EXCLUSIVE: Prime Video has greenlit The Money Game, a docuseries tracking the revolutionary impact of “name, image and likeness” (NIL) policies on college sports.
Campfire Studios, Axios Media, and Shaquille O’Neal’s Jersey Legends, a division of Authentic Studios, are producers on the project, which will stream exclusively on Prime. It follows a number of notable sports docuseries and doc features on Prime Video, including Coach Prime, an inside look at Colorado’s football program under Deion Sanders, and Kelce, about Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce. On a broader level, sports has become a cornerstone of the Amazon-owned streaming service, notably NFL Thursday Night Football. That regular viewership for live sports provides opportunities for related shoulder programming.
The Money Game is billed as “an exclusive, all-access pass to the 2023-24 athletic season inside LSU Athletics.” The central element of the story is NIL, which was codified as official NCAA policy in 2021. That decision enabled college athletes to get paid in an above-board way for the first time for endorsements or advertising. The policy has minted a growing number of millionaire college athletes, altered the equation for recruiting and given competitors in “non-money” sports beyond football and basketball sizable opportunities stemming from their social media presence.
LSU, the flagship university of the state of Louisiana, has won an SEC-best 51 team national championships. It is currently home to three of the top 10 NIL earners, athletes with more than 20 million followers across social media. Among the personalities featured in the series are LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne; women’s basketball standouts Angel Reese and Flau’jae Johnson; and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jayden Daniels.
The Money Game is directed by Drea Cooper. Executive producers include Ross Dinerstein, Rebecca Evans, and Ross Girard of Campfire Studios; Erica Winograd, Jim VandeHei, and Roy Schwartz of Axios Media; Shaquille O’Neal, Colin Smeeton, and Michael Parris of Jersey Legends; and Brendan Daw and Drea Cooper.