Summit Credit Union Signs NIL Deals With UW Student-athletes

March 27, 2023

As published in the Milwaukee Business Journal on March 24, 2023.

Summit Credit Union is the latest Wisconsin financial institution to sign name, image and likeness (NIL) deals with Wisconsin student-athletes.

Madison-based Summit Credit Union signed NILs with University of Wisconsin-Madison student-athletes for its new financial wellness ambassador program. The program seeks to increase student-athletes' financial wellness education through social media.

The three student ambassadors are Wisconsin Athletics rowing team junior Sarah Chan, track and field junior Kiley Robbins and women's basketball redshirt freshman Maty Wilke.

“Our goal is to help college students, especially women, become confident through financial wellness early in their lives,” Summit CEO and president Kim Sponem said in a press release. “We can accelerate the closing of the gender pay gap with these elite athletes reaching out to their generation stressed by the challenges of personal finance.”

Summit Credit Union was established in 1935 and holds $6.2 billion in assets. It has over 50 locations in south-central and southeastern Wisconsin, including 15 locations in the Milwaukee area.

The financial wellness ambassador program will begin with the student-athletes meeting with Summit Credit Union financial coaches this summer. The student-athletes will then post on Instagram about their own experience understanding financial wellness.

The Summit Credit Union financial wellness program is part of its Equity in Money campaign, which works to reduce systemic barriers for women in wealth.

"The NIL era has empowered our student-athletes to capitalize on their personalities and their platform as Badgers in a financially beneficial way," Wisconsin Athletics director of NIL strategy Brian Mason said in the release. "With that, they have a fantastic opportunity to develop money management strategies and skills that can serve them for a lifetime."

Summit Credit Union is not the first Wisconsin financial institution to sign NIL agreements with University of Wisconsin student-athletes. In December 2021, former UW-Milwaukee men's basketball head coach Patrick Baldwin and his son, player Patrick Baldwin Jr., landed endorsement deals with UW Credit Union.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) changed its policies on NIL rights in July 2021.

In August 2022, Glendale-based Sprecher Brewing Co. inked an NIL agreement with 10 members of the UW-Madison football program, specifically the five starters and five reserves on the Badgers offensive line.