Rachel Everett quickly apologizes for how busy things have been of late, how hard it’s been to line up an interview.
But it is football season, and when you represent some of the biggest names in the sport, carving out time to talk about what you do — instead of doing what you do — is a particular challenge.
On the other hand, it’s also just another Thursday morning in the new headquarters of Everett Sports Marketing, the sports-marketing firm Rachel Everett co-founded with husband, Dan Everett, in 2010. It’s an unlikely story, how ESM came to be — how Dan, an electrical engineer, got into doing sports memorabilia and youth-football camps on the side, back when he and Rachel were dating.
“It’s been an adventure,” Rachel Everett says.
Now, ESM is a team of 12 — with a collection of content talent across the country — that has just moved into a 4,500-square-foot space off Buncombe Road in Greenville.
ESM represents NFL players, it represents professional golfers, it brokers branding deals. Its clients are, in many cases, household names with millions of social media followers: Jalen Hurts; Sam Howell; Mac Jones; Jalin Hyatt; Nick Chubb; and Haley and Hanna Cavinder, aka the Cavinder twins.
And as of late 2022, ESM has added within its ranks a dedicated team heading up the University of South Carolina’s in-house name, image and likeness program.
Founded with Jeff Hoffman, who came to ESM from one of Greenville’s longest-standing advertising agencies, EP+Co, the NIL program is branded “Park Avenue.”
The first-of-its-kind program gives all Gamecock athletes access to the sort of NIL consultation and services that, Everett says, are usually reserved to a select few.
“(Park Avenue) is a huge value-add for student-athletes attending the University of South Carolina,” she says. “Huge.
“Someone has to fight on these athletes’ behalf. We’re talking about high school kids getting recruited by NIL marketing agencies to negotiate multimillion dollar, collective deals. And there are a lot of people in the industry who have no experience — it’s not something you can Google the answer to.”
But Park Avenue is also unique in that it is a privately funded venture, allowing ESM and Park Avenue agents the opportunity to provide, at no charge to the student athletes, world-class consultation, and deal procurement and negotiation services.
“Nowhere in America does that type of partnership exist in sports,” Everett says.
Life-changing relationships
It’s not just about making money and expanding influence.
“Sure, a few thousand dollars for a student-athlete can be life-changing,” Everett says. “But we’re also teaching these kids about managing a business, building relationships, learning social-content marketing.”
Building relationships with athletes at the collegiate level is a springboard for future opportunities.
“We show them how we work, and that shapes how they see us as they think about the next level,” Everett says. “Sam Howell, formerly the quarterback at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, now quarterback for the Washington Commanders, is a good example of that.”
It’s not an easy business, Everett concedes. The travel is grueling, the phone is always on.
“It’s 24-7, but we love it,” she says. “There are some challenging days — it takes thick skin to be in an industry where the highs are sky-high, and the lows are absolutely low. But it still doesn’t feel like work.”
A partial list of Everett Sports Marketing clients:
NFL
Athlete influencers
NIL
Source: Everett Sports Marketing
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