Bulldog Initiative

[horshack.sixpack]

I know NIL is the way things are now but I still can't shake the old school "if I have to pay a player to come to my school then I don't really want them in the first place" mindset. Giving money directly to 18-22 year olds seems like the dumbest possible way to spend money.

Our big $$$ alumni, not me, have been spending money in the "dumbest possible way" for a long, long time now. I'm more of your line of thinking. What's interesting about NIL is it gives the average Joe an opportunity to contribute to paying players, whereas in the past, they would not have had enough money, or access to players, to do so.

So the ability is there, we will see if the desire is there. My bet is that among big $$$ guys, it's a combination of a pecker measuring contest against other big $$$ alumni as well as insider access and power. None of that is in play for the little guy tossing a few dollars into the NIL. So the real question is how many folks feel a real obligation or desire to spend their money renting kids for football services?

 

[FQDawg]

BS...

As already stated, People can earmark it for whatever sport.

I understand that. It's still dumb if we aren't focusing solely on football. Put another way... anyone who designates a donation to any sport other than football is basically just setting their money on fire in terms of how much good it actually does the university. If you think donating to this NIL collective is a good thing to do, it should be towards football.

 

[Preacher Franklin]

Cohen got caught holding his JOHNson.

 

[Cantdoitsal]

Thank you for your efforts as you are obviously working your A$$ off. Greatly Preshated Sir.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

NIL, for us, is more about keeping current players. We aren't going to compete much with the 5 stars that command money, save for a few that come up in Mississippi (and we'd usually pay them anyway). What we have to do is keep our guys from transferring once they become an established name.

 

[CharlieWinfield]

No offense but if every single dollar you're raising isn't going to football, you're doing it wrong. I know that's an unpopular opinion here - even more so after 2021 - but football is the only sport that moves the needle and it's where all of our resources (speaking generally) should be targeted.

We give people the chance to say what matters to them, and we react to that. As a result, we have a significant number of people who have signed on to help basketball, baseball, women’s basketball, and other sports. That being said,\ I certainly understand the importance of football. There is nothing else like it.

 

[wtw2400]

Charlie just posted on 247 that the BI has gained 110 new members so far today. It seems Cohen has lit a fire under our fanbase to get more involved in NIL. Addition by subtraction......

Isnt it pathetic that our old AD who was paid to do this job was so bad at it, that our play by play commentators for WBK had to step in on their own time to get this together?

Kudos to them big time we appreciate it. But it just goes to show how Cohen will go down more as Larry Templeton 2.0 than anything else.

 

[o_dawgnabit]

281 new members yesterday alone, and 304 since Monday morning. Wondering how many more are getting added today!

 

[wtw2400]

I know NIL is the way things are now but I still can't shake the old school "if I have to pay a player to come to my school then I don't really want them in the first place" mindset. Giving money directly to 18-22 year olds seems like the dumbest possible way to spend money.

Id rather give money to our athletes that are working hard than a million dollars to our sitting AD who did nothing!!!!

 

[CharlieWinfield]

281 new members yesterday alone, and 304 since Monday morning. Wondering how many more are getting added today!

110 more as of 12:12 pm.

 

[rynodawg]

NIL, for us, is more about keeping current players. We aren't going to compete much with the 5 stars that command money, save for a few that come up in Mississippi (and we'd usually pay them anyway). What we have to do is keep our guys from transferring once they become an established name.

Agree on national 5 stars, but I hope the initiative is developing a way to coordinate with coaches to offer future deals to key 4 star type players (ones with multiple SEC offers for example). NIL isn’t going to help as much if our SEC West competition is buying our top recruits away. I understand the NIL rules are still being developed, so I guess they can’t explain all details on the public website. Have to start somewhere though, and Good start though by interim AD today by promoting it.

 

[ckDOG]

Has a fire been lit or are people finally learning of the existence? Maybe I'm in some kind of contact hole or my attention span has waned over the years, but the only place I've seen any hype for this is here. A program like this needs to be in your face often. Benefits of the program well explained. Transparency provided to use of funds and confidence provided that actually will be the case. Do this + annoy the piss out of anyone possible and the money will increase. Feels like the shell has been organized but with no real effort to make the money come in and no coordination to make sure this is a net win and not simply just a shift of donations from AD to NIL. It's not going to fund itself.

Am I wrong? What have I missed?

 

[Clay Lyle]

Schools can’t give money to NIL, but lawyers are at work to see if the conferences can. You may see a large cut of these new TV deals go to the athletes.

 

[wtw2400]

Has a fire been lit or are people finally learning of the existence? Maybe I'm in some kind of contact hole or my attention span has waned over the years, but the only place I've seen any hype for this is here. A program like this needs to be in your face often. Benefits of the program well explained. Transparency provided to use of funds and confidence provided that actually will be the case. Do this + annoy the piss out of anyone possible and the money will increase. Feels like the shell has been organized but with no real effort to make the money come in and no coordination to make sure this is a net win and not simply just a shift of donations from AD to NIL. It's not going to fund itself.

Am I wrong? What have I missed?

Our previous AD was too busy complaining about "not having this setup" than taking the time to actually help set this up.

