Executive Vice President of WWE’s Global Talent Strategy & Development Triple H recently made his first public appearance since undergoing heart surgery following a ‘cardiac event’ back in September. ‘The Game’ recently made an appearance on the New Year’s Day edition of NBC’s Nightly News broadcast to discuss WWE‘s new NIL initiative to recruit collegiate athletes. A new era for college sports is underway after the National Labor Relations Board authorized NCAA athletes to monetize their name, image and likeness.
College sports are an $18 billion industry, so there are many new and lucrative opportunities for the athletes responsible for generating this money. WWE recently launched the NIL (“Next In Line”) program and signed 15 athletes they believe could be the Superstars of tomorrow.
Triple H opens up on recruiting college athletes
Hunter has a huge influence in recruiting and developing these athletes. He explained why he is open to business with the college athletes:
“To allow college students to sort of monetize and utilize their name, image and likeness it’s opened up an avenue for us,” said Triple H. “This allows them to have that open door to earn money while in college.”
Recent WWE signee Joe Spivak, a football player at Northwestern University, was also interviewed for the segment.
Triple H spoke with Fast Company in December and had this to say about the WWE NIL program:
“We immediately saw it as an amazing recruiting tool for us because it allows us to show athletes a path to WWE, and engage with them in a way where they can learn more about it, we can learn more about them, all while working together, and finding out if it’s a good fit before they’re even finished college, and before they need to make any decisions about what they’re going to do in that next stage of their life.”
Watch Triple H’s appearance on NBC’s Nightly News:
