I think there is a significant portion of the fans that just think there is this massive group of multimillionaires out there just begging to throw a shit ton of cash towards this and my little $25-$100 doesn’t matter, so why bother, and they end up passing altogether.
Truth is 1) there aren’t nearly as many of those donors out there as you might expect, and 2) those people can also get tapped out and may be donating to the university, the AD directly, or other charitable foundations and there’s not nearly as many as people think. If 20% of the people that think that way would chip in their “measly” $20/month, that’s significant progress.
Long term success has got to be a result of big whales that currently don’t understand or agree with NIL to get on board, crowd funding from smaller donors, AND corporate sponsors. I bet you could find one of those three at most universities, two of the three at a dozen or two, and all three at maybe only a handful of universities in the country, including Texas. Only maybe Oregon and Arkansas with Nike/Walmart money could pull it off with just big money guys and that’s because they have donors with fuck you money/fortune 100 companies.
My personal opinion is that poor timing is a major factor too with record inflation, consumer credit card debt soaring, increasing taxes at all levels etc. I think if this pursuit and NIL kicked off prior to Covid we’d get a shit ton more $ thrown at it. At least all universities fan bases are dealing with that for the most part.