University Tigers on Thursday—during which fans saw him energetically lead his team out of the tunnel (not to mention seeing his face printed all over a cheerleader’s socks), his aura will continue to build as he looks to capitalize on his proverbial fifteen minutes.

• The Beatles’ Paul McCartney trades songwriting for letter-writing, warning the Trump Administration against copyright reform that would allow artificial intelligence programs led by OpenAI and Google to train on copyrighted works, potentially stifling human creative innovation.  After all, the copyrighted works you take are equal to the copyrighted works that you make.
• Primary Wave cuts a B.I.G. $200 million check to acquire the rights to the song catalog of Christopher Wallace (better known as “The Notorious B.I.G.,” “Biggie Smalls” or simply “Biggie”) from the late rapper’s estate.
• Finally, blending endorsements, music and sports into one, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder licensed his name to the MLB for a Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres rivalry baseball series (the Vedder Cup). Given Vedder’s history of having recorded the trilogy of famed songs “Once,” “Alive” and “Footsteps” from a demo tape while in San Diego, and subsequently moving to Seattle, you could say that you can’t find a better man after whom to name the series.