TALLAHASSE, Fla. — As two of the most prominent quarterbacks in college football, Florida State's McKenzie Milton and Miami's D'Eriq King have sizable platforms that should benefit them greatly in the new age of name, image and likeness legislation .
With college athletes able to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL) starting Thursday, Milton and King have uniquely positioned themselves to take advantage of this momentous shift in college athletics. Milton has over 70,000 Instagram followers and 12,000 on Twitter; King has nearly 40,000 Instagram followers and more than 24,000 on Twitter.
Along with this new ability to make money off endorsements or in-person appearances, Milton, a sixth-year senior who transferred from UCF, and King, a sixth-year senior, have engaged in helping other college athletes find endorsements of their own.
Partnering with Luis Pardillo, Andrew Bledsoe and Aaron Marz, Milton and King are co-founders of Dreamfield , an Orlando-based company that is helping pair college athletes with businesses for paid in-person appearances.
Milton and King have been involved in the Dreamfield process for some time now.
"I just reached out (to Milton) and said, 'Hey, can I pick your brain as a prominent athlete, what your thoughts are on this, that and the other?' " Pardillo, Dreamfield's CEO, told the Tallahassee Democrat.
"I started running ideas by him and he got really, really excited and interested in the business aspect. It went from really just picking his brain to collaborating."
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Shortly after Milton joined forces in an uncompensated role, he reached out to King to see if he would be interested in joining the team. The addition of these two created a few hurdles for Pardillo and his partners to work around in setting up the corporation before it was permitted to be public knowledge that Milton and King were involved.
As of Thursday, however, the NIL legislation is in effect in Florida and a number of other states and the NCAA has an interim NIL policy in place, meaning Milton and King are able to go public with their involvement with Dreamfield without any potential NCAA issues.
"Just to protect ourselves from potential NCAA infractions, we didn't make it official," Pardillo said.
"They were just collaborating with ideas and nothing was for (compensation). We were all just kind of brainstorming on ideas, thoughts."
There are a number of companies, ventures and apps set up to help pair college athletes with businesses. Dreamfield is set apart because it creates situations that are favorable to the athletes.
Businesses will not be allowed to negotiate with an athlete's listed fee and will be required to use Dreamfield's contract template.
"They helped with the aesthetic, they helped with the branding and just sort of the brainstorming what's important from an athlete's perspective," Pardillo said.
"That's where we have this model where the athlete gets to dictate the pricing versus the business getting to determine it."
Dreamfield makes its money by charging the businesses a separate platform fee of 15% at the time of each transaction.
With Milton and King as co-founders,not only will they be able to profit from their own appearances and endorsements, but they will be profiting off all transactions within the Dreamfield network.
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Throughout the last few months, Milton has been among the most vocal college athletes ensuring that things go as planned.
When the start of Florida's NIL legislation was temporarily pushed back to July 1, 2022 due to a few lines snuck into a last-minute amendment in late April, Milton was extremely active on Twitter, pushing for the amendment to be removed.
"So when will the time actually come College athletes can truly use their OWN name to help benefit themselves and their loved ones not just the NCAA & universities??" Milton tweeted April 28.
"It's comical at this point. Let the kids play & let the kids get PAYED."
FSU head coach Mike Norvell also made his opinion known during this time of unexpected uncertainty, tweeting, "There is no reason to wait to do the right thing. The state of Florida was a leader on NIL and, as other states quickly tried to follow our model, college athletes in Florida have been able to position themselves to be ready to benefit starting July 1, 2021. #KeepTheDate"
There's nothing that says for sure that the pressure Milton and Norvell, among others, put on played any role in the amendment being removed and the date returned to July 1, 2021. But it's undeniable that Milton has been leading the charge to ensure college athletes can profit off themselves for some time.
Now, he'll finally be able to profit off his name, image and likeness entering his sixth and final year of college football. And in his role with Dreamfield, he will also aim to help other college athletes profit as well.
Reach Curt Weiler at cweiler@tallahassee.com or follow him on Twitter @CurtMWeiler .
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU, Miami quarterbacks lead charge in NIL space with Dreamfield
