NCAA Males
December 6, 2023
HERMOSA BEACH, California — The inspiration of Mason Briggs’ entrepreneurial spirit, the one which has helped him amass almost 130,000 followers on Instagram and is popping the libero place — libero! — into one thing resembling cool, started like several younger entrepreneur’s may.
With duct tape wallets.
“I received actually into it,” the Lengthy Seashore State senior mentioned. “I really purchased a slicing board. Lots of people use scissors however I used a slicing board so it’s clear, exact, identical lower each time.”
It was a precocious show of exceptional consideration to element for an elementary faculty child. His grandfather, who was within the shoe enterprise, thought it whimsical however cute sufficient, an ideal dialog starter, to convey as a present to a shoe conference. When his grandmother pulled out a cheetah print pockets on the conference, it caught the attention of a purchaser at Steve Madden.
They ordered 200.
“I’m handmaking them on daily basis, can’t even go exterior,” Briggs mentioned, laughing. “That was my first massive factor I really profited from.”
However as Briggs developed as a volleyball participant, coaching with the USA Volleyball youth group indoors, successful tournaments on the seashore outdoor, his skill to intertwine his talents on the courtroom along with his pure knack for enterprise turned restricted. The landmark resolution for athletes to capitalize on their title, picture, and likeness was nonetheless years down the street. Regardless that his social media accounts have been rising at a gradual charge, “I didn’t actually get it,” he mentioned. “I used to be like ‘Why? Who cares?’ And I assume that’s nonetheless the query: Who cares?”
He each did and didn’t get it. When he was coaching with the USA Excessive Efficiency group, he’d submit movies from his days, largely for individuals who have been curious what he was as much as. In concentrating on a selected viewers, he occurred to hit a wider one.
“I assume it turned out to be lots of people,” he mentioned.
The who cares query was answered. The subsequent: What’s the purpose?
Likes and feedback, shares and engagement, aren’t good for a lot whenever you’re a highschool or school child, apart from a rush of dopamine and clout. Until he have been to parlay his platform into non-public teaching on the facet, it wasn’t precisely a profitable facet hustle. Even then, he might nonetheless get in hassle.
Till, that’s, July of 2021.
When the NIL resolution was made, instantly athletes might (legally) make cash on their very own. They may entice particular person sponsors, promote merchandise, promote on social media, cost for autographs and numerous different memorabilia that will have beforehand made them ineligible. Whereas the most important income sports activities — soccer and basketball, specifically — hauled in hundreds of thousands, and collectives popped up everywhere in the nation as monetary recruiting arms for faculties, males’s volleyball, in fact, remained far out of the highlight. There are simply 26 males’s Division I applications, with solely 4.5 scholarships to divvy up throughout a complete group. Even along with his six-figure following, Briggs solely landed one minor NIL deal, with Naples Rib Firm in Lengthy Seashore.
Simply as he did along with his duct tape enterprise, he’d should get artistic.
No downside.
One of many many advantages of enjoying for Lengthy Seashore is its custom as probably the greatest applications within the nation, with a loyal fanbase that routinely packs the Pyramid. After matches, Briggs could be requested, frequently, to signal autographs. On something. One child requested him to signal a chunk of scrap paper. One other requested his ticket. One even pulled off his shoe for Briggs to autograph. It was that final one which did it.
A shoe?
There needed to be one thing higher than a shoe.
“I’m like ‘What can we do?’ Buying and selling playing cards!” Briggs mentioned. “Why not within the sport of volleyball? I’ve had the concept for greater than a yr now. The thought behind it’s to construct a volleyball buying and selling card firm. We do want larger gamers, we’d like larger personalities, and we additionally must maintain it volleyball, not less than at the beginning. If we will construct this from the bottom up and see what the followers and the folks make of it.”
A zero sum sport, this isn’t. The place the NIL panorama can typically be cutthroat and aggressive in its race for sponsors and cash and what the collectives can then, in flip, provide potential athletes, Briggs has used it to amass one of many greatest platforms in all of school volleyball. That has straight led to extra followers at Lengthy Seashore State matches — extra eyes on the game, extra income in ticket gross sales, extra popcorn being bought on the concessions stand, extra intimate connections.
