NIL Recruiting News Megathread

[LCHorn 2750]

Just now, BigHorn'13 said:

Oh for sure. I think that's also where something like private equity might come into play, as well, though I still don't get how PE would get the ROI.

I don’t know why PE would get involved unless it was in exchange for a piece of the media rights, and that would be at the conference level.  

[BigHorn'13 3494]

5 minutes ago, HateYouAndMyself said:

This change is going to be bad for Texas initially. Our advantage in NIL is not going to come anywhere close to making up for the shortfall we will face comparative to teams that specialize their funding in specific sports. Football will be fine and likely maintain its edge but our other sports are a bit fucked. 

Imagine how Vanderbilt will approach the revenue sharing. What are their options? Put 10M towards a football team with no players worth paying and no hopes of winning either way? Or do they go put 15M towards baseball and a build a super team filled with a dozen future first round picks? Even if they still do put a few million towards football, basketball and women's athletics to take care of the few high quality kids they have the lion share of that funding is going to the one sport in which they can actually compete. There are plenty of other baseball focused programs out there that can do the same. Even non power conference programs that only have 10-12M total to disperse can double the realistic budget Texas will have for baseball as we struggle to try and take care of all the major sports at once. Texas is not going to become one of the poors but we aren't going to be anywhere close to that top tier of baseball spender. 

Same deal with basketball. Texas might at most put how much towards basketball? 3-4 million tops? Yes we can supplement that with NIL and we have had tremendous support for the basketball program recently but it isn't going to make up the gap between ourselves and those who make that sport their top priority. I'm not even talking the blue bloods that kick our ass in recruiting and the portal anyway. A school like Indiana for example can easily justify and afford to put 10-12M a year of that 21M cap into just basketball. Even if we can double our direct school budget for the sport with NIL it isn't going to give us an edge any longer. Not when you have a couple dozen mid tier programs putting that same amount into the pot due to direct school funding and prioritization. In the long run Texas will have much healthier athletic program but in the short term you are going to have a bunch of new bidders suddenly able to compete at the same level as you for mercenary recruits and portal talent. 

Even football will not go unscathed. Lets say we put a few million into basketball, a bit into baseball and the obligatory million or two into women's athletics that optics will require. Sure we might still be left with ~15M going towards football but there are programs like OU that will probably put basically the entire 21M just into football. We literally watched them pillage their women's athletics NIL fund in order to get Williams secured a few weeks ago. Football will still in great financial shape for us but this change is going to cut into our edge we have over teams that just currently can not compete with us due to a lack of NIL funding. They will just sacrifice other sports to try to close the gap. 

TLDR Football at Texas will be fine but sports like basketball and baseball are absolutely fucked once this revenue sharing begins and a lot of teams just decide to focus on one specific sport other than football. In the long run I fully expect some stricter guidelines in place as to how that revenue gets distributed, to make sure most of it goes to football (who actually generates the damn revenue) but until that happens it is going to be absolutely wild watching certain teams be bold and just specialize into a single sport to try and buy titles while the window of opportunity exists. 

 

One problem with your thesis, you're forgetting about title 9. I think that would be problematic to give a certain sport more than another. 

[Bodacious Bevo 3691]

1 hour ago, statsman said:

This is the only part I disagree with. Your statement is true for Texas and the handful of schools in a similar financial position. 
 
For the other 100 FBS schools, that can’t scrape together $10M per year for football through a collective, this is a godsend. Now, they get to tap into university funding, instead of soliciting donors (although that will still happen for NIL). All they have to do is weather political criticism for state and national funding paying for football players (which they have always had to do, to a much lesser extent). 
 
Spelling it out- let’s take UH as an example. Suppose their annual AD spending exactly matches all their revenue. Do you have any doubt that, now that it is allowed, they will budget $20M for athletes’ pay? I don’t. Where will the money come from, if revenue doesn’t increase? I believe it will come from the school. Does anyone believe that UH’s AD would say, “We’d like to spend the $20M for our athletes, but we don’t have the money, so we won’t. We’ll just let those players go to TCU and Baylor.”? I don’t. 

This isn't how universities work. They're not going to quickly and casually shift $20M in funding. Most of their funds are already going to be encumbered through August at the very least and budgets will mostly be set for the following fiscal year. The AD is not the decision maker for the entire university budget. Many universities will not choose to shift such a large chunk of their revenue away from academics. Grants are a huge part of academic revenue and doing so will put them at a competitive disadvantage for applying. The schools that choose to shift money from academics to players will need some time to do so. It'll be a couple seasons.

If it were to happen, I imagine it will mostly be cuts to AD positions and capital projects. Or it will be a result of increased donations from people that didn't like paying NIL to players but are open to doing it through this. 

Edited May 24 by Bodacious Bevo

[LCHorn 2750]

1 minute ago, Bodacious Bevo said:

If it were to happen, I imagine it will mostly be cuts to AD positions and capital projects. Or it will be a result of increased donations from people that didn't like paying NIL to players but are open to doing it through this. 

This is what I think-in the short term it’s all going to be donations because most universities aren’t sitting on $20m they have freedom to distribute.  Maybe this helps rich private schools and large public schools with established networks of donors and hollows out the middle class.  
 

It’s definitely gonna to create drama as stakeholders fight over it-particularly if it’s football taking from non-revenue sports.  

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

I'd bet these types of donations back to the university will be part of the athlete revenue sharing instead moving forward.

 

https://news.utexas.edu/topics-in-the-news/athletics-spending/

[Park Gothic 5373]

Do none of y'all watch MAC games on Tuesday night in November? 

Don't get me wrong, I love UT football but I also like college football more generally. To the extent this new system elevates the super leagues into something new and lowers everything else down a level from what it currently is, it seems unfortunate. There's always been divisions in college football, but they were divisions in the same larger arena of the sport. I don't want to see the P2 split with the other P2/G5 in something similar to the FBS - FCS split back in the 70's. 

I'll still watch, of course. But the football sicko in me is a bit worried. 

