COLLEGE PARK, MD – Maryland Athletics has been awarded Opendorse’s Power 5 Athlete-Driven Partner of the Year. The honor is presented to the athletic program that is going above and beyond to help student-athletes protect, build and monetize their personal brands. Maryland has excelled in all NIL categories – using Opendorse to share premium content with student-athletes to help them build their brand, providing NIL education and resources to help them monetize their brand, and providing a simple disclosure process, allowing student-athletes to remain compliant in the NIL era.
“Being honored by Opendorse as the Power 5 Partner of the Year is very important to us here at Maryland,” said Damon Evans, Barry P. Gossett Director of Athletics. “For Opendorse to recognize our efforts shows the commitment we have made to NIL in doing all we can do to assist our student-athletes in this new era of college athletics. Congratulations to our staff for supporting our Terps, specifically Cody Gambler on the internal side and Jason Yellin on the external side for being incredible champions for NIL and their work with Opendorse to elevate Maryland as a national leader in NIL.”
This past year, Maryland ranked sixth in the national and first in the Big Ten in terms of media downloads (photos, videos, graphics) by its student-athletes with a total of 29,892 from July-Dec. 2021. To date, Maryland student-athletes have disclosed 232 deals via Opendorse with student-athletes from 17 different programs engaging in deals.
"Maryland is all-in on student-athlete empowerment in the NIL era," said Opendorse CEO Blake Lawrence. "Terp athletes are in position to win; to maximize their opportunity during their time at Maryland, while building the life skills and knowledge to succeed long past their time on campus. I'm proud that Opendorse can help Maryland student-athletes and leadership work together to excel in this new landscape."