Yahoo Sports Signs First of its Kind Tourney NIL Deals with Top College Basketball Stars Paolo Banchero of #4 Duke and Chet Holmgren of #1 Gonzaga

Troika Media Group, Inc.(“TMG” or “Company”), a brand consultancy and marketing innovations company that provides integrated branding and marketing solutions for global brands, announced that it is collaborating with Yahoo Sports, its longstanding creative agency client, to support their Tourney Pick’em bracket game with Name, Images and Likeness(NIL) partnerships with two of college basketball’s brightest stars. Yahoo Sports’ partnership marks the first of its kind NIL deal with college athletes in support of bracket gaming.

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Paolo Banchero, freshman at Duke University and Chet Holmgren, freshman at Gonzaga University, will serve as co-ambassadors of the activation, including social and digital content amplification across their personal social media channels (@paulo5 and @chet_holmgren), Yahoo Sports digital channels, marketing assets and more.

Yahoo Sports Tourney Pick’em is free to play. Fans can set up a group to play with friends and colleagues, and enter their best bracket for a chance to win a grand prize including $25,000 in cash and an MGM Resort vacation package in Las Vegas (valued at $10,000). Registration is open now on all platforms, including the Yahoo Fantasy app. Fans can sign up and join groups now and can fill out their brackets starting on Sunday, March 13.

Troika’s work with Yahoo Sports on this project is just one of dozens that it has successfully delivered to this leading sports media platform over the last five years. This specific assignment was to ideate, develop and execute this pioneering NIL deal. Troika contributed to creative concept ideation, talent identification and negotiation, design development and messaging.

“Yahoo Sports is one of our most longstanding and important clients,” said Aaron Sapiro, Troika’s Senior Account Director for Sports. “From our first project together nearly five years ago, they’ve consistently tasked our collective team to challenge the status quo and push evolution. We believe we’ve done that with this groundbreaking partnership.”

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