WS Chronicle

Nationwide (BlackNews.com) – Under a recent Supreme Court ruling, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) can no longer place restrictions on education-related benefits for student-athletes. NCAA athletes can now profit from their name, image, and likeness with unlimited incentives.

Before the decision, student-athletes were not allowed financial gains from the billions of dollars in revenue that sports brought to American colleges and universities. Student-athletes can now reap financial benefits from their talents early on. But with the new judgment in place, however, many people like Tarik Edmonson, founder of Nagast Footwear, fear that student-athletes may be taken advantage of by large corporations and he aims to educate them on the possible pitfalls.

“Everybody knows that these large shoe companies treat athletes like modern-day slaves,” says Edmonson. “They make billions of dollars off the athletes and only give the athletes a fraction of the profits.”

He continues, “You got athletes who make companies $10 billion a year but the athlete only gets a billion. They are rich, but why leave $9 billion on the table? You did the work and the sweat, and God gave you that talent. So it should be the other way around.”

Instead of taking a smaller piece of the pie, Edmonson offers athletes an opportunity to take the lion’s share of the profits with a Black-owned company whose African-inspired styles embody the total essence of our rich and proud heritage. With clothing and shoe collections celebrating Black history, Black pride, and Egyptian hieroglyphs, Nagast Footwear is as trendy and stylish as it is empowering and uplifting.

Launched in 2015, Nagast Footwear became the first company to create an internationally successful sneaker line to commemorate the legacy of powerful Black leaders, including Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey, and Huey P. Newton, among others.

“We started this company out of a need to help our people, and we want to teach these athletes that they are the brand,” Edmonson explains. “You’ve already done the marketing and promotions because you already got a name. You got the following. You are who the fans want to be like and emulate.”

Even if student-athletes choose to sign endorsement deals with these large companies, Edmonson says he wants them to know their worth when sitting at the negotiations table. “Even if they don’t go with us,” he discloses, “they should know their power when negotiating their deal. The days of big shoe companies only paying athletes pennies are over.”

To learn more about Nagast Footwear, visit NagastFootwear.com. For more details, contact 470-262-3895 or nagastfootwear@gmail.com.