Arch Manning will start for No. 1 Texas against No. 3 Ohio State in a high-profile college football matchup. Manning emerged as a social-media phenomenon after dominating high school competition in Louisiana. He already holds substantial independent commercial value and endorses brands including Uber, Red Bull and Raising Cane's. Evaluators expect Manning to start at Texas for one or two seasons and then enter the NFL draft early. Manning descends from the famed Manning football family, and his early career management so far more closely resembles patterns from the pre-NIL era than current athlete-business trends.
He has been an Instagram and TikTok sensation since early in his high school career in Louisiana, where he faced competition that wasn't up to his level and destroyed it. In a time of college athletes cashing big checks, Manning is one of the few who have huge commercial value independent of the money he receives for playing his sport. He's a well-compensated pitchman for Uber, Red Bull, and Raising Cane's, among others.
He is a quarterback of this moment, a big name who can take advantage of the sport's changes like few others. But to me, what sticks out the most about Manning is not that he's following a new playbook for a star QB. It's that he's following an established one. So far, he has managed his career less like a modern five-star QB does and more like any other elite QB prospect would've acted 20 years ago,
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