How Bluff City Collective became Memphis basketball’s official NIL collective

Memphis basketball took a major step Thursday afternoon.

The Memphis athletic department announced that Bluff City Collective is now the the men’s basketball team’s primary NIL partner. Bluff City Collective—headed by longtime Memphis donor Michael Hawkins—will focus on maximizing NIL opportunities for men’s basketball student-athletes and coordinating their sponsorship deals. Fans who wish to do so can donate to the collective or sign up for a membership on its website.

Memphis’ other two NIL programs—the 901 Fund and MaximUM— will continue to support all the university’s athletic programs. The 901 Fund specifically will still act as a collective for all U of M sports while collaborating with Bluff City Collective in the latter’s efforts towards men’s basketball. MaximUM provides resources and education to help Memphis’ student-athletes get the most out of their name, image and likeness.

“We are pleased to add Bluff City Collective to the list of ways our fans can get involved in helping support our student-athletes and local charities,” Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch said in a statement. “Along with donating to Bluff City Collective and the 901 Fund, plus the ability to use the Opendorse Marketplace and connect directly with student-athletes, our fans have a multitude of ways to make an impact for both our student-athletes and our community. NIL support is critical, and we encourage our fans to get involved however they are able.”

Bluff City Collective put out its own statement.

“Bluff City Collective is excited to formally announce our partnership with Memphis Athletics,” the statement reads in part. “Our sole purpose is to assist Coach [Penny] Hardaway in ensuring the continuation of Memphis basketball’s long and storied tradition of excellence. During this transformational time in college athletics, it is vital that we continue to equip Coach Hardaway and his team with every resource necessary to continue to compete at the highest levels both on and off the court. Doing so requires all of Tiger Nation’s direct involvement in Bluff City Collective’s NIL efforts. Through our membership program, and numerous NIL opportunities for players throughout the community, Bluff City Collective will bring Tiger Nation closer to the program than ever before.”

Bluff City Collective initially started last year as a completely separate entity from what it is now. It was originally Bluff City NIL, which Hawkins ran by himself as an individual donor. But everything changed earlier this year once he met Hunter Story, who eventually became Bluff City Collective’s director.

An announcement of this magnitude may seem a bit sudden or out of nowhere. After all, this is a program-altering event for Memphis basketball. But its partnership with Hawkins, Story and Bluff City Collective has actually been a long time coming.

“About August [or] September, I met Michael [Hawkins], just reaching out to him with a way to help Memphis with NIL,” Story told Bluff City Media. “About that time, we met with Coach [Rick] Stansbury about taking what Michael has done and repackaging it as this new entity—rebranding and launching a basketball-exclusive NIL collective that was officially partnered with the university…October 12, we incorporated as Bluff City Collective under Tennessee law and began putting the pieces together behind the scenes with the university to announce an official partnership.”

Story, like most people running NIL collectives, is a true fan at heart. Growing up, he watched John Calipari lead the Tigers to three consecutive Elite Eight appearances from 2006-2008. Memphis’ best season in program history—2007-08—obviously came during that stretch. Story also watched Josh Pastner lead the Tigers to several more NCAA Tournaments after Calipari left for Kentucky.

As college students at Ole Miss, Story and his twin brother made the drive to every Tigers basketball game—even during the two seasons where Tubby Smith led the program to all-time lows in both attendance and overall enthusiasm. Smith was later fired after the 2017-18 season and replaced by Hardaway, who’s since injected life back into the program with consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances the past two seasons, an NIT Championship in 2021 and an AAC Tournament title last year.

When Story—a young corporate law attorney who’d never previously worked in neither the college athletics nor NIL space—got the opportunity to work with Hawkins and Bluff City Collective, he quickly knew it was something he wanted to be a part of; largely because of how inspired he was by Hardaway and his efforts to help Memphis basketball become a top-tier program once again.

“I’ve known Penny for my whole life, been around the program my whole life,” Story said. “Memphis basketball has always been my one and only true team. And this was the opportunity to stay engaged, stay around and obviously work with a legend like Penny Hardaway. It’s something that’s hard to pass up.”

The whole concept of NIL is still relatively new to the world of college athletics, having just been legalized the summer before the 2021-22 college basketball season. But it’s still evolved rather quickly and is now a crucial part of every Division I athletic program. NIL obviously helps build a team’s roster every year, but it’s also important in keeping fanbases engaged with the program.

That’s why Memphis basketball, as the university’s most popular team, has its own collective separate from the 901Fund. The Tigers, having been overshadowed by the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies in the past decade-plus, must find ways to bring more exposure to the program. And there aren’t many better ways of doing that than consistently getting the players’ names and faces out there.

Bluff City Collective values fan engagement more than anything else, and is putting most of its efforts into that. Whether it be Jahvon Quinerly and Malcolm Dandridge signing autographs at a local shoe store or players doing advertisements with organizations like Coaching for Literacy, Bluff City Collective wants the men’s basketball team to be seen as frequently as possible.

It needs fans to understand that they don’t have to cash a giant check or become a lifelong booster to help Memphis basketball. Simply giving anything they can, regardless of if it’s time, money or engagement, aids their beloved Tigers at least a little bit.

“It’s a really important moment right here and right now. We are in a really unique position to have who we have as the head coach during the beginning days of NIL,” Story said. “My biggest message to fans would be to just get engaged, be engaged and stay engaged. If you can’t join the membership or you’re not sure about it, reach out. Maybe we’ll talk about how we can work in another way. But the biggest thing is that this is just so important. At the end of the day, games are now won and lost in your ability to go out and compete in the [transfer] portal and in the recruiting world. For better or worst, the results of recruiting largely depend on your NIL funding at this point in time. That’s the reality…The best thing we can do now is give every resource we can to Coach Hardaway to succeed. So I just hope that fans will take the time to check it out, see what we offer. Reach out, see what ways they can engage with us and how we can engage with them and what we can do to continue to give Coach Hardaway the support level that Memphis coaches have traditionally had going forward.”