Bryan Bedford is CEO of the Bedford Agency and Recruit Route. Bryan has over 25-years of College Sports Recruiting Experience serving as Division I Recruiting Director at TCU and Division II Recruiting Director Southern Nazarene University as well as an executive at some of the leading sports video, recruiting evaluation and fortune 50 tech companies.
Each year we try to gather feedback from the parents and families we work with. Gathering feedback and allowing folks to see what makes us unique is critical.
“Wow…!!! What a Ride…!!!
First of all, the Recruitment Process has been one of the most Fun, Frustrating, Exciting, Discouraging, Stimulating, Maddening ordeals we have ever been through, and we could not have navigated all of this without Bryan Bedford and Recruit Route Elite!!!
Bryan,
You have been very available and your guidance and advice were always super helpful.
You had a plan for Taylor, and we followed it!
Sometimes it was hard to defer to your wisdom as my tendency was to do something different.
I’m so glad we followed your plan instead of our own. Looking back, I see that you were spot on right every time.
I can’t count the number of potentially bad decisions we might have made without your counsel.
You knew exactly what to expect, how to position Taylor, the recruiting cycle, which events to attend and which to ignore.
Thank you for keeping us on course and all of your feedback/critique of our social media presence and season highlights.
Thank you especially for helping us be patient through the quiet times when we wanted to panic, as well as motivating us when the time was right!
Thank you for all of the introductions and recommendations you made on Taylor’s behalf.
Taylor is a great athlete on his own.
But you really excelled at helping us showcase his talents and abilities, and get the word out.
Most of all, Thank You for believing in Taylor!
Your encouragement and reassurance throughout this process made all the difference.
We are so very blessed and excited that Taylor has committed to the University of Oklahoma, and you were a big part of this journey!
Thank you and very best regards.”
Tommy & Charity Heim, parents of 2023 OU Signee, Taylor Heim
2023 University of Oklahoma Signee, Taylor Heim and his parents Tommy and Charity Heim
“We wanted to thank Bryan Bedford at Recruit Route. Our son, Jake was very late to the recruiting process. We were attempting to put all the puzzle pieces of this recruiting process together. Bryan gave our son an honest evaluation and an exact plan to evolve from recruit to recruited. It is a process and does take work, but knowing the process and taking the guesswork out of it was priceless given our time constraints.
Bryan is always very available to answer questions and provide advice and insight. It was very nice to be able to put our son in direct communication with Bryan and let him drive the ship and take mom and dad out of the equation a bit. The tools provided help keep things organized and made the process of reaching out to coaches simple. The bottom line is, we didn’t want to drop the ball in this process with our son, so we called Bryan at Recruit Route to ensure we were not missing anything. We are very blessed we did! Jake signed with the United States Naval Academy.” -Joel and Stacy Moore, parents of Jake More, Navy signee.
2023 United States Naval Academy Signee Jake Moore with his family and coaches.
Want to learn more about how we work with families in recruiting and NIL? Please reach out via email at recruitroute@gmail.com or call us at 405.503.9284.
The Recruit Route a Bedford Agency brand is a college sports recruiting company, is once again hiring interns! The Bedford Agency provides actionable insight and expertise for student-athletes and families navigating the College Sports Recruiting and Name, Image and Likeness process! We are uniquely positioned to offer expertise, educational content and technology to transform the college recruiting process like never before via our Recruit Route brands. Our rich foundation includes a history around college recruiting, camps, consulting and events. In 2021 we also launched our first set of brands Recruit Route, Recruit Route Elite, Transfer Route. In 2022, we launched Teams Route a turnkey offering to help high school and club coaches and their entire programs managed & become educated on recruiting and NIL. Our summer intern program is designed to take all of our products and services listed above to the next level!
What You’ll do as an Intern:
Our interns will be working on Business to Consumer and Business to Business projects in the world of Sports, Recruiting and NIL. You aren’t coming here to fetch Starbucks coffee. You will be doing real work. Each intern will work in a virtual group setting and have individual project responsibility in a variety of areas interest including Graphic Design, Social Media, Customer Success, Business Development, Product Design, Marketing and more. In previous years our interns have gone on to work at places like Walt Disney Inc, and Sinclair Broadcast to name a couple.
“My time working with the Bedford Agency taught me leadership qualities, independence, professionalism, and communication skills. Bryan helped me grow a network in the sports business industry, and was a great role model as both a boss, coworker and friend. He instilled in me a growth mindset for both work and everyday life. I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to intern with the Bedford Agency in 2021.”
