BY MICHAEL KELLY ALBANY — A name, image and likeness (NIL) collective is planning to launch soon to support the University at Albany men’s basketball program. Chris Wyatt, who played for the team from 2001-05, said in a recent interview that the formation of the Danes of Greatness UAlbany men’s basketball coach Dwayne Killings said he appreciates the care that is being taken with developing the NIL collective to support the Danes. collective has been in the works for more than a year.
“We’re looking to go live within the next few weeks,” Wyatt said Friday. “The website is built up. The infrastructure is set.” Since 2021, college athletes have been able to pursue NIL deals. Athletes are able to do that on their own, whether it’s through something such as an autograph signing or social-media promotion, but collectives — which operate independent from an aligned college or athletic program — offer fans and donors a way to pool together funds in support of their athletes.
“If you don’t have a collective now, you’re behind,” Wyatt said. “So the goal is to bring resources and tools to the basketball program.” “He sees what we’re trying to do,” UAlbany men’s basketball coach Dwayne Killings said. “He’s been brought in, he’s been behind the curtain, and he basically said, ‘Hey, I’m all in, and I want to try to help get the program to where it should be.’ He really loves the school, the athletic department and the people that represent it.” Wyatt said the Danes of Greatness will have several board members, and said they won’t be identified publicly until the collective officially launches later this month.
He said the collective does not have a goal for a dollar amount to raise in its first year, but that’s not for lack of ambition. “One of my visions is to treat this as a baby NBA team,” Wyatt said. NIL collectives are still relatively scarce at the mid-major level. The Saints March On collective that supports Siena College athletics launched in January 2023. At that time, an online database maintained by On3 — a national outlet that covers college athletics — showed there were a little more than 200 known collectives. In the 16 months that followed, approximately 50 more collectives have been added to On3’s registry, including the Grayed Danes Lacrosse Collective, launched in February 2023, to support UAlbany’s lacrosse teams.
“When these types of really seismic changes happen (in college athletics), typically, they start at the Power 5 level and kind of trickle their way down,” UAlbany athletic director Mark Benson said. “I think this got to our level a little quicker than people anticipated, frankly.” A Pennsylvania native, the 41-year-old Wyatt works as the vice president of sales for Sagebrush Health, which describes itself on its website as a “boutique healthcare system that offers exceptional care for Rheumatology, Neurology, Infectious Disease and infusion centers.” Since his years at UAlbany, Wyatt — who played in 104 games for the Great Danes — said he mostly lived in Los Angeles, but moved within the last couple years to New Jersey. Back on the East Coast, Wyatt said he started to reconnect with the school’s men’s basketball program. He said he attended a variety of games, home and away, this past season. “Coach ‘DK’ has been very welcoming to me, and that got me back involved,” Wyatt said.
When the collective launches, Wyatt said it will initially only offer support for the men’s basketball program. The next phase of it, he said, would grow to include women’s basketball. From there, Wyatt said the collective, which is set up as an LLC, could offer support to other sports at the university. Both UAlbany women’s basketball coach Colleen Mullen and Killings have discussed this spring the challenge now presented in recruiting without an active NIL collective backing their programs. Amid a relaxing of nearly all restrictions related to transferring, approximately 3,500 Division I men’s and women’s basketball players entered into the NCAA transfer portal during the 45-day window that closed this past Wednesday, and the potential for NIL dollars is a factor in where many players choose to head.
“This is probably one of the last years that something can’t be in place for us, and (we’d still) be able to get players out of the transfer portal,” Mullen said last month. Meanwhile, Killings said his program needed to back away from some players when it became clear that they were “looking for things outside of what we can offer them.” That’s been a challenge during a recruiting cycle that saw a number of scholarships open for the Great Danes as players headed into the transfer portal. “But I think right now, through the portal and (in) college athletics, it’s created this unique relationship between teams and fans, because fans want to win and teams want to win. Now, to do it, you need each other, because the teams that, honestly, put themselves forward the quickest are teams that have the most resources,” Killings said. “Now, not saying we can’t beat teams that have more resources than us, but they’re able to go after talent quicker because some of these kids are looking for NIL opportunities, they’re looking for resources, they’re looking for as much support as they can get.” The collective will offer help to athletes that goes beyond helping them make money. Wyatt said part of what the Danes of Greatness will offer is assistance to athletes with forming resumes, learning how to manage bank accounts and pay taxes, and other things to improve the “business acumen” of the players that become involved with it. “The goal for me, in terms of being the founder of the collective, is to bring deals for the players, find NIL opportunities, but also help them build skill sets through the collective for life opportunities — leadership skills, financial literacy, a variety of other tools that we can put together to help them beyond basketball, beyond Albany,” Wyatt said. “I think the most impressive thing about Chris is that he looks at things and says, ‘OK, I see the need and I have identified a process that can help us — but let’s make sure we’re doing it all right. Let’s make sure we’re dotting all of our Is and crossing all of our Ts before we get out there,’ ” Killings said of Wyatt.