Part 1
Trove: Now a few key players have really emerged to help Seton Hall’s NIL efforts, obviously Deputy Athletics Director for Revenue Generation, NIL and Strategic Initiatives Mike McBride as you mentioned before, but also G3 Marketing President Eric Lieber, long-time donor and fundraising lead for Hall Ball Events Mike Frungillo as well as Hall Hands On Deck leader Mike Walsh. Can you provide some clarity on the role of each individual as well as how you are looking for them to come together to get The Hall in the best possible position for NIL moving forward?
Felt: I’m going to be the first to admit that I think communication wise we could be doing a little bit better job there. I think we recognized that and I think that's been one of Mike’s primary focuses to get a better understanding among our supporters. I think there are a lot of misconceptions that might be unfair, but that's okay because this is new territory for everybody.
We announced, I want to say early summer, late spring, Mike Frungillo’s start. I want to begin with him because Michael has been an absolute lightning rod on the NIL side of things for us. He's been tremendous. Mike and his family are longtime supporters of our department and the university as a whole and Michael stepped up. Michael came in and he said, ‘Listen, I know there's been some folks running it, but how can I help? How can I get more involved? I’d like to do more and I think I can help fundraise money.’
I can't stop anyone from fundraising for NIL, and if they want to do that and go for it, that’s awesome. Obviously knowing Michael for a long time, I said, ‘Yes, please get involved’ and I connected him to meet with Eric, who I will speak about more in a minute. They had a great initial conversation that went incredibly well. I should mention that there are others that have been very generous with their time and efforts and contributions as well, they just don’t want to be as public with it as say Mike.
He connects with a lot of those folks and they have said, ‘Michael, please take it on, please be the face of this and take the lead’ and Michael's done that with Hall Ball Events. He has been really focused on engaging the donor base, meeting the people that have been giving to NIL and educating them on the importance of it and just trying to get contributions. He’s done a superb job in his short time in the role. He was really the leader in getting the Challenge Match going. A lot of donors liked the idea of a challenge and he went out and raised $350,000. It should be coming out later today, but Mike and Hall Ball secured an additional 50,000 to make it a $400,000 challenge match and I believe that the timeframe for the match has been extended to the start of the season so late October/early November.
So, Mike’s just been awesome, he's pounding the pavement and done a tremendous job securing some more five-figure gifts, which really does move the needle a little bit more significantly. He really got the process going and secured some larger gifts to go along with the smaller contributions to build toward the now $400,000 goal.
Mike connected with Eric Lieber, because at the end of the day, when NIL started, in the infancy of NIL, Eric stepped up and volunteered to do a lot. Eric is very friendly with Coach Holloway, he’s known Coach Holloway a long time and worked on the staff when he was playing. At the start of this, Sha came down to me and was said, ‘Listen, man, I know we got some things cooking in the NIL world, but we should listen and hear how Eric can help us, I trust him.’ I trusted Eric as well because we were in school together and in some of the same classes and his wife Lauren worked with me at Pirate Blue. So, we sat down and engaged with Eric and he said, ‘Here's what I like to do on a volunteer basis ... I can run some camps, I can try and raise some money and I can help in securing some deals for student athletes,’ which he’s done well because he’s well connected in the sports marketing world. That was extraordinary because we were really busy trying to get things up and running. He went out as an alum, as a volunteer and got Topps trading card deals for student athletes and different opportunities for them to make appearances. He also hosted the youth basketball camp in Newark, which was a great thing for our student athletes to be involved with.
While Eric was incredibly supportive from the get go, his role has changed a little bit because he’s got a full-time job. Mike Frungillo came on at the same time, so the intersection of those two was fortuitous. Michael has been able to focus on the fundraising and Eric is able to handle the logistics of the events and getting student athletes opportunities. Eric’s a great resource for us to see what's going on out in the NIL space and he can give us insights.
We certainly talked about Mike McBride and his job really to get everyone collaborating together, which brings me to Mike Walsh, who I've met with on two or three occasions. Mike [Walsh] is the lead for another collective organization, Hall Hands On Deck. They’ve been supportive in raising money and utilizing Eric to help with the logistics of putting it to work. He’s a passionate supporter and fan and we’re appreciative of his efforts to help our NIL. I think that summarizes some of the main people, but as I said, there are more but they prefer to really stay in the background.
