Frank (fully honest/accurate, who knows) NIL discussion

[DownEastDeac]

Money talk at UNC Chapel Hill athletics​

Gaining access makes the world go around for journalists, enabling a revealing New York Times story this week on UNC Chapel Hill’s athletics department finances.

Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham opened the door to writer Bruce Schoenfeld, who described how some Tar Heel athletes are cashing in from college sports. In 2021, the NCAA ended most restrictions on how much athletes could earn from use of their name, image and likeness, or NIL. What used to be prohibited and could lead to major sanctions is now permissible.

Here are some details from the story:

• Star basketball player Armando Bacot drives an $80,000 Audi and has NIL deals totaling more than $500,000, according his mother, who is also his manager.
• Bacot's annual income is nearly $400,000, according to the On3 recruiting website.
• Cunningham has less money to spend on his department because advertisers and boosters are going directly to the athletes. He expects some of UNC’s 28 varsity sports to lose their Division 1 status, because money is getting tighter. Football revenue totaled $44 million last year.
• California high school quarterback Jaden Rashada was promised $13 million if he enrolled at the University of Florida. The offer fell apart in December, so he’s out looking for a new deal.
• Charlotte-based Bojangles pulled some marketing money from North Carolina and other schools to sponsor ads featuring former UNC quarterback Sam Howell, who now plays in the NFL.
• UNC field hockey star Erin Matson, who is considered the greatest college player ever in her sport, earned about $50,000 in NIL deals in her final two seasons in Chapel Hill.
• Greensboro home builder Dwight Stone helped start the Heels4Life collective to support UNC football players and help the Tar Heels win ACC titles. It's won the conference five times since 1953.
• ESPN pays the Southeastern Conference $300 million a year to televise football, while the ACC gets $240 million annually. SEC member Alabama competes in 15 sports, about half as many as UNC.
• In December, Cunningham urged UNC fans to “assist the collectives and marketplaces that empower [student-athletes’] success.” Such donations are necessary to keep North Carolina competitive, the author concluded.

 

[deacdixieboy]

The one that stands out is losing D1 sports.

 

[guitardeac]

SEC in 2024 will get in he neighborhood of $750MM

 

[WFU03]

The one that stands out is losing D1 sports.

Agreed.

It’s the logical consequence of paying athletes based on market rates though. The revenue from cross country will not match that from basketball, so basketball athletes will get paid more.

NIL also likely didn’t change the total size of the dollars spent on college sports pie, but instead changed how much of that pie different parties receive. The schools used to receive the vast majority of the pie, but their share has shrunk.

So there’s less money for a cross country team, but theoretically more money for cross country athletes. But then market forces kick in and almost all of the money for athletes gets swallowed up by two sports.

 

[DeacDaddy]

So now the gift officers just need to get the basketball players to become cross country donors.

 

[Deacfreak07]

I hope that the discussion of the doom and gloom of college athletics finds space to be critical of the networks and athletic departments that spend recklessly on long term contracts for content and coaches at the expense of their future. It's such a bubble that ADs and Network Execs created and continue to inflate and it's going to burst in a big way.

 

[CamLemons]

The one that stands out is losing D1 sports.

The thing is, if he expects some of D1 sports to lose their status (they more than likely won't) then he himself is spearheading it given he's been backing the collectives publicly. Can't really have it both ways.

 

[MichDeac25]

ESPN pays the Southeastern Conference $300 million a year to televise football, while the ACC gets $240 million annually. SEC member Alabama competes in 15 sports, about half as many as UNC.

And I almost believed Biff when he said the SEC was just good because they have Spring AND Fall football practice in some southern states. Nothing to do with mediocre schools' and their entire state fanbases' maniacal commitment to one sport.

 

[EatLeadCommie]

With the government saying that you have to have NIL and you have to have an equal amount of women's sports, something has to give with less money going into programs and more into keeping individual athletes. It may sort itself out eventually, but for now there is less incentive to prop up women's sports than there was before. Same goes for men's non-revenue sports. They're probably on more precipitous ground than the girls.

Maybe the net positive of this is that we're no longer watching chicks try to ball in 15 years.

 

[Brendan207]

The one that stands out is losing D1 sports.

This was happening before NIL too though. So hard to really tell if this is 100% NIL related or was likely to happen anyway based on the full spectrum of college athletics landscape changes.

In 2020 it was COVID

Nearly 100 college sports programs have been cut during pandemic

Four-year colleges facing budget shortfalls from the pandemic are approaching a milestone: the number of eliminated sports programs will almost surely pass 100.

www.latimes.com

For awhile it was Title IX

Title IX And Its Effects On College Men's Sports.

www.athleticscholarships.net

And it has always been revenue / economic related

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/maryland-cuts-seven-sports-on-sad-day-in-college-park/2012/07/02/gJQAqJFBJW_story.html

Eastern Michigan University cuts four sports, leaves football alone

The move affects 58 male student-athletes and 25 female student-athletes, and once realized an expense reduction of approximately $2.4 million.

www.freep.com

NCAA: Only 14 FBS schools profited from sports

A newly released NCAA report shows that just 14 of the 120 Football Bowl Subdivision schools made money from campus athletics in the 2009 fiscal year, down from 25 the year before.

www.espn.com

 

[JGDeac]

The thing is, if he expects some of D1 sports to lose their status (they more than likely won't) then he himself is spearheading it given he's been backing the collectives publicly. Can't really have it both ways.

At the Wake / Clemson bball game in Clemson, there was a minute-long ad on the jumbotron from the AD where he was backing and promoting the collective. His preference definitely seemed to be Collective over IPTAY if you have to choose.

