Winchell Mountain Coffee teaming up with FAU a great business opportunity for athletes | D'Angelo

BOCA RATON — Allen Ricca and Will Rivkin, owners of Winchell Mountain Coffee, believed they had the perfect image for the first coffee bag to kick off their name, image and likeness deal with FAU's beach volleyball team.

That was until the team got a look at it.

"They spit out this big sports mascot kind of owl with a bikini and our whole team … the group chat was ruthless," senior Alivia Orvieto said. "We told them, it's a really good start but it's not the direction we were thinking."

Around the same time, Ricca and Rivkin attempted the same with the men's basketball team with which the company also has an NIL deal. They played off the 2023 Final Four participants' Beach Boys theme by trying to recreate a Venice Beach scene on the bag. Nick Boyd delivered the bad news.

"(He) completely destroyed our design and said we had to redo it and gave us clear direction on how to redo it," Rivkin said. "We adhered to everything he said and it's by far the best-selling coffee. The Beach Blend."

Florida Atlantic University continues to take advantage of the NCAA's NIL legislation, and in a way that many of us can relate. I've detailed other deals signed by FAU athletes and said many times this is the way NIL was meant to be, a means for all athletes to benefit from their brands, not just to be used as pay-for-play, and for collectives to throw around millions of dollars to recruit blue-chip prospects.

And this is how FAU Athletic Director Brian White envisioned the law unfolding, the athletes partnering with businesses to learn about corporate sponsorships and corporate marketing.

That is why White tapped into his friendship with Ricca that goes back to their college days and partnered with Winchell, a boutique coffee company in Pine Plains, New York.

"It needed to be a world where the business does the heavy lifting and doesn't look at the student-athlete as an influencer but as more of an intern," Ricca said. "We wanted these kids to be involved in everything business. We wanted their input for design. We wanted their input to pricing."

Winchell hiring FAU student to help with analytics

Winchell is backing that up. Ricca and Rivkin are hiring an FAU student to help with business analytics.

And this is why Orvieto was comfortable enough to speak out about the not-so-great review the team gave that first design.

"They made it super clear from the beginning this was going to be a collaboration," she said. "They were not just going to pay us to post on Instagram whatever generic verbatim ad they had."

Ricca, 40, and Rivkin, 38, have been best friends and business partners for 17 years. They founded Winchell in 2007. When the name, image and likeness legislation was passed in 2021, they were looking for a way to break into that world.

Ricca and White started talking last basketball season, anticipating a deep run in March, and got serious during the summer.

Although Ricca and Rivkin spoke with coaches from other sports, including Tom Herman, the Owls head football coach, men's basketball and beach volleyball were selected. Partly because of their manageable roster sizes, partly because of their cool nicknames.

Beach Boys. Sandy Owls.

"If you can't find a way to design something fun around that ...," Ricca said.

Ricca and Rivkin did not want to make this just about the stars. And that plan fully was supported by both programs which made sure every player on each team receives an equal cut.

"Everybody was part of the Beach Boys and built that name and built what we were able to build last year," Boyd said. "We all played a role. Prior to last year, there were no NIL deals. For us to not include everybody would have been selfish and would have been disrespectful to what we built.

"It shows we care about each other more than just making a couple of dollars. It means a lot to me. It means a lot to the team."

Twenty percent of the sales go in an equal split to the teams. That escalates to as high as 25% after meeting certain numbers.

Ricca and Rivkin have found success through art and design. Beach volleyball was their first project. "We're very organically who we are," Orvieto said. "We're goofy, we're silly. We've been having so much fun creating the special bags."

But this project also was sentimental to those women, a way to pay tribute to the architect of the program.

Beach volleyball coffee package honors Capri Grotowski

Two years ago, Capri Grotowski, the team's coach, died after battling breast cancer for a decade. She was 38. Freshman Maddie Sides suggested the first package honor her memory.

"You can't acknowledge our team culture without acknowledging the foundation of our program and coach Capri is the foundation of FAU beach volleyball," Orvieto said. "To have a coffee bag that will forever encapsulate her spirit, which is our team spirit, was so special to everyone."

Now the team will unveil three other designs next month: The Day Off bag. The Game Day bag. The Sandy Owls bag. A caricature of each player's face will adorn the Sandy Owls bag.

"When Winchell Mountain approached us it was like — Wow! This is an outside company taking the ropes and is going to help us out and going to make this an equal opportunity for everyone," Orvieto said.

Basketball has three bags: Beach Blend. Heating Up Paradise. Back in Paradise.

Boyd, a redshirt sophomore, is grateful for the advice he is receiving, especially from Ricca, when it comes to business.

More: College basketball: Johnell Davis powers No. 24 FAU to a romp over UAB

NIL being used as an educational tool. What a concept.

"We're forcing these kids to get involved," Ricca said. "We are giving them real-life business exposure and teaching them how to turn a concept to product, and then how that becomes saleable."

FAU men's basketball and beach volleyball Winchell Coffee can be purchased online at winchellmountaincoffee.com/shop and enjoywmc.com; or at VI Coffee Bar, 1159 S. Federal Highway, Boca Raton.

Tom D'Angelo is a sports columnist and reporter at The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @tomdangelo44.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: FAU basketball, beach volleyball get hands-on experience from NIL deal