Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - Printable Version
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Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - OutsiderFan - 06-10-2022
I'm reading about virtually every Power 5 program in the country creating one, but have not seen or heard anything about Stanford doing so. Have I missed it? Are Stanford boosters content to let the college sports world pass it by? Or might Stanford have some other way of competing for the level of athlete needed to win championships? I get Stanford degree being uniquely valuable and all that, but it's hard for me to believe it will be possible to stay competitive unless recruits who sign with Stanford are promised some kind of NIL money in exchange for their signature.
To be clear, helping scholarship athletes with NIL deals only after they sign is not on par with the inducement an NIL collective provides recruits to sign with a school. Stanford may offer resources and help for athletes to get NIL deals once at Stanford, but that is not the same as having deals in place prior to signing with Stanford. This is what NIL collectives do, and what my question is based on.
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - GK3 - 06-10-2022
(06-10-2022, 06:57 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: I'm reading about virtually every Power 5 program in the country creating one, but have not seen or heard anything about Stanford doing so. Have I missed it? Are Stanford boosters content to let the college sports world pass it by? Or might Stanford have some other way of competing for the level of athlete needed to win championships? I get Stanford degree being uniquely valuable and all that, but it's hard for me to believe it will be possible to stay competitive unless recruits who sign with Stanford are promised some kind of NIL money in exchange for their signature.I agree that some kind of competitive NIL deal is necessary. I also think we need to figure out a way to deal with the portal problem. More and more of our guys are graduating after 4 year. With four years of Summer Quarter, it gets to be a lot easier be ready to graduate after 4 years. Since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program, many of our most experienced guys are out the door via the transfer portal
To be clear, helping scholarship athletes with NIL deals only after they sign is not on par with the inducement an NIL collective provides recruits to sign with a school. Stanford may offer resources and help for athletes to get NIL deals once at Stanford, but that is not the same as having deals in place prior to signing with Stanford. This is what NIL collectives do, and what my question is based on.
I think that it would be pretty difficult to manage his courses so that he graduates after Fall Quarter. A lot of these guys will be good players but maybe marginal NFL types. I don't see how it is in their best interests to tell them to turn down moving on to another school where they can start their Masters work and a lot of it paid for by the new school.
These two problems added to the historically small incoming talent pool places us a major disadvantage.
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - BobK - 06-10-2022
I don’t know about football but a number of wbb and WVB players have NIL deals. Some with 3-4
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - TreesAndBirds - 06-10-2022
According to this site Stanford athletes have 54 NIL deals….
https://nilcollegeathletes.com/universities/stanford-university
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - BobK - 06-10-2022
The list is very much incomplete but thanks
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - cardcrimson - 06-10-2022
Pretty lucrative deals:
From a couple of the NIL deals as reported on the above list
How much is the deal worth?
Barstool Merchandise including t-shirt, hoodie, and sweatpants
Those types of deals will have kids flocking to the Farm.
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - Genuine Realist - 06-10-2022
I haven't weighed in on this topic in some time, being otherwise occupied. But I begin with the usual - the educational institution becoming involved with the economic life of a student, any student, is inappropriate, and athletes are no different. There's nothing at all ugly or any other pejorative adjective about a poor kid becoming a little better off in the world from whatever source.
But as to seven figure deals for recruits and untried transfers, who's kidding who? That's not NIL money, no matter how characterized. It's agent and pro sponsorship money, disguised as NIL - our old agency friends. If you believe there's a universe of boosters willing to pay serious money just to see a 17-year-old talent on the roster, with no name recognition (except with ultra-fans,) the competition for PT with other talented kids still ahead of him , and the injury factor (particularly in football), I have a bridge to sell you. But taking a flyer on the serious money available as a pro might make some sense.
Faced with this reality, the NCAA has two choices - (a) to accept the inevitable and drop the amateurism notion, or (b) to come up with a 3000-page administrative guide, characterizing NIL deals in various ways, and attempting the impossible task of separating genuine NIL deals from disguised agency deals. Two guesses which way it goes.
As I've noted before, Stanford has zero chance in major sports with true NIL deals. The fan base just isn't large enough to compete with land grant schools and other public universities. It does have a chance with a wide-open system.
