Mel Tucker says some BT teams are spending $12-$13MM a year on NIL

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minnyrules11 said:
$9 million per year and what like 5 wins last year. It’s not NIL.
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MSU would be better off spending $9M on players and finding a good local high school coach who will come in and call the timeouts, manage the clock, and give a good hype speech while the coordinators call the plays.

What if Flava Flav coached MSU on gamedays? Then they could get a TV special and have even more NIL money. The TV special attracts even more recruits.
 


Zeppelin Gopher said:
Mel Tucker is wildly overrated.

Hope MSU has fun paying him $95 mill for .500 results.
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I think most folks rate Mel about where he should be now...

He does have that weird gift for pulling a rabbit out of the hat ~once a year it seems.
 


NIL is so weird.

There's no real economic reason for rando's or some company to give college athletes money, almost none of these guys are worth $1 of endorsement money, a handful are worth a lot. There's nothing particularly rational about how this is playing out.

This stuff could vanish as much as it increases.

It's more akin to religion, except the various churches collect money and then compete in sport or something ... it's very weird.
 

Interesting or poor choice of words if teams are spending $12-13M. My understanding is donors and businesses are involved in NIL contracts, all of which are opaque AFAIK. How much guaranteed money, signing bonus, etc. My assumption is far, far less will ever change hands.
 


Every single team "spends" exactly zero on NIL.

No school is allowed to be involved in NIL contracts or to give money directly to athletes. That's the entire point of how it was set up and the rules of how it works.


I'm sure he didn't mean it like that, but a very lazy and loose choice of language on his part.
 




MplsGopher said:
Every single team "spends" exactly zero on NIL.

No school is allowed to be involved in NIL contracts or to give money directly to athletes. That's the entire point of how it was set up and the rules of how it works.


I'm sure he didn't mean it like that, but a very lazy and loose choice of language on his part.
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Here's how a school can indirectly spend money on NIL:

For decades, athletic departments have solicited private donations to help pay for things like stadium renovations, athletic training facilities, and niceties for athletes. Even things like buyouts for fired coaches. Minnesota and every Big Ten school has done this.

Let's say the a university now starts to pay for these things themselves. Whether they got the money from the new TV deal, axing the men's tennis team, or a big, fat, totally legal check from a private donor, they no longer need more private donations.

But private entities still want to support the football program in one way or another. So it becomes known that this is best done through a NIL collective. Most entities have a certain amount to spend on this discretionary activity, but now the money that once went to university resources goes into player pockets instead through the collective.

So the school didn't spend a dime to pay players directly but shell-gamed it so donors would.
 

Sure, I think your hypothetical is valid on paper.

In reality, I not only think that this is the opposite of the way that university presidents, regents, and athletic directors (and their finance depts) think, but I actually think they were and are wary and on the lookout for these private NIL collectives eating too much into the donation "revenue" that they forecast coming into the athletic dept.

As you implied, I do believe now that two viable donation avenues exist, it's more of an "either or" situation than a "both and" situation. I doubt many people are going to say "well I was going to donate $1M to the athletic department, but now I think I'll do that and donate another million to the NIL collective". They're choosing one or perhaps splitting in half.

Probably what the schools/ADs are hoping for is for donors to keep giving to the schools for big, infrequent gifts and for the private NIL collectives to target more frequent, smaller gifts. Even grassroots strategies where you get $10-20 from a crapload of people, which adds up to a nice chunk of change.

After all, if you're giving a nice bit of coin, you'd perhaps like to get your name on something for it. When you donate to a NIL collective, what do you personally get out of it other than your own satisfaction? It gets filtered out to the players banking accounts, they spend it on what have you, and your goodwill then fizzles out into the ether.

Would be interesting to get a look in at the trends the Gopher AD financial folks are seeing, as well as whatever our NIL collective is called, in this regards.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
NIL is so weird.

There's no real economic reason for rando's or some company to give college athletes money, almost none of these guys are worth $1 of endorsement money, a handful are worth a lot. There's nothing particularly rational about how this is playing out.

