While schools across the county are eliminating sports and/or turning to private equity to fund competitive athletic budgets, Florida State was recognized last week by The Athletic for one innovative project and by Front Office Sports for another, as FSU continues to find innovative ways to generate non-traditional revenues to close the gap with BIG 10 and SEC schools, not to mention private school Miami.

“The rise of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals and direct revenue-sharing with athletes has put serious financial pressure on athletic departments,” the Athletic wrote. “Schools are now looking beyond traditional donation-based funding and turning underutilized land near their stadiums into year-round income-generating assets.”

Sounds like College Town, the mixed-use project Seminole Boosters developed two decades before the new trend.

“Think hotels, restaurants, retail shops, conference centers, and entertainment venues — all built adjacent to the football stadium,” the Athletic wrote. “Schools like Tennessee, Iowa State, Kansas, Wake Forest, Florida State, Oklahoma, and USF are among roughly 20 programs with active or planned projects.”

The necessity to find revenue sources to fund the rising cost of scholarships led Seminole Boosters to look for non-traditional funding and a blighted patch of warehouses adjacent to the stadium that was ripe for development. While providing a fan-friendly space adjacent to the stadium, College Town is generating $3 million of non-donor-based revenue annually for scholarships.

Like many innovations, College Town had its critics yet the project recently received an appraisal of $128 million.

Front Office Sports lauds the Seminole Business Network

“Florida State University is pursuing a different approach,” Front Office Sports wrote in a recent feature on the Seminole Business Network.

“Cutting sports isn’t part of the equation for us,” Stephen Ponder, president and CEO of Seminole Boosters told FOS.

“Through an agreement reached last month with NOCAP Sports, FSU formed the Seminole Business Network, which aims to generate new, recurring athletics revenue,” FOS reported.

Businesses located anywhere in the U.S. have access to a network of companies who provide services such as payment processing, insurance services, freight and logistics, human resources and payroll, energy advisory services, medical devices, cybersecurity and identity protection, 401k plans, office technology and management print services, commercial paving and pavement management, e-ticketing, aviation and more.

“Those providers are willing to offer preferred pricing or discounts because they are promised access to the pipeline of new customers,” FOS wrote. “When one of those businesses uses a NOCAP partner, a portion of the money changing hands in the transaction is shared back with the athletic department. NOCAP makes money through the program by receiving a ‘small piece’ of the revenue that results from successful deals,” said NOCAP president and CEO Nicholas Lord.

The first 10 agreements signed have already spun up $250,000 in recurring annual revenue - an early proof of concept.

“Our Seminole Business Network was born out of a conversation we had with a company called NOCAP Sports,” Ponder told The Osceola. “NOCAP looked at the NIL landscape and said universities were going to have to raise alternative funding. They created a business, aggregated companies with services other companies would use (currently about 15 diverse industries) and we worked with NOCAP organically for a little bit before formalizing a process with them that we call the Seminole Business Network.

“The concept for us is that any booster, alumni, friend, who owns a business and can utilize any of those services and can save money is a win-win,” Ponder said. “Then, (NOCAP) will make a donation back to us, which is revenue for us to help fund athletics.”

Seminole Booster fundraisers often encounter donors, or prospective donors, who own businesses or are an influencer for a company, and can initiate a conversation.

“If they are interested in credit card processing, for instance, NOCAP would connect you with their credit card processor, who would have a confidential conversation with you about your business,” Ponder said. “This is our rate and this is what we do. It has been a very seamless process.”

One of the first 10 customers signed, a car dealership, is a good example.

“It began during a conversation with a Booster in which we said we have this process and he was happy to have a look,” Ponder said. “Our approach is why don’t you spend 30 minutes with NOCAP and see if there is (a service) that makes sense.”

“The car dealer connected with NOCAP and they started talking about rates and NOCAP said, ‘We can beat those rates.’ And the dealership began to slide the business over,” Ponder said.

That one relationship is already producing more than $140,000 in recurring annual revenue and stands as a beacon for others to visualize.

“There’s a couple of more like that with a human resources/payroll service,” Ponder said. “A couple of companies locally have saved $50,000 annually. They save money and we get a donation.

“We also have Boosters who own businesses who want to participate with NOCAP to provide services, and we absolutely want to connect them,” Ponder said. “NOCAP is a national company so a Booster business would have to scale nationally. We have people who are either an owner or in a decision-making role to facilitate this type of relationship.”

