Trevor Lawrence graduated from Clemson with a marketing degree in December, and now he’s putting that education to work for himself.
The expected No. 1 pick in Thursday’s NFL Draft, Lawrence is the latest darling for brands in the sports marketing space. And as is typical, endorsement deals with Lawrence are being unveiled ahead of what’s expected to be the announcement that the 6-foot-6 quarterback is headed to the sad-sack Jacksonville Jaguars.
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On Friday, news broke that Lawrence has inked a multiyear deal, certainly worth at least a few million dollars, to endorse Gatorade. That fills the sports drink category that has emerged as a core segment for athlete business portfolios.
“From our point of view, he’s a terrific fit for our core brand. … We see him as being a hero for that flagship product,” Jeff Kearney, Gatorade’s global head of sports marketing, told Front Office Sports.
Hyped to announce our newest member of the family, @Trevorlawrencee. The time to fuel football’s next great leader is now! 🔋🏈 pic.twitter.com/oyWFi3PJnC
— Gatorade (@Gatorade) April 23, 2021
Expect more such announcements. It’s known that he already has endorsement deals with Adidas and Topps, and he’ll be part of the standard group licensing deals with the league and the player union.
Other common endorsement categories include headphones, vehicles, sunglasses, athlete recovery equipment, food, phones, watches, insurance, cable and streaming services, hair products and video game systems.
Lawrence is instantly recognizable for his long blonde hair, so a deal with a shampoo brand like Head & Shoulders wouldn’t be a surprise.
Every No. 1 pick gets endorsement deals. Lawrence is special, experts say, because he’s clearly the best quarterback coming out of college football this season, and his resume and talent are unrivaled in this draft class. He’s already been on the cover of Sports Illustrated three times.
“The interest in Trevor is a level I haven’t personally seen, and I’ve been working on the NFL for 10 years,” said Brad Griffiths, senior director of sports marketing at Dallas-based The Marketing Arm, which specializes in athlete and celebrity marketing and endorsements.
Why is that?
“There is an inherent sense that Trevor is going to be successful in the league,” said Griffiths, whose company is working with brands doing deals with Lawrence. “He’s been in the limelight and center of college football for three years. That visibility and his generational talent is complemented by his profile. He seems to have a sense of humility to him. There’s a wholesomeness to Trevor that I think resonates with fanbases.”
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He arrives with a long resume of football accomplishments at Clemson, including a national championship as a freshman, and has been the subject of deep praise from scouts and analysts for his physical skills and demeanor. Draft guru Mel Kiper has said only John Elway, Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning were better quarterback prospects entering the NFL.
And that’s a combination — talent, success, humility — that some brands are willing to pay for.
Griffiths estimated Lawrence will earn at least $3 million from endorsements this season, and potentially much more depending on the size of his deals.
Front Office Sports, which broke the news on Friday of the Gatorade deal, quoted marketing expert Bob Dorfman of San Francisco-based Baker Street Advertising as saying the sports drink deal alone could be worth up to $2 million and that his initial portfolio may bring him $5 million to $7 million this season.
By contrast, Green Bay Packers quarterback and State Farm insurance salesman Aaron Rodgers got $9 million from endorsements last year, per Forbes. Tom Brady has $12 million from his deals. There’s no Forbes estimate yet for Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who split winning the last two Super Bowls and has landed a bevy of endorsement deals that include State Farm, Oakley, Adidas, DirecTV, Head & Shoulders and others.
Lawrence is going to remain a long way from the world’s top-paid athletes when it comes to endorsements. Last year, Forbes estimated tennis star Roger Federer had $100 million in such income while the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James enjoyed $60 million from endorsements — both athletes with a global profile.
Celebrity endorsement deals can be in the form of straight cash payments or equity stakes in the company, which is something newer brands with less cash on hand sometimes do.
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Lawrence can also earn bucks from sponsored social media posts that are part of wider brand deals or just a one-off relationship. As of this writing, Lawrence had 185,000 Twitter followers and 802,000 on Instagram — totals sure to grow in the coming days. Opendorse, which calculates the value of social media endorsement potential, estimates that he could earn $50,000 from every sponsored Instagram post and $10,000 from each on Twitter, with an annual potential of $1.44 million.
Lawrence signed with New York City-based Excel Sports Management (its clients include Tiger Woods and Clayton Kershaw) to handle his endorsement and marketing deals. Veteran sports marketing agent Alan Zucker is overseeing construction of his portfolio. Zucker has done marketing work for athletes such as Matthew Stafford, both Manning brothers, Joe Montana and LaDainian Tomlinson.
Excel declined to make Zucker or anyone available to talk about strategy and philosophy behind Lawrence’s endorsement work.
One thing beyond his or Excel’s control is where he plays.
