[M T]

For those that think Stanford donors should pay $1M for any player, go ahead and donate it, unless you're wanting to pay with someone else's money.

For the argument about selling tickets, in 2024, softball season tickets started at $175.  $1M is more than 5700 season tickets.  For the Super Regionals at home, the crowd was under 1500 per game.

For the argument against comparing $1M to 17 full-ride scholarships, what do you not understand about money?  Whether you count it in dollars, gold bars, or Stanford scholarships, they are just different units of value that are fungible.  Or 980 years of monthly $85 hair stylings.

For the argument of why not do both, I'm sorry to point out that we live in a finite world.  If a donor has $10M he was thinking of donating to Stanford University but decides to give $1M to Lifetime Cardinal, most likely the $10M gets decreased, maybe by $1.3M.  If you have only $500 burning a hole in your pocket, and you choose to give it or some portion of it to some athlete, most likely you won't give as much to Stanford University as you would have otherwise.  Lifetime Cardinal is a competitor to Stanford University for discretionary dollars.

I wish it was the case that each dollar donated to Stanford University directly contributed to a cure for cancer or world peace.  Nope, some will get spent on asphalt or janitor closets or all the other things that makes the University run.  But overall, Stanford trains the leaders of tomorrow to help the world in significant ways.  I don't believe that even a MVP in the Super Bowl can match the value of any of many, many different Stanford graduates.

Yes, each of us spends money on our vanities, whether they be lattes or hair salons or NIL merchandise.  There is a benefit from feeling good from such expenditures.   But $1M is a lot of vanity.


Welcome to the dotNIL boom when value is out of whack.

[M T]

For those that think Stanford donors should pay $1M for any player, go ahead and donate it, unless you're wanting to pay with someone else's money.

For the argument about selling tickets, in 2024, softball season tickets started at $175.  $1M is more than 5700 season tickets.  For the Super Regionals at home, the crowd was under 1500 per game.

For the argument against comparing $1M to 17 full-ride scholarships, what do you not understand about money?  Whether you count it in dollars, gold bars, or Stanford scholarships, they are just different units of value that are fungible.  Or 980 years of monthly $85 hair stylings.

For the argument of why not do both, I'm sorry to point out that we live in a finite world.  If a donor has $10M he was thinking of donating to Stanford University but decides to give $1M to Lifetime Cardinal, most likely the $10M gets decreased, maybe by $1.3M.  If you have only $500 burning a hole in your pocket, and you choose to give it or some portion of it to some athlete, most likely you won't give as much to Stanford University as you would have otherwise.  Lifetime Cardinal is a competitor to Stanford University for discretionary dollars.

I wish it was the case that each dollar donated to Stanford University directly contributed to a cure for cancer or world peace.  Nope, some will get spent on asphalt or janitor closets or all the other things that makes the University run.  But overall, Stanford trains the leaders of tomorrow to help the world in significant ways.  I don't believe that even a MVP in the Super Bowl can match the value of any of many, many different Stanford graduates.

Yes, each of us spends money on our vanities, whether they be lattes or hair salons or NIL merchandise.  There is a benefit from feeling good from such expenditures.   But $1M is a lot of vanity.


Welcome to the dotNIL boom when value is out of whack.