The Business of Baker Mayfield
 

There comes a moment in the draft process when the highest profile prospects realize, for the first time, what they’re worth in a purely fiscal sense. For Baker Mayfield, it wasn’t the Nike-Adidas talks or the paid trip to Super Bowl week; it was an email delivered to his marketing representative by a memorabilia dealer: seven figures over three years for some signatures and game-used gear.

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“He was like, tell me [the dollar amount], and I kept smiling,” says Patrick Hayes, Mayfield’s marketing representative who met the quarterback in his final year of college when Mayfield was in his first year on OU’s campus. “It was one of those, Put your hand over your mouth and walk away moments. He’s just trying to get on a team. We had never talked about, if you get drafted 1-5, how much he’d make. But on the marketing side, the player holds more of the power.”

Take a step back and consider the following scenario: An 18-year-old, through talent and effort, earns fame and contributes to earning millions in revenue for a state institution. Yet he finds himself barred by a coalition of said institutions from receiving financially commensurate benefits, or profiting independently, on the strength of that fame. Then, three to five years later, he’s thrust into the free market, and provided he kept his health and played at an elite level, stands to earn a few million dollars in a year’s time. In the meantime, a tiny economy trafficking in millions of dollars sprouts in the wake of him joining the market, with the livelihoods of hundreds directly affected by his choices and actions.

Now ask yourself this: In what other avenue of American life could this scenario play out?

“I don’t know if many of these players look back at college and say, Oh I would’ve made this amount if I was compensated for jersey sales, or if I was on that ticket or that poster. Baker and I haven’t had that conversation,” Hayes says. “But I think once they start seeing the money come in, it’s like they realize they’ve started getting what they deserve. It’s real now.”

The money that changes hands during the four frantic months between the end of the college football season and the draft—whether it’s a player realizing his earning power, agents vying to represent those interests, or a team pumping resources into scouting that player—can change lives, define the future of iconic American brands, and determine the fortunes and failures of NFL franchises. In Part 12 of our series on Mayfield, we dive into the tiny economy behind an elite college quarterback’s transition to the pros.

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