Edited May 24 by Park Gothic

[BornAndRaised 12871]

I appreciate the discussion in this, and to Immamac for weighing in. I guess when I heard that the $20m was a hard limit, I assumed that it would just turn into black market payments. Definitely makes sense that NIL will still just be the icing on the cake with athletes getting compensated directly from the school as well. Uncharted territory for sure. I do agree that I feel like there will be less parity, though it feels like its largely been the BIG10 and the SEC at the top for the longest time. The only interesting games we were getting were the odd week 5 upset. 

[statsman 5691]

1 hour ago, Bodacious Bevo said:

This isn't how universities work. They're not going to quickly and casually shift $20M in funding. Most of their funds are already going to be encumbered through August at the very least and budgets will mostly be set for the following fiscal year. The AD is not the decision maker for the entire university budget. Many universities will not choose to shift such a large chunk of their revenue away from academics. Grants are a huge part of academic revenue and doing so will put them at a competitive disadvantage for applying. The schools that choose to shift money from academics to players will need some time to do so. It'll be a couple seasons.

If it were to happen, I imagine it will mostly be cuts to AD positions and capital projects. Or it will be a result of increased donations from people that didn't like paying NIL to players but are open to doing it through this. 

The big unknown is how the $20M is to be allotted. Is it a Title IX style even spread across all sports, men’s and women’s? Or do schools get to allocate unevenly, based on revenue from each sport?

If it’s the former, schools may decide that they’re not going into the roll for $20M each year so they can give 75% to non-revenue sports. If it’s the latter, I expect a bunch of dicey accounting to basically have the university pay it. Which is what schools do now when they do their annual federal filings about revenue and expenses. 
 
Football drives the AD budgets. Schools don’t have to make money annually on athletics; it’s an economic winner long term. It keeps boosters engaged and giving, even to academic efforts, even at schools much smaller than UT. 
 
Texas is one of a handful of schools where competitive funding of football at the highest level isn’t a problem. For the vast majority of FBS, they have been seeking a way to use university general funds to pay players, and now they have it. 

[immamac 44319]

20M for a baseline for all athletes then a collective NIL on top of that is honestly the best thing for it vs trying to convince a bunch of normal fans to give 5, 10, 20, 50 bucks a month to Texas One Fund or Burnt Ends like things. It's a much more natural transaction to just give money to the university or have the ticket price go up by x and that x just goes to the athletes than it is to convince people and educate them on NIL and then send them a coupon for their taxes that they don't care about or send them shirts, magnets, cups or whatever like Burnt Ends. No one gave a shit about the merch they just wanted to pay the players. 

This will actually help the pure NIL opportunities because it'll unmuddy the waters a bit which will be nice. 

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

17 minutes ago, immamac said:

20M for a baseline for all athletes then a collective NIL on top of that is honestly the best thing for it vs trying to convince a bunch of normal fans to give 5, 10, 20, 50 bucks a month to Texas One Fund or Burnt Ends like things. It's a much more natural transaction to just give money to the university or have the ticket price go up by x and that x just goes to the athletes than it is to convince people and educate them on NIL and then send them a coupon for their taxes that they don't care about or send them shirts, magnets, cups or whatever like Burnt Ends. No one gave a shit about the merch they just wanted to pay the players. 

This will actually help the pure NIL opportunities because it'll unmuddy the waters a bit which will be nice. 

I never got my cup fwiw.

[HateYouAndMyself 828]

Just to provide additional clarity and information to those that are curious about the settlement:

Where the fuck did that 22M number come from?

That 22M figure being thrown around is such because the average power conference athletic program's revenues have been 100M over the past few years. So 22% of the 100M = a 22M cap. That number will adjust naturally based on how power conference revenues fluctuate each year. They decided upon 22% because scholarship costs and other athlete benefits currently come out to being about 28% of your average power conference program's revenue. Scholarships being around 16M. So they didn't just pull the 22% number out of their ass; it pushes the split of athletic program revenue going to athletes to be roughly an even split at 50%. 

There are also some built in escalators where the cap increases by like 4% each year but it was confusing how they worded it. It sounds like that is a 4% increase over the actual dollar amount (the 22M) rather than meaning that in year two it would become 26% of the average revenue. I assume that yearly 4% increase in the actual dollar value of the cap is done to combat inflation. 

 

 

Will Title IX apply? 

Short answer is no. Not if the schools involved are smart. All that matters is that the funds equaling that 22% end up in the pockets of players. The method used is irrelevant to the terms of the settlement. The loophole that has essentially been created here in conjunction with the ruling of protected NIL rights for athletes is that schools can enter into likeness usage agreements with specific players and essentially pay them whatever they view to be fair. Title IX has no involvement in this. If Texas thinks that using the likeness of Ewers to advertise our program justifies giving him 3 million a year we can do so. Without issue. It doesn't mandate we then find some female athletes or members of other sports and likewise buy their rights for equal total amount. There are plenty of people on Surly who can explain this better than I can but I imagine they are probably keeping tight lipped about how Texas specifically plans to attack this issue until it is actually in motion. The NCAA's stance on the issue so far has been strongly against Title IX having any application to compensation of these athletes and that so long as equal opportunity is provided for male and female athletes to show their value to the program Title IX is satisfied. 

Really we won't have a concrete answer till the department of education rules on it but pretty much every competent lawyer who specializes in that area seems to think regardless of if Title IX is mandated to apply it will quickly be struck down in a court challenge. 

 

[Tex-19 3013]

imo this is just the next step towards college football becoming a minor-league NFL. NIL and collectives still matter but the playing field will be much more level. Think about the NFL - why doesn't every free agent go to NYC or LA? Why don't random fans donate money for player salaries? Because the money directly from the team is the biggest factor by far.

What's interesting is to see how different schools allocate the $20mm. First of all, no one seems to know for sure if Title IX applies yet. Beyond that, do some schools go all-in on smaller sports (ie Duke with basketball, Vandy with baseball) or do those same schools use this as an opportunity to actually get good at football (ie Duke/Vandy putting all $20m to football would suddenly make them a serious contender). 

As for the "where will schools get the money from when their athletic departments are losing money" question...schools will just lose more money in athletics and subsidize it from other places. Sticking with Duke and Vandy examples, both are small schools with endowments in the $10 billion range. $20mm/year is a drop in the bucket, especially if it is partially offset by additional revenue from winning.