-Emma Hennessey, 2021 Bedford Agency Intern
Who You are and What Skills You Need?
You are self-motivated, highly ambitious and have the desire to challenge the status quo. You are excited both by the high-level strategic thinking, as well as in-the-trenches execution. You take comfort with structuring ambiguity, turning it into a strategy, a business case and an execution plan.
You have strong written and verbal communication, strong presence in front of senior executives, strong analytical capability (e.g., Excel skills), strong PowerPoint capability, the ability to collaborate across functional groups, including engineering, sales, services, marketing, HR, finance, operations.
The ability to manage and execute multiple tasks at the same time, prioritize them and manage time, teammates, peers effectively and are highly organized, strong project management and follow-through skills.
Strong desire to work in the Sports Business Industry a plus.
Application process:
Areas of internships: Graphic Design, Social Media, Customer Success, Business Development, Product Design, Marketing
Each Intern must submit a resume’, cover letter(include the area of interest per above) and letter of recommendation from an employer or professor. Application is due by is (EXTENDED)April 1 at 5pm central. Please send application to bryanpaulbedford@gmail.com C/o Bryan Bedford, CEO of the Bedford Agency.
Each prospective intern will then be scheduled for a screening interview following the submission of there application, with selection following shortly thereafter.
Should we select you:
Bedford Agency internships are unpaid and will begin on June 1, 2023 and run through August 12, 2023. Expectation is each Bedford Agency intern will work between 10-15 hours per week in a virtual setting with world class collaboration technology.
Need a guidebook to get started with NIL? We’ve created a “starter kit” to serve as a guide for athletes or parents navigate this new and evolving space and its implications to recruiting as well.
Before you start considering Name, Image and Likeness consider a few fundamental questions we encourage you to ask yourself:
What are my passions besides the sport I play?
Why this is so important is NIL is about showcasing yourself as a brand. Want do your do or what are you interested in beyond your sport that makes you unique and creates a following.
What is my career interest following graduating from college?
Several student-athletes we have spoke to have interest in using NIL as a way to get a head start on their business or marketing careers. Maybe this is what is driving you to consider this?
How comfortable am I on social media?
Did you know that 79% of NIL deals in the college space are executed on social media? We predict this to be closer to 90% or greater in the High School market.
Educating yourself:
The key for most all student-athletes and parents is to get educated on Name, Image and Likeness. Here are a handful of great resources for NIL Education.
State and National Rules:
In the High School space, each athletic and activities organization governs its NIL rules specifically. To find out more details about your state rules visit the State specific NIL legislation. In the college space the
NCAA NIL legislation is much more clear. Make sure to review the rules before you execute any agreement.
Leveraging Marketplaces & Agents:
Unless you are a very high profile athlete, you likely will NOT have an agent. However, if you are approached by an agent ask about number of clients, number of contracts negotiated, examples of previous work, references and more. That said, one way you CAN start with Name, Image and Likeness is via a marketplace. Read more about marketplaces and get a list of them here Marketplace Tracker
Managing your money:
We’ve all heard about taxes, savings and more, but as a student-athlete its critical to have a great Understanding Tax Implications. Make sure you have help on any agreement you sign but also make sure you put money back for tax purposes.
Name, image and likeness (NIL) – a person’s personal brand value or the right to publicity. A Marketplace is defined as an open exchange for buyers and sellers. A marketplaces you might be familiar with could be Amazon, eBay, Uber, AirBnb, Craigslist, but an NIL marketplace is where a person sells their personal brand value to a company that buys the benefits of it. Think of this as crowdsourcing for NIL. Here is a current list of marketplaces that college and/or high school athletes can enroll in to help them monetize their Name, Image and Likeness.
*Note we are updating this list often, so check back frequently.
Brands are charged a platform fee instead of a per deal fee. Athlete’s pay fees on a sliding scale based on their NIL Score (a proprietary ranking of the marketability of their NIL). If an athlete comes to them for other ancillary services, the fee may be reduced.
Coach/student athlete or a charity of their choice can keep 100% of the revenue (minus standard transaction fees) when you bring new students to CoachTube. For every student CoachTube brings to your course through their marketing efforts, they split the sale 80/20 – the student athlete receives 80%, CoachTube gets 20%.