I expect water to find its level in such a world. College athletics provide the same sort of maturation and preparation base as academics do with other life choices. Pro franchises have enough business sense not to interfere with rosters and the basic college scheme, i.e., the bowl system and the basketball tournament remain pretty much the same (somewhat enriched). Basically, they option services and wait until an athlete can actually contribute before exercising the option. That may be after an undergraduate year, but for most, after college eligibility is used up. Obviously, an athlete must remain academically eligible to stay on a college roster.
Academically motivated kids may make different types of deals than others, but the reality is that most gifted athletes, no matter how bright, will join a pro franchise as soon as the franchise will have them (unlike the present system, where the amateur rule effectively leaves NBA franchises with a take-it-or-leave it option. Most pro scouts would far rather the majority of undergrads coming out continue in school, but that option does not exist.) Even the most gifted academically probably defer completing school, given the option.
And if the pro career fails and the athlete returns to school, is he or she still eligible for the college team? Of course. You might see Stanford basketball and baseball team rosters with a fair number of players who gave the NBA and MLB a try, and it didn't work. A slightly older demographic, athletes in their early to mid 20's. Why not?
(Anyone remember Craig Landis? Maybe he's on this board. Son of Jim Landis, he was a super talented QB out of Napa Vintage, recruited by UCLA and Stanford, but more the UCLA option type. He opted for baseball and was out of sight for a while. Evidently he played six seasons of minor league baseball (making him 23-24), then accepted a football scholarship to Stanford without much fanfare, this in 1985. I followed this stuff back then, but only became aware he was on the roster when he trotted out to hold for place kicks, though he was also a db. He made one sensational play when the snap was botched, and he turned a broken play into a first down, IIRC. He got his degree and is a sports agent now, representing Mike Trout.
That sort of career, only within the same sport. Landis could only play football because he'd been bonused in baseball. Ridiculous distinction.)
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - msqueri - 06-10-2022
(06-10-2022, 07:25 AM)GK3 Wrote:(06-10-2022, 06:57 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: I'm reading about virtually every Power 5 program in the country creating one, but have not seen or heard anything about Stanford doing so. Have I missed it? Are Stanford boosters content to let the college sports world pass it by? Or might Stanford have some other way of competing for the level of athlete needed to win championships? I get Stanford degree being uniquely valuable and all that, but it's hard for me to believe it will be possible to stay competitive unless recruits who sign with Stanford are promised some kind of NIL money in exchange for their signature.I agree that some kind of competitive NIL deal is necessary. I also think we need to figure out a way to deal with the portal problem. More and more of our guys are graduating after 4 year. With four years of Summer Quarter, it gets to be a lot easier be ready to graduate after 4 years. Since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program, many of our most experienced guys are out the door via the transfer portal
To be clear, helping scholarship athletes with NIL deals only after they sign is not on par with the inducement an NIL collective provides recruits to sign with a school. Stanford may offer resources and help for athletes to get NIL deals once at Stanford, but that is not the same as having deals in place prior to signing with Stanford. This is what NIL collectives do, and what my question is based on.
I think that it would be pretty difficult to manage his courses so that he graduates after Fall Quarter. A lot of these guys will be good players but maybe marginal NFL types. I don't see how it is in their best interests to tell them to turn down moving on to another school where they can start their Masters work and a lot of it paid for by the new school.
These two problems added to the historically small incoming talent pool places us a major disadvantage.
I've never understood the "since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program" argument. Our players did just that as the norm for decades. Yes, we didn't used to have all the summer credits and, now winter and spring credits, which could truly be another game changer in just how early players will feel they've completed their time at Stanford. That is a big change from when players could balance football and academics such that they had a lighter load at times knowing they had another quarter in their fifth year to graduate. But is there anything actually stopping players from playing a fifth year even if it's superfluous academically (or "just" an opportunity to take classes for interest beyond what's required to graduate)? It seems to me what's stopping it is more normative than set in stone - the new norm at Stanford is that you only stay as long as you need to get your degree and that playing football for "free" (i.e., without a particular degree in return) is for suckers. Very harmful to football culture and competitiveness at Stanford, I think, but not something where players "can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program." It's that they won't, not that they can't.