Bottom line - this feels like a complete ground-shift in the college sports landscape. We're gonna see random P5 schools suddenly pop up as contenders in a variety of sports depending on how each one decides to allocate this.

[Texas Wahoo 3631]

25 minutes ago, HateYouAndMyself said:

Just to provide additional clarity and information to those that are curious about the settlement:

Where the fuck did that 22M number come from?

That 22M figure being thrown around is such because the average power conference athletic program's revenues have been 100M over the past few years. So 22% of the 100M = a 22M cap. That number will adjust naturally based on how power conference revenues fluctuate each year. They decided upon 22% because scholarship costs and other athlete benefits currently come out to being about 28% of your average power conference program's revenue. Scholarships being around 16M. So they didn't just pull the 22% number out of their ass; it pushes the split of athletic program revenue going to athletes to be roughly an even split at 50%. 

There are also some built in escalators where the cap increases by like 4% each year but it was confusing how they worded it. It sounds like that is a 4% increase over the actual dollar amount (the 22M) rather than meaning that in year two it would become 26% of the average revenue. I assume that yearly 4% increase in the actual dollar value of the cap is done to combat inflation. 

 

 

Will Title IX apply? 

Short answer is no. Not if the schools involved are smart. All that matters is that the funds equaling that 22% end up in the pockets of players. The method used is irrelevant to the terms of the settlement. The loophole that has essentially been created here in conjunction with the ruling of protected NIL rights for athletes is that schools can enter into likeness usage agreements with specific players and essentially pay them whatever they view to be fair. Title IX has no involvement in this. If Texas thinks that using the likeness of Ewers to advertise our program justifies giving him 3 million a year we can do so. Without issue. It doesn't mandate we then find some female athletes or members of other sports and likewise buy their rights for equal total amount. There are plenty of people on Surly who can explain this better than I can but I imagine they are probably keeping tight lipped about how Texas specifically plans to attack this issue until it is actually in motion. The NCAA's stance on the issue so far has been strongly against Title IX having any application to compensation of these athletes and that so long as equal opportunity is provided for male and female athletes to show their value to the program Title IX is satisfied. 

Really we won't have a concrete answer till the department of education rules on it but pretty much every competent lawyer who specializes in that area seems to think regardless of if Title IX is mandated to apply it will quickly be struck down in a court challenge. 

 

I'm not sure if you wrote this or copied it from somewhere, but I think the conclusion of Title IX not applying is far from certain.  And the last part about competent lawyers is definitely not correct.

As just one example, see https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2023/12/lawsuit-with-claim-of-unequal-access-to-nil-opportunities-raises.

Quote

NIL and Publicity Under Title IX

NIL opportunities likely fall under Title IX's purview. The base of NIL is publicity rights. The equivalence for men and women of "access to publicity" is a factor relevant to determining whether an institution's athletics program complies with Title IX. (See 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(c)(10)). Thus, any NIL benefit generated by an institution would trigger Title IX compliance concerns via an extension of the equal opportunity for publicity requirements. An allegation of unequal access to NIL opportunities may, in turn, form the basis for a Title IX claim as seen in the University of Oregon lawsuit. The 1979 "Policy Interpretation: Title IX and Intercollegiate Athletics" published by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights provides:

[Title IX] [c]ompliance with regard to publicity will be assessed by examining, among other factors, the equivalence for men and women of:

(1) Availability and quality of sports information personnel;

(2) Access to other publicity resources for men's and women's programs; and

(3) Quantity and quality of publications and other promotional devices featuring men's and women's programs[.]

44 Fed. Reg. 71417 (emphasis added)

An institution or an agent under its direction and control assisting its athletes with securing NIL deals may be considered a "publicity resource" or "promotional device." Therefore, an institution must have a careful evaluation of the legal structure supporting its NIL program or prepare for defending its program's compliance.  

This was about the access to NIL opportunities when the schools were not even handling NIL.  It's much closer to an NIL issue now that schools will apparently be paying it out themselves.

[Da Fino 2820]

29 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

I never got my cup fwiw.

There were cups?

[Bodacious Bevo 3691]

51 minutes ago, statsman said:

The big unknown is how the $20M is to be allotted. Is it a Title IX style even spread across all sports, men’s and women’s? Or do schools get to allocate unevenly, based on revenue from each sport?

If it’s the former, schools may decide that they’re not going into the roll for $20M each year so they can give 75% to non-revenue sports. If it’s the latter, I expect a bunch of dicey accounting to basically have the university pay it. Which is what schools do now when they do their annual federal filings about revenue and expenses. 
 
Football drives the AD budgets. Schools don’t have to make money annually on athletics; it’s an economic winner long term. It keeps boosters engaged and giving, even to academic efforts, even at schools much smaller than UT. 
 
Texas is one of a handful of schools where competitive funding of football at the highest level isn’t a problem. For the vast majority of FBS, they have been seeking a way to use university general funds to pay players, and now they have it. 

I work in the UT system. The idea of "dicey accounting" is crazy. All budget related procedures (purchases, reimbursements, moving funds, etc.) are set by law and reviewed by disinterested third parties. Earlier this week I had an expense report kicked back because I typed 58 instead of 85 one one line item out of fifty, so my mileage was off by 30. If you want to look at all of UT's accounting procedures you can do so here.

The sketchiness around college sports money has largely resided in the black market that is now being pushed into these regulated and public channels. Maybe at private schools that's different. And there are occasional scandals like the UT tennis coach, but that's not going to suddenly be the norm. A bunch of university administrators across the country aren't going to risk their careers to shuffle money to the football team. Some schools will move money to the AD, but it will be through normal channels and I don't think it'll happen until the 2026 season at the earliest. There's a lot of competition from different stakeholders for university funds. The AD is only one mouth that needs to be fed.

In the near future, I think this is just going to shift collective donors to the AD, change AD budgets and capital projects, and, as someone else said, increase season ticket prices. 