 

[Dawghouse]

So if all the money is going into the BI and they in turn are going to get that money to the players, where does the NIL portion of this come into play? What businesses are they going to be "working" for to "earn" the money.
Do we not have to at least pretend this is about NIL and not just direct payments?
This is an honest question, I'm all for NIL but I'm confused on what the players are going to be doing to earn the money with their NIL.

 

[wtw2400]

We give people the chance to say what matters to them, and we react to that. As a result, we have a significant number of people who have signed on to help basketball, baseball, women’s basketball, and other sports. That being said,\ I certainly understand the importance of football. There is nothing else like it.

Thank you Charlie for all the hard work you all have put in this! Hail State!

 

[CharlieWinfield]

So if all the money is going into the BI and they in turn are going to get that money to the players, where does the NIL portion of this come into play? What businesses are they going to be "working" for to "earn" the money.
Do we not have to at least pretend this is about NIL and not just direct payments?
This is an honest question, I'm all for NIL but I'm confused on what the players are going to be doing to earn the money with their NIL.

There must be a quid pro quo between the athletes and the entity that engages them. In the case of The Bulldog Initiative, the athletes are doing something in return (more money, more commitment that keeps things legal). For some, they will be doing things to promote the NIL entity itself. For example, if anyone follows us on Twitter @BulldogNIL), then they will see that we have used the NIL of the athletes to promote our entity itself (our entity being the business they are promoting). But, we are doing a lot of other things. Athletes will be in schools reading to kids, appearing at autograph signings, and making other appearances, and, in many cases, we also gain rights to use their rights for other promotions (e.g., t-shirt sales or things like that). The only athletes who are promoting other businesses are in cases where we have been specifically engaged by a business for that purpose. Schools / charities will get the assistance of athletes we have engaged, typically at no cost. Businesses, however, do not.

 

[peewee.sixpack]

Just joined Charlie, thanks for setting up the BI.

 

[maroonmania]

College football is a multi billion dollar business. The Big Ten just signed a 7 year $7 billion tv deal. Coaches are are making millions per year some $10 million per year. The number one commodity in this business are the players most of which will never go pro.

Problem is that none of THAT money is even now allowed to go to the players. No, its the poor ol' fans that are already paying for tickets and booster club fees and all kind of other expenses to come to games that have to get bled some more to get extra money to players. The school has millions coming in from TV and other revenue sources but can't give any of that to players. NIL money was sold as coming from businesses but what a joke that was.

 

[o_dawgnabit]

Problem is that none of THAT money is even now allowed to go to the players. No, its the poor ol' fans that are already paying for tickets and booster club fees and all kind of other expenses to come to games that have to get bled some more to get extra money to players. The school has millions coming in from TV and other revenue sources but can't give any of that to players. NIL money was sold as coming from businesses but what a joke that was.

I agree with you 100% and I signed up to give a couple of weeks ago. NCAA completely dropped the ball on this and NIL has turned into a much bigger deal than I think anyone imagined it to be. Especially with the collectives. But this is unfortunately the way to compete. And I'd rather see us compete than suck and since I gave up my season tickets in 2019 when I moved to Atlanta, I figured this is where I can put some of that money. And I think Charlie has done a great job getting it set up and now the promotion of it is finally starting to happen.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Charlie, What is the investment strategy? Would it not be wise to take "x" amount of these dollars and place them into a growth/dividend fund thinking way ahead?

NIL isn't going away, so a long term strategy that lessened the need to depend on continued giving would be a long term solution, and we are in a massive buyer market.

Charlie, if you need help with investments, we have plenty of threads on SPS to reference. You are welcome.***

 

[FQDawg]

Problem is that none of THAT money is even now allowed to go to the players. No, its the poor ol' fans that are already paying for tickets and booster club fees and all kind of other expenses to come to games that have to get bled some more to get extra money to players. The school has millions coming in from TV and other revenue sources but can't give any of that to players. NIL money was sold as coming from businesses but what a joke that was.

The easy way around that is for the athletic department to hire some "consultants" or "advisors" on a contract basis for a hefty fee. Those folks then turn around and just happen to donate pretty generously to the collective.

 

[harrydawg.sixpack]

So how does it work? People donate money to the Bulldog collective and then they just give money directly to players?

Lord have mercy these people live among us

 

[dawgstudent]

My biggest thing is if you are giving money that is greater than your seat license fee for football tickets - direct that $$$ to the bulldog initiative.

 

[dawgstudent]

My advice is if you give more than your seat license fee to the Bulldog Club - consider giving that money to The Bulldog Initiative.

Example - you pay a $300 seat license fee per season tickets. You have 4 season tickets. You actually contribute $2000/year to the Bulldog Club. Take that $800 ($2000-$1200) and give it to NIL.

 

[harrydawg.sixpack]

All day DS. Why in this new environment would anyone give more than required to the BD Club? They have secretly been telling insiders this - they don’t need the money. NIL does!

 

[o_dawgnabit]

Hopefully soon they start bringing incentives to BI so you can use your donation to Bi for season tickets instead of BDC. But if they do that, I have no idea how the BDC will keep donations coming

 

[WrappedinMaroon&White]

The cool sticker for my back windshield is the only reason I contribute to the BDC. . . it is a really cool sticker.***