By Craig Colgan
Banks are including financial literacy training in big deals aimed at building relationships with not only athletes and schools but with fans and alumni. And banks are exploring connecting to athletes in many ways.
Banks are used to waiting for athletes to go pro before pitching wealth management and other services. But now that college athletes can be paid, banks are connecting earlier, as well as tapping into the surrounding pipeline of schools, brands, sports marketing agencies, app developers and service providers that influence where young talent turns for financial advice.
Banks are seeking not just to increase outreach to young athletes and their universes, but to talk about this business more, as a marketing strategy itself. One such bank is City National Bank in California, which touts its entertainment and sports banking prominently on its website.
And banks are aiming such marketing arrangements not just at universities and athletes, but toward fans and alumni of those schools as well.
Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank is among the banks pitching its expertise focused on working with major professional teams and university athletic conferences, to include stadium financing and renovation and other infrastructure. But individual athletes are also a priority. In April, U.S. Bank announced a deal with Fernando Mendoza, quarterback for the Indiana University Hoosiers awarded the Heisman Trophy, the leading player of the year award in college football.
Days later, Mendoza became the first selection in the NFL draft. U.S. Bank says Mendoza’s title will be chief financial playmaker, providing input for Financial Edge, a customized financial guidance program designed to support players at every stage of their financial journey, aimed at assisting athletes in navigating the realities of professional football, from their professional earning peak years to preparing for life after the game.
More Indiana connections
When it comes to connecting to young athletes these days — and then staying in touch with them, one by one — Indiana banks seem to be finding plenty of success. When Indiana University won the College Football Playoff National Championship in January, the celebration did not stop with the players, students, alumni or fans.
“It’s been a storybook season for Merchants Bank,” notes a press release from the Carmel, Indiana bank celebrating not just the Hoosiers’ accomplishment, but also Merchants’ own good timing. In August 2025, the $19.4 billion bank completed an agreement with Indiana Athletics and Learfield’s IU Sports Properties that includes a $50 million commitment to the university spanning 20 years. The playing surface at IU’s Memorial Stadium was renamed Merchants Bank Field at Memorial Stadium.
The deal also specifies that beginning this summer, all Indiana University athletes will have an additional responsibility: Attend financial literacy training, provided on campus at no cost by the bank.
Session titles during the program’s rollout include money psychology, budgeting, financial management, taxes and investing, and agents and contracts. The financial literacy training is aimed at ensuring that student athletes have the tools to maximize their opportunities in a new intercollegiate athletics landscape. Also offered is requested account-opening assistance to athletes, as well as one-on-one mentorship with banking professionals, including four-year IU basketball player-turned-banker Derek Elston, today a client deposit services sales officer at Merchants and a mentor to athletes.
“For many athletes earning NIL income, these college years may represent the highest-earning period of their lives,” Elston says, describing what would be a truly astonishing notion just a few years ago. NIL is name, image and likeness, the shorthand for a quickly metastasizing landscape over the last five years in which college athletes’ earnings that had anything to do with their sports went from zero most of the time to, in more examples every season, upwards of millions of dollars — upending more than a century of rules and enforcement.
“That reality makes financial literacy essential, not just to manage today’s income, but to protect and grow those funds for long-term financial stability,” Elston says. “Learning from experienced professionals who understand taxes, investing and risk management can significantly improve an athlete’s financial longevity.”
Merchants execs point to several benefits to the bank the IU commitment brings, beyond many connections to many young athletes. Including growing branding opportunities in a part of the state where it has historically had little engagement. Merchants also recently opened a branch in Bloomington, home to IU.
“From a collaborative perspective, we’ve realized this is a new world for everyone,” says Mike Dunlap, Merchants president and CEO and an IU grad. “The NIL landscape is actively being shaped and continues to change, requiring a clear approach to ensure these young athletes understand the financial component of it all. While the identified areas are beneficial today, we expect the program to continue to grow and evolve over the next 20 years as the NIL landscape matures.”
Another Indiana bank, Old National, headquartered in Evansville, in 2023 became the “official bank of the Big Ten conference,” the first time the recently expanded conference has done such a deal.
“This is an authentic partnership on the business and marketing side that will help Old National Bank build brand awareness and reputation as the premier regional bank, create unique and memorable VIP experiences for our clients, provide financial literacy and education to student-athletes and make a positive impact in our banking communities,” says Jim Stadler, CMO of Old National Bank. “We’re excited to engage and connect with the most passionate and loyal college students, fans and alums in the country.”
Embedded finance: Banks powering athlete platforms and brands
Instead of pursuing relationships directly with athletes, some banks gain access by becoming the banking partner behind apps, debit cards and other banking services marketed to athletes. This is often referred to as “rails”: the back-end infrastructure that moves and holds money.
This is a newer route for smaller or more tech-focused banks to participate in the athlete economy. The point is to connect with partners who already have access to defined communities such as athletes, schools and fans.
The partnership between Webster Bank, based in Connecticut, and the fintech firm Goalsetter is an example of a traditional institution accessing the athlete market via a banking-as-a-service model. Webster acts as the bank of record that allows Goalsetter to offer student athletes specialized tools for managing NIL earnings. For Webster, the relationship creates a direct pipeline to a younger, high-potential customer base at a reduced overhead. Banks that participate in such arrangements seek to position their brands at the center of the athlete journey, aim for a long-term relationship or target wealth management services. (Webster recently announced its acquisition by Banco Santander in a deal set to close later this year.)
Younger athletes in the mix
These products and arrangements are available to ever-younger athletes. In 2024, Bank of America’s Merrill Wealth Management announced a three-year partnership with Florida-based IMG Academy, the sports training and boarding school for elite high school athletes, to deliver financial education using Bank of America’s Better Money Habits materials, including sessions and resources from Merrill Advisors. Recipients include student athletes’ families. IMG is increasingly positioning itself as all things personal development, so this and similar partnerships fit the brand.
“Given the modern high school and collegiate student-athlete landscape, it is becoming increasingly important to develop financial literacy at a younger age,” says Brent Richard, CEO of IMG Academy. “Establishing a partnership that provides our student-athletes and their families financial resources and knowledge is another significant addition to our holistic education curriculum, and only further increases the value of an IMG Academy education.”
Bankers aiming at working with early-career athletes point out that the key is trust. And a few alumni connections do not hurt either.
“My advice (to banks) is to focus on making a positive impact,” says Dunlap of Merchants Bank. “These student-athletes are surrounded by different opinions and guidance, so you need to make sure you’re offering something that will actually stick with them and help their futures. For Merchants Bank, having several IU fans and alumni on staff made this connection feel authentic and allowed us to build trust that another financial institution may struggle to replicate.”
