You might have seen his city-centric creations on Denver quarterback Bo Nix, Dolphins signal caller Tua Tagovailoa, or Bucs starter Baker Mayfield.
Perhaps you’ve noticed them on Pro Bowl wide receiver Mike Evans or Offensive Player of the Year candidate Bijan Robinson. Or maybe, just a few weeks ago, you saw how Broncos kicker Will Lutz was wearing one in the locker room after hitting the game-winning field goal against the Giants.
This is Blnk Slate, BYU student Micah Wilson’s fledgling hat brand that already counts some of the NFL’s biggest and best among its growing legion of fans, and not just because his older brother Zach is in the league.
“It’s just been a crazy journey,” Wilson told Sports Illustrated in an exclusive interview. “But I’m excited [with] where it’s at right now. It’s really cool.”
The origins
The lightbulb moment happened last fall. Having recently ended his football career due to injury, Wilson was spending his newfound free time working a fulfillment job at a company called Fishskyn, where he helped scale the business and ship out product.
But just before the BYU-Utah game that October—a near-annual contest also known as “the Holy War”—the ever-entrepreneurial Wilson, now well-versed in the business world, pivoted his focus toward a different idea: making hats for him and his buddies to wear for the occasion.
“I had one Utah hat and one BYU hat that I just kind of did for fun,” he explained of the concept's earliest moments. “I was making them the whole month before [the Holy War game], just for myself and some friends, and they really liked them.”
Given the response, Wilson figured he should try to sell his creations, boldly planning to ask each school for forgiveness (rather than permission) should licensing or royalties become a problem.
He made 100 hats total—50 for each program. And he sold them all in less than a day.
With that, a brand was born. Blnk Slate, as Wilson would call it, would officially launch in December 2024, once he got the proper licensing from both the Cougars and the Utes. And soon, the product was in the hands of players at each school.
“My younger brother plays at Utah,” Wilson explained, “so when I got the Utah license, it made it really easy to get it out to those players and those coaches. And then same thing with me at BYU.”
“And then it's just kind of blown up from there.”
Breaking into the NFL
What Wilson couldn’t have imagined, however, is how popular the hats would become in the world of professional football, where his brother, Miami quarterback Zach Wilson, has helped disseminate the product among some of the league’s biggest stars.
In one notable instance, former Broncos punter Riley Dixon—who had received a Blnk Slate hat from Wilson while Zach was with Denver—inquired about getting some caps to share with his new teammates down in Tampa Bay. Micah was happy to help, and designed and sent about 30 hats to the Bucs facility.
“Within two weeks ... I see Mike Evans wearing it in the next press conference,” Wilson recalled. “I'm like, holy crap, that's huge. And then I see [Emeka] Egbuka wearing it in his next press conference the same day, and I'm like, holy crap, those are two of the best receivers in the NFL. [Egbuka] is gonna win Rookie of the Year. It's crazy.”
It was a sequence of events that felt particularly sweet, considering the word of mouth involved.
“I don’t know them,” Wilson said, “and I don’t think Zach knows any of them either. So it was even better. ... These players just actually like them.”
Of course, it’s been just as great when the more obvious connections have shown support, too. In September, for example, Tagovailoa was photographed rolling up to a game wearing one of Wilson’s creations: a white hat with a blue brim and an orange “Miami” written in old-school script across the front.
“Tua was really cool,” Micah said of the moment, smiling. “It was great.”
These days, guys around the league are DMing him about his creations, asking how they can get their hands on a hat, he told Sports Illustrated. Designs for Atlanta, Denver, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Miami and Tampa Bay are already live online, but Wilson hopes to have at least one offering for each city with an NFL team by Black Friday. That last bit is a key piece of the puzzle; he understands that he can't use team monikers and official logos without proper licensing, so he leans into locale instead.
“I'm sure they could get mad at me if they really wanted to,” he joked, referring to all the front offices, NFL and otherwise, that could come after him. “Hopefully they don't want to, but it's worked great so far.”
An entrepreneurial spirit
That he has created a business comes as no shock to Wilson, who has always considered himself a self-starter. In one particularly illuminating anecdote, he explained how, in middle school, he used to buy fidget spinners from wholesalers and then sell them to his friends.
“I used to think that was the coolest thing ever,” Wilson declared, detailing how he would excitedly calculate the margins, determining how much he’d need to sell to recoup his original investment. “I've always just been more passionate about this kind of stuff, anyway.”
And good thing, too, because running Blnk Slate is no walk in the park. Not only is Wilson the sole business owner, investor and product designer, with operations headquartered out of a small warehouse in Utah, but he’s also still a full-time student.
“I'm usually in here by myself for most of it,” he said of the workload, though he does still get help from family and friends. “I do as much as I can, just because it is bootstrapped and I love it anyway, even if I'm in here packing up boxes for five hours a day. It’s hurting myself with my own success, but it's what I wanted. When I started, I would pray to get this many orders a day. Now that I have it, it’s great.”
His grand vision for Blnk Slate, a name chosen for its breadth of meaning, is intentionally open-ended. Down the line, he could see himself expanding into different clothing items or even different leagues, and hopes to formally partner with as many schools, programs and franchises as he can. Depending on how things go, there’s even a chance the brand is acquired.
For now, though, he’s just enjoying the ride.
“It really is so fun,” he said. “There's nothing cooler [than] when I come in and I print out a stack of labels and I'm like, ‘Oh my God. I can't believe there's this many people [buying hats]. There's no way.’ It's the coolest thing ever. ... And then I see my account grow and I'm like, ‘Wow, I built this by myself. I built this.’ It’s really cool to feel.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Meet Micah Wilson's Blnk Slate, the Hat Brand Taking Over the NFL.