NIL Edge
What Diadora Looks for in an NIL Partnership
Ryan Eckel, Diadora’s U.S. Chief Marketing Officer, joins Sterling Randle to discuss what makes a brand want to work with a college athlete, how Diadora builds its NIL partnerships and what athletes should expect in return.
Presented in partnership with HPL Digital Sport ↗
What makes a brand want to work with a college athlete, and what should that athlete expect in return?
Diadora’s approach offers a look at how NIL partnerships can extend beyond a social media post. The conversation explores making athletes a visible part of the brand, providing resources such as product development and mentorship, and planning for relationships that can continue into professional careers.
In this episode of The NIL Edge, host Sterling Randle sits down with Ryan Eckel, Diadora’s U.S. Chief Marketing Officer. Eckel shares what stood out in Marco Langon’s outreach, how Diadora works with Langon and Simeon Birnbaum, and how the company thinks about athlete pitches, partnership expectations and measuring impact.
What This Episode Covers
✓ What a brand wants to see in an athlete’s pitch
✓ Making athletes a visible part of the brand
✓ Product development and mentorship as partnership resources
✓ Creating brand connections alongside school apparel agreements
✓ Budgeting for an athlete’s transition to professional competition
✓ Using online searches and website traffic to evaluate impact
✓ Setting social media expectations with the athlete in mind
Ryan Eckel
U.S. Chief Marketing Officer, Diadora
Ryan Eckel joins NIL Edge to discuss Diadora’s NIL partnerships with Marco Langon and Simeon Birnbaum. He offers a brand perspective on evaluating athlete outreach, building relationships, supporting athletes beyond compensation and planning for their transition from college to professional competition.
For NIL staff helping athletes approach brands, understanding how a marketer evaluates a potential partnership can make that preparation more useful. Eckel’s discussion of Langon’s outreach provides a practical starting point for thinking about what an athlete brings to a brand relationship.
For marketers building athlete programs, the conversation explores decisions that shape a partnership: how athletes appear within the brand, what resources the company provides, how social media expectations are set and how impact is evaluated through online searches and website traffic.
The episode also looks beyond an athlete’s college career. Diadora’s planning for relationships that can continue into professional competition raises useful questions about budgets, continuity and what both sides want from a long-term partnership.
NIL Edge
NIL Edge is NILNewsstand’s interview series featuring the athletes, brands and college athletics leaders shaping the future of NIL, revenue sharing and the new era of college athletics.
The series is hosted by Sterling Randle and produced by HPL Digital Sport in partnership with NILNewsstand. Subscribe for more conversations about the business of NIL.