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - BostonCard - 06-10-2022
Yup, I agree. I believe that Stanford has cracked down a bit on academic sluggishness (not just in athletics, but more broadly) so that if you don’t plan to graduate within four years that you have to put together an academic plan, but that is not onerous at all. It basically means putting on paper what classes you are planning to take and demonstrate that those classes fulfill whatever remaining requirements you have left to graduate. I saw no indication that this was anything more than a box-checking exercise.
I think the bigger issue is as you point out. I do think that for a 40-year-minded football player that it is easy to see the appeal of a graduate transfer. A Stanford degree plus a graduate degree (from anywhere) may be viewed more favorably on the job market than a Stanford degree alone.
I honestly cannot fault the logic.
BC
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - Softball Fan - 06-10-2022
The NCAA should review the entire subject of amateurism and sports. I realize they were at times backed into the current policy by external forces.
There is a high school kid in Turkey playing on a professional volleyball team who hopes to play for/attend Stanford. She's in the top academically ranked high school in Turkey and likely will be admitted. Her pro contract is structured so money is put into a trust in the event she plays volleyball at a NCAA school. The money then reverts back to the professional club if she decides to play for Stanford. Accepting a small salary would prevent her playing sports for an NCAA team. Meanwhile Stanford women golf players make megabucks on big NIL deals and are in good standing as "amateurs".
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - msqueri - 06-10-2022
Yep, BC, the logic is compelling. Hard to fault. But it seems to be something we encourage, so it's then maddening when we hear Shaw use youth and inexperience as an excuse. It's one thing to cite that as a one off complaint about a down year or bad luck, but it's absurd if it's something that is a steady state due to the very way you run the program. Recruit 40 year decision guys, emphasize post-football job prospects and the value of degrees in everything you do, and actively accelerate the degree progress of your players and this becomes very predictable. Stanford will remain in a situation in which we are young and inexperienced because fifth year players are unicorns for us, by design.
I would wager that most view early enrollment as a slight head start to allow players to compete in spring practice and off-season training under the guidance of the Stanford strength and conditioning team. That view misses how revolutionary the new policy actually is: David Bailey, Sam Roush, and Mudia Reuben will have three academic quarters under their belt (winter, spring, summer) before their non-football "classmates" get on campus. Stanford effectively operates on trimesters as most regular students do not take summer classes. In effect, then, Bailey, Roush, and Reuben may be an entire academic year ahead (if they take relatively light loads, as would be reasonable, perhaps it's shy of a full year, but definitely closer to a year than it is to a fall fresh start would be). If any of them are NFL prospects after three years, this significantly decreases any pull they'd have to play another year at Stanford. For any who play four or five years of college football, the idea of having a Stanford degree after a junior or redshirt sophomore season opens up an even more distinct likelihood of transferring elsewhere for football opportunities or a different graduate degree. And this is a model we're aggressively trying to expand so that many more of our incoming football players are on this track.
I am not saying this is a bad idea. It's complicated. There are many benefits to the program and the individuals. But we do need to reckon with what it means to go from football being a 4-5 year commitment to a 3-4 year commitment, which is what I think the evolution in Stanford football in recent years amounts to. And I fear there isn't a way to plan around or mitigate what this means in the trenches.
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - BostonCard - 06-10-2022
Yup, I agree. My thoughts are as follows:
1) Given the decreasing likelihood of five year graduation, we might as well burn redshirts with impunity. If someone can contribute their freshman year, even if it is on special teams or as an Ogre, forget about the six game limit and just play them. Any benefit that could be anticipated on the back end has to be heavily discounted by the probability that there won’t be a back end.
2) work hard to get potential fifth year contributors on track for a Stanford graduate program early. Stanford’s coterminal degrees are designed to be completed in five years for both a bachelor’s and master’s program, which fits well with the football program. Plus, a Stanford master’s degree does carry some cachet. The catch is that planning for it really has to happen during a student’s third year. So, have that conversation early, work to plan for coterm enrollment, which has the additional advantage of two-way certainty (the player will know they have a spot on the team for their fifth year and the staff will know the player won’t grad transfer). Plus, it looks good all the way around— prospective student athletes can be wooed with the possibility of getting an undergraduate and master’s degree, and touting all the guys who graduate with graduate degrees is something that the program and university can point to with pride.
