What donor fatigue means as NIL enters its third year of impacting college sports
Donor fatigue is plaguing the NIL space. Athletic departments need to find hidden donors. Collectives need to create new revenue streams.
OT: NIL Donor Fatigue
- Thread starter rutgersguy1_rivals
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ROI just isn’t there over the long haul. Schools can’t do this for more than one sport. Football rosters are too big to support
Investors in NIL either need to get a service or performance. Other than that how do you do it year in and year out.
Investors in NIL either need to get a service or performance. Other than that how do you do it year in and year out.
That's really the primary target for the large NIL collectives. Sure the donor who give $1-2k annually helps but where they make their money is partnering with larger conglomerates. Car Dealerships, Hospitals/Sports Medicine, Major Retailers, and the United States Military are the real buyers for NIL (yup the military, Michigan football has partnered with the Air Force)
I've said this right from the beginning as far as ROI on NIL. Professional teams with scouting departments and tons of research mess things up and waste money on drafts, trades and what not so how can you expect college football programs to utilize the money efficiently and smartly. There will be even more waste.
I've never had a problems with NIL or players making money but I've generally not thought throwing tons of money at it is a smart use of resources.
Frankly, it's the same thing I think about coaching salaries. They all can't be winners and there are only a certain number of these multimillion dollar jobs. ADs have more power than they think.
Too much thinking along the lines of throw money at something and think things will automatically get better. Money helps but it doesn't mean squander precious resources.
Perhaps NIL will organically become what it was intended to be. Players will endorse products or perform an actual service and get paid. Throwing money at kids for signing to play for your school simply isn't sustainable, imo.
Good news for Rutgers. Billy Eppler will be seeking employment soon when the Mets can his ***. He can be our talent scout.
As I predicted some time ago. There is a limit to how much fans are going to give collectively to a school, especially when teams fail to win. Eventually things will settle down to a stable point but most likely the same teams will be on top. None of this helps put a better product on the field.
National championship, conference championship and getting to the playoffs would probably be seen as good ROI in most cases but anything short of that probably not so much.
Ummm, there is no fatigue for programs that compete for their conference championships in football or basketball teams that are perrenially winning 20 regular season games.
so the Air Force (US Tax dollars) are paying kids to play football at Michigan?!!
100%, or actually 98% because I confused the air force with the army national guard.
They paid over 100 Michigan athletes including the entire football roster to partner with them for a national guard recruiting event.
Outlines why NO Pro League uses this system still. Like the former MLB season ticket holder's who now go to minor league games, there comes a point where, you do something else.
If you're donating thousands of dollars and your team goes 3-9 every year, fatigue would definitely set in. Winning tends to keep the fatigue at bay.
This depends on the program. Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, USC, Texas, Texas A&M and similar programs have money to burn. The top will stay on top. NIL maintains the college football hierarchy.
I've said that too from the beginning, that NIL didn't change anything. It's just more of the same of what we've always seen. The programs that had more still do and the ones that don't still don't and the hierarchy was about the same unless you saw a bunch of middle or lower status programs spending money on a big scale consistently. I've been saying people have been getting in a tizzy and all woe is me over NIL when not a lot has changed on the landscape. A rose is rose ....whether it's shiny facilities etc.. or NIL... just more of the same of what's always been.
If anything, theoretically NIL allows for possibly a little more of a chance if some random billionaire at lower status school decided to take up the cause. That didn't exist before. I've said also the opportunity to move up is better than it ever has been with expanded playoffs, portal, NIL etc..We've seen Cincy and TCU get into a 4 team playoff and now with 12, maybe 16 in the future, you'll get more stories like that in time.
And they, outside of the services, will likely be able to deduct it as a marketing expense as opposed to a charitable deduction that the IRS just nixed.
And face it, they don't get fatigued in the SEC.
"If the ROI is a College Football Playoff berth, that’s one thing. If the ROI is a Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl berth, that’s quite another. Well-heeled boosters have deep pockets.
But those pockets are not bottomless.
Leaning so heavily on donors begs the question: Is this model sustainable?"
This is the problem with college athletics in a nutshell.
The more a program wins, the more money they get to spend on winning.
College athletics has never been about equality and equal opportunity.
It's why everyone bemoans our lack of alumni support and giving levels.
It's not a "NIL" only thing.
How many people have dropped season tickets (and associated "mandatory donations") over the years?
Hard to ask for a $2,500 "donation" to park in the Scarlet Lot when we get blown out most home games.
But those pockets are not bottomless.
Leaning so heavily on donors begs the question: Is this model sustainable?"
This is the problem with college athletics in a nutshell.
The more a program wins, the more money they get to spend on winning.
College athletics has never been about equality and equal opportunity.
