Former #Nike CEO Phil Knight is supplying #Oregon with unlimited NIL resources, per @espn.

Knight, 86, “desperately” wants to see a championship at his Alma mater and is willing to pay whatever it takes to make it happen. pic.twitter.com/CE4OP6PigY

— Football Forever (@fballforeverhq) July 9, 2024

I'm shocked

I'm going to Oregon

Bill gates…..next man up

At 86 he will throw everything into in order ti see a CFP for Oregon it sounds like.

Fre3dombear said:

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Bill gates…..next man up

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I'd play for Harvard for Bill Gates money.

boognish_bear said:

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It's such BS what college football has become. Who has the deepest pockets and can bank the biggest payroll to buy the CFP trophy.

We need a salary cap.

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Considering how few teams have won a national title over the last 30 years, this is, among other things, a step forward to giving other teams access to a national title. It sucks for certain programs that were not either historically good or have a wealthy/supportive alumni base, but, based on the last 30 years, those programs didn't have a serious shot at winning a national title anyway. For example, programs Texas A&M and Oregon now have pathways to a national title when they would not but for NIL, however, in contrast, programs Oklahoma State and Kansas State had/have no real shot before or after NIL.

OsoCoreyell said:

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If it is true that you can just buy a CFP, then the sport is useless and pointless.

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Well Oregon has not bought one yet. Just because you pay coaching staffs 10s of millions per year doesnt mean you get a national title either. My point above was that Knight is 86 he wants to personally see one at Oregon and he knows that window is likely quite short at this point. Btw what happens after he passes? Has he left it all to Oregon athletics? If he has left it to his family are they interested in throwing it all at Oregon as well or doing other things with it?

BTW Oregon without Knight is just another KSU or OSU actually.

18-year-olds who won't even play rocking up to class making 6x their professors' salary is still wild to me.

parch said:

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18-year-olds who won't even play rocking up to class making 6x their professors' salary is still wild to me.

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What's also wild is teenage social media influencers making millions off of brand endorsements and streaming revenue and not even having to go to school or getting a sad 9-5 job

What's really wild to me is how unimportant winning is here.
Y'all can hate NIL or Nike or U of Oregon or lament the loss of a coach's ownership of the life outcomes of a student athlete.
I'm much more concerned about how far removed we are from the rest of our conference. I don't care what
Oregon does. Whatever Phil Knight wants, Oregon isn't going to win a football ship.

We are a couple of years behind. But Baylor finally figured out only about 6 months ago that NIL is the new name of the game.

Killing Floor said:

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Whatever Phil Knight wants, Oregon isn't going to win a football ship.

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This is shortsighted. A truism of sport is that money spend has a direct correlation to percentage chances of winning a title. The only place where this is an exception are socialized sports with a hard, shared cap on spending and strict revenue share, like the NFL. But most sports aren't like that. Spend more money, increase your chances to win.

NIL represents unfettered wage spending, like the Premier League or MLB. Uncle Phil throwing tens of millions at NIL doesn't mean Oregon will win a natty, but it would be foolish to ignore that it will dramatically increase their chances in proportion to the money spent. Combine that with a players' coach like Lanning and a direct route to the playoff through the Big 10, and they will absolutely be in the discussion every year.

PartyBear said:

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We are a couple of years behind. But Baylor finally figured out only about 6 months ago that NIL is the new name of the game.

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Eureka...it works

Dave Aranda on what's prompted #Baylor's recent run of recruiting success:

"We're paying players."

— Craig Smoak (@CraigSmoak) July 10, 2024

Sucks. Phil knight is now the Batman villain of CFB. Will make it even funnier if they still can't win tho

I've been saying for a while that nobody can compete with Oregon when it comes to NIL. It's just as much a Nike issue as a Phil Knight issue. Nike can justify ungodly amounts of NIL and get an ROI.

All they need are just another 20 uni combos and they'll finally win a NC, lol.

we need Paula Hurd and Bill Gates to have this same vibe and mentality for Baylor.

