With college athletic departments scrambling for new revenue streams to pay athletes, John Hilburn “Hil” Davis IV believes his clothing company, Digital Brands Group (DBGI), can provide something indispensable: a low-risk path to unlocking millions in above-the-cap NIL dollars while overhauling a licensing model he sees as badly outdated.
“They are still trying to sell Sunday classified ads in a world that has e-commerce,” Davis said in a recent phone interview with Sportico. The “they” he refers to are the entrenched gatekeepers of college sports merchandising.
“You’ve got an industry that hasn’t meaningfully evolved in 30 years,” Davis said, positioning Digital Brands Group’s Avo apparel brand—a newcomer to sports—as the catalyst for that long-awaited evolution. While Avo now sells fan-focused T-shirts, sweatshirts and joggers, its larger appeal to universities may lie in how it deploys its marketing budget.
To date, Avo is selling products tied to seven college programs—Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Penn State, Vanderbilt, Colorado and Mississippi State—and claims to have “raised” more than $17 million in NIL money for their athletes. According to Davis, that’s a fraction of what is to come.
