For the past week, talk of name, image and likeness has dominated the college sports landscape. And while there have been a few groundbreaking endorsement deals announced nationally — like Oregon defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux’s six-figure agreement with Nike founder Phil Knight and American Top Team founder Dan Lambert offering $6,000 to every scholarship football player at Miami — not much seems to have changed for Missouri student-athletes. A few football players have taken to social media to release brand logos or announce they’re joining the masses in signing with Yoke Gaming or becoming a Barstool athlete, but few have unveiled unique endorsement deals.
The one exception has come from a surprising source. Backup center Drake Heismeyer has played one season of college football. A former three-star prospect, he wasn’t a particularly celebrated recruit, and he appeared in just two games for Missouri last season — both times playing defensive tackle when the position group had been decimated by COVID-19 contact tracing. Yet during the first three days of July, the St. Charles native posted social media endorsements for four different eateries, plus held an autograph signing at the Mellow Mushroom, a pizza restaurant in his hometown.
Heismeyer hasn’t gotten paid for his promotions, but he’s gotten free meals at each of the four places, plus some hats and t-shirts. That’s not insignificant to a 19-year-old. More importantly, he believes he’s establishing a foundation that will allow him to cash in on NIL as his college career progresses. In the process, he’s providing a blueprint for how even reserves can benefit during the new age of college athletics.
“I mean, a free meal is a free meal to me,” Heismeyer said. “I’ll take a free meal. … I’m not some super big rock star, I don’t need anything crazy. Right now I’m just basically working on building my following up and eventually I can maybe get to that point.”
Heismeyer’s plan to endorse local eateries came together over the past few weeks, once it became apparent that the NCAA would have to pass a nationwide waiver allowing all student-athletes to benefit from their names, images and likenesses on July 1. But he’s had NIL in the back of his mind since before he arrived on Missouri’s campus.
From the time California signed the Fair Pay to Play Act into law in September of 2019, allowing student-athletes in the state to be compensated for NIL, it looked increasingly likely that student-athletes would be able to market themselves during Heismeyer’s college years. He initially thought a good way to capitalize would be jersey sales. So, when he arrived at Missouri, he claimed number 69, hoping to appeal to those with a sophomoric sense of humor, which make up a healthy percentage of jersey-buying college sports fans.
“That kind of sells anywhere from a guy from age 16 to age 40,” Heismeyer said of his uniform number. “That's automatically just funny. So everybody likes that. And that's the main reason why I picked it, because ... I heard this stuff was kind of in the works, I heard rumors about it, I was like, whatever, I’ll be number 69 and if something happens it will work out. For like jersey sales, basically. Like, what frat guy is not going to a Mizzou tailgate in that?”
While the NIL guidelines released by Missouri on July 1 expressly prohibit players from selling their own team apparel and the school has not yet shown any indication that it will sell personalized jerseys, Heismeyer’s uniform number remains part of his marketing appeal. He’s created the slogan #69eatslocal for his social media posts. He’s also capitalized on the other aspect of himself he could sell regardless of how much he plays on the football field: his love of food.
“I'm really comfortable with food,” Heismeyer said. “I'm a big guy. You know, I'm 305 pounds. I'm always eating. I like everything, and I eat a lot.”
Heismeyer, who is majoring in mechanical engineering at Missouri, credited his marketing instincts to time spent around his father and older brother, Aric, both of whom studied business in college. But he needed some help putting his ideas into practice. That came from Wendy Barry, a friend of Heismeyer’s mother who is well connected in and around St. Charles. Heismeyer said Barry knows the owners of most of the local businesses in town, so last week, she contacted a few and asked if they would be willing to partner with Heismeyer.
First on the list was the Mellow Mushroom. On the morning of July 1, Heismeyer spread the word to his modest social media following — he currently has about 1,350 followers on Twitter and 1,400 on Instagram — that he would eat dinner and sign autographs at the pizza joint at 6 p.m. Heismeyer didn’t really know what kind of crowd to expect, but the number of attendees blew him away. He said there was about a 30 minute wait for a table during the entirety of his two-hour stay at the restaurant, and toward the end of the evening, a local news crew showed up and interviewed him. He plans to organize more such meet-and-greet events in the future.
“It was super eye-opening,” Heismeyer said. “I was like, I’m not even that super well-known and I’m bringing all these people in. … A couple years from now, if I’m playing a lot and people get to know who I am, I can really start to make big events like that.”
Across the next few days, Heismeyer also made stops at Casa Mia Mexican Kitchen, where he posted a photograph of him eating street tacos; Barrels Taphouse and Grill, where he showed off a Mizzou Melt sandwich and posed for a photograph with the two owners; and New Melle Bakery, which provided free coffee and donuts. He said he already has a few more opportunities in the works, both with eateries in Columbia and his hometown.
Heismeyer’s experience shows not only how under-the-radar players stand to benefit from NIL, but how those who come from or play in smaller cities could cash in, as well. While the biggest money will likely come from the schools with the deepest donor pockets and largest television markets, players whose names carry weight in their hometown or who can forge relationships with business-owners in a college town could carve out a niche, as well. Heismeyer noted that he grew up frequenting all four of the eateries he recently promoted, and the owners of each restaurant knew him and his family. And while most college football fans (or even Missouri fans outside of suburban St. Louis) might not know Heismeyer, he proved that he can mobilize fan support in the area where he grew up.
“I’m from the St. Charles area and I know a lot of people,” he said. “It’s really all about who you know at that point, just to get you started, and then once you get your name out there, hopefully one day people will contact me.”
Even though Heismeyer hasn’t yet benefited monetarily from his endorsements, he’s managed to turn some heads — which is exactly what he wants. Several teammates have reached out to him in the past few days and asked how he managed to find willing business partners. He’s also done interviews with at least one more local news station since his Mellow Mushroom appearance.
Heismeyer’s goal is to continue to increase his following, both by playing more on the field and showing more of his personality on social media. By doing so, he hopes to be able to get more than just a free meal from a local restaurant in the future, and perhaps strike endorsement deals with larger companies, as well.
Given his success in the first week of the NIL era, he’s optimistic for what the future holds.
“I hope to obviously have a much increased following, but also just to be able to do like shoutouts with bigger companies, maybe have my own logo and my own brand and stuff like that, and do more events where I’m at places and people come to see me,” Heismeyer said. “Maybe bigger companies will send me merch and I can wear it and I can just promote it. I mean, I don’t really know. I’m open to everything, because this whole thing is so new that anything can happen.”
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