If a reader, who owns or is the decision maker for a business, wants to learn more about the business to business network, they can visit the Seminole Booster Network landing page, which also has a form submission to learn more.

There is the potential to grow the network to 100 or more partners, Ponder said, as the Seminole Booster Network is one more opportunity for his in-market fundraisers to discuss with existing and prospective donors.

“If 10 are producing ($250,000), you can see it’s a pretty material piece to help us generate the revenue we need to compete, whether that’s from an NIL landscape, or facilities, or whatever else we might need,” Ponder said.

How does revenue generated help the NIL budget?

Any money raised can be used to fund the athletics budget, which ultimately can help FSU narrow the gap in the NIL space where schools like Texas, Miami and Ohio State reportedly have $20 million more available for their annual football roster alone than does FSU.

But exactly how does revenue generated from the Seminole Business Network, or any of the other innovated sources in this article, help increase the roster budget FSU football coach Mike Norvell has available to him to attract competitive players?

In 2024, the House-NCAA settlement opened the door for schools to be involved in contacting sponsors on behalf of athletes. Prior to 2024, the schools were prohibited from soliciting NIL.

Each school has agreements to market their multi-media rights (MMR) – stadium signage, advertisements on the team’s radio broadcast and other inventory – to sponsors, and can now talk to their sponsors or prospective sponsors about NIL deals for their players.

“Schools with MMR deals are utilizing their MMR partners to do NIL deals,” Ponder said, using Coca-Cola and Georgia Tech as a hypothetical example. If Georgia Tech has a MMR deal with Coca-Cola for $1 million annually and Coke wanted to sign a $250,000 NIL agreement with a Tech player in that sport, but not exceed their $1 million budget, then they could sign an NIL agreement with the player for $250,000 and reduce their MMR agreement with the school by that $250,000.

The athletic budget for MMR would fall by that $250,000 but could be funded by any other revenue source – including the Seminole Business Network, donations, or other revenue-generated.

Florida State and their marketing rights partner Legends is actively soliciting NIL agreements for their players.

Other innovative approaches

This story is about innovation, primarily the Seminole Network, and Ponder said there are more innovations coming later this summer with Seminoles United, which will appeal to a broad range of alumni and friends. Jordan Travis has been hired and been teasing Seminoles United on social media and in Booster Blasts with 2,600 people already signing up for a yet-to-be-released content-based innovation.

“There are those who want to support but not attend games,” said Ponder.

The reason is simple geography, numbers of people, numbers of miles from the fan base.

As The Osceola has written countless times, Florida State’s location in the rural panhandle is more than 250 miles from much of its fan base (Orlando, Tampa, Atlanta and Miami). And with the Gulf just 30 miles to the south, the population within 150 miles is less than any program we’ve identified east of the Mississippi River.

According to Big Radius, there are just 3.58 million people within 150 miles of Doak and many of those reside in Georgia and Alabama. By comparison, there are 12.5 million within a 150-mile radius of Gainesville (many of them Floridians). Shockingly, there are 18.5 million within a 150-miles radius of Clemson and 12.36 million of a Cowtown like Auburn but both include Atlanta within the radius.

You might think Penn State or Syracuse would have sparse populations around it but even State College (12.3 million) has four times as many folks to market tickets to, and Syracuse with 7.1 million has twice as many as Tallahassee.

Ponder is correct to create incentives for people who want to support the program but don’t have a need for tickets or long journeys to Tallahassee.

“A lot of people will automatically say to us, I don’t go to games. I’m not coming to Tallahassee, etc.,” Ponder said of why the Boosters are innovating new communities other than the traditional ticket-based donor.

They include:

“The Bowden Society is a major gifts program, not about tickets,” Ponder said. “Coaches Clubs are sport-specific giving, not about tickets. Seminole Legacy is real estate, endowments, planned gifts, and not about tickets. The Seminole Business Network is national and Seminoles United, which we will announce in August, is really the answer to I don’t go to games.

“You take those six communities, including Seminole Business Network, it all goes toward supporting FSU Athletics,” Ponder said.

While Seminole Boosters primary function is to raise money for all of FSU’s sports program, Ponder said these innovative projects “allow us to fund a competitive budget without always having to go back to our donors for more.”

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