Jared Wilson president of LSU’s name, image and likeness collective Bayou Traditions poses for a photo Before he sat down for lunch, the new president of LSU’s name, image and likeness collective had to deal with a bit of business. First, Jared Wilson wrapped up a conversation with the family of an LSU men’s basketball freshman guard. Then, a football player needed help with one of his tax forms.
“I’m getting a 1099 right now,” Wilson said. That’s life these days for the man in charge of Bayou Traditions. The 47-year-old has spent the past two months talking to players, parents and agents while trying to raise money for LSU’s rosters and managing those funds.
When he and his wife, LSU associate head volleyball coach Jill Wilson, recently went on vacation, he worked for about four hours a day. He had never done that before, but Wilson wants to raise $14 million for the collective by next summer. (He declined to say how much it currently has.
) Though athletic departments are preparing to share revenue with players starting in fall 2025, Wilson thinks collectives will maintain an important role in the future of college sports. “LSU fans expect wins. Out of every program, every coach.
That's going to take talent,” Wilson said. “So we still need money on top of what the revenue share would have to make sure there's enough to go around. That's going to be everywhere.
The need for a collective, I think, is always going to be there.” The hire marked a significant move for Bayou Traditions. It had been operated since its inception by Carlos Spaht, an attorney in Baton Rouge, with help from MatchPoint Connection.
But Spaht had to split his time, and collectives have become multimillion dollar businesses crucial to roster management. Wilson said for Spaht “to have two full-time jobs doing what he did was unreal.” Hired in June, Wilson can devote all of his time to running the collective.
He worked for 13 years in sales at Guaranty Media over two stints, and though he has different responsibilities now, he thinks his skills can translate. He used to host clients on the field pregame in Tiger Stadium, and he met people in college sports through his career and that of his wife. She also has coached at Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and North Carolina.
“He's perfect, especially with what's with NIL in the collection space where there's a lot of questions,” Guaranty vice president Gordy Rush said. “I think he's a good linchpin to put in there to improve all the internal networking and communication, and externally, he'll do a good job with that.” To meet his financial goal, Wilson said the collective needs more small, monthly donations.
It has grown through a group of big-money donors, but Bayou Traditions has struggled to launch grassroots campaigns that reach the average fan. He’s also talking to companies about becoming official partners. “They have really bridged the gap the past couple of years and kept us competitive in this NIL space,” Tiger Athletic Foundation president and CEO Matt Borman said.
“I do feel like a lot of the funds, the revenue that Bayou Traditions was relying on, was coming from a smaller number of donors. The grassroots fundraising campaigns that they had run were not as successful as we would want them to be to try to get some of the pressure off the smaller number of donors that were stepping up in a large way.” People around LSU believe that can change as the result of a partnership announced last month between TAF and the collective that Wilson called “the biggest thing to happen to Bayou Traditions.
” The collective is paying an undisclosed amount for fundraising help through a new TAF subsidiary. More than a year in the making, the agreement allows TAF to help with strategies, social media and marketing, customer support and donor events. People now can make donations to Bayou Traditions through TAF, ideally streamlining the process, and still earn priority points.
“They've come through with a strategy on how we can implement different things to raise more money,” Wilson said. “That's the name of the game. At the end of the day, we need a lot of money.
Every school is going to need it.” TAF launched a campaign at the same time based on the 100th year of Tiger Stadium. Wilson said the collective has made around $250,000 from it.
“In this new setup, we certainly wanna tap into our donor base and those that want to contribute and get them into a spot where they can do that however much they wanna give,” Borman said. “A focus of it would certainly be the grassroots-type campaigns where we can utilize our large database, our marketing opportunities, to try to communicate and educate every fan about what's going on and why it's so important to get involved at any level that they can.” While TAF is involved now, it is not coordinating deals with players, determining how the money gets distributed or writing contracts.
That falls on Wilson. He manages an overall budget and one for every sport, which he breaks down by player. Conversations take place with parents, agents and players, and once they strike a deal, MatchPoint helps send a contract.
“They're trying to get the best deal for the player,” Wilson said. “But we also have a finite budget for each team. You have to balance it.
Having been in sales for a long time, I'm pretty comfortable in that role.” The past three years, NIL has acted as an avenue to pay players. That could change to some degree when revenue sharing goes into effect.
As a result of a settlement in three antitrust cases, athletic departments can distribute up to 22% of their annual revenue from media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships. That’s expected to equal $20 million to $22 million per school in 2025-26. The number likely will increase as revenue goes up.
The settlement also allowed the NCAA to create an enforcement arm for NIL, an attempt to prevent pay-for-play deals. The details remain unclear. But even with revenue sharing on the horizon, Wilson believes the collective needs to get stronger to ensure LSU remains competitive.
Every sport making the postseason, he said, costs money. “There had been a lack of a president for a while,” Wilson said. “There were some things probably falling through the cracks.
"Knowing the coach world, I knew that I could come in and actually make a difference. Whether I'm here for one, two or three years, I can leave it better than I found it.”.