“You begin to hear from them and these loopy tales that these folks drove six hours to see you play otherwise you impressed them slightly bit otherwise you related with them on some little bit, one thing like religion or they’re a libero,” Briggs mentioned. “That’s the place it fueled me. I’m making an attempt to construct up my private model however actually what’s behind it’s the sport of volleyball. We’re all in it collectively, particularly males’s volleyball. It’s actually cool to see what ladies’s volleyball is doing, particularly within the indoor house. Hopefully males’s can observe swimsuit.
“I simply hear folks say ‘Develop the sport develop the sport develop the sport’ however for me it’s ‘What’s that? How?’ That’s the place these concepts got here from. I’ve at all times been entrepreneurial and business-oriented. It actually got here from rising the sport and these questions that took place.”
Like others blazing an analogous path within the sport — Joe and Gage Worsley come to thoughts, with their Out of System model — Briggs has his priorities straight: He’s a participant first, model second. Anybody who receives one in every of his buying and selling playing cards can take a skim of the straightforward however aesthetic resume on the again and know that, sure, he is likely one of the finest liberos on the planet, an All-American and winner of the Erik Shoji Award. It’s why USA Nationwide Group coach John Speraw carried Briggs as the one NCAA athlete on the World Championship roster, one thing Briggs calls “a pinnacle second.”
“I known as my mother and father, crying, on FaceTime,” he recalled. “The World Championships was loopy as a result of I went to a NORCECA with the B group. The A group was coaching after which touring. We had simply completed and I received a name saying ‘Hey, wish to come to World Champs?’ I used to be like what? I went from 10 days in Canada straight to coaching with them for World Champs. I used to be gone for five-and-a-half weeks. Began coaching in Italy, performed a pair exhibition matches, it was me and Erik.”
Ah, sure. Erik Shoji. Arguably the very best libero who has ever donned a USA jersey, and at present probably the greatest on this planet at his place. There is no such thing as a supplanting Shoji, simply as there isn’t any supplanting Micah Christenson at setter, regardless of how proficient his backup could also be — and, certainly, Micah Ma’a is a supremely proficient backup.
“[Shoji] has been perhaps the very best that’s ever performed for the USA, however he’s additionally attending to the purpose in his profession the place I feel they’ll most likely be some conversations about whether or not he’ll proceed to L.A.,” Speraw instructed the Los Angeles Occasions this previous Might. “If that’s the case, who the following particular person will likely be is up for debate, it’ll be a contest and I feel Mason is in that blend. … He has the potential although, 100%.”
It’s the paradoxical nature of the place: Whereas changing an Erik Shoji is a near-impossible process, who higher to study from than one of many greats? At 34, Shoji has 12 years on the 22-year-old Briggs, an age hole that helps make the positional rivalry extra a magnanimous relationship than aggressive. Shoji gives recommendation the place he can, and teases when Briggs fits up towards Hawai’i, the place Shoji was raised and the place his father, Dave, was the longtime coach and a dwelling legend.
“We even speak each month,” Briggs mentioned. “It’s cool to study from him.”
Off the courtroom, too, Shoji is a maverick, boasting greater than 1 / 4 million followers on Instagram. Whereas he isn’t counting on promoting buying and selling playing cards and clinics for his paychecks — his present membership, Grupa Azoty ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle, in Poland, pays simply effective — his platform has drawn extra eyes to the game, and one of the crucial distinctive positions in it. It’s a job Briggs is continuous to fill and develop.
“Folks have began coming as much as me and saying ‘Hey, I wish to be a libero!’ I by no means heard that or considered that,” Briggs mentioned. “Folks mentioned ‘Hey I switched to libero due to you.’ What? It’s a cool place that I’m in and why I’m making an attempt to do all these items is as a result of I can carry this from what I’m doing now with the faculty stuff into the skilled scene. Proper now I’m doing clinics and transitioning that even quickly to an internet factor. Not that I received’t do in particular person however having each. I can solely do one or two non-public classes however I can do a clinic and attain extra folks or an internet Q&A. Issues like that that I can transition into the professional house and a kind of could be the net classes or mentorship after which persevering with merch and stuff.”
He’s spreading a large canvas. One thing will stick, be it the buying and selling playing cards or the clinics or numerous collaborations or, maybe probably, one thing he hasn’t even considered but.
“I’ve lots occurring,” he mentioned, smiling. “Whilst I’m driving up I’m remembering I’ve lots occurring.”
So, too, hopefully, will the game.
