In case you missed it, Dinkytown Athletes launched last month as the first Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) collective in support of student-athletes at the University of Minnesota.
If you follow college athletics at all, you’re likely aware that NIL rights have opened the door for booster and influencers to build collectives that create financial opportunities for student-athletes, with varying levels of sophistication. So what kind of a collective is Dinkytown Athletes and how does it work? We reached out to Derek Burns, co-founder of Dinkytown Athletes and a former football player at Minnesota, to lend us his insight into this new organization.