This stuff could vanish as much as it increases.

It's more akin to religion, except the various churches collect money and then compete in sport or something ... it's very weird.
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I mentioned this to someone who umm makes money offa the govt with non profit stuff and he said ‘nil is good for money laundering.’
 



Throwing money at a problem may not yield the desired outcome.

There’s the coaching and culture components that need to be wholesome.
 

Spaulding!No! said:
I mentioned this to someone who umm makes money offa the govt with non profit stuff and he said ‘nil is good for money laundering.’
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Just like anything it could be used for that, but it is supposed to be reported as income on the other end.

Some poor dude with a Social Security number is gonna get nailed one day.

Players also have to report the deals to the schools and schools to the NCAA.

There are a lot of strings hanging out there….
 
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hungan1 said:
Throwing money at a problem may not yield the desired outcome.

There’s the coaching and culture components that need to be wholesome.
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When Tucker got his massive deal I wondered how much patience they would have if the results didn't immediately follow. Will be interesting to see since MSU is paying for top of the conference results and not getting anything close to that right now.

If Tucker is already throwing out excuses for why they can't compete that is not a god sign and clearly he is feeling the pressure.
 

MNVCGUY said:
When Tucker got his massive deal I wondered how much patience they would have if the results didn't immediately follow. Will be interesting to see since MSU is paying for top of the conference results and not getting anything close to that right now.

If Tucker is already throwing out excuses for why they can't compete that is not a god sign and clearly he is feeling the pressure.
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Yep, Tucker needs to start winning more games.
 

The U (of MN) has handed out exactly $0 total in NIL money to its athletes, as is correct per the rules.

Gopher athletes have undoubtedly signed several hundreds of NIL deals already, with various private businesses, individuals, and whatever “collectives” exist exclusively supporting Gopher athletes. Not sure if the rules require the AD to keep track/accounting of all deals. Would be good if they published a yearly summary, if they are tracking it.
 

fmlizard said:
MSU would be better off spending $9M on players and finding a good local high school coach who will come in and call the timeouts, manage the clock, and give a good hype speech while the coordinators call the plays.

What if Flava Flav coached MSU on gamedays? Then they could get a TV special and have even more NIL money. The TV special attracts even more recruits.
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Plus managing the clock would be easy as can be because he wears it around his neck. Damn good idea.
 

crunched some numbers for the fun of it.

I made the assumption that some players are not going to get NIL - walk-ons, 4th-string players, etc.

so I went with 75 players receiving NIL. If those players received an average of $125,000 each, that is roughly $9.4-million. now, maybe the 'stars' get more, and some players get less. but that is a rough idea of what it would take for a team to hit $9-mill in NIL.

obviously, if more players - or fewer players - are receiving NIL, that impacts the average.
 

MplsGopher said:
Not sure if the rules require the AD to keep track/accounting of all deals. Would be good if they published a yearly summary, if they are tracking it.
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The whole point of NIL was that it couldn’t be traced/tracked/reported or monitored by anyone.
 

I've never seen any such thing.

The point of NIL, as I understand it, was to give college athletes the ability to enter into contracts with private businesses, individuals, and organizations in order to sell their Name, Image, and Likeness for a fee and/or in-kind benefits.

That says nothing of if the school is allowed, or required, to track all such deals for their athletes.
 

The premier league is getting closer every day. Tiered football will be official soon. How many tiers will there be in what will formerly be known as FBS?
 

MplsGopher said:
I've never seen any such thing.

The point of NIL, as I understand it, was to give college athletes the ability to enter into contracts with private businesses, individuals, and organizations in order to sell their Name, Image, and Likeness for a fee and/or in-kind benefits.

That says nothing of if the school is allowed, or required, to track all such deals for their athletes.
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NIL payments, like any royalty payment to any person in exchange for the right to use the person’s name, image, etc., must be declared as income on filed tax returns—and will be tracked by the IRS and state taxing authorities. But individual tax returns are not public documents.

