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In a significant development for Texas Longhorns athletes, the schools announced a group licensing program with The Brandr Group to allow athletes the opportunity to combine their name, image, and likeness rights with the school’s official trademarks and logos like the iconic Longhorns logo and hook ‘em horns hand sign.
“As we continue to evaluate opportunities in the new era of name/image/likeness for all of our student-athletes, working alongside our legal counsel, I am thrilled to announce a new agreement with Brandr for group licensing on Texas-branded and officially licensed merchandise bearing the NIL of Longhorns student-athletes,” athletics director Chris Del Conte said in a statement. “Now fans can purchase Texas Longhorns items like jerseys and t-shirts and support their favorite players, which we have never been able to do before, and the student-athletes are able to profit from those sales through their agreement with Brandr.”
Athletes can join group licensing programs of three or more individuals from the same team or six or more individuals across sports to co-brand with Texas intellectual property.
“The University of Texas and their amazing student-athletes have an incredible opportunity in the Name, Image and Likeness space given their storied history and reputation as a leading University in college athletics,” said Wesley Haynes, TBG CEO. “We are excited to collaborate with The University of Texas Athletics to launch this program, and to find marketing partners and licensees of Texas Athletics who want create new cobranded programs for fans.”
Similar group licensing arrangements have existed at the professional level and are now available to athletes at Texas to produce merchandise that features their name, number, and logo.