Morgan Stanley Gets In On NIL Gold Rush

Morgan Stanley wants in on the NIL (name, image, likeness) boom.

The investment bank is co-launching a program designed to help college athletes plan and prepare for tax liabilities that come with earning money while in school.

The program from Morgan Stanley Global Sports & Entertainment and TheLinkU, announced Thursday, aims to provide athletes with educational programs and financial planning assistance. It will include in-person meetings, virtual webinars and other resources, and has been more than a year in the making, according to Austin Elrod, president and founder of TheLinkU and a former backup quarterback at the University of Houston, a Division I school.

Elrod played at Houston in 2011, so he was unable to take advantage of name, image and likeness opportunities, as the NCAA didn’t formally allow players to capitalize on NIL until 2021, following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Alston. As the world of NIL has grown, Elrod saw athletes woefully underprepared for how to handle earning money. 

“Right now, with the high earners especially, they’re literally walking, breathing businesses,” he tells Front Office Sports. “But a lot of them, they don’t have a plan.”

Providing substantive guidance is what he aims to do through the new partnership with Morgan Stanley. He says they’re offering a novel service that athletes will not get elsewhere: the threshold to participate is low and more than 300 financial advisors within Morgan Stanley’s global sports and entertainment group are available to them.

Wealth management is typically for those with, well, wealth. And while some students will be high earners, others may make some money but aren’t swimming in cash.

“The minimum threshold is all the way down to $1,000, and so anybody that has $1,000 can participate in this program,” he says. “We have already had a lot of athletes express interest.”

Elrod and Morgan Stanley aren’t the first to develop a financial education program for athletes. Other institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Merril Lynch, offer NIL guidance and resources. But Elrod feels this new program will go further than anything else out there at the moment.

“I got kind of frustrated with all these buzz words of financial literacy, financial education, and all these things that they’re just preaching to athletes,” he tells FOS. “There was never anything on the other side. There was never a call to action, never ‘here’s how you get involved, here are programs.’”

Sandra Richards, a leader in Morgan Stanley’s global sports and entertainment group, says the bank  is uniquely positioned to help young athletes manage their money. Among the 300 financial advisors within Morgan Stanley’s global sports and entertainment group are former professional athletes, including ex-NHL pro Adam Hall, and former MLS player Lamar Neagle. Legendary NFL wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald Jr. is also affiliated with the group; his title is financial education advocate.They aren’t symbolic representations of athletes who work with Morgan Stanley—they’re bona fide financial advisors for the firm.

“Without question, their relatable, lived experiences and perspectives…combined with their expertise as financial advisors at a top-tier global firm, present uniquely valuable qualities in their roles, and credibility,” Richards tells FOS.