Many NIL donors will attempt to write off the NIL donation as a business expense (buying NIL rights for potential income), but I think the IRS might challenge big write-offs as having no true investment objective. One Texas A&M NIL collective styled itself a charitable organization, trying to set up NIL contributions for a charitable deduction. I think the IRS is already going after that scenario as a sham.

But currently there is no public clearinghouse which authoritatively compiles and publishes NIL data. NIL contributions and payments are “dark money” as far as public scrutiny is concerned.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
crunched some numbers for the fun of it.

I made the assumption that some players are not going to get NIL - walk-ons, 4th-string players, etc.

so I went with 75 players receiving NIL. If those players received an average of $125,000 each, that is roughly $9.4-million. now, maybe the 'stars' get more, and some players get less. but that is a rough idea of what it would take for a team to hit $9-mill in NIL.

obviously, if more players - or fewer players - are receiving NIL, that impacts the average.
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I’ve heard that the going rate for top QB recruits and transfers is in the $3M range, give or take. That adjusts payments for the other positions downward … just like in the NFL.
 

What about the following, then?

www.espn.com

New NCAA guidelines conflict with states over NIL

New NCAA guidelines pertaining to the governance of name, image and likeness deals directly conflict with some state laws on the matter and could result in violations of the association's rules.
www.espn.com www.espn.com



True that these clarifications do not directly address schools being allowed to, or being required to, keep a strict accounting of all NIL deals signed by their athletes.

But how would it be possible for any school to hope to stay in compliance with these NCAA clarifications if they don't do exactly that?? They'd be literally blind to what their athletes are doing.
 

MplsGopher said:
What about the following, then?

www.espn.com

New NCAA guidelines conflict with states over NIL

New NCAA guidelines pertaining to the governance of name, image and likeness deals directly conflict with some state laws on the matter and could result in violations of the association's rules.
www.espn.com www.espn.com



True that these clarifications do not directly address schools being allowed to, or being required to, keep a strict accounting of all NIL deals signed by their athletes.

But how would it be possible for any school to hope to stay in compliance with these NCAA clarifications if they don't do exactly that?? They'd be literally blind to what their athletes are doing.
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found this on the U of MN website - as the school's NIL policy:

III. Disclosure Requirements
Student-Athletes must disclose their Name/Image/Likeness commercial activity by submitting a completed University of Minnesota Name/Image/Likeness Disclosure Form, and receive approval prior to engaging in the activity. The form must be completed and reviewed to ensure the activity is permissible and in compliance with this and any other applicable University of Minnesota policies.

elsewhere in the requirements, it states that failure to follow these guidelines could lead to loss of eligibility for student-athletes.
 

OK, there it is in plain English.

It makes sense to me, simply for the fact that schools should (be allowed to) reject some prospective NIL deals. Certainly for things like alcohol, cigs, weed, etc. But also for gambling, and with sporting brands that compete with their main uniform sponsors. May be a few others. (More conservative schools may have a slightly longer list.)

And so, all I would like to see is a simple summary published at the end of each school year. Perhaps a breakdown per team, but nothing lower detail than that. I don't think that's too much to ask.
 

MplsGopher said:
What about the following, then?

www.espn.com

New NCAA guidelines conflict with states over NIL

New NCAA guidelines pertaining to the governance of name, image and likeness deals directly conflict with some state laws on the matter and could result in violations of the association's rules.
www.espn.com www.espn.com



True that these clarifications do not directly address schools being allowed to, or being required to, keep a strict accounting of all NIL deals signed by their athletes.

But how would it be possible for any school to hope to stay in compliance with these NCAA clarifications if they don't do exactly that?? They'd be literally blind to what their athletes are doing.
Click to expand...

Well, let’s see if the NCAA enforces it’s rules this time, when the rubber hits the road. This seems written in such a way selective enforcement is likely to happen (sporadically if at all).
 


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