Edited May 24 by Bodacious Bevo

[Tex-19 3013]

1 hour ago, BornAndRaised said:

I appreciate the discussion in this, and to Immamac for weighing in. I guess when I heard that the $20m was a hard limit, I assumed that it would just turn into black market payments. Definitely makes sense that NIL will still just be the icing on the cake with athletes getting compensated directly from the school as well. Uncharted territory for sure. I do agree that I feel like there will be less parity, though it feels like its largely been the BIG10 and the SEC at the top for the longest time. The only interesting games we were getting were the odd week 5 upset. 

I think there will be way more parity. The percentage gap in payroll between the UGAs/UTs of the world and the TCUs/Northwesterns of the world is about to shrink dramatically. Same reason a small market like KC can build an NFL dynasty while the NY teams haven't won shit in years.

One question - does every P5 school HAVE to pay out the full $20mm per year? My understanding is that they do but I'm not sure. If yes, even more parity. If no, then some schools will drop further back but you'll still have some new ones pony up and become competitive.

[Bodacious Bevo 3691]

Also, the transfer portal is the elephant in the room. I don't think we can really know how this will affect the sport as a whole until there's a resolution on transfer rules. Compensation and mobility are too interrelated to look at one without the other. 

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

6 minutes ago, Bodacious Bevo said:

Also, the transfer portal is the elephant in the room. I don't think we can really know how this will affect the sport as a whole until there's a resolution on transfer rules. Compensation and mobility are too interrelated to look at one without the other. 

This.....

 

I agree with the 1 free transfer rule but now we're entering times where kids are transferring 2-3 times without any repercussions. "But coaches can leave at any time" is the lamest excuse now because coaches aren't getting jobs in January and leaving in April. 

[closetojumping 65379]

I think the simplest way to think about the future is to first realize that no one knows much of anything at the moment. Charlie Baker is considered an excellent politician and well-connected on Capitol Hill. The NCAA is going to use the payouts as proof of their goodwill with athletes and they're going to pursue anti-trust exemption. An institution that has basically violated anti-trust laws more often than Standard Oil is pushing to get an exemption going forward. If they do so, they're going to use that in an attempt to manage all forms of payment made to players and regain control of the sport. That would then fully unlock the bag game, part deux. 

The payouts are going to spread across athletes of all sports and genders. Doing otherwise would create title IX issues and open a new round of court cases that schools and the NCAA will lose. 

To be clear, $20M spread across multiple programs ain't going to cut it for competitive programs at the top. Collectives will be around for programs that like winning, unless they're somehow actually barred. Thinking otherwise is folly. This isn't the NFL. Alums aren't going to sit around and watch their rivals lure players on board and win titles. 

[Blotto 24011]

5 hours ago, statsman said:

Spelling it out- let’s take UH as an example. Suppose their annual AD spending exactly matches all their revenue. Do you have any doubt that, now that it is allowed, they will budget $20M for athletes’ pay? I don’t. Where will the money come from, if revenue doesn’t increase? I believe it will come from the school. Does anyone believe that UH’s AD would say, “We’d like to spend the $20M for our athletes, but we don’t have the money, so we won’t. We’ll just let those players go to TCU and Baylor.”? I don’t. 

 

1 hour ago, statsman said:

Texas is one of a handful of schools where competitive funding of football at the highest level isn’t a problem. For the vast majority of FBS, they have been seeking a way to use university general funds to pay players, and now they have it. 

Many schools are already 8 figures deep in allocating general funds to their athletic departments (you can a lot of data here: https://knightnewhousedata.org/)

Its funny that you mention UH, as before this ruling they are already into general funds and student fees for $48 f'n million dollars. There is a limit to how much they can tap as overall university costs/funding are a struggle. I disagree that Universities have been looking for a way to shift money into the AD....they've been doing it for years out of necessity. I'll spoiler the data to not longcat the thread, but its surprising how much some schools already have to do this. 

Spoiler

 

1 hour ago, HateYouAndMyself said:

Will Title IX apply? 

Short answer is no. Not if the schools involved are smart.

You can have an opinion, but ultimately its not the individual  schools that will make that decision. If it was up to athletic departments, there wouldn't be a Title IX in the first place. 

https://www.kxnet.com/sports/ap-with-college-athletes-on-cusp-of-revenue-sharing-there-are-title-ix-questions-that-must-be-answered/#:~:text=Michael LeRoy%2C a University of,with directing payments to athletes.

 

 

Edited May 24 by Blotto

[HateYouAndMyself 828]

1 hour ago, Texas Wahoo said:

I'm not sure if you wrote this or copied it from somewhere, but I think the conclusion of Title IX not applying is far from certain.  And the last part about competent lawyers is definitely not correct.

As just one example, see https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2023/12/lawsuit-with-claim-of-unequal-access-to-nil-opportunities-raises.

This was about the access to NIL opportunities when the schools were not even handling NIL.  It's much closer to an NIL issue now that schools will apparently be paying it out themselves.

I am aware of that case and the NIL specific claims in it are mostly asinine. Unless Oregon was specifically limiting those female athletes from being able to use their NIL collective portal to seek opportunities they really have no case. There is no rational interpretation of the publicity sections within Title IX that would somehow mandate you spend the same amount in total on licensing deals for female athletes as male even if this were being directly handled by the university (which obviously was also not the case). You have to equally help all sides put their best foot forward and make deals but if they can't find deals (because they literally have no marketable value whatsoever) that is on them. The requirement of providing equal access was met. Obviously that is just my personal opinion on the matter though and I'm sure many disagree. 

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

You really need to differentiate between revenue sharing and NIL when talking about title IX. 

[statsman 5691]

57 minutes ago, Blotto said:

 

Many schools are already 8 figures deep in allocating general funds to their athletic departments (you can a lot of data here: https://knightnewhousedata.org/)

Its funny that you mention UH, as before this ruling they are already into general funds and student fees for $48 f'n million dollars. There is a limit to how much they can tap as overall university costs/funding are a struggle. I disagree that Universities have been looking for a way to shift money into the AD....they've been doing it for years out of necessity. I'll spoiler the data to not longcat the thread, but its surprising how much some schools already have to do this. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

You can have an opinion, but ultimately its not the individual  schools that will make that decision. If it was up to athletic departments, there wouldn't be a Title IX in the first place. 

https://www.kxnet.com/sports/ap-with-college-athletes-on-cusp-of-revenue-sharing-there-are-title-ix-questions-that-must-be-answered/#:~:text=Michael LeRoy%2C a University of,with directing payments to athletes.

