[SkiBum80]

Apologies for simplifying it down to:
    Pay the player what they're worth.  What are they worth? What the Market says they are worth.

Are you volunteering to front the money.  If so, Bob has provided the link to lifetime Cardinal, but if not, then no, Stanford should not pay every athlete whatever the market says they are worth because Stanford does not have a bottomless source of funds to pay all athletes whatever they could get.  Stanford (via Lifetime Cardinal, at least until the House settlement is approved) should pay athletes whatever it determienes they are worth, taking into account competing funding requirements.  Sometimes that will be less than athletes can get elsewhere, just as sometimes a professor will say "School X is offering me an endowed professorship and a position heading an institute with 8 FTE's, can you match it?" and the the Stanford department chair will be left saying; "Congratulations and best of luck at school X".

BC

I was intrigued by Mudhead's post and was trying to see if his thoughts boiled down to a simple thesis, which I tried restating, to see if I was understanding him correctly, and if not, to allow his correction.
If I did understand and restated in simple form, then I fully agree it may agreeable to some, and not agreeable to others, as has been discussed a lot on Cardboard in other threads.
In addition though, my main point was that if you agree it is good to pay athletes what they are worth and if that is what the market says they are worth, then determining that market worth is really hard to do a priori.
More similar to a Sotheby's auction than a stock market transaction.
Only after an athlete achieves some NIL or other deal do you really know what someone in the market was willing to pay.
As far as my own personal involvement, I've financially supported Stanford U, the Buck/Cardinal club, and Hopkins Marine Station for multiple decades.
And since last year added Lifetime Cardinal.
I note this not for selfishly soliciting accolades, but for agreeing with you that Lifetime Cardinal does have limited funds.
However, I disagree with a claim on a prior thread from long ago, that said any funds going to Lifetime Cardinal would be for sure detrimental to, and subtracting from, University donations, as it would be robbing from Peter to pay Paul.
My own experience is not that case.
I believe Lifetime Cardinal is a good idea and new avenue to raise new funds, possibly from some new donors even.
Getting back to my main point, which is that establishing the market value of college athletes is a very hard and tricky business,
I am acknowledging that those running Lifetime Cardinal have a hard job, trying to distribute limited funds across multiple sports,
trying to maximize the overall benefit to all our sports teams, while trying to pay athletes what they are worth,
but not overpay anyone, and trying to know when to back off because someone's auction is going so high as to blow the budget for what is needed to pay other athletes.
Kind of reminds me of a MLB GM's job in some ways, which then makes me think of Moneyball too.
Not easy to get it right.
Getting it right probably means getting it more than 50% right cause you'll never hit 100%.

[SkiBum80]

Apologies for simplifying it down to:
    Pay the player what they're worth.  What are they worth? What the Market says they are worth.

Are you volunteering to front the money.  If so, Bob has provided the link to lifetime Cardinal, but if not, then no, Stanford should not pay every athlete whatever the market says they are worth because Stanford does not have a bottomless source of funds to pay all athletes whatever they could get.  Stanford (via Lifetime Cardinal, at least until the House settlement is approved) should pay athletes whatever it determienes they are worth, taking into account competing funding requirements.  Sometimes that will be less than athletes can get elsewhere, just as sometimes a professor will say "School X is offering me an endowed professorship and a position heading an institute with 8 FTE's, can you match it?" and the the Stanford department chair will be left saying; "Congratulations and best of luck at school X".

BC

I was intrigued by Mudhead's post and was trying to see if his thoughts boiled down to a simple thesis, which I tried restating, to see if I was understanding him correctly, and if not, to allow his correction.
If I did understand and restated in simple form, then I fully agree it may agreeable to some, and not agreeable to others, as has been discussed a lot on Cardboard in other threads.
In addition though, my main point was that if you agree it is good to pay athletes what they are worth and if that is what the market says they are worth, then determining that market worth is really hard to do a priori.
More similar to a Sotheby's auction than a stock market transaction.
Only after an athlete achieves some NIL or other deal do you really know what someone in the market was willing to pay.
As far as my own personal involvement, I've financially supported Stanford U, the Buck/Cardinal club, and Hopkins Marine Station for multiple decades.
And since last year added Lifetime Cardinal.
I note this not for selfishly soliciting accolades, but for agreeing with you that Lifetime Cardinal does have limited funds.
However, I disagree with a claim on a prior thread from long ago, that said any funds going to Lifetime Cardinal would be for sure detrimental to, and subtracting from, University donations, as it would be robbing from Peter to pay Paul.
My own experience is not that case.
I believe Lifetime Cardinal is a good idea and new avenue to raise new funds, possibly from some new donors even.
Getting back to my main point, which is that establishing the market value of college athletes is a very hard and tricky business,
I am acknowledging that those running Lifetime Cardinal have a hard job, trying to distribute limited funds across multiple sports,
trying to maximize the overall benefit to all our sports teams, while trying to pay athletes what they are worth,
but not overpay anyone, and trying to know when to back off because someone's auction is going so high as to blow the budget for what is needed to pay other athletes.
Kind of reminds me of a MLB GM's job in some ways, which then makes me think of Moneyball too.
Not easy to get it right.
Getting it right probably means getting it more than 50% right cause you'll never hit 100%.