In-person, small group and personal coaching sessions
$49.99 one-time activation fee plus $9.99 annual membership; earnings vary based on number of sessions with an individual athlete: 1 session pays 57% to coach, 2 sessions is 72%, 3 sessions is 82%, 4 sessions is 87% and 5 or more sessions are 95%
In person opps like autograph signings, meet and greets, clinics, 1:1, commercials, podcasts/radio spots, digital media campaigns, print media, individualized offers for athletes.
Platform charges a fee to the buyer; once the event is complete student athletes keep 100% of the booking price.
Mobile app/marketplace to monetize content through subscriptions and experiences. The app also has additional monetization features, including video chats and messaging.
Brand partnerships and online community for student athletes
Student athletes and sponsors can sign up for a 3-month trial, thereafter it becomes $4.99/mo for athletes and $99/mo for businesses. Find My NIL does not take any percentage of completed deals.
In-person Appearances, Social Media Campaigns, Endorsements, Brand Partnerships, and Merchandise Sales (all directly disclosed to university compliance)
Student athletes pay 10-20% commission on each deal, and brands pay for a $399 subscription to put up a campaign. If brands already know the student athlete they want to work with, they can send direct proposals for free or upgrade to whiteglove service (https://opensponsorship.com/pricing) for $1250/mo.
In-person Appearances, Social Media Campaigns, Endorsements, Speaking Engagement, Product Evaluations and Brand Partnerships
Student athletes pay 12-16% commission on each deal done on the platform, and brands pay $360 yearly or $35 monthly to put up opportunities. Agents can join the platform for $360 yearly, or $35 monthly, and we will share commissions with them.
Moore Public Schools, first school district in Oklahoma to invest in NIL Education for its coaches
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma, DEC 21, 2022 –Moore Public Schools has selected the Bedford Agency to help train, educate and mentor the Athletic Department and Coaches in Name, Image and Likeness as a district-wide initiative. Moore Public Schools is now the first school district in Oklahoma to invest in NIL education for its coaches.
Bedford Agency will provide workshops and provide a video-on-demand training curriculum (NIL Playbook) to its coaches through its partnership with Eccker Sports under the Bedford Agency Teams Routebrand. Earlier this month within Moore Public Schools, each head coach conduct an initial training on Name, Image and Likeness workshop and was provided access to an on-demand content and training (NIL Playbook) and certification with additional training workshops for there coaches planned in the spring.
Moore Public Schools & Bedford Agency Partner on NIL Education
NIL guidelines were passed by the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association (OSSAA) in October of this year and thus the need by Moore Public Schools to offer NIL Education to its coaches and staff. Bedford Agency and Eccker Sports are also the official partners of the OSSAA.
“A key element of this is education and bringing together the best of the best in NIL education and resources to educate and empower as many coaches and athletic staff as possible and ultimately parents and student-athletes,” said Bryan Bedford, CEO, Bedford Agency. “We are very excited to partner with Moore Public Schools to offer their top-of-the-line NIL Education to help them navigate an otherwise complicated topic and process, and thrilled they are the first school district to recognize the need and make an investment.”
“Being able to educate our coaches on NIL was hugely important to us as a district leadership team and working with the Bedford Agency to offer best-in-class NIL education and leveraging their local (OSSAA) and national (Eccker Sports) partnerships was a no-brainer,” said Brian Fitzgerald, Athletic Director, Moore Public Schools. “Working closely with Bedford Agency allows us to meet the needs of our coaches on a topic that is very new to us and provides tremendous value to our student-athletes and families as they look to pursue Name, Image and Likeness opportunities in the future.”
About Bedford Agency
The Bedford Agency provides actionable insight and expertise for companies, coaches, student-athletes and families navigating the world of Sports Business, College Sports Recruiting and Name, Image and Likeness process! A family-owned Christ-centered business that is uniquely positioned to offer expertise, strategic consulting, educational content and technology to transform the college recruiting process like never before. It’s rich foundation includes a history around college recruiting, camps, consulting and events. In 2021 the Bedford Agency launched its first set of brands Recruit Route, Recruit Route Elite, Transfer Route. In 2022, it launched Teams Route a turnkey offering to help high school and club coaches and their entire programs managed & become educated on recruiting and NIL.
About Moore Public Schools
Moore Public Schools has 35 schools, over 24,000 students and over 1,600 certified educators. High Schools include three 6A High Schools: Moore High School, Southmoore High School and Westmoore High School.