3) this is an observation… things will change once the COVID year has worked itself through the system. You had a bunch of athletes suddenly looking at an extra year of eligibility, which may have upended some plans.
BC
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - CTcard - 06-10-2022
(06-10-2022, 09:06 AM)msqueri Wrote: I've never understood the "since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program" argument.
(06-10-2022, 11:55 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Yup, I agree. My thoughts are as follows:
1) Given the decreasing likelihood of five year graduation ...
I assume that by "never understood" msqueri really means this is simply incorrect.
In addition, is the decreasing likelihood of fifth year players really true?
The roster currently lists 8 fifth year players and 1 sixth year. One of those is Fields who "transferred" to Stanford. Still that leaves 8 fifth+ year players on the roster which doesn't seem all that few versus the past.
Since he wasn't a Stanford undergrad, Fields had to get into a graduate program. He is listed on the roster page as (MS). Nobody else is listed with an indication of a graduate degree, which leads me to think that none are purely grad students. So, the presence of 8 fifth plus year continuing Stanford players makes it pretty clear it is not logistically that difficult to hang around for a fifth year.
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - Giants - 06-10-2022
How does 2020 (a free redshirt year for everyone whether they played or not) figure in these calculations?
lex24 - lex24 - 06-10-2022
No one that can contribute even marginally on the field should be redshirted. The odds of someone staying at one school for 5 years in todays world is slim. And the odds of a 5th year that does stick around being a significant upgrade over a freshman or sophomore is slimmer still. If recruiting correctly. The one exception, perhaps, being offensive lineman.
I’m not saying 5th years have no value. Just that there is no value in redshirting anymore.
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - GK3 - 06-10-2022
(06-10-2022, 12:16 PM)CTcard Wrote:(06-10-2022, 09:06 AM)msqueri Wrote: I've never understood the "since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program" argument.
(06-10-2022, 11:55 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Yup, I agree. My thoughts are as follows:
1) Given the decreasing likelihood of five year graduation ...
I assume that by "never understood" msqueri really means this is simply incorrect.
In addition, is the decreasing likelihood of fifth year players really true?
The roster currently lists 8 fifth year players and 1 sixth year. One of those is Fields who "transferred" to Stanford. Still that leaves 8 fifth+ year players on the roster which doesn't seem all that few versus the past.
Since he wasn't a Stanford undergrad, Fields had to get into a graduate program. He is listed on the roster page as (MS). Nobody else is listed with an indication of a graduate degree, which leads me to think that none are purely grad students. So, the presence of 8 fifth plus year continuing Stanford players makes it pretty clear it is not logistically that difficult to hang around for a fifth year.
I think the operative phrase is: "met the requirements for graduation" IF yes, no 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Masters program. If no, then you can come back if the coaches want you.
Women's Golf probably benefits more from NIL than any other sport. To make big money on the LPGA requires exceptional talent, and even then the amount of money you can make would not match what a male golfer with the same talent could realize. More top women players out of high school seem academically oriented than their male counterparts.
Golf is a tough sport, we have had no male golfer star on the PGA since Tiger. Rodgers and McNealy are making very nice money but they are not winning tournaments, jury is out whether Wu joins them, or breaks through and starts winning. Rodgers has made over $2,000,000 since turning pro so he isn't going broke. Andrea Lee has made something over $600,000 which is far better than any of our next to last Golf Championship Team has done.
It is hard to for me to understand how Stanford seems to frown on making it more possible for athletes to earn more money while in school, while University has made billions from efforts of their students in other fields.
RE: lex24 - gailtate - 06-10-2022
(06-10-2022, 01:11 PM)lex24 Wrote: No one that can contribute even marginally on the field should be redshirted. The odds of someone staying at one school for 5 years in todays world is slim. And the odds of a 5th year that does stick around being a significant upgrade over a freshman or sophomore is slimmer still. If recruiting correctly. The one exception, perhaps, being offensive lineman.
