Drake Maye is the first starting quarterback from the NIL era to play in the Super Bowl.
As part of a new wave of athletes who become spokespeople before they reach the pros, the 23-year-old Charlotte native has walked the line between the old and new age of college sports. He’s signed many a brand deal and promoted all kinds of products on his social media, but he also had a fierce loyalty to North Carolina that led him to criticize the new realities of college football.
The doors opened for college athletes to earn money from their NIL on July 1, 2021. Brock Purdy, who played in Super Bowl LVIII, played his last year with the Iowa State Cyclones in 2021. But NIL was still nascent that season, and had a much smaller impact on Purdy—who was famously Mr. Irrelevant in the 2022 draft—than it did for Maye.
Maye originally committed to Alabama before switching to UNC, where his dad had also been the quarterback and brother won the 2017 NCAA Championship for men’s basketball. He arrived in January 2021 for spring football, and by November, he was posting about a real estate agent from his hometown. “Make the Tar Heel connection when buying or selling a home in Charlotte,” he wrote.
The deals picked up in the 2022 season after Maye took over the starting job from Sam Howell. On Twitter, he promoted his custom merch and a local nonprofit tackling children’s food insecurity. On Instagram, he posed with a big group of teammates, all holding Bose headphones. The deals kept coming in 2023: The Rock’s ZOA Energy drinks, Jimmy’s Famous Seafood, lots of promotions for UNC’s NIL collective, and a local HVAC company with his offensive lineman.
From the brand deal side, Maye embraced what NIL was intended to be. But as NIL collective payments to athletes quickly became the driving force of college football, Maye showed some old school loyalty.
Flash back to 2022, three years before the House settlement and schools paying athletes directly. Then, football players got paid huge sums by booster-funded collectives, often operating as nonprofits, in exchange for showing up to fan engagements and doing other work in the community. Thanks to the NCAA’s decision the year before to let athletes transfer once without having to sit out a season, collectives and the deals they offered became hugely influential in attracting and retaining talent.
After a stellar season at quarterback, where he became ACC Player of the Year, schools wanted to lure Maye away from Chapel Hill. Coach Mack Brown said Maye turned down a “whole lot of money to stay here.” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said two schools offered Maye $5 million to transfer.
Maye told ESPN in late December of 2022 that people had contacted his representatives, high school coach, and “NIL media people,” but he only heard about it “through the grapevine”—nothing was offered directly to him or his family.
“Those rumors weren’t really reality,” he told ESPN at the time. “Pitt’s coach ended up putting that out there. I don’t know what that was about. You have to enter the transfer portal to talk to these schools and hear these offers.”
The experience clarified his views on the state of college football.
“For me, I think college football is going to turn into a mess,” Maye said. “They’re going to have to do something.”
Whatever pull Maye felt in high school to compete at one of college football’s blue bloods was gone. His loyalty to UNC defied the norms of the new age of college football, and showed a level of commitment still rare in 2026.
“Sadly, I think money is becoming a reason why kids go places,” he told ESPN. “Where I’m playing at and with and for Coach Brown, just that Carolina blue outweighs the money part of it. I don’t think any amount of money from whatever school [would sway me]. Nowadays, people are signing for NIL. It puts a lot of pressure on those kids. If I were to transfer out and go somewhere, it wouldn’t be the same.”
Brown, who was fired after the 2024 season and replaced by Bill Belichick, recently recounted Maye’s decision that offseason.
“Drake comes to my office and says ‘Coach, I’m not going anywhere,’” Brown said. “‘I’m not worried about the money,’ and I told him, ‘I’m going to try and get you some money (through NIL),’ and he said, ‘I don’t care, I’m staying.’”
Maye played one more season with UNC before declaring for the NFL draft, where the Patriots took him at No. 3 overall in 2024. More and more brands have continued to tap Maye for endorsements as a textbook athlete influencer, adding to his roughly $8.4 million from the Patriots this year. He would become the youngest ever Super Bowl winning quarterback if the Patriots raise the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday.
