[BostonCard]

I truly can't believe this thread.  If someone has offered Somfai a million dollars, and Stanford wants to compete in ACC WBB, Stanford needs to offer her $1.1 million or more.  If Stanford is unwilling to admit transfer portal players that don't meet Stanford's academic standards, they have no other choice than to defend their freshman at any cost, and it still may not make Stanford competitive.  I think we know from the last few years that trying to compete in the new world without major use of the transfer portal or major dollar investments just doesn't work.

It all depends what the University wants.  Eventually Stanford will figure it out.

No, actually it doesn’t. At a time when the University was facing $140 million in budget cuts and had to lay off 360 staff members (https://stanforddaily.com/2025/08/06/sta...dget-cuts/), and is looking at an athletics department that is hemorrhaging money because of the limited media rights in order to get into the ACC, in conjunction with the increased travel costs, and a third of its operating budget came from the University (https://gostanford.com/documents/35853ce...da16d1.pdf), whether it pays a student athlete $1 million has to be weighed not against the student’s other options, but against the other possible uses of the $1 million.

This is not about what Stanford wants, but about what it can afford.

Of course, you are free to donate $1.1 million to Lifetime Cardinal earmarked as a Lara Somfai retention donation, and I am sure that Stanford would happily arrange for an NIL to ensure she stays a Cardinal at least through her sophomore year.  But absent that, I doubt Stanford is going to put up that much of a deal for Somfai (or, for that matter, any women’s basketball player; it couldn’t match the $600,000 that USC paid for Kiki Iriafen, and Iriafen was a much more proven player).

It makes me sad that this is what women’s basketball has become.  I hope Somfai stays, but I can see why others might be pessimistic.  It has not been a good few years in terms of retention of elite players, in any high visibility sport (including softball), and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that football, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball have all struggled at the same time. I wish collegiate athletics were not pro-light, but that’s tilting against windmills.  I have made my peace with the situation… I’m a lot less interested in collegiate athletics generally, and Stanford sports specifically, than I used to be, but, you know, I’m still here, which is a revealed preference, in economic terms.  I accept that we will likely have fewer ups and more downs in major sports, and probably will be at a notch lower level in sports that we used to dominate (eg volleyball, tennis).  Maybe we’ll have an alum tech billionaire with Arillaga’s commitment to Stanford athletics, but I’m not holding my breath.  I think the most likely outcome, at some point, is that sports will be cut and we’ll still struggle for relevance in the revenue sports for structural reasons.

BC

[BostonCard]

I truly can't believe this thread.  If someone has offered Somfai a million dollars, and Stanford wants to compete in ACC WBB, Stanford needs to offer her $1.1 million or more.  If Stanford is unwilling to admit transfer portal players that don't meet Stanford's academic standards, they have no other choice than to defend their freshman at any cost, and it still may not make Stanford competitive.  I think we know from the last few years that trying to compete in the new world without major use of the transfer portal or major dollar investments just doesn't work.

It all depends what the University wants.  Eventually Stanford will figure it out.

No, actually it doesn’t. At a time when the University was facing $140 million in budget cuts and had to lay off 360 staff members (https://stanforddaily.com/2025/08/06/sta...dget-cuts/), and is looking at an athletics department that is hemorrhaging money because of the limited media rights in order to get into the ACC, in conjunction with the increased travel costs, and a third of its operating budget came from the University (https://gostanford.com/documents/35853ce...da16d1.pdf), whether it pays a student athlete $1 million has to be weighed not against the student’s other options, but against the other possible uses of the $1 million.

This is not about what Stanford wants, but about what it can afford.

Of course, you are free to donate $1.1 million to Lifetime Cardinal earmarked as a Lara Somfai retention donation, and I am sure that Stanford would happily arrange for an NIL to ensure she stays a Cardinal at least through her sophomore year.  But absent that, I doubt Stanford is going to put up that much of a deal for Somfai (or, for that matter, any women’s basketball player; it couldn’t match the $600,000 that USC paid for Kiki Iriafen, and Iriafen was a much more proven player).

It makes me sad that this is what women’s basketball has become.  I hope Somfai stays, but I can see why others might be pessimistic.  It has not been a good few years in terms of retention of elite players, in any high visibility sport (including softball), and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that football, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball have all struggled at the same time. I wish collegiate athletics were not pro-light, but that’s tilting against windmills.  I have made my peace with the situation… I’m a lot less interested in collegiate athletics generally, and Stanford sports specifically, than I used to be, but, you know, I’m still here, which is a revealed preference, in economic terms.  I accept that we will likely have fewer ups and more downs in major sports, and probably will be at a notch lower level in sports that we used to dominate (eg volleyball, tennis).  Maybe we’ll have an alum tech billionaire with Arillaga’s commitment to Stanford athletics, but I’m not holding my breath.  I think the most likely outcome, at some point, is that sports will be cut and we’ll still struggle for relevance in the revenue sports for structural reasons.

BC