 

 

Solid post. I mentioned UH because I was trying to think of a program whose ambitions outpaced their reach  

 

1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

I think the simplest way to think about the future is to first realize that no one knows much of anything at the moment. Charlie Baker is considered an excellent politician and well-connected on Capitol Hill. The NCAA is going to use the payouts as proof of their goodwill with athletes and they're going to pursue anti-trust exemption. An institution that has basically violated anti-trust laws more often than Standard Oil is pushing to get an exemption going forward. If they do so, they're going to use that in an attempt to manage all forms of payment made to players and regain control of the sport. That would then fully unlock the bag game, part deux. 

The payouts are going to spread across athletes of all sports and genders. Doing otherwise would create title IX issues and open a new round of court cases that schools and the NCAA will lose. 

To be clear, $20M spread across multiple programs ain't going to cut it for competitive programs at the top. Collectives will be around for programs that like winning, unless they're somehow actually barred. Thinking otherwise is folly. This isn't the NFL. Alums aren't going to sit around and watch their rivals lure players on board and win titles. 

I agree about the danger of the NCAA regaining control. The problem with the NCAA is that it’s a democracy, and there are a hell of a lot more OSU sized programs than tOSU sized programs. Lilliputians will always try to tie down Gulliver. 

[Lone Star Horn 2071]

1 hour ago, Da Fino said:

There were cups?

Nope, no cups

 

[Park Gothic 5373]

6 minutes ago, Lone Star Horn said:

Nope, no cups

 

[LCHorn 2750]

2 hours ago, Bodacious Bevo said:

In the near future, I think this is just going to shift collective donors to the AD, change AD budgets and capital projects, and, as someone else said, increase season ticket prices. 

Ticket prices are set by demand, not labor costs…

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

29 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

Ticket prices are set by demand, not labor costs…

Ticketmaster laughs

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

 

[Bodacious Bevo 3691]

55 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

Ticket prices are set by demand, not labor costs…

I’m specifically thinking of an increase to the seat gifts for season tickets. Like a portion of the gifts get set aside for revenue sharing or something. Demand is already much higher than supply so there’d be no issues if you’re limiting it to that basic economic perspective. 

[MontereyMX 952]

4 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

I never got my cup fwiw.

mail this motherfucker his cup already! 

[immamac 44319]

I brought them to 12 tailgates and all the official burnt ends events

[Sabalo 1008]

1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

 

This should be interesting. 

[Funk Doctor Spock 13278]

4 hours ago, Lone Star Horn said:

Nope, no cups

 

What. The. Fuck. Where's mine???? I'm telling, @immamac!

[Lone Star Horn 2071]

18 hours ago, Spider2YBanana said:

What. The. Fuck. Where's mine???? I'm telling, @immamac!

You have to make an effort to meet up with @immamac. Give him plenty of notice and work with his schedule. I live in Arizona now and had a work trip to Austin. I made arrangements to meet up with him.

[statsman 5691]

I had posted earlier about an AD covering a budget shortfall by drawing from university funds. That got some blowback, so I wanted to explain what I meant in more detail. 
 
There are at least two ways of covering such a shortfall. One is just drawing from the university. It’s a bad look, but it happens. The Ags, infamously, covered a budget in the ‘00s, by “borrowing”, interest free, $20 million from the university, to be paid back at times the AD felt like paying. (It may still be unpaid). 
 
Another way is through “creative accounting”. I’m not talking about playing loose with financial accounting, where someone signs that the books are good and risks going to jail. I’m talking about managerial accounting, the practice of allocating costs, supposedly to support good managerial decisions. 
 
Example- a small G5 university has a gym. It is used for PE classes, recreational sports, intra-murals, and varsity sports. Only the last item comes under the AD. When the university is allocating costs to users, what is shown as the cost of varsity sports? That’s a subjective decision (do you assign a ratio based on wear? On time used? On square footage used?). The answer reached by the manager truly seeking to manage costs can be different than the answer reached if the goal is to minimize AD expenses. 
 
One of the legends around UT (I don’t know that it’s true; it could be) is that Bellmont Hall has classrooms because that allowed the university to use PUF funds for the 1970s stadium expansion project. 
 
What I’m getting at- for smaller programs, if the cost of competing requires them to run a deficit that their university has to close, I respect them to say, “Gee, sorry, we just can’t recruit the good players, because the AD can’t handle the NIL on its own”. This especially applies to the private schools, that have to answer to no one on funding athletics with general funding (much backed by tuition paid with guaranteed student loans, Ha-ha-ha-ha!)

[TheBryMan81 2633]

On 5/24/2024 at 6:24 PM, immamac said:

I brought them to 12 tailgates and all the official burnt ends events

I was overseas. Couldn't exactly make it to any of the events.

 

On 5/25/2024 at 1:57 PM, Lone Star Horn said:

You have to make an effort to meet up with @immamac. Give him plenty of notice and work with his schedule. I live in Arizona now and had a work trip to Austin. I made arrangements to meet up with him.

Some of us aren't lucky enough to have work trips to Austin.

[henrygandorf 29225]

On 5/24/2024 at 7:57 AM, HateYouAndMyself said:

This change is going to be bad for Texas initially. Our advantage in NIL is not going to come anywhere close to making up for the shortfall we will face comparative to teams that specialize their funding in specific sports. Football will be fine and likely maintain its edge but our other sports are a bit fucked. 

Imagine how Vanderbilt will approach the revenue sharing. What are their options? Put 10M towards a football team with no players worth paying and no hopes of winning either way? Or do they go put 15M towards baseball and a build a super team filled with a dozen future first round picks? Even if they still do put a few million towards football, basketball and women's athletics to take care of the few high quality kids they have the lion share of that funding is going to the one sport in which they can actually compete. There are plenty of other baseball focused programs out there that can do the same. Even non power conference programs that only have 10-12M total to disperse can double the realistic budget Texas will have for baseball as we struggle to try and take care of all the major sports at once. Texas is not going to become one of the poors but we aren't going to be anywhere close to that top tier of baseball spender. 