Is it? Did they win their conference? Or the year before? Or before that? Have to go back to the shortened 2020 season. Meanwhile Utes and Washington have been winning more. Oregon is not in the top 10 for NIL. And when you can't keep a booster from choosing players there are teams you won't get past. It's not simply how much money is raised. There's coaching, training, process…

Killing Floor said:

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Is it? Did they win their conference? Or the year before? Or before that? Have to go back to the shortened 2020 season. Meanwhile Utes and Washington have been winning more. Oregon is not in the top 10 for NIL. And when you can't keep a booster from choosing players there are teams you won't get past. It's not simply how much money is raised. There's coaching, training, process…

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It sounds like it's a good thing for them that they no longer need to worry about winning a conference title in order to win a national title - 10-2 or better is lock and 9-3 wouldn't be entirely out of the question for a CFP invite. 2023 Washington was a anomaly, and Utah has no shot at winning the CFP.

Killing Floor said:

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Is it? Did they win their conference? Or the year before? Or before that? Have to go back to the shortened 2020 season. Meanwhile Utes and Washington have been winning more. Oregon is not in the top 10 for NIL. And when you can't keep a booster from choosing players there are teams you won't get past. It's not simply how much money is raised. There's coaching, training, process…

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The only reason Oregon football is where it is today is Phil Knight money. They were a mediocre afterthought until he hooked up the money pump in the late 90's.

Number of 10-win seasons in 84 years as a program before 2000: Zero
Number of 10-win seasons since 2000: 14

They were one game away from a natty in 2014 and have been in and around the discussion almost every season since. The only reason that's happened is Knight $. Their probability of winning a natty year over year is much higher than almost anyone, and it's entirely because Knight is just pumping mondo cash into that program year over year. As I said, it doesn't guarantee wins on Saturday, but it's a statistical fact that it dramatically increases your chances.

It sucks because buying a championship has nothing to do with a universities culture, prestige etc which is the whole point.

This ish is getting crazy. Tech's collective the Matador Club apparently came up with $1 million today to buy the best softball player in the country from Stanford. Women's softball? How do you ever recoup that from sport that probably doesn't generate a million in revenue for the whole year? Is there really that much prestige for a school monetarily in saying you are the NCAA Softball champion?

Didn't OK-Lite get some stupid type money from Pickens?

That hasn't helped them get anywhere near a 'chip..

Well, no surprise there. That being said, NO one will/could outspend Texas. Ultimately, Jerry Jones $$$ will pale in comparison.

NEW: The @TexasLonghorns spent $2.3 million on their on-campus party to celebrate the school's entrance into the @SEC.

That includes $610,000 paid to @pitbull and another artist, and $35k paid for Times Square advertising. More details at @Sportico 👇https://t.co/4F21K3zZZQ

— Eben Novy-Williams (@novy_williams) July 25, 2024

My wife is staff there and occasionally teaches and her office is in Belmont which is the tower building in the west end of the stadium. You wouldn't believe the expense when they welcome recruits to campus.

Imagine if colleges were gifted this much money for general student scholarships, faculty research, general facilities, etc. I realize that this happens occasionally, it just seems athletics have become the tail that wags the dog … and people forget that these are schools we are talking about here and not independent local or state teams.

It's kind of circular.
Football and basketball and other sports attract students and applicants.
Even more, they plant the seed for young people to want to attend. You don't think 2nd graders align themselves with colleges because of majors?
And lesser known is how many of those academic and general fund grants and even research grants are influenced by the donor's love of a program that is boosted by sport.

Like they say, it's the university's front door.

Football and basketball only attract a small percentage of students. Emory and Chicago would be long gone if sports were the main attraction for students, not to mention the great many schools that do not perform well in these two major sports year in and year out. God help us if we must always rely up these to sports to stay afloat as a university.

boognish_bear said:

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It's such BS what college football has become. Who has the deepest pockets and can bank the biggest payroll to buy the CFP trophy.

We need a salary cap.

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This x 1,000,000.

True championships are won not bought. Teams must be somewhat even for it to be genuine.