Last Saturday, the Bayou Cat Crew, a new web-focused NIL platform held its first event for players and fans.
The Bayou Cat Crew partnered with The Players Lounge, an NIL web platform that allows college athletes to connect with fans in numerous ways. The Players Lounge founding member and former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray teamed with former LSU national championship winning running back Jacob Hester to expand the project to Baton Rouge.
“The goal is to take these amazing student athletes and connect them to this amazing fan base here in Baton Rouge,” Murray said.
The project is based around fan interaction and creating a bridge between players and fans that has not been done before. Along with just in-person events, The Bayou Cat Crew has a discord page, allowing fans to interact with players virtually.
Notable Bayou Cat Crew members include LSU quarterback Myles Brennan, star wide receiver Kayshon Boutte and numerous other football players and athletes from other sports such as baseball, gymnastics and track and field.
The project is also a tool to help the athletes grow their brands with personalized NFTs and merchandise. Fans can purchase these NFTs to gain access into the community and start interacting with the athletes.
“It’s not only NFTs,” Hester said. “They also have a discord where fans can join the discord and have chats with LSU players. They get to have conversations through that which is something that we never had when I was playing here a long time ago.”
Hester also talked about how they believed in the importance of having that connection with fans in a sport like football, where players aren’t as visible to the fans and community as other sports.
“We’re hidden behind a mask, we’re not like baseball or basketball players,” Hester said. “This gives them an opportunity to have a chat with them on discord, get to know them a little bit and then have events like this where they can come out, meet the players and have that interaction.”
LSU is one of six schools with athletes involved with The Player’s Lounge alongside Georgia, Oklahoma, Auburn, Alabama and Texas. As the NIL world continues to expand and adjust, more and more influential figures with ties to big schools are getting involved to help support their programs in ways that weren’t possible before.
“I’m going to do everything I can always to support LSU,” Hester said. “They supported me while I was playing here and they still do to this day and the love that LSU fans have given to all of us Tigers, so if there’s an opportunity to do something to help out these current players and the current model that the NCAA has gone to I certainly want to be a part of it.”