Same deal with basketball. Texas might at most put how much towards basketball? 3-4 million tops? Yes we can supplement that with NIL and we have had tremendous support for the basketball program recently but it isn't going to make up the gap between ourselves and those who make that sport their top priority. I'm not even talking the blue bloods that kick our ass in recruiting and the portal anyway. A school like Indiana for example can easily justify and afford to put 10-12M a year of that 21M cap into just basketball. Even if we can double our direct school budget for the sport with NIL it isn't going to give us an edge any longer. Not when you have a couple dozen mid tier programs putting that same amount into the pot due to direct school funding and prioritization. In the long run Texas will have much healthier athletic program but in the short term you are going to have a bunch of new bidders suddenly able to compete at the same level as you for mercenary recruits and portal talent. 

Even football will not go unscathed. Lets say we put a few million into basketball, a bit into baseball and the obligatory million or two into women's athletics that optics will require. Sure we might still be left with ~15M going towards football but there are programs like OU that will probably put basically the entire 21M just into football. We literally watched them pillage their women's athletics NIL fund in order to get Williams secured a few weeks ago. Football will still in great financial shape for us but this change is going to cut into our edge we have over teams that just currently can not compete with us due to a lack of NIL funding. They will just sacrifice other sports to try to close the gap. 

TLDR Football at Texas will be fine but sports like basketball and baseball are absolutely fucked once this revenue sharing begins and a lot of teams just decide to focus on one specific sport other than football. In the long run I fully expect some stricter guidelines in place as to how that revenue gets distributed, to make sure most of it goes to football (who actually generates the damn revenue) but until that happens it is going to be absolutely wild watching certain teams be bold and just specialize into a single sport to try and buy titles while the window of opportunity exists. 

you're putting forward a scenario where most resources are put towards having a great football team, but then we'll end up with an underachieving basketball team and a middling baseball team?  you must have an active imagination.

[Ricky's one-hitter 9622]

1 hour ago, DixonHur said:

I'm not suggesting different.  I'm saying NIL, the way it's operating now, is not different that the "bag man" days, aside from being legal and relatively public.  

In my view, what we refer to as NIL would go away and be replaced by direct payment (employment) and that all money earned through real endorsements would be up to the individual. 

No differently than how it's done in the NFL.

Basically, HS players would be the equivalent of NFL free agents.

Starting at the top

So....you're saying it's super different from the bag game, then.

The mechanics of schools paying players directly are not close to being settled. That said, while schools may very well be able to pay players directly in the near future, collectives are absolutely not going away. If the role of a collective is to generally promote athletes, the AD, recruit donors, and facilitate events and activities pursuant to these goals, than it's reasonable to believe that collectives will be essentially folded in as university affiliated fundraising organizations. For demonstration, let's use Texas Exes (which sponsors more scholarships than any other affiliated org) as an example. 

The University of Texas is not funding scholarships promised by Texas Exes. They fundraise for the capital and write checks. Does that mean that Texas Exes is writing checks to students to cover tuition? Of course not - it's a sponsored scholarship setup with the school and the check is made out to the University. Scholarships, in this application, are sponsored offers of employment contracts. 

The major issue here, imo, is the difference between deep pocketed schools like Texas finding couch cushion money to pay players 1M each or something insane and needing a cap for fair play v. a continuation of exactly how it works now - collectives fundraising to pay athletes. Endorsements are endorsements, but collectives contracting players for community service isn't that. It's a clever way to inflate what you can pay them. Imo, that stays, but as a requirement of their employment. 

[Funk Doctor Spock 13278]

I wonder what our NIL distribution is for baseball. I would love to have something like LSU has for their program.

[DixonHur 11959]

Glad this was moved. 

I'll answer 1-by-1:

1 hour ago, Ricky's one-hitter said:

So....you're saying it's super different from the bag game, then.

No.  I'm saying it's the same, though amplified.  The legality hasn't changed the mechanics.  Donors give money to the school with no real expectation of endorsing one of the donor's products, just like in the aggy car wash scenario there was not real expectation of any actual work being done by the player.

Do you think kids getting Lambos are using their name, image or likeness to help sell cars?  No.  A donor is paying for a lease while the kid is at Texas, for example.  

I'm happy kids are getting to benefit from the multi-billion-dollar industry they fuel, but I think the NIL system, as it currently operates is the worst option they could have created.  I'd prefer it be an employment contract, like in other pro sports.  Further, I'd prefer grouping similarly "wealthy" schools together in leagues, not unlike UIL does with school size, for example.   I'm also for a salary cap, but that's not the primary issue.

As employees, these kids would be granted greater protections, like the right to unionize.

1 hour ago, Ricky's one-hitter said:

collectives are absolutely not going away

Not sure what your point is... not saying I disagree, necessarily, just that I'm literally not sure what you mean.  Unless you're talking about funding athletes in non-revenue generating sports, the need for a collective pool of money to pay football players, in this example, goes away.  

They would be free to negotiate deals separately though for endorsements... which is what the NIL was intended for.

1 hour ago, Ricky's one-hitter said:

The University of Texas is not funding scholarships promised by Texas Exes. They fundraise for the capital and write checks. Does that mean that Texas Exes is writing checks to students to cover tuition? Of course not - it's a sponsored scholarship setup with the school and the check is made out to the University. Scholarships, in this application, are sponsored offers of employment contracts. 

They are absolutely, 100% not employment contracts.  Not sure where you're getting that idea.

2 hours ago, Ricky's one-hitter said:

The major issue here, imo, is the difference between deep pocketed schools like Texas finding couch cushion money to pay players 1M each or something insane and needing a cap for fair play v. a continuation of exactly how it works now - collectives fundraising to pay athletes. Endorsements are endorsements, but collectives contracting players for community service isn't that. It's a clever way to inflate what you can pay them. Imo, that stays, but as a requirement of their employment. 