Lawrence likely would earn more money from corporate America if he was headed to almost any other market. Instead, he has to begin his career in what’s been an NFL backwater, and he’s there because the team is bad.
Jacksonville and its 1.5 million metro area residents are the NFL’s third smallest media market, and the team has had little success since coming into the league in 1995. The Jaguars rarely appear in nationally televised games, though Lawrence’s presence will create more interest. In 2020, their lone spotlight game was a 31-13 Thursday night home loss to Ryan Fitzpatrick’s Miami Dolphins. They finished 1-15 to edge out the Jets for the top pick.
The team is 177-239-0 in its history and 7-7 in the playoffs. It got to the cusp of the Super Bowl in its second season — and again three years later — thanks to quarterback Mark Brunell but has mostly been an NFL non-factor in the 21st century, outside of one other AFC title game run in 2017.
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“There are some challenges there because of the market and the lack of success over the last decade or so,” said Steve Rosner, co-founder of Rutherford, N.J.-based 16W Marketing LLC, a sports marketing agency. He’s done deals for a number of NFL veterans such as Boomer Esiason, Steve Young, Warren Moon and Phil Simms.
“However, playing performance on the field kind of dictates what your future might be in the marketing world. I think it’s an uphill battle initially. Maybe being the No. 1 pick of the draft will help that.”
Rosner declined to estimate how much endorsement money Lawrence will initially command.
Under the watch of Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer, Lawrence works out at his pro day in February. The duo gives the franchise a publicity lift in 2021. (David Platt / Handout Photo via USA Today)Other than Brunell, a three-time Pro Bowler who quarterbacked the Jaguars from the franchise’s inaugural 1995 season through 2003, the team’s passer history is mediocre at best. The last decade has witnessed Jacksonville starting the likes of Luke McCown, Blaine Gabbert, Chad Henne, Blake Bortles, Gardner Minshew, Mike Glennon, Nick Foles, Jake Luton and Cody Kessler at the quarterback position.
Foles got a four-year, $88 million free-agent deal in 2019 but was hurt and ineffective, making only four starts, and was traded to the Bears last year.
Last season, it was Minshew, Glennon, and Luton starting games. Minshew has been the best of that lot and is likely to be traded after former San Francisco 49ers quarterback C.J. Beathard signed a two-year, $5 million contract with Jacksonville in March.
Jacksonville, for all of its on-field woes, has never had the No. 1 overall pick until this year. It did have the top pick in the 1995 expansion draft, taking quarterback Steve Beuerlein, and then had the No. 2 college pick that year (future five-time Pro Bowl tackle Tony Boselli).
Jacksonville also has a unique issue: There’s been speculation for years that billionaire team owner Shahid Khan wants to relocate the team to London, where he owns the Premier League’s Fulham FC and where the Jags have played annually in the NFL’s International Series at Wembley Stadium from 2013-19.
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Jacksonville is among the smallest TV media markets among NFL cities, with 690,000 homes. Only New Orleans, Buffalo, and Green Bay are smaller — and all have produced NFL stars. Those cities have had their teams far longer than Jacksonville has been in the NFL, and all three have been to the Super Bowl.
“There’s a difference between small market and fanatical football market,” Rosner said. “Buffalo and Green Bay fall under that fanatical football. It’s a short season. The frenzy that goes on in those towns is off the charts.”
Small NFL markets produce national stars capable of cashing in with major brands, such as Rodgers. Lawrence can do that if his potential is met, and the team wins. Even then, it’s impossible to know if fans elsewhere in the country will embrace him.
“Is he selling jerseys in the Midwest, on the West Coast?” Rosner said.
There’s plenty of upside for Lawrence. He’s playing in the country’s most popular sports league and he’ll earn a nice paycheck from that. Sure, this is another franchise rebuild, but it’s led by new coach Urban Meyer — in his first NFL gig after so much college football success — and new full-time general manager Trent Baalke.
“That paring will create a compelling storyline,” Griffiths said. Brands love good storylines!
There’s also some intriguing young talent on the roster, such as running back James Robinson, receivers D.J. Chark and Laviska Shenault, and a reliable veteran in free-agent receiver Marvin Jones.
Playing in Northeast Florida won’t be too bad a drag on his earnings potential, but he likely would land even richer deals if he played in New York, Los Angeles or Dallas, Griffiths said.
“If Trevor was headed to one of those major media markets, I think interest would be even higher than we’re seeing now,” Griffiths said. “Jacksonville is still a relatively young franchise and cemented in a region of the country that is college football territory.”
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That Jacksonville even has an NFL team surprised many fans when the franchise was awarded in November 1993, after Charlotte had been granted an expansion franchise a few weeks earlier. St. Louis and Baltimore had been the front runners as larger markets that previously had NFL clubs.
Jacksonville was a USFL city in the mid-1980s, averaging about 45,000 a game at the old Gator Bowl in 1984-85. It’s always been more of a college football town, however, and its sports fans have been known more for their devotion to Florida, Florida State and Georgia.