Bryan Felt talks NIL
Trove: Now a few key players have really emerged to help Seton Hall’s NIL efforts, obviously Deputy Athletics Director for Revenue Generation, NIL and Strategic Initiatives Mike McBride as you mentioned before, but also G3 Marketing President Eric Lieber, long-time donor and fundraising lead for Hall Ball Events Mike Frungillo as well as Hall Hands On Deck leader Mike Walsh. Can you provide some clarity on the role of each individual as well as how you are looking for them to come together to get The Hall in the best possible position for NIL moving forward?
Felt: I’m going to be the first to admit that I think communication wise we could be doing a little bit better job there. I think we recognized that and I think that's been one of Mike’s primary focuses to get a better understanding among our supporters. I think there are a lot of misconceptions that might be unfair, but that's okay because this is new territory for everybody.
We announced, I want to say early summer, late spring, Mike Frungillo’s start. I want to begin with him because Michael has been an absolute lightning rod on the NIL side of things for us. He's been tremendous. Mike and his family are longtime supporters of our department and the university as a whole and Michael stepped up. Michael came in and he said, ‘Listen, I know there's been some folks running it, but how can I help? How can I get more involved? I’d like to do more and I think I can help fundraise money.’
I can't stop anyone from fundraising for NIL, and if they want to do that and go for it, that’s awesome. Obviously knowing Michael for a long time, I said, ‘Yes, please get involved’ and I connected him to meet with Eric, who I will speak about more in a minute. They had a great initial conversation that went incredibly well. I should mention that there are others that have been very generous with their time and efforts and contributions as well, they just don’t want to be as public with it as say Mike.
He connects with a lot of those folks and they have said, ‘Michael, please take it on, please be the face of this and take the lead’ and Michael's done that with Hall Ball Events. He has been really focused on engaging the donor base, meeting the people that have been giving to NIL and educating them on the importance of it and just trying to get contributions. He’s done a superb job in his short time in the role. He was really the leader in getting the Challenge Match going. A lot of donors liked the idea of a challenge and he went out and raised $350,000. It should be coming out later today, but Mike and Hall Ball secured an additional 50,000 to make it a $400,000 challenge match and I believe that the timeframe for the match has been extended to the start of the season so late October/early November.
So, Mike’s just been awesome, he's pounding the pavement and done a tremendous job securing some more five-figure gifts, which really does move the needle a little bit more significantly. He really got the process going and secured some larger gifts to go along with the smaller contributions to build toward the now $400,000 goal.
Mike connected with Eric Lieber, because at the end of the day, when NIL started, in the infancy of NIL, Eric stepped up and volunteered to do a lot. Eric is very friendly with Coach Holloway, he’s known Coach Holloway a long time and worked on the staff when he was playing. At the start of this, Sha came down to me and was said, ‘Listen, man, I know we got some things cooking in the NIL world, but we should listen and hear how Eric can help us, I trust him.’ I trusted Eric as well because we were in school together and in some of the same classes and his wife Lauren worked with me at Pirate Blue. So, we sat down and engaged with Eric and he said, ‘Here's what I like to do on a volunteer basis ... I can run some camps, I can try and raise some money and I can help in securing some deals for student athletes,’ which he’s done well because he’s well connected in the sports marketing world. That was extraordinary because we were really busy trying to get things up and running. He went out as an alum, as a volunteer and got Topps trading card deals for student athletes and different opportunities for them to make appearances. He also hosted the youth basketball camp in Newark, which was a great thing for our student athletes to be involved with.
While Eric was incredibly supportive from the get go, his role has changed a little bit because he’s got a full-time job. Mike Frungillo came on at the same time, so the intersection of those two was fortuitous. Michael has been able to focus on the fundraising and Eric is able to handle the logistics of the events and getting student athletes opportunities. Eric’s a great resource for us to see what's going on out in the NIL space and he can give us insights.
We certainly talked about Mike McBride and his job really to get everyone collaborating together, which brings me to Mike Walsh, who I've met with on two or three occasions. Mike [Walsh] is the lead for another collective organization, Hall Hands On Deck. They’ve been supportive in raising money and utilizing Eric to help with the logistics of putting it to work. He’s a passionate supporter and fan and we’re appreciative of his efforts to help our NIL. I think that summarizes some of the main people, but as I said, there are more but they prefer to really stay in the background.
