Your post and NWAs are interesting, but I worry they represent micro level and not macro.
Pay to play represents a massive shift in the revenue streams in college football.
Currently, FBS football programs are supported by 3 primary revenue streams:
Booster / Alumni donations
Media Rights
Student Fees
We all know the issues with #3. As this gets more ridiculous, I contend that #3 being yanked from athletic departments becomes more and more likely.
That leaves the top 2. Right now, the networks already enjoy huge control over the programs / system via #2. You might as well rebrand the SEC and B1G as the āFOXSPORTS CFB LEAGUEā and the āESPN CFB LEAGUEā.
Pay to play NIL is going to result in even more economic pressure on athletic departments, and more resulting control by the networks as Booster dollars (revenue stream #1) are allocated out of the revenue streams of the AD and into NIL collectives so that Michigan can buy a better QB to beat OSU and so forth. That check that an Arkansas booster was writing to the AD every year is going to get chopped down to $0 eventually as he/she has to instead send that money to the Razorback NIL collective so that the program can stay competitive in the SEC. And even then, theyāll probably go 4-8 because they just donāt have as much money as Bamaās NIL collective (or Ohio Stateās or Notre Dameās, etc). At what point does Billy Bob Razorback Booster throw up his hands in futility? That is the end game reality of Pay to Play. These are well documented forces inside and outside of this industry. Itās why the NFL has its competition measures to ensure itās product stays viable.
The Networks can choose to subsidize half of their new leagues operations to try to maintain some competition, but they can only subsidize the AD itself. Until such time as they are directly paying players, itāll be up to the boosters to fund the team payrolls, and there are limits. As they tap out, the gap widens until more and more programs give up or are marginalized into obscurity (the latter being the Vanderbilt effect).
Meanwhile, the booster dollars that allowed the ADs some measure of independence from the networks are going to be reallocated leaving the ADs 100% beholden to the networks. Ask any AD how they feel about that.
The sport is dead. The train is a runaway, and I cannot think of any likely method to get a conductor back on it to hit the brakes. We are all going to watch it drive itself off a cliff. Itās over folks. Itās just a question of when now.
I think the problem is that the NCAA has talked about cracking down on collectives & boosters paying players but they havenāt enforced it yet. This kind of thing wasnāt supposed to be allowed but it wasnāt enforced & schools are going to push it as far as they can & dare the NCAA to do something about it. It seems like we are trying to play by those rules instead of pushing the limits like many others have.
At what point does the NCAAs inaction destroy their ability to ever do anything about it?
The NCAA has done only one thing in recent years: continue to abdicate its enforcement responsibility / authority in these situations. Theyāre too busy giving Cleveland State the death penalty for using #3 pencils on their scantron forms. The NCAA is a joke. There isnāt a single big boy AD that thinks that organization has any teeth left, and the NCAA itself seems to agree. That ship has sailed.
I think I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I talked with Chris Fuller and he said for the most part the collectives have not represented new money into an AD at this point. They are simply companies and boosters repurposing their current support from gifts and sponsorships to the AD to directly to the players.
Obviously this COULD represent just the tip and after some winning they maintain both revenue streams, but I would bet that they wonāt significantly increase their giving if they are giving to collectives. That means many of these ADs will have to come to a financial balance of not bringing in additional capital for salaries, facilities etc. Now it is true they are now getting a bucket load of cash from media partners, but this is still a significant impact to AD current revenue models.
The student fee mention by NA is I think a HUGE issue. For schools that rely on those fees, students should be on the edge of revolt. If there is soooooo much money in college football then why are they paying anything? Of course at Bama they donāt, but when this hits the courts they arenāt going to care if its Bama, or State or us.
I donāt think NIL will play out exactly as some are prognosticating. Some of these NIL collectives may never get off the ground or run out of steam. When I give to the athletic department I have a pretty good idea how the money is being spent (annual reports). NIL money could be misused or squandered. You could also blow all your money on the wrong players. I think more time needs elapse before our fans get majorly distraught.
Here is a question Iām gonna ask even if I donāt like the answer or what it means for our program:
Assuming one of us had won that big lottery jackpot the other day, how excited would you be to create an NIL Pay to Play warchest with your winnings, to compete with the big boys? Do you think it would be an effective (forget smart) use of your money?
I think I would have seeded some cash, but the majority of the money would have gone to capital expenses. I think its a combo. The league/brand plus the NIL. I donāt think just straight cash gets it done honestly. So no matter how much we offered we wouldnāt have made a huge leap, but certainly would have contributed enough to make our NIL collective competitive with AAC schools and given us a leg up on all but State and Chapel Hill in state.
Iām a Charlotte fan not a SEC fan. We have a lot of items that need to be funded on the priority list over throwing money at random players that could bounce on a whim. If I ran into a windfall of cash I would donate to tangible facilities projects then to academics.
Yeah thatās my thinking. I would prefer to donate to facilities that will have a lasting influence on the program instead of athletes who can leave at anytime for a better offer. That just seems like throwing money down the drain for a very short term benefit.
The Commerical Appeal published a story today about the Tigersā NIL collective (901 Fund) lead by a father-son duo of Jeff and Clay Presley.
The goal of the 901 Fund is to soon provide, on average, $25,000 to members of the Tiger football, menās basketball and womenās basketball programs ($2.8 million annually total). One day it is hoped the collective will apply to all varsity sports. The 901 Fund supplements money received by stars like Jalen Duren.
Mr. Presley stated sometime true about the collective that applies to every aspect of the Tigerās quest for a seat at the big boy table. He said ā Weāre not big enough to not have everyone in the community participate, and it can help the community. Youāre either gonna help or youāre gonna live in a (expletive).ā
Thatās a future conference member & Iām not sure we will even be able to compete with that. If we do it will definitely take away from regulsr donations unless we just really get our shit together, start to win a lot & drastically expand the fan base.
What was the total of 49er athletics giving last year?
I think it would wipe out our giving.
Itās just impossible to compete with this stuff. I have a hard time believing that Memphis can achieve that either, but I bet theyāll get close. Thatās a problem for us, and for Mike Hill (I think it transcends Will Healy / whomever is the head football coach).
The age of our football program puts us at a huge disadvantage. We are trying to build & improve facilities & build a fan base to compete with our peers at the worst possible time. App & ECU have been at it for decades. Iām really afraid we just started too late to ever gain traction in the current college sports shit storm.