 

[CamLemons]

At the Wake / Clemson bball game in Clemson, there was a minute-long ad on the jumbotron from the AD where he was backing and promoting the collective. His preference definitely seemed to be Collective over IPTAY if you have to choose.

It's one of the multiple reasons the ADs have no place to try and cry wolf about collectives taking money away from other sports. Paying kids isn't a new phenomenon, just one that's out in the open. ADs are encouraging pouring money into them. It's not like the other sports magically became unprofitable over the course of the last year or two. The athletic departments also just aren't broke. LSU was paid Kelly a full million more than they were supposed to. Arizona reported $50M in loans as revenue(which is against NCAA guidelines). These schools aren't poor and are cooking the books in every way they can, which is fine I don't really care, but it frustrates me when they try to dangle stuff like NIL as a reason for them wanting to cut other sports when the two aren't really intertwined and there isn't evidence that one hurts the other.

 

[scooter84]

It's one of the multiple reasons the ADs have no place to try and cry wolf about collectives taking money away from other sports. Paying kids isn't a new phenomenon, just one that's out in the open. ADs are encouraging pouring money into them. It's not like the other sports magically became unprofitable over the course of the last year or two. The athletic departments also just aren't broke. LSU was paid Kelly a full million more than they were supposed to. Arizona reported $50M in loans as revenue(which is against NCAA guidelines). These schools aren't poor and are cooking the books in every way they can, which is fine I don't really care, but it frustrates me when they try to dangle stuff like NIL as a reason for them wanting to cut other sports when the two aren't really intertwined and there isn't evidence that one hurts the other.

Are you saying that more and more money flowing to NIL doesn't reduce the amount of money flowing to Athletic departments from boosters? Because that seems to be an illogical conclusion.

 

[CamLemons]

Are you saying that more and more money flowing to NIL doesn't reduce the amount of money flowing to Athletic departments from boosters? Because that seems to be an illogical conclusion.

The money that's being given for say, a $13 million dollar contract for a QB was money that was more than likely always going to be McDonald's bag money, not the check Ben Sutton is cutting for the Sutton center. There's some delta there as there are going to be people that are donating to say RTQ instead of Deacon Club, but the delta there more than likely isn't coming close to being significant enough to cut a program or even a scholarship. It's probably less detrimental than boosters having to put up money to hire/fire coaches especially with how contracts are these days and everyone wants their money up front versus NIL deals which, from the ones I've seen, aren't an up front lump sum.

If the athletics department needs to raise money, they'll still be able to do it just fine and not miss their goals. One could argue that people putting money into NIL actually ends up being a benefit to the department: better players should = better teams, better teams should = more wins + more tickets sold + more money from postseason play.

 

[Biff Tannen]

There are a lot of people who feel a lot more comfortable giving $50K to a collective than giving $5K to the bag man.

 

[deacdixieboy]

The money that's being given for say, a $13 million dollar contract for a QB was money that was more than likely always going to be McDonald's bag money, not the check Ben Sutton is cutting for the Sutton center. There's some delta there as there are going to be people that are donating to say RTQ instead of Deacon Club, but the delta there more than likely isn't coming close to being significant enough to cut a program or even a scholarship. It's probably less detrimental than boosters having to put up money to hire/fire coaches especially with how contracts are these days and everyone wants their money up front versus NIL deals which, from the ones I've seen, aren't an up front lump sum.

If the athletics department needs to raise money, they'll still be able to do it just fine and not miss their goals. One could argue that people putting money into NIL actually ends up being a benefit to the department: better players should = better teams, better teams should = more wins + more tickets sold + more money from postseason play.

But one player was never getting $13 mil from a bag man. That’s still money that someone was ok donating away to their school in some way.

 

[scooter84]

There are a lot of people who feel a lot more comfortable giving $50K to a collective than giving $5K to the bag man.

Exactly. What I think Cam is missing is that, sure, some kids were getting paid through bag men before - but, it was not nearly as widespread as it is under NIL and the dollar amounts are exponentially higher now. A strong percentage of boosters would not have been comfortable participating in what were clearly illegal payments - now that it is "legal", they are jumping in with both feet.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

Exactly. What I think Cam is missing is that, sure, some kids were getting paid through bag men before - but, it was not nearly as widespread as it is under NIL and the dollar amounts are exponentially higher now. A strong percentage of boosters would not have been comfortable participating in what were clearly illegal payments - now that it is "legal", they are jumping in with both feet.

I think the dollar amounts being reported are exponentially higher.

I do not believe the actual dollar amounts are nearly as high as what’s being reported

 

[CamLemons]

But one player was never getting $13 mil from a bag man. That’s still money that someone was ok donating away to their school in some way.

The people that are making up the vast majority of that $13 million are the people that were giving it in secret. Again there is some delta, but the people making that money work are the same people that have always made that money work. The price of the brick has gone up, that's undeniable, but your shadowy figures that would each have 15k to 20k annually to burn can now just do it legally, even raise the amount they were throwing around, and for some of them write it off as tax deductions.

It's not like in the course of one year paying players went from the ~200k Cam got at Auburn to paying people offering HS quarterbacks millions over four or five years. Price has been going up and a considerable amount of that were guys that the administration nor a coach would ever dream to say was affiliated.

I also don't believe most of the high dollar amounts we hear reported nor believe that they'll be paid out in full

 

[CamLemons]

I think the dollar amounts being reported are exponentially higher.

I do not believe the actual dollar amounts are nearly as high as what’s being reported

same thought on the second part and those who have been reporting on the subject have been in the same vein of it.

Numbers are going to be higher: that comes from inflation and also a suppressed market. There isn't a league out there where people are getting paid where the coaches are getting significantly more than even middle tier players much less the most coveted one. Just the nature of the beast there