By Tim Willert
Fowler Automotive’s game-changing role in OU athletics
Jonathan Fowler remembers the infancy of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) when University of Oklahoma football player Spencer Rattler reached out with a business proposition.
“He said, ‘Mr. Fowler, I’m the starting quarterback at OU, and I’d like to talk to you about possibly having a vehicle in exchange for some NIL,’” Fowler, the president of Fowler Automotive, told Boyd Street Magazine.
In exchange for new wheels, Rattler agreed to promote the Fowler brand during the 2021 season.
“We got some pictures with Spencer in street clothes in front of our dealership and we got to post that on social media, and he posted it to his social media,” Fowler recalled.
Three years later, Fowler Automotive is getting much more for its investment than an athlete who wasn’t allowed to appear in his jersey.
Fourteen OU athletes — football players Nic Anderson and Gavin Sawchuk and softball players Kierston Deal and Ella Parker among them — are starring in TV commercials for Fowler dealerships in Norman, Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
“It’s gone from a very small amount of money and maybe a few cars to what it’s become today, which is substantially larger,” Fowler said.
Before the NCAA changed its rules in 2021, student athletes were prohibited from making money from their NIL. The change came after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in NCAA vs. Alston that the NCAA could not prevent member schools from offering certain education-related benefits to student-athletes.
The NIL deal with Rattler, who later transferred after losing his starting job to freshman Caleb Williams, was the first for Fowler, which owns 11 dealerships in Oklahoma and Colorado and has been a supporter of OU athletics for decades.
It was sealed with a handshake and looks nothing like the auto group’s latest arrangement with Sooner Sports Properties (SSP), which negotiates NIL contracts on behalf of OU athletes.
“Today, there’s contracts, there’s insurance, there are lawyers, there’s agents, there’s all these things,” Fowler said.
Most of all, there’s money to pay athletes. Large sums of it. Much of it paid by corporate sponsors such as Fowler Automotive, which recently extended a partnership with SSP that has been in place since 2010.
The top athletes in college football and other sports are pulling down upwards of $1 million or more for their services, according to reports.
Fowler characterized it as an “arms race.”
“What you’ve seen, now that everybody’s gotten into it, is it’s supply and demand,” he said. “There is a limited supply of top-tier athletes in any Division 1 sport, especially when you get to those QB1 positions.”
Sooner Sports Properties, a division of the sports marketing company Learfield, is the multimedia rights holder for the University of Oklahoma. As such, SSP manages all aspects of the rights relationship. Multiple sports. Multiple athletes. Multiple platforms.
“We manage everything from the Devon Energy logo on Brent Venables’ headset, to the Chick-fil-A cows that come out on the field when some lucky person kicks a field goal to win free chicken for a year, to the signs in the stadium for all venues,” said Kelly Collyar, vice president and general manager of Sooner Sports Properties. “Anything that’s corporate sponsorship comes through Sooner Sports Properties.”
While Fowler Automotive will continue to provide marketing dollars through Sooner Sports Properties, the auto group has committed 22 vehicles to OU athletes across multiple sports along with cash for as many as 50 NIL athletes.
Collyar views the athletes as “brand influencers.”
“No, they’re not all getting the same thing, but it is based on what their deliverables are,” he said. “Student athletes that don’t receive cars are compensated with a fund that Fowler has set aside for NIL based on … the fair market value of that sport.”
Neither Fowler nor Collyar would disclose the amount of the investment, but Fowler called it “the largest partnership from an automotive dealer group with any university athletics program.”
“For that, we’ve been able to put together this marketing campaign under Kelly’s team’s leadership and have released our first batch of commercials.
“As we continue to roll out this partnership through the end of the year, you’re going to see a lot more commercials with a lot more athletes.”
Former OU running back Rodney Anderson manages NIL operations for Sooner Sports Properties.
Anderson, 28, who played briefly in the NFL, works directly with OU athletes and acts as “an agent for our partners.”
“The guidelines that we have now compared to the guidelines back then … it’s crazy different,” he said. “Autograph signings became appearances, appearances became social media posts, social media posts became commercials and different social media content series. Now we’re making full-fledged commercial series for Fowler.”
Filming started in July at six Fowler dealerships in Norman and Tulsa, and two dozen commercials featuring football, softball and men’s and women’s basketball athletes, as well as mascots Boomer and Sooner, the RUF/NEKS, and members of the Pride of Oklahoma Marching Band were completed as of mid-October, said Matt Archibald, supervising producer for Sooner Sports Properties.
“Most of the athletes show up and are unsure of what they’re getting into,” Archibald said. “Most are a little nervous because they haven’t been in front of the camera or at least not acting on camera for a commercial.”
In a 30-second spot for Fowler’s Volkswagen dealership in Norman, Anderson appears with younger brother Nic Anderson, an OU wide receiver, and tight end Kaden Helms.
Rodney Anderson tells the service dealer, played by Helms, that he’s getting a “weird grinding noise” when he shifts gears.
When Helms tells him it’s probably his clutch, Nic Anderson, who caught the game-winning touchdown pass to beat Texas in 2023, pops up from behind the vehicle and says, “Someone say clutch?”
“There’s a lot of laughs after takes, which is a great sign that what we’re doing is resonating with them, too,” Archibald said. “It’s been really fun to watch that type of growth on camera in only an hour.”
Archibald said the reaction to the spots “has been amazing.”
“It has been super rewarding to see that these silly ideas are resonating with Sooner fans,” he said.
Archibald writes and oversees production of the “Sooners on the Lot” commercials, 30-second spots that are modeled after ESPN popular “This is Sports Center” theme.
“I have enjoyed seeing these ideas that have been brainstormed and typed out in an office come to life and exceed my expectations,” he said.