Sounds like you're agreeing with me that they should be employees of the school... which they are absolutely not right now.

[closetojumping 65379]

27 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Glad this was moved. 

I'll answer 1-by-1:

No.  I'm saying it's the same, though amplified.  The legality hasn't changed the mechanics.  Donors give money to the school with no real expectation of endorsing one of the donor's products, just like in the aggy car wash scenario there was not real expectation of any actual work being done by the player.

Do you think kids getting Lambos are using their name, image or likeness to help sell cars?  No.  A donor is paying for a lease while the kid is at Texas, for example.  

I'm happy kids are getting to benefit from the multi-billion-dollar industry they fuel, but I think the NIL system, as it currently operates is the worst option they could have created.  I'd prefer it be an employment contract, like in other pro sports.  Further, I'd prefer grouping similarly "wealthy" schools together in leagues, not unlike UIL does with school size, for example.   I'm also for a salary cap, but that's not the primary issue.

As employees, these kids would be granted greater protections, like the right to unionize.

Not sure what your point is... not saying I disagree, necessarily, just that I'm literally not sure what you mean.  Unless you're talking about funding athletes in non-revenue generating sports, the need for a collective pool of money to pay football players, in this example, goes away.  

They would be free to negotiate deals separately though for endorsements... which is what the NIL was intended for.

They are absolutely, 100% not employment contracts.  Not sure where you're getting that idea.

Sounds like you're agreeing with me that they should be employees of the school... which they are absolutely not right now.

You’ve been wrong a lot about this stuff, but at least you haven’t been in doubt. 

The Lambo people are measuring an ROI on their leases and sales have been up substantially since they started the program. Don’t say shit out of ignorance when you should straight up fucking know that people on this board are directly involved with how all of this works. Christ. 

Collectives won’t be going away because schools like Texas have now tasted blood and will not ever be letting that advantage slip again. This isn’t the pros. The affinities and access function differently.  We should place a bet on this. 

As to tiering based on wherewithal, I really hate this kind of fucking whine from idiots on the Texas boards. That shit already was tiered for almost 20 years and most of you just acted like it wasn’t happening. We lost and suffered during that era. Fuck fixing anything now. Go hold hands with putzes on the Bama, LSU, and Clemson boards if you need a more receptive audience. 

[JBJ 3817]

I'd like to add that Congress could pass a law tomorrow that reset the NCAA to where it was in 2000, and it wouldn't have the impact people think.  Braintrusts and systems have been established that didn't exist back then. I know several people that have put careers on hold to build businesses around NIL. There's really no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Edited May 29 by JBJ

[immamac 44319]

1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

You’ve been wrong a lot about this stuff, but at least you haven’t been in doubt. 

The Lambo people are measuring an ROI on their leases and sales have been up substantially since they started the program. Don’t say shit out of ignorance when you should straight up fucking know that people on this board are directly involved with how all of this works. Christ. 

Collectives won’t be going away because schools like Texas have now tasted blood and will not ever be letting that advantage slip again. This isn’t the pros. The affinities and access function differently.  We should place a bet on this. 

As to tiering based on wherewithal, I really hate this kind of fucking whine from idiots on the Texas boards. That shit already was tiered for almost 20 years and most of you just acted like it wasn’t happening. We lost and suffered during that era. Fuck fixing anything now. Go hold hands with putzes on the Bama, LSU, and Clemson boards if you need a more receptive audience. 

Yeah the Lambo thing was a super bad example to pick. There are maybe some local/small businesses that haven't measured seen or care about the returns but it's not as stupid on the corporate side as one might think.

I still want NIL to get more towards brand value etc as right now it's a bit of substitute for pay for play and then real brand value mixed in. I don't believe that Texas or the way it has gone down is wrong, I have my opinions that differ on some of the actual mechanics of how some of this works but that's largely irrelevant to the results and outcomes of what is being done. 

The reality right now is the NCAA fucked it so bad that NIL is actually rightfully the pay for play mechanism it wasn't "supposed" to be, and enforcement by them is impossible. This was never an issue at a state or federal level. There's nothing illegal about paying a player in college to play. It was more about NCAA saying if you do that we will DQ the kid and vacate wins/punish whatever schools. Now that it has largely been proven that the NCAA can't enforce shit at all this is the way it needs to be and will continue to be with Texas leading the charge all along the way. 

[DixonHur 11959]

2 hours ago, closetojumping said:

This isn’t the pros

Yeah, you lost all credibility with line.  

As for Lambo, I call bullshit on them seeing an ROI.  One, what investment are they making?  I understand they are getting a revenue boost from donors (IE the collective ) buying/ leasing cars for players, but how many non-university related cars did they sell based on player x driving one of their cars around Austin?

In other words, that has nothing to do with said players name, image or likeness... Otherwise known as NIL.

Jordan moved units for Nike because we wanted to be like Mike... That's an ROI that's easily calculated.  I can't imagine a scenario where some tech executive decides to buy a Lamborghini because he saw an 18 year old Longhorn football player driving one.

It's all a sham.

Stop the pedantic game of semantics.  These kids are professional athletes, not "student athletes", and it's time they were treated as such.  They need to become employees.

The triplets gave away the ghost when one of them said the reason they picked Texas was because of the money.

There's no loyalty anymore, which is fine, but quite pretending that nothing has changed.  It's all transactional and we'd be wise to recognize it.

I recognize that you work in, or close to, Belmont but don't insult my intelligence by pretending you don't know where this is headed without guardrails being added.

 

 

[Funk Doctor Spock 13278]

10 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Yeah, you lost all credibility with line.  

As for Lambo, I call bullshit on them seeing an ROI.  One, what investment are they making?  I understand they are getting a revenue boost from donors (IE the collective ) buying/ leasing cars for players, but how many non-university related cars did they sell based on player x driving one of their cars around Austin?

In other words, that has nothing to do with said players name, image or likeness... Otherwise known as NIL.

Jordan moved units for Nike because we wanted to be like Mike... That's an ROI that's easily calculated.  I can't imagine a scenario where some tech executive decides to buy a Lamborghini because he saw an 18 year old Longhorn football player driving one.

