Montana college athletes are offered NIL cash to back Sen. Jon Tester

Student-athletes in Montana are being offered thousands of dollars to endorse Sen. Jon Tester’s reelection bid in a race that could determine control of the Senate.

Montana Together contacted the athletes at the University of Montana with offers of $400 to $2,400 to back Mr. Tester as part of a name, image and likeness deal, according to reports.

Mr. Tester is locked in a tight race with Republican Tim Sheehy, and the GOP believes the path to control the Senate runs through the Treasure State.

University of Montana Athletic Director Kent Haslam told The Washington Times that in late July he was approached by Opendorse, a platform that helps student-athletes get NIL deals, with an offer from Montana Together for students who were “interested in spreading the word” about Mr. Tester. 

Mr. Haslam said that when his department gets NIL requests, his team forwards them to students. 

“Athletics sent along the opportunity to all of the athletes in case any were interested,” he said.

News of the pitch came from Lily Meskers, a University of Montana track and field athlete who said she and others were offered money to support the vulnerable three-term incumbent. 

Ms. Meskers, who is also a journalism student, first wrote about the offer this week for the conservative radio show “Montana Talks.” 

She then was interviewed by the show’s host, Aaron Flint, to whom she said a lot of women on the track team shared a “similar reaction” to the offer because Mr. Tester voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. 

The bill was meant to prevent biological men from competing in women’s sports. 

“I think me and a lot of the girls on the team honestly shared a really similar reaction to this,” Ms. Meskers said. “Why would we endorse something that fundamentally goes against us?”

She added, “As women athletes, you know, we work really hard to get to the level that we’re at to be Division I athletes, and to have biological men take away these positions from us, it’s really frustrating. And so when we got this email from Tester asking us to endorse him as athletes, it was kind of like … well, where is your endorsement for us? Where is you standing up for us as female athletes?”

Mr. Sheehy has made that vote a focal point of his campaign stump speeches, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee that backs him pounced on the news of Montana Together incentivizing athletes to back Mr. Tester. 

“Jon Tester sided with woke D.C. Democrats when he voted to let men compete in women’s sports,” NRSC spokeswoman Maggie Abboud said in a statement to The Times. Now his dark money allies are trying to pay students off to cover up his far-left voting record. Jon Tester is spiraling and resorting to every underhanded tactic in the book.”

A spokesperson for the Tester campaign told The Times that the campaign “had no knowledge of these actions from an outside group, and we are not in communication with them.”

The Times reached out for comment from Montana Together. 

Montana Together’s origins are murky, with little to no digital footprint of the organization. Indeed, it doesn’t have any filings with the Federal Election Commission, and its Facebook page, which lists Montana Together as a political organization, hasn’t been active since late February. 

Still, the offer of NIL money to endorse a political campaign is legal, according to the NCAA. 

Meg Durham Wright, a spokeswoman for the NCAA, told The Times that college athletes “are permitted to enter into NIL arrangements that include endorsements for political candidates if they choose.”