On July 1, 2021, the NCAA began allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness, also known as NIL. This decision, which was influenced by numerous class-action lawsuits by former college athletes against the NCAA, completely changed college sports forever.
Schools with massive brands across the country began promising prospective recruits and transferring athletes large sums of “NIL money” to secure the best prospects.
Smaller schools such as Weber State University struggled to keep up with this new landscape, but some Wildcat fans wanted to see Weber help its players.
Brent Wangsgard, a Weber State alum and longtime supporter of Wildcat sports, began personally helping out former Weber star linebacker Winston Reid after the NIL rule was changed.
Then, Wangsgard and some other Wildcat fans had an idea.
“A bunch of us who are friends and would get together for fan luncheons and stuff decided, ‘Hey, why don’t we do whatever we can to help out,’” Wangsgard said.
This group of fans created the “Purple Dub Club”, an NIL collective that aims to help out Weber State football and men’s basketball players.
Despite the high cost, both in time and money, Wangsgard and the others are committed to making sure all the money goes directly to the teams.
“The main thing that I brought up when we first started is, ‘Hey, I don’t need the money, I don’t want any money. Anything we raise is going to go 100% to the players,’” Wangsgard said. “And luckily, everybody else that came along agreed. So we are adamant that we don’t take anything”.
The Purple Dub Club makes its money from both investments made by Wangsgard and company, along with donations from other Wildcat fans.
“We’d like to do more if we could,” Wangsgard said. “We do what we can. We bring in a few thousand dollars a year for the football team and the basketball team.”
The primary way the Dub Club raises donations is through their team dinners, where attendees pay a ticket price that includes food from a local business and an entry into a drawing for prizes such as shirts, stickers, gift cards and more.
The dinner also includes an auction, where the Club auctions off Wildcat memorabilia and other items, such as a tool set, camp chairs or even a watch.
The Purple Dub Club puts on two dinners per year, one for the football team and one for the basketball team, where players and coaches of both teams come to sign autographs, take pictures and meet members of the community.
During the basketball team dinner on Jan. 12, men’s basketball head coach Eric Duft spoke of his appreciation for the Purple Dub Club.
“If you want a good program, everything matters,” Duft said. “So any support that you give, we appreciate your value.”
“It’s just giving back to the community, to our donors, the alumni. It’s just representing Weber State. It’s always a privilege to be here,” senior forward Nigel Burris said.
The Purple Dub Club also hosts individual events to help players gain support in the community.
“We’ve taken them to schools, middle schools, elementary schools, and pay them to do so, so they can earn a little bit of money, go out, build the fan base, and that’s gone really well,” Wangsgard said.
Wangsgard said it was difficult at first, as no one really knew how to navigate NIL, but that the University and the athletic program have provided a lot of support lately.
“Lately, they’ve been great. The school’s been great. Brad Mortensen was fantastic,” Wangsgard said. “I wouldn’t say they partnered with us, but they’ve been supportive.”
While currently focusing only on football and men’s basketball, Wangsgard wants to eventually branch out to other Weber State sports.
“We would love to do other sports”, said Wangsgard. “It’s been difficult enough, you know. The big draw, I think, is the men’s basketball team. That brings people in, as well as the football team … We’d love to, but I’ll just be blunt, we don’t have the money to.”
Through all the difficulties, however, Wangsgard has loved doing it.
“It’s been fun. The kids have loved it, the players have loved it. They appreciate it, the fans seem to appreciate it. So we’re pretty happy.”