It's why everyone bemoans our lack of alumni support and giving levels.
It's not a "NIL" only thing.
How many people have dropped season tickets (and associated "mandatory donations") over the years?
Hard to ask for a $2,500 "donation" to park in the Scarlet Lot when we get blown out most home games.
NIL...
At first, we be like:
.
Now we be like, yay fatigue:
.
But we should be like all along:
.
I'm just saying. Give it another 3-5 years and then we'll have a better idea where it's going. And then we can all overreact. Because, when it comes to massive overreactions, timing is everything.
At first, we be like:
.Now we be like, yay fatigue:
.But we should be like all along:
. I'm just saying. Give it another 3-5 years and then we'll have a better idea where it's going. And then we can all overreact. Because, when it comes to massive overreactions, timing is everything.
Like I said, mostly likely more of the same of what always has been on the landscape. Nothing really changed with NIL.NIL...
At first, we be like:
Now we be like, yay fatigue:
But we should be like all along:
I'm just saying. Give it another 3-5 years and then we'll have a better idea where it's going. And then we can all overreact. Because, when it comes to massive overreactions, timing is everything.
I’ve always said opportunity has been better than ever for lower status programs. That doesn’t mean equal or parity just better than before.
If anything, I could see paying players as something that happens and being in a conference that doles out more money per team as only helpful vs other schools that aren’t in a conference that doles out as much.
Al, please pay special attention in this article of what Mike Locksley has to say about the impact of a modern football facility. I know you like to use that as an excuse, so thought it was pertenant that you hear the reality from the horses mouth.
"Kids will get dressed in a trashcan for $25k"
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While I'm not at all worried about the NIL court decision "destroying" college sports, I also think there are a lot of equally possible yet very different potential outcomes from the decision.
I think a larger looming question, unrelated to NIL mostly, is if colleges will start paying athletes. I think that has much more potential to "destroy" college sports as we know them today.
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Good news for Rutgers. Billy Eppler will be seeking employment soon when the Mets can his ***. He can be our talent scout.
Maybe Steve will give us some additional insight during his press conference before tonight's game.
But the point is valid, albeit understated.
I've been telling people that between NIL and the new free-for-all transfer rules, large programs will absolutely need a Player Personnel department, consisting of a director and at least half a dozen underlings. So those budgets are looking at about $1MM/Yr additional cost just to manage the rosters.
All of which will happen in a landscape of stagnating revenues, as donors become more vocal about paying the new NIL costs in addition to the old facilities / scholarship costs.
Absent legislative intervention, this whole business will destroy collegiate athletics as we know it.
Do we have $25K to give to every kid we recruit? Of course not. There’s literally no NIL money for this purpose, so not sure why you would bring it up.
What is the legislative intervention people thinks will solve everything?
A school salary cap? Of how much?
$1m? Less? More?
That's why you need someone who wins without a lot of money and then hopefully brings in donations after turning the team around instead of someone who says give me tons of money and I promose I'll win games.
I think a lot of people have different thoughts on that, but to my knowledge there's no comprehensive proposal.
First finding someone like that is very difficult. You’re more likely to fail than succeed. You’re basically asking the AD to hire the next Urban Meyer. And even if he were to succeed, he’d be poached by a better program. This allows the power programs to Maintain their hegemony.
That's not fair or likely legal. Once the players sued to be "professionals" the cat is out of the bag. This is why I've been vocally against the NIL. Folks are going to get tired of paying professional prices for college performance - and as noted above, only a few programs dominate continuously. Also there is no draft to level the playing field like in the pro pro sports.
I sure hope that the college sports that the players decided a free education wasn't enough compensation for is still here when their kids want to play... And if not, well Geo and his fellow recent athletes got theirs.
Hey maybe the NCAA should institute a draft.
No, Urban Meyer is the kind of guy who takes programs that are already blue chip and wins NCs. And you're more likely to find an up-and-comer to win on a shoestring than get donors to give millions based on promises.
So we don’t have $25k per recruit but you’re convinced we can build a $150 million football facility… lol ok pal
I find that my sentiments on this matter are generally aligned with @RUScrew85.
I'm also old enough to remember when anyone who DARED to speak out in disagreement with Geo's vision was immediately maligned and tormented.
Consider that if someone wants something from you and you're getting nothing in return, you're probably being played.
HC Pike says...
How many Coaches did we hire before we got to Pike? Bob Wendell was the last coach to go to the NCAAs
Much of Our alumni base just isn’t onboard with NIL. We raised money to build an APC on Livingston. We will raise the money for the football facility.
He wasn’t always that way. He started at Bowling Green, then went to Utah, then went to Florida, and ultimately ended up at Ohio State.