[nvdacard]

It's *all* just a money grab, but what we're seeing these days is that it takes more and more money to succeed at football...and so everyone has to grab successfully where they can :(

It's not just football. ADs are looking at funding Title IX requirements and their entire athletic departments.

While true, the ADs at the biggest places are mainly funding Title IX and other sports after they pay their football coaches whatever sums the coaches' can dream up. 


I have been wondering a bit whether the nature of the money required to be good at football might be changing. Money mostly buys two things: coaches and recruiting advantages. 

With the latter, the source of money it takes may be changing now that paying players to join your team has become allowed as long as you dress it up in a NIL frock. It may be that fancy facilities and lux treatment may soon matter less than cold hard cash. The curious thing about NIL money is that it still cannot come directly from the institute (at least by the rules). So, extra TV money, extra playoff money, or anything else that goes to the institution may be relatively less valuable in recruiting kids than deep pockets of crazed fans. While that tends to be tied to the overall media profile of a program, it isn't necessarily so. 
So, Phil Knight could give all the Oregon players a NIL contract to promote Nike. 
The descendants of T. Boone Pickens could give all the Ok State players a NIL gig discussing how much they love natural gas. 
Etc. for other wealthy fans.
If its big enough, those teams could become awfully good even out of the ACC, Pac or Big 12.

As it stands right now, the counterpunch to big time NIL money is the transfer portal.  Some young man is signed to a program with a large NIL cash offer.  He realizes that he would rather play more meaningful time.  He enters the portal.  Under the current rules, he can't transfer again until graduation.  

Now Stanford must have some NIL money but not enough that we have to compete with Phil Knight etc.  And I think this is something that we could do.  For example, I think a commercial or two with some Stanford players gaming out with NVIDIA products would be really cool.  Would that be gauche?  

It will rankle a lot of fans to see the school participate in this.  This is the world we have.  The sky won't fall on Stanford.  Some adjustments to this new reality have to be made.

[nvdacard]

It's *all* just a money grab, but what we're seeing these days is that it takes more and more money to succeed at football...and so everyone has to grab successfully where they can :(

It's not just football. ADs are looking at funding Title IX requirements and their entire athletic departments.

While true, the ADs at the biggest places are mainly funding Title IX and other sports after they pay their football coaches whatever sums the coaches' can dream up. 


I have been wondering a bit whether the nature of the money required to be good at football might be changing. Money mostly buys two things: coaches and recruiting advantages. 

With the latter, the source of money it takes may be changing now that paying players to join your team has become allowed as long as you dress it up in a NIL frock. It may be that fancy facilities and lux treatment may soon matter less than cold hard cash. The curious thing about NIL money is that it still cannot come directly from the institute (at least by the rules). So, extra TV money, extra playoff money, or anything else that goes to the institution may be relatively less valuable in recruiting kids than deep pockets of crazed fans. While that tends to be tied to the overall media profile of a program, it isn't necessarily so. 
So, Phil Knight could give all the Oregon players a NIL contract to promote Nike. 
The descendants of T. Boone Pickens could give all the Ok State players a NIL gig discussing how much they love natural gas. 
Etc. for other wealthy fans.
If its big enough, those teams could become awfully good even out of the ACC, Pac or Big 12.

As it stands right now, the counterpunch to big time NIL money is the transfer portal.  Some young man is signed to a program with a large NIL cash offer.  He realizes that he would rather play more meaningful time.  He enters the portal.  Under the current rules, he can't transfer again until graduation.  

Now Stanford must have some NIL money but not enough that we have to compete with Phil Knight etc.  And I think this is something that we could do.  For example, I think a commercial or two with some Stanford players gaming out with NVIDIA products would be really cool.  Would that be gauche?  

It will rankle a lot of fans to see the school participate in this.  This is the world we have.  The sky won't fall on Stanford.  Some adjustments to this new reality have to be made.