The Atlanta Braves became the first Major League Baseball (MLB) team to sign two college athletes on NIL (name, image and likeness) deals. The team has signed up Georgia gymnastics athlete Rachel Baumann and Georgia Tech quarterback Jordan Yates.
The Atlanta Braves started an Instagram campaign wherein they asked college athletes to partner with the team. The chosen candidates had to be a local college athlete, Braves fan and should be active on social media. They received approximately 500 messages and finally chose Yates and Baumann.
On 7th July, following the recent change to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) policy on NIL deals, the Braves took to Instagram to invite student-athletes to apply to sign up with the team.
Greg Mize, senior director of marketing at Atlanta Braves said, “We are excited to welcome Rachel and Jordan to the Braves family,”
“As soon as the new NIL guidelines were set last month, we knew there was an opportunity to highlight the convergence of Braves Country and strong local athletes. For our first partnerships, we wanted to focus on schools in our backyard, and the hope is the program will continue to expand to include student-athletes from throughout Braves Country.”