Those who are Jags fans stick by the club. In 2019, Jacksonville averaged 63,085 fans a game in a 6-10 season. Last year, with strict pandemic attendance limts that were a bit looser than most other NFL markets, Jacksonville averaged 15,919 fans a game, second-best in the league despite the team’s 1-15 record.
Many factors affect how Lawrence’s career will unfold and how that affects his value as a celebrity pitchman. His own performance is obviously a major factor, but that’s partially affected by things out of his control, like the talent the Jags front office surrounds him with, and the team’s win-loss mark. He may not start immediately, which isn’t a bad thing because it protects the mystery of his potential for a while.
“He can only do so much. The team has to be successful. If he lights it up but the team isn’t that good, he’s not going to get the national presence with Monday and Thursday night games,” Rosner said.
How many deals Lawrence should do, and how much his likeness appears in front of the public peddling a product or service, is a delicate balance.
“I would be very leery about doing too much in Year 1,” Rosner said.
There was some public criticism of Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield, particularly when he and the team struggled in his second season in 2019, for his appearance in a heavy rotation of Progressive Insurance commercials.
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“His second season is a good study on how brands need to be mindful of how their ambassador’s performance on the field does or doesn’t influence media campaigns,” Griffiths said.
The Cleveland-based insurance giant stuck with the former Heisman winner and 2018 top pick and was rewarded last year when Mayfield helped the Browns to a rare playoff season and the team’s first postseason road victory since 1969.
“He was the first pick, but I think Progressive took a chance, and so did he, being out there so much so early,” Rosner said. “He took a gamble but it kind of worked out for him.”
Jacksonville isn’t on the cusp on a Super Bowl run. Cleveland was further along in its rebuilding with Mayfield than the Jags are with Lawrence.
The quarterback position tends to command more endorsement interest because it’s the focus of most NFL teams. Thirty-three passers have been taken No. 1 in the draft since it launched in 1936, the most of any position. And at some point, Lawrence will deploy his quarterback talents at 67,000-plus-seat TIAA Bank Field next to the St. Johns River in downtown Jacksonville.
“Quarterbacks have that much more flair because they tend to be the focus of many teams. When you are successful on the field, that will generate revenue,” Rosner said.
Whatever happens on the field, Lawrence will certainly be sought for local marketing deals and the region sports a number of companies with deep pockets.
The city is home to several corporations such as sports apparel giant Fanatics, railroad company CSX Corp., discount clothier Stein Mart, and financial firms such as Fidelity National Financial Inc. and FIS. Other notable brands include Bubba Foods and Firehouse Subs. Additionally, like every other market, there are innumerable local and regional companies, health systems, and mom-and-pops that will be keen to land the new quarterback for endorsement deals.
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Jacksonville also has a significant military presence with several U.S. Navy facilities because of the natural deep-water port. It’s a major civilian port, too.
Jacksonville fans have already begun to embrace Lawrence, buying him and his new wife registry gifts for his recent wedding. And trading-card collectors in a few hours on Wednesday bought all of the limited-edition Topps cards that were created by his professional artist brother and sister-in-law.
Officially sold out!! Did you get a box? If not, don't sweat it… we'll regroup next week! 👀🤔 https://t.co/j8lLgR9EYD
— Topps (@Topps) April 21, 2021
Rosner said he expects most of Lawrence’s endorsements to be national, with a small number of local or regional deals. Additionally, the quarterback likely will partner with area charities and philanthropies to help pitch their fundraising causes.
Lawrence could earn more from his off-field business than what the Jags pay him. Under the NFL’s rookie salary cap structure (and pandemic-fueled recalculations that lowered it), Lawrence is expected to sign a four-year, $34.7 million contract (pre-tax) that includes a $22.5 million signing bonus, per Spotrac.com. That’s between what Mayfield and Arizona’s Kyler Murray got in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
Last year’s top pick, former LSU quarterback Joe Burrow, got a four-year contract worth $36.2 million. He started immediately and played well — he led the Bengals to a win over the Jaguars — before a season-ending knee injury in Week 11. Burrow’s known national endorsement deals are with Nike, Bose and Fanatics.
Details of how much Lawrence will be paid annually by the Jags won’t be known until after his rookie contract is signed, and the on-field payday occurs with a player’s second contract — provided he performs well enough to earn it. His contract agent is Jay Courie of Nashville-based MGC Sports.
Nothing Lawrence has publicly said has suggested money is a priority for him, particularly from endorsements.
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“I don’t think he’d do anything just for the money,” Rosner said. “It’s more of building a profile for yourself.”
The draft begins at 8 p.m. Thursday on ESPN, ABC and the NFL Network.
(Top photo: Aubrey Lao / Getty Images)
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