It's all a sham.

Stop the pedantic game of semantics.  These kids are professional athletes, not "student athletes", and it's time they were treated as such.  They need to become employees.

The triplets gave away the ghost when one of them said the reason they picked Texas was because of the money.

There's no loyalty anymore, which is fine, but quite pretending that nothing has changed.  It's all transactional and we'd be wise to recognize it.

I recognize that you work in, or close to, Belmont but don't insult my intelligence by pretending you don't know where this is headed without guardrails being added.

 

 

Man, you really bumming me out, fam. Stop. 

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

7 hours ago, DixonHur said:

Yeah, you lost all credibility with line.  

As for Lambo, I call bullshit on them seeing an ROI.  One, what investment are they making?  I understand they are getting a revenue boost from donors (IE the collective ) buying/ leasing cars for players, but how many non-university related cars did they sell based on player x driving one of their cars around Austin?

In other words, that has nothing to do with said players name, image or likeness... Otherwise known as NIL.

Jordan moved units for Nike because we wanted to be like Mike... That's an ROI that's easily calculated.  I can't imagine a scenario where some tech executive decides to buy a Lamborghini because he saw an 18 year old Longhorn football player driving one.

It's all a sham.

Stop the pedantic game of semantics.  These kids are professional athletes, not "student athletes", and it's time they were treated as such.  They need to become employees.

The triplets gave away the ghost when one of them said the reason they picked Texas was because of the money.

There's no loyalty anymore, which is fine, but quite pretending that nothing has changed.  It's all transactional and we'd be wise to recognize it.

I recognize that you work in, or close to, Belmont but don't insult my intelligence by pretending you don't know where this is headed without guardrails being added.

 

 

So you want it to basically be the old way where we don't have an advantage and lose top end recruits to bags instead of it being the current LEGAL way where we have a clear advantage. 

 

God you're fucking stupid. 

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

7 hours ago, DixonHur said:

Jordan moved units for Nike because we wanted to be like Mike... That's an ROI that's easily calculated.  I can't imagine a scenario where some tech executive decides to buy a Lamborghini because he saw an 18 year old Longhorn football player driving one.

@ChiTownDoc actually bought a second Lambo because of Bijan so go fuck yourself, pussy.

[DigglerontheHoof 21548]

7 hours ago, DixonHur said:

Yeah, you lost all credibility with line.  

As for Lambo, I call bullshit on them seeing an ROI.  One, what investment are they making?  I understand they are getting a revenue boost from donors (IE the collective ) buying/ leasing cars for players, but how many non-university related cars did they sell based on player x driving one of their cars around Austin?

In other words, that has nothing to do with said players name, image or likeness... Otherwise known as NIL.

Jordan moved units for Nike because we wanted to be like Mike... That's an ROI that's easily calculated.  I can't imagine a scenario where some tech executive decides to buy a Lamborghini because he saw an 18 year old Longhorn football player driving one.

It's all a sham.

Stop the pedantic game of semantics.  These kids are professional athletes, not "student athletes", and it's time they were treated as such.  They need to become employees.

The triplets gave away the ghost when one of them said the reason they picked Texas was because of the money.

There's no loyalty anymore, which is fine, but quite pretending that nothing has changed.  It's all transactional and we'd be wise to recognize it.

I recognize that you work in, or close to, Belmont but don't insult my intelligence by pretending you don't know where this is headed without guardrails being added.

 

 

Fuck guardrails.  We are the motherfucking Joneses and we are finally able to leverage it.  And now you want to go and play Kumbaya with the poors?  Fuck all that shit. 

[immamac 44319]

7 hours ago, DixonHur said:

Yeah, you lost all credibility with line.  

As for Lambo, I call bullshit on them seeing an ROI.  One, what investment are they making?  I understand they are getting a revenue boost from donors (IE the collective ) buying/ leasing cars for players, but how many non-university related cars did they sell based on player x driving one of their cars around Austin?

In other words, that has nothing to do with said players name, image or likeness... Otherwise known as NIL.

Jordan moved units for Nike because we wanted to be like Mike... That's an ROI that's easily calculated.  I can't imagine a scenario where some tech executive decides to buy a Lamborghini because he saw an 18 year old Longhorn football player driving one.

It's all a sham.

Stop the pedantic game of semantics.  These kids are professional athletes, not "student athletes", and it's time they were treated as such.  They need to become employees.

The triplets gave away the ghost when one of them said the reason they picked Texas was because of the money.

There's no loyalty anymore, which is fine, but quite pretending that nothing has changed.  It's all transactional and we'd be wise to recognize it.

I recognize that you work in, or close to, Belmont but don't insult my intelligence by pretending you don't know where this is headed without guardrails being added.

 

 

You can call all the bullshit you want, but Bijan driving around a Lambo and student athletes taking pictures with them etc etc is definitely spurring more business for them than other traditional marketing strategies. Have you ever seen a Lamborghini commercial on TV? You realize they aren't fucking idiots and that the people signing the leases aren't doing it to show faux results so they will keep doing it. There's not actually that many ways to work Lamborghini into a college football conversation with one of the brands that has a lot of high net worth people following it. They got so many mentions on ESPN and recruiting sites that aren't even Texas related it was absolutely worth it. 

Also how much do you think a 1-2 year Lambo lease is worth? The collective is not doing a passthrough reimbursement on them lmao any corporate stuff you hear about is either direct deals or large initiatives. 

As for treating them like pro athletes, what would you like to see change? A formal relationship between the university and the player? Yeah so does everyone else and it's happening. That can't be rushed and needs to be done properly. 

There has never been loyalty. Drop the aw shucks moron act that any of these players came to Texas just cuz they absolutely loved Texas and wanted to be longhorns their entire life. They come here for the best chance to go pro and life in Austin. Recruiting wasn't bad before NIL, but now it's perennial top 5 or top 3. It turns out that's the difference between championships and not. 

If you are talking about the transfer portal that's again fucking stupid because it was happening before NIL with just bags and it was a complete mess. 

[BurntOrange&White 41846]

@immamac Will the tailgate this year be partnered with TOF?