ATHENS — The Diamond Dogs have been adopted by a Pink Zebra.
Pink Zebra Moving, to be specific.
The Alabama-based moving company, which has a franchise in Athens, has entered into a Name, Image and Likeness agreement with the Georgia baseball team. That’s right, the entire team.
The company’s founder, Ron Holt, is a UGA alum who played some small-college baseball before coming to Athens in the early 2000s. When the NCAA passed NIL legislation in July, Holt started to explore ways he might be able to give back to the program that he loves.
“We really wanted to do a deal that involved every player on the team,” Holt said in a news release circulated Wednesday by a public relations firm representing the company. “We also wanted to structure it in a unique way, so each player has a chance to decide how much effort he wants to devote to the process. If a player is business-minded, he can really make a lot of money.”
Jack Gowen, a senior pitcher from Folkston, has become the point person for the Bulldogs. As captain of the 2022 team, Gowen was contacted by Holt about a plan to pay every player on the roster to be a representative of the company and use their social media accounts to advertise the service. Every time a customer accepts their recommendation and contracts Pink Zebra to handle a move, the individual player cited by the customer will receive a $500 commission.
That sounded good to Gowen.
“I had a random number reach out to me on my phone, and Ron just basically laid it out on the table about the NIL stuff,” said Gowen, a relief pitcher who has already made two appearances with the 4-0 Bulldogs this season. “He wanted to do a deal like no other, where everybody on the team is involved. A lot of times a business reaches out to one guy and they do a deal. He wanted to involve the whole team.”
Gowen said each player is paid $250 up front and signs paperwork to represent the company. After that, it’s up to each individual how much time and effort they want to put into the enterprise.
For Gowen, it has been fairly intense. It has been his job to get all 40 players on Georgia’s roster to fill out the appropriate forms and have them approved by UGA’s compliance department before any money can exchange hands.
“We’re still getting all the paperwork sorted out,” Gowen said. “Most of us have signed all the documents. We had to deal with a couple of lawyers. Some guys have NIL agents they have to go through. It’s been a little bit of a hassle just having 40 moving pieces involved.”
Gowen said he had 37 players signed up so far.
It’s an unusual deal and definitely uncommon for college baseball. Before Pink Zebra came in, Gowen said he thought pitcher Jaden Woods was the only UGA baseball player with any NIL deals. The sophomore left-hander from Warner Robins has his own line of apparel sold through Barstool Sports.
Football players on Georgia’s national championship football team have been fielding multiple offers, some large, most small, in the last year. Quarterback Stetson Bennett currently is thought to have engaged in the most business at Georgia.
Team-wide deals are becoming more commonplace in college athletics. At Texas, the entire offensive line position group was signed to a deal with a pancake company that pays each individual $50,000 a year.
While Georgia baseball’s Pink Zebra deal falls well below that one, it’s a welcomed start, Gowen said. And it should not be a distraction.
“You’ve got to do well,” Gowen said. “You want be a winning team, because that’s the team that’s going to get the most coverage. I think we’ve got a really special team this year and a real opportunity to do something big. So, we’re putting in the work on the field and taking it one game at a time.”
So far, so good. Heading into this weekend’s four-game series against Akron, the Bulldogs are 4-0 with an average national ranking of 15 in the many college baseball polls.
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