I’m not saying 5th years have no value. Just that there is no value in redshirting anymore.
Looking back to the end of last season, which seniors would you've welcomed back for another year??
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - msqueri - 06-10-2022
(06-10-2022, 11:55 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Yup, I agree. My thoughts are as follows:
1) Given the decreasing likelihood of five year graduation, we might as well burn redshirts with impunity. If someone can contribute their freshman year, even if it is on special teams or as an Ogre, forget about the six game limit and just play them. Any benefit that could be anticipated on the back end has to be heavily discounted by the probability that there won’t be a back end.
2) work hard to get potential fifth year contributors on track for a Stanford graduate program early. Stanford’s coterminal degrees are designed to be completed in five years for both a bachelor’s and master’s program, which fits well with the football program. Plus, a Stanford master’s degree does carry some cachet. The catch is that planning for it really has to happen during a student’s third year. So, have that conversation early, work to plan for coterm enrollment, which has the additional advantage of two-way certainty (the player will know they have a spot on the team for their fifth year and the staff will know the player won’t grad transfer). Plus, it looks good all the way around— prospective student athletes can be wooed with the possibility of getting an undergraduate and master’s degree, and touting all the guys who graduate with graduate degrees is something that the program and university can point to with pride.
3) this is an observation… things will change once the COVID year has worked itself through the system. You had a bunch of athletes suddenly looking at an extra year of eligibility, which may have upended some plans.
BC
1) Yes, you and Lex are absolutely right about that. "Redshirt" really shouldn't even be in the vocabulary anymore. Not only are there the factors produced by the transfer portal/NIL/etc., but there's also the four game redshirt rule. Now a player can apply a redshirt any year of their career if they miss two thirds of the season. That's as likely to happen late career as early career. The only criterion for playing should be if somebody can contribute and is the best man for the playing time. That being said, I don't think that changes the competitive disadvantage we're at when offensive and defensive linemen don't play five or even six (happens more than you'd think at other schools, and most of our players have that option due to the Covid mulligan) years. Since linemen generally take more time to mature and be able to contribute, there's still a big place for linemen in their fifth and sixth years. I've gone more in depth showing that in other analyses but fifth year linemen are far from extinct elsewhere. If we have Rouse, Bragg, and Nugent leave after this year, that will really sting.
2) Lots of good thoughts in here about being thoughtful and strategic about preparing/coaching players for Stanford grad opportunities, but it only goes so far. The coaches can't control whether the best laid plans will pan out for the individuals, though coterms seem like they build in more predictability than applying to other grad programs. There's also the issue of the coaches needing to build in some decision space/optionality. For example, under your vision our 2018 recruiting class would have had lots of players who the coaches worked with up front on being able to get a grad degree at Stanford so they could stay for a fifth year....but what would we have done about Loa Kaufusi, Jack West, Andres Fox, Caleb Kelly, Justus Woods, and Donjae Logan? Those are players we not only wanted but needed to retire or transfer out. How do you prepare an academic plan for a player to stay five years when there players you are going to need to leave. Tricky. And the earlier you start that forecasting the more fraught - two/three/four years ago Fox, Kaufusi, and West would have all had a best case scenario in which we would have hoped they'd be around in 2022. I'll be blunt: if we told players they'd have a spot on the team for a fifth year, we'd be a much worse team. I don't want these guys I've named taking up scholarships.
3) Absolutely. I've been trying to game it out to think what that landscape will look like. I sort of have a feeling it will feel like a cliff to us, with the reality (Stanford being a 3-4 year school for players, other teams having that dynamic be much less pronounced AND being able to replenish with the transfer portal more than we can). But the future is murky. I think the best we can do is consistently recruit big, good classes and manage late career attrition as best as we can. In many ways, the 2022 recruiting class and the bad players leaving/good players returning dynamic we saw this offseason were pretty competent in terms of roster management. I have to add almost because Thomas Booker and Dalyn Wade-Perry declaring for the NFL and Gabe Reid and Austin Jones transferring out were detrimental (and I'd say Booker, Reid, and Jones deeply detrimental) and in a perfect world we'd have those two and not have Ethan Bonner and a few worthless chronically medically infirm players. But no coaches can really call all their shots, and we managed the roster competently this offseason.
