For as long as collegiate athletics have existed, college athletes have been prohibited from being sponsored by brands. That all changed in 2021 just before the college football season began, when the Supreme Court ruled that any NCAA player could be compensated by a company for using their Name, Image, and Likeness. Brands instantly swarmed, player by player.

While some brands were following the more traditional route of sponsoring one or two key “star” athletes (typically quarterbacks), Arby’s wanted to find an interesting approach to working with college athletes in a way that democratized the benefit of the new NIL ruling for as many athletes as possible, while generating buzz on social, and to further connect with college sports–a passion point for much of its target audience.

Arby’s saw the freshly minted NIL ruling as an opportunity to sponsor not just a single player, but to open up the door to as many athletes as possible –specifically running backs (“RBs”). Naturally, RBs were the players Arby’s most deeply connected with on a phonetic level, so we issued a CTA that invited every single Division 1 (D1) college football running back to participate.

All an RB had to do was post a video to their social followers saying, “Tonight, I’m getting Arby’s!” and they’d receive $500, Arby’s RBs workout gear, and an official spot on Arby’s RBs Roster. The concept opened up coveted NIL partnerships to both macro and micro influencers at schools across the nation.

We knew the channels most popular amongst college running backs were Instagram and Twitter, so we confined submissions to those two platforms. We also knew that NIL rules were a new concept and each school had different rules and regulations for brand relationships, so we worked with legal and NIL consultants to help outline rules on Arbys.com/RBs to best assist influencer athletes and lessen the burden to participate. This included getting approvals from their schools, as well as using accurate disclosures–new concepts for many student athletes participating in sponsored posts for the first time.

To get as much immediate attention on the program as possible around launch–and while NIL was a timely conversation in media and social–we secured an exclusive story with 247sports.com to kick-off coverage. We also worked with four running backs to help us issue our CTA and serve as a demonstration for other players.

We kicked off the program with an exclusive story on 247sports.com, which went live the morning of launch. At the same time, we created a launch video starring Division 1 Running Back standouts, TreVeyon Henderson (Ohio State),Shaun Shivers (Auburn), Max Borghi (Washington State), and Kyren Williams (Notre Dame), explaining the program and encouraging their fellow RBs to participate. This video also went live on each of their social channels, including in-feed Instagram posts, Instagram stories and an in-feed post on Twitter to drive more awareness.

The program was an immediate success with dozens of D1 RBs from across the nation sharing their entries in a matter of days. The phrase “Tonight, I’m getting Arby’s” was shared on college athletes’ social accounts from coast-to-coast, making it one of the largest NIL campaigns to-date, and the first to target a specific position across the NCAA D1 college football landscape.

Arby’s RBs amassed 387.8+ earned media impressions, 31 million social impressions, 41 pieces of unique media coverage, and received nearly 80 player submissions over the course of a few weeks. All in all, the program successfully aligned Arby’s to its college football fanbase, and used influencer partnerships to drive awareness and conversations in an interesting way.