[Mudhead]

The idea that boosters won't pay millions of dollars to land coveted high school recruits is so preposterous I can't even believe anyone would post such a thing.

Boosters raise most of the money to pay the bulk of coach salaries. And coaches are hired in large measure to recruit those coveted high school athletes. If they have the ability, why would boosters not cut to the chase and pay recruits directly?

NIL may be the "legal" vehicle by which athletes are compensated, but there is nothing that says any NIL deal has to be a smart business decision in terms of a business ROI.  There are going to be legit endorsement deals that don't go beyond the market value of an endorsement deal. But there are absolutely going to be athletes who are compensated well above typical market rate in deals that have no intention of being business ROI positive, because they are really about paying an athlete to join a certain team, and there is a market for the talent.

The NCAA will still say schools aren't allowed to pay players to attend their program, but there is nothing in place that can prevent that from happening, so it will.

You cannot overestimate how much money boosters will pour into a football or basketball program to increase the probability that the team wins. It is not a business decision. It is not an investment. NIL deals will be (are?) viewed as contributions to the school without getting your name put on something .  Outsider Fan is dead right..I wish it were t so but he is correct .  

I have hope that some excellent athletes will value  education over the NIL deal but, as has been observed, “hope is not a strategy”. Stanford will have to operate in this world and do so effectively or it will cut itself off of access to a high percentage (‘80%?) of the premier athletes coming out of high school.

With the transfer portal as open as it is, there is not the option to build a program by finding undiscovered talent and developing it for a few years.  Eventually you will have to be competitive in the NIL marketplace

. I don’t  like that fact. I wish it were not so . But it is.

[Mudhead]

The idea that boosters won't pay millions of dollars to land coveted high school recruits is so preposterous I can't even believe anyone would post such a thing.

Boosters raise most of the money to pay the bulk of coach salaries. And coaches are hired in large measure to recruit those coveted high school athletes. If they have the ability, why would boosters not cut to the chase and pay recruits directly?

NIL may be the "legal" vehicle by which athletes are compensated, but there is nothing that says any NIL deal has to be a smart business decision in terms of a business ROI.  There are going to be legit endorsement deals that don't go beyond the market value of an endorsement deal. But there are absolutely going to be athletes who are compensated well above typical market rate in deals that have no intention of being business ROI positive, because they are really about paying an athlete to join a certain team, and there is a market for the talent.

The NCAA will still say schools aren't allowed to pay players to attend their program, but there is nothing in place that can prevent that from happening, so it will.

You cannot overestimate how much money boosters will pour into a football or basketball program to increase the probability that the team wins. It is not a business decision. It is not an investment. NIL deals will be (are?) viewed as contributions to the school without getting your name put on something .  Outsider Fan is dead right..I wish it were t so but he is correct .  

I have hope that some excellent athletes will value  education over the NIL deal but, as has been observed, “hope is not a strategy”. Stanford will have to operate in this world and do so effectively or it will cut itself off of access to a high percentage (‘80%?) of the premier athletes coming out of high school.

With the transfer portal as open as it is, there is not the option to build a program by finding undiscovered talent and developing it for a few years.  Eventually you will have to be competitive in the NIL marketplace

. I don’t  like that fact. I wish it were not so . But it is.