Hello, friends.

Do you remember when the NCAA finally relented in the summer of 2021? Under immense pressure, it did a 180 to allow college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness.

This changed the life of Cayden Henschel, a wrestler at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside who can cash in as a creator with over one million followers across all platforms.

You can follow Henschel on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter.

Let’s dig in.

The Grind

This is not an overnight success story by any means.

Henschel began uploading videos seven years ago, all the way back in high school. He found himself no longer watching TV, instead drifting toward YouTubers like PewDiePie and Smosh. Vlog-style content appealed to him, so he started his own channel focused on wrestling and travel-centric vlogs. A total of 72 videos, 425 subscribers and 8.5 months in, YouTube terminated the channel for reasons unknown to Henschel. Undeterred, the high schooler launched another channel.

At that time, Henschel was mostly fueled with passion and youthful exuberance – not the desire for money that (very) understandably motivates so many in the space nowadays. Nobody in the wrestling community at that time was doing what he wanted to see as a viewer. For what he estimates as the first four years and 350-400 videos, Henschel made no money off his content. 

Henschel describes the grind as “really hard.” And yet, he remained both prolific and consistent in his uploads without any monetary reward for years.

His North Star: Henschel’s main goal is still to make content that his younger self would see as cool. Henschel tells me, “My younger self would be a fan of who I am today, and that's what I strive to be in my content.”

The NCAA’s Rule Change

Several years prior to Henschel entering college, the NCAA – due to its archaic rules – effectively axed the careers of two prominent creators. In the middle of last decade, the NCAA made both Deestroying and Ryan Trahan choose between pursuing their creator dreams on YouTube or college athletics. It was absurd at the time, and remains absurd years later. Faced with a brutal decision, both opted to be creators over continuing their athletic careers.

Henschel spent one year in college unable to make money off his name, image and likeness. But that changed in September of 2021 when the NCAA finally made it permissible for college athletes to profit off their NIL.

For Henschel, everything changed.

“There was a time when I was going into college where I didn't have enough money to pay for a car,” Henschel tells me. “I didn't have enough money to pay for my first semester of college. My parents were kind of freaking out.”

He had worked a factory job that he “legit hated” at one point for about a month. In his mind knowing the following he had accrued, he needed to make money on YouTube and knew that he could – if the NCAA allowed it.

Thankfully by the time he arrived on campus for his second year at Wisconsin-Parkside, his timelines had converged. Not only had the NCAA changed its rules, but his audience was large enough to begin to profit.

“(The NCAA rule change) really put down the floodgates of what opportunities are open for me,” Henschel says. “Not even just as an athlete, but just being D-II. There's no alumni or program paying me to wrestle here necessarily. But it allows me to work on my business and really take that to another level.”

An impossible decision avoided: To Henschel, there is no doubt that he would have had to choose between being a creator or a college wrestler had the NIL rules not changed. Had they not, he (quite literally) could not have afforded to upload videos and cultivate a community without making any money while also chasing a national title on the mats and doing well in school. The timing could not have been better.

Financial Milestones

When the NCAA changed its NIL rules in 2021, Henschel had just under 80K YouTube subscribers. He has nearly doubled in subscribers each subsequent year:

• June 2022: 120K

• June 2023: 235K

• June 2024: 419K

As the following grew, so did the realization of what he had created. Henschel’s biggest oh-crap moment came around the end of 2022. His December check just from YouTube’s AdSense program? Over $10,000.

“I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is more than I made my entire life combined,’” Henschel says. “After that, it was knowing that holy cow, I can actually do this. I can actually make something of this.”

By now, Henschel can see his hard work paying off. Already, he has paid off his college tuition, including his upcoming final year. His car – which he couldn’t afford to buy when he entered college – is paid off. He has no debt and already has “a decent bit” stored away for retirement. 

In 2023, Henschel brought in six figures as a creator for the first time in a calendar year. 

Inside the Content + Business

Henschel is thankful to have begun his creator journey on YouTube for a multitude of reasons:

1. It’s his personal favorite platform, and always has been.

2. Most new creators view long-form videos as more difficult than short-form. 

3. An initial focus on long-form content gave him insight into how to optimize videos and understand audience retention.

Now, he is reaping the rewards, as YouTube is a huge source of his creator-based money. YouTube’s AdSense program accounts for approximately 50% of Henschel’s revenue, he tells me.

Wrestling season: From October to March, Henschel is at his peak, both from a content production and viewership number perspective. Wrestling season brings the best out of him as a creator, with natural content moments, such as dual meets. And brings a larger audience. The big question for Henschel? How to best grab a wrestling-centric audience during the wrestling offseason. To address that, he’s working to have a more consistent content schedule.

Brands coming calling: Most of the other half of Henschel’s money comes from inbound brand deals. Many are monthly deals with companies, such as Fiverr, Hello Fresh and Manscaped, coming to him for promotion. Lately, for example, he’s working with RYSE Supplements. Henschel balances the money he can make from brand deals with avoiding promoting anything and everything.

The podcast: Last year, Henschel and his roommate and teammate Crosby Schlosser started a podcast, Clash of Combat. Henschel admits that it’s a large time investment, but it’s just another way he’s trying to attract a year-round audience. Plus, he’s entrusting the editing and social media clipping to Schlosser, who used to have a YouTube channel of his own.

What’s Next?

So far, Henschel’s favorite piece of content he has ever produced is the pinnacle of his wrestling career: Winning a state title in high school. With one year remaining in college, he has a chance to one-up that with a Division II national championship.

For the next year, Henschel will be working toward that achievement on the mats. And because of that, he’ll have plenty of content to produce – along with some other exciting ventures, such as his own wrestling shoes.

What comes after that? Upon graduation, Henschel plans to become a full-time creator.

He looks at someone like Ryan Trahan who – though once a college runner – isn’t defined by his sport. It may not be easy for Henschel, he admits, but it helps to see Trahan.

“Just knowing that you can still have a future not in your sport and be successful at something, he's one guy I really look up to a lot,” Henschel says.

A big thank you to Cayden for sharing his journey with Creating Sports! If this is your first time reading Creating Sports, please subscribe. It matters.

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Talk soon,

Colin