muddybrazos said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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Jacques Strap said:

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BUATX2000 said:

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boognish_bear said:

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SMU billionaire Bill Armstrong offers some advice for fellow billionaire, Cody Campbell, as he funds Texas Tech NIL👀

Full comments on Walking ‘Strong presented by Epoch Wines! pic.twitter.com/T3XuqM2F6Z

— OnThePonyExpress - SMU Mustangs (@SMUMustangsOn3) January 10, 2026

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I guess that means Mark Cuban must have way more money than Phil Knight.

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I thought his point was that Phil Knight can afford to stay in this game longer than Campbell (and Cuban) can as the price for players escalates. It wasn't about one hand of poker or one football game.

AI thinks that as of 2025, Mark Cuban's net worth is estimated to be around $5.7 billion to $6 billion while Phil Knight's net worth was estimated around $35.4 billion to $35.7 billion.

Cuban & Indiana do have one major thing Phil Knight doesn't have and that's Curt Cignetti. Cignetti is the best force multiplier in CFB.

As a side note Stanford has Larry Page & Sergey Brin whose net worths is estimated around $269 & $259 billion. I'd bet these other guys hope Page & Brin continue to show a lack of interest in joining the game.

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Yep

Absolutely depends on what school's alumni care enough to spend.

Standford's 30 plus Billionaires can run over everyone....the question is do these guys care enough about college football to spend their own money on it?

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I doubt Stanfords guys care about sportsball. The silicon valley type guys dont strike me as the kind who watch or care about college football. Cuban donated $20mill to Indiana but he himself said he never once went to a football game and only cared about bball when he was there. I doubt cubes is going to try and be a Cody Campbell but he will just throw them some donations for the sports teams.

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Exactly

In that case the school that has the alumni willing to spend cash on players (Tech) beats the school that has many times the number of billionaires (Stanford)

PartyBear said:

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I would guess most billionaires out there are not actually interested in buying a sports team for a season or two for a university.

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Yeah, I mean why not just buy a pro sports team?

I had dinner with a Missouri alum last night. He said Mizzou had reached out to alum Stan Kroenke about NIL. My friend told me Kroenke politely declined and indicated he'd rather invest his money in the pro sports teams he already owns.

Jacques Strap said:

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PartyBear said:

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I would guess most billionaires out there are not actually interested