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - msqueri - 06-10-2022
(06-10-2022, 12:16 PM)CTcard Wrote:(06-10-2022, 09:06 AM)msqueri Wrote: I've never understood the "since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program" argument.
(06-10-2022, 11:55 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Yup, I agree. My thoughts are as follows:
1) Given the decreasing likelihood of five year graduation ...
I assume that by "never understood" msqueri really means this is simply incorrect.
In addition, is the decreasing likelihood of fifth year players really true?
The roster currently lists 8 fifth year players and 1 sixth year. One of those is Fields who "transferred" to Stanford. Still that leaves 8 fifth+ year players on the roster which doesn't seem all that few versus the past.
Since he wasn't a Stanford undergrad, Fields had to get into a graduate program. He is listed on the roster page as (MS). Nobody else is listed with an indication of a graduate degree, which leads me to think that none are purely grad students. So, the presence of 8 fifth plus year continuing Stanford players makes it pretty clear it is not logistically that difficult to hang around for a fifth year.
I did a really over the top extensive but I thought interesting analysis a while back comparing fifth years across Stanford history with fifth years under Shaw and came up with a really clear finding: Shaw has had fifth year players in roughly the number his predecessors had, just not fifth year linemen. It's the fact that Thomas Booker, Drew Dalman, Walker Little, Foster Sarell, Devery Hamilton, Michael Williams, Jovan Swann, Casey Tucker, Aziz Shittu (terrible burnt redshirt.....despite what I, BC, and Lex have said in this thread, there's no getting around how damaging it is to have a guy have a season with one tackle that precludes the possibility of future redshirt, become first team all-conference, and then go undrafted), and Harrison Phillips didn't play fifth years. That's hard to weather. For context, 54 percent of the offensive linemen recruited between 2004-2010 stayed five years while only 21 percent of the OL recruited between 2011-2017 stayed five years, and 71 percent of the defensive linemen recruited between 2004-2010 stayed five years while only 28 percent of the DL recruited between 2011-2017 stayed five years. If I were to update the numbers they'd go even further down as we didn't have a single linemen play five years from the 2018 class (Booker, Fox, Umerah, Stratford).
Next up is to see what happens with the 2019 class. How many among Bragg, Pakola (already gone), Rouse, Miller, Hornibrook, and Nugent will be on the roster for the 2023 season? Will we get more than half the starting OL to return or will we follow this trend of the Shaw era where one returns and the rest are gone?
RE: Is Stanford creating an NIL collective? - DC 86 - 06-10-2022
(06-10-2022, 06:57 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: I'm reading about virtually every Power 5 program in the country creating one, but have not seen or heard anything about Stanford doing so. Have I missed it? Are Stanford boosters content to let the college sports world pass it by? Or might Stanford have some other way of competing for the level of athlete needed to win championships? I get Stanford degree being uniquely valuable and all that, but it's hard for me to believe it will be possible to stay competitive unless recruits who sign with Stanford are promised some kind of NIL money in exchange for their signature.
To be clear, helping scholarship athletes with NIL deals only after they sign is not on par with the inducement an NIL collective provides recruits to sign with a school. Stanford may offer resources and help for athletes to get NIL deals once at Stanford, but that is not the same as having deals in place prior to signing with Stanford. This is what NIL collectives do, and what my question is based on.
This thread seems to have gotten sidetracked without addressing your question.
Stanford doesn't have an NIL collective. Most, but not all FBS schools have collectives. For example, I don't believe USC supporters have one that's been announced at this point, but they are working on one that is going to be very big. So the issue is whether Stanford supporters are also working on one. Obviously Stanford has extremely wealthy alums, the wealthiest in FBS football in fact. Unlike most universities a collective of just a few alums could have an enormous impact. Haven't heard anything along these lines, but perhaps others are better informed. Whether it happens - and whether Stanford (the university, alumnae, fans) really desires to compete in this manner is yet another question.