East Lansing, Mich. - Incoming freshman basketball player Jaxon Kohler’s signing with an NIL marketing and consulting firm on Tuesday signaled the arrival of a new era of professional opportunities for athletes at Michigan State.

In order to gain a better understanding for how those negotiations were handled, and what it likely means for future players and recruiting targets, SpartanMag.com publisher Jim Comparoni conducted lengthy interviews with Jaxon’s father, Jeff Kohler, and Helium Sports & Entertainment founder Justin Brantley.

Today, SpartanMag is running the first of those interviews, with Mr. Kohler. The interview with Brantley will run on Saturday.

SpartanMag: I want to say congratulations on Jaxon’s signing with Helium Sports & Entertainment, becoming one of the first incoming freshmen that I’m aware of in college sports to attract this kind of arrangement.

Jeff Kohler: Thank you. We didn’t come into this high school situation too concerned about NIL and looking for money, but the thing that resonated to me is that they (Helium) want to help Jax build a social media presence and help him in that regard.

Justin (Brantley) is such a down-to-Earth guy. I really trust him to educate Jax on these things.

SM: How did this all begin?

Kohler: Right after the Iverson game (Allen Iverson Roundball Classic all-star game in late April), Jaxon was getting blown up from NIL agents and NBA agents as well. These are all guys that are all there for the transactional opportunity. But Justin is such a down-to-earth guy, and I trust him to really educate Jax. Justin is more like a guy that can help him understand the landscape and the business side of things and can also help filter because I can’t imagine what a distraction this could be for some kids when people are saying he needs to do this appearance or do this or that, and he really just wants to play basketball. Jaxon doesn’t really care about money, which is awesome.

SM: So after the Iverson all-star game and the week of practices in Memphis, you said Jax was getting a lot of attention from agents. That must have been unexpected and interesting to navigate those waters.

Kohler: Yes it was interesting, all right. I know that Jaxon is a Top 50 type of athlete but he is also very, very unique in who he is. He is a different type of talent, with the type of talent that you don’t see anymore with the skill set that he has. As people start to see him in person, it makes Jaxon a lot more attractive for sure because the scouting reports that are out there from high school don’t really do him any justice in my opinion.

So the great thing about the Iverson camp was during the practices you had every NBA team watching. He had a really, really good week there.

SM: When agencies began showing strong interest in Jaxon, what was that process like?

Kohler: I had had some conversations with guys prior to the Iverson event. It was one of those things where they said ‘We would love to sit down and talk with you at some point.’

With Justin, we went to breakfast with him in Memphis and sat down with him for a couple of hours and went over all of this. Being that we know him and he’s a very sincere and genuine guy and not an overly-transactional relationship kind of guy, he really cares about the kid.

After the Iverson event and all the phone calls that came in, we decided since we had such a great feeling and great interaction with Justin, that pairing those two together was the right thing to do.

Even as of last night (Monday night) I was getting two text messages from individuals who wanted to sit down and do a Zoom and tell us, ‘Here’s what we can offer you’ kind of stuff.

SM: So a contract has been signed and Helium is going to be representing Jaxon? That’s factual, right?

Kohler: Yes, that’s factual.

SM: Congratulations on that. Forbes.com reported that the deal could potentially be worth six figures. I don’t know anything about these contracts and how the NIL landscape is navigated, but I’m guessing that Helium gives a signing bonus, and then Helium is going to help Jaxon find NIL opportunities and then Helium is going to take a percentage. Do I have the right idea about how that works?

Kohler: Yes.

SM: When Helium was talking about NIL opportunities, is that going to be local and state-wide as well as maybe national social media type of things? What kind of things have been discussed?

Kohler: All of the above. Justin says that he has local and national brands that he works with, and in anticipation of getting Jaxon signed up he told them, ‘Hey, I’ve got this kid. I think he’s a unique talent. I just wanted to see if there is interest.’

It sounded like there was interest on a local and a national level. I don’t know what that looks like, who becomes a best fit and so forth but that’s where Jaxon and Justin will start sitting down and going to work on what they want, what they agree to move forward on, or pass on.

SM: Helium is based out of Detroit. Did that have an impact?

Kohler: Justin being in Detroit and being that close to Jaxon and planning to be over there when needed was a huge plus as well.

Justin was a college athlete (played football at Illinois before transferring to Howard) so he knows a little bit of what it was like prior to NIL and I think he can help him maximize things.

SM: This is a new frontier for everybody. What feedback have you gotten from Tom Izzo about all of this?

Kohler: I talked to Coach Izzo about it and I said I think it’s best if I get somebody else involved with Jaxon because Jaxon doesn’t want to sacrifice any attention from what he is doing on the court. He doesn’t want to get distracted by this, and that’s why I thought Justin was such a great fit. I said that I wanted to make sure that they (Michigan State basketball) didn’t have any problem with this. I know NIL is probably more of a distraction to some of these college coaches than anything and the last thing that we wanted to do was any sort of distraction for Jaxon or the coaches. But they loved the idea of Jaxon having someone else that can handle it for him and someone that’s local, and they seemed totally fine with it.

SM: You played basketball at the mid-major level if I’m not mistaken, right?

Kohler: Yes, I walked on at Utah Valley but I quit pretty quickly because we found out we were expecting Jaxon. I didn’t stay around too long.

SM: But you know a little bit about the college game, more than most. What do you think about all of this, and with Jaxon being one of the first delving into this with the new NIL rules, and how it will go over in a locker room setting, joining an established team with some of the publicity that is coming from this and how it relates to teammates and so forth?

Kohler: I have a couple of thoughts about it. Number one, Jaxon wants to be known more for who he is and his abilities on the court more than the transactional side of all this. But I’ll tell you this: One of the reasons that Michigan State was such a no-brainer in terms of fit was the way that the team embraced him. I think this will be a very, very tight-knit team next year. I think the chemistry will be amazing.

The way they all knew who he was and the way they were excited to get him as part of the team resonated with me because I remember when I walked on to a college basketball team, those guys were taking shots at you. They think that you’re more of a threat. But these kids treated him like he was more of an asset, that he could help them. The chemistry and camaraderie there was very unique.

I told Jaxon, ‘If I were you, that would be a huge reason where I’d want to play. How am I going to fit in? Am I going to get along with these guys?’ And of course, playing for Tom Izzo. Not only can he make you better on the court but he makes these guys become better men off the court, too.

SM: We have to wait and see how Jaxon’s career develops, but with the money that is being talked about with NIL, we are entering an era in which some players who are borderline draft prospect can make more money in college than if they end up in the G League. Rather than a lot of players racing to be one-and-dones, do you think we will see more borderline players spend another year in college because of the money that is available to college players now? Do you have any thoughts about that yet?

Kohler: I am watching some of these kids that have a really, really strong NIL presence deciding to stay. That could be one of the things that keeps some of these kids from getting lost in the G League or overseas. Another year of development at this level is so big. I can see the kids that are motivated by that and I really respect the decision to come back and make some NIL money in college, but with Jaxon money is not really on his radar. But we are trying to work on that; you’re becoming an adult, maximize what you can.

But he just wants to get in the gym and play and get better.

If you were to talk to my son, he would tell you that playing at Michigan State, the least important thing to him right now would be the money. It’s great to take advantage of the opportunity if it’s there. But for that kid in particular, it’s not going to be what dictates decisions. If they gave him a six figure salary, it would sit in his bank, he would deal with it at the right time.

I’m trying to tell him, too, that you have to treat this as a career. You never know what’s going to happen. You have to understand the business side of it a little better. He’s like, ‘Okay dad, okay dad. Let me go hit the gym now.’

SM: Our readers are probably wondering about the six figures that Forbes wrote about, so I would like to clarify things a little bit. I assume that means that Helium has tested some avenues and they suspect he could draw that kind of compensation from various advertisers and so forth.

Kohler: Yes.

SM: When they talked about six figures, did they specify whether they meant over the course of his college career, or in year one?

Kohler: I think that was more associated with near-term. That’s kind of what I gathered.

Every time you get Jaxon in front of NBA scouts, they realize that he is kind of a throwback talent. Every time that he goes out in front of some of these groups, they see that he has kind of a unique skill set that can be hard to guard.

Justin told me that because of Jax’s personality and the uniqueness of his game, and that skilled big men are hard to come by, he thinks early on his stock might go up quite a bit.

SM: I saw video of Jaxon on social media working on defensive slides while going uphill in sand. I thought that looked pretty awesome, and a great thing for him to be working on in terms of lateral movement and what’s needed in order to play ball screen defense and so forth. Is he working with sports-specific trainers, or does his high school, Southern California Academy, provide that? It looks like he is doing some sophisticated stuff.

Kohler: Yeah, he is working with three individuals, all of which are training NBA athletes. He has three different guys that he sees; one for shooting, one for skills and one for the physical development.

SM: Did you seek them out, or did the school provide those?

Kohler: That was me. His high school coach is an elite skill developer. The reason that we picked that school was because of that. Through that, one of this assistants does remarkable things with speed and agility, which has helped Jaxon immensely. And the other guy comes highly-touted from a lot of kids and parents that Jaxon knows that have used him in the past.

SM: If you don’t mind me asking, you ended up paying for the trainers?

Kohler: I don’t mind at all. I paid for one trainer specifically. The other two, he had access to because he played for that high school team.

SM: What feedback have you gotten from Tom Izzo about Jaxon’s senior season and the Iverson event? What have you heard from Michigan State coaches about Jaxon’s progress?

Kohler: I think they are really, really pleased. I think they realize that he is a lot more ready than a lot of freshmen coming in might be. He spent a year practicing against guys that are going to end up in the league. He had a national schedule, playing against kids that you are going to see become one-and-dones. I think he is a lot more prepared for all of this than some people might think.

Coach Izzo came out and said they are going to go with nine (scholarship players) and not use all 13 scholarships. They didn’t really go after another four/five in the transfer portal.

The reason Jaxon went to the prep school in California is because he wanted to play as a freshman in college. That was his only goal. He could have been here at home (in Utah), enjoying time with the family. But instead he went out West to get the training, to get the physical development so that he would have a better chance of playing.

I think them (Michigan State) not maneuvering into the transfer portal when (Julius) Marble left, I think that’s because Jaxon is going to get some pretty good opportunities to show what he can do.