Syracuse Orange: Looking at On3 NIL Valuations of top-five ‘Cuse players

With name, image and likeness (“NIL”) such a big story these days, I was curious who the top Syracuse Orange student-athletes are these days as far as their On3 NIL Valuations are concerned.

I’ve written about this topic a couple of times lately. Basically, the On3 NIL Valuation is an algorithm that “calculates the optimized NIL opportunity for athletes relative to the overall NIL market and projects out to as long as 12 months into the future.”

This valuation, which I find fascinating, looks at two categories, brand value and roster value. Then, factors taken into account include a player’s performance, influence (i.e., social media) and exposure.

The On3 NIL Valuation may fluctuate from week to week, and “it does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals athletes have completed to date, nor does it set an athlete’s NIL valuation for their entire career.” You can read more about what the On3 NIL Valuation is, and isn’t, by clicking here.

Let’s see which Syracuse Orange players have the highest On3 NIL Valuations at present.

Keeping in mind that these valuations can change, when I wrote this article, here were the top-five ‘Cuse student-athletes listed, based on their On3 NIL Valuations.

No. 1, Oronde Gadsden II, Syracuse Orange football receiver
The 6-foot-5, 223-pound junior out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., had an On3 NIL Valuation of $325,000, which put him at No. 145 overall in college football.

Gadsden, a preseason All-American candidate and an All-ACC first-team performer a season ago, unfortunately suffered an injury last weekend when Syracuse football crushed Western Michigan. We’ll have to continue monitoring his status moving forward.

No. 2, Marlowe Wax Jr., Syracuse Orange football linebacker
The 6-foot-1, 230-pound junior from Baltimore had an On3 NIL Valuation of $205,000, good for No. 244 nationwide in college football. Wax is a candidate for national and Atlantic Coast Conference honors in the 2023 season, and he’s one of the leaders of the Orange Mob defense.

No. 3, Garrett Shrader, Syracuse Orange football quarterback
Shrader, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound senior who is from Charlotte, N.C., had an On3 NIL Valuation of $123,000, which was No. 551 overall in college football. He’s off to a solid start in 2023, although the team’s schedule is about to get tougher, beginning with a road date versus Purdue on Saturday evening.

No. 4, J.J. Starling, Syracuse Orange basketball guard
Starling, a 6-foot-4, 206-pound sophomore, is a Central New York native who transferred this past off-season to the Orange following a solid freshman term at Notre Dame. He had an On3 NIL Valuation of $117,000, which placed him at No. 58 nationally in collegiate hoops.

No. 5, Judah Mintz, Syracuse Orange basketball point guard
The 6-foot-3, 178-pound sophomore, out of Fort Washington, Md., was one of the top freshmen in the ACC a stanza ago. He tested the 2023 NBA Draft waters before deciding to come back to the ‘Cuse for a second year. Mintz had an On3 NIL Valuation of $96,000, which ranked him No. 70 around the country in college basketball.

I also recently did a similar article on Kiyan Anthony, a 2025 four-star shooting guard from New York City who was offered a scholarship by the Syracuse basketball coaching staff last November and has said he will take an official visit to the Orange at some point.

The 6-foot-5 Anthony, a junior at Long Island Lutheran High School in Brookville, N.Y., who is the son of Syracuse basketball legend Carmelo Anthony, had an On3 NIL Valuation of $512,000 at the time of this writing, which was No. 7 nationwide among high-school basketball players.

Since we’re discussing NIL in this story, just a reminder that this past Tuesday, a new commercial NIL collective known as Orange United launched in Central New York. Managed by the Atlanta-based Student Athlete NIL (“SANIL”), Orange United has signed a deal with multi-media rights company LEARFIELD to be an official partner of, and the preferred collective for, SU Athletics.