How Flau’jae Johnson is taking notes and putting on a clinic in NIL entrepreneurship

Johnson’s mother Kia Brooks once observed that her daughter “never gets to celebrate her achievements because she works so much and they come so fast.” In five seasons, Johnson accrued over 40 NIL deals, all while balancing student-athlete life and dropping several albums and EPs.

• Johnson came to LSU at the beginning of the NIL era, so she was able to fully reap the benefits throughout her collegiate career. She also benefitted from a fifth season due to COVID-19 eligibility extensions.

Now, her total net worth is an estimated $7M, with her brand deals and music IP accounting for about $4.5M. Her NIL worth is $1.5M, the highest in the women’s game. She partly credits her school for helping develop and promote her public persona. “LSU markets their athletes well,” Johnson said. “That purple and gold is just so noticeable,” she continued, calling LSU “a worldwide brand.”

• “Even being attached to LSU in any kind of way, it's beneficial for the athlete, but also for LSU,” she said. “And they know that, and they promote you so well, ” she continued, citing their promotion of Heisman Trophy winners Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels.

• “It’s definitely a hand-in-hand thing,” she said. “It's not just like they heavily promote [athletes]… It’s both brands collaborating to make the best product possible.” Put the pendant on the trophy.

But before the purple and gold, there was Puma. The brand signed Johnson to her first-ever sponsorship deal when she graduated from Sprayberry High School in Marietta, Georgia, as a McDonald's All-American and Jordan Brand Classic MVP. It’s “so crazy that [Puma] really invested in me at an early age,” she said.

Johnson was especially impressed because the brand knew she committed to LSU, a Nike school — meaning she navigated her extensive shoe deal without sporting Puma shoes on the court. “It was important to see that I was that important to them,” she explained.

• Being a Puma athlete has “meant the world” to Johnson, allowing her to learn more about being an athlete entrepreneur. As she highlighted in her ongoing AT&T campaign, she's developed key business skills, including effective communication with her team.

• Johnson takes pride in her entrepreneurial journey, which she considers “a work in progress.” Still, one value that has guided her Puma deal and all subsequent ones is loyalty. “I'm loyal to the soil,” she said of her commitment to the brand.

It’s an excellent example of how a brand can take on a young athlete, then help develop them on and off the court — she has benefitted from the mentorship of three-time WNBA MVP and fellow Puma athlete Breanna Stewart. “When somebody takes a chance on you that early in your career, you never forget that.” More to go, more to show.

Johnson’s diverse experiences, numerous brand deals, and authentic influence with Gen Z audiences make her the perfect person to ask: What industries could benefit from reaching college basketball’s growing audience, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha fans?

• “I was saying beauty, but I feel like a lot of the beauty brands have now begun to tap in. I think more technology, because with AI and everything, I feel like athletes are capitalizing off that [and will continue to] because it's coming — it's not going anywhere.”

“Silicon Valley needs to hit me up,” she hinted, specifically mentioning women’s sports sponsorship newcomer ChatGPT, which may want to take the opening as Google Gemini gains ground on college campuses. “Especially in the sports world, you can do so much: Create your own workouts, create your own meal plans, things like that. They have so many software [platforms] where you can do a little bit of everything.”

That’s how Johnson has landed many organic brand partnerships: by advertising products she genuinely enjoys, like Country Crock butter. She knows how to make deals happen, and after deferring draft declaration last year, she’s ready to take her basketball game and entrepreneurial game to the next level.

• “I want to expand on everything. I feel like when you're in college, you’ve kind of got the handcuffs on you just a little bit. Because you're still a student, you’re still an athlete…so many obligations. But I feel like now, it’ll be a little bit more lifted, and as a pro, I'll be able to expand.”

• “I've been building a lot of relationships that I feel will help me as a businesswoman, as an entrepreneur — this is about to be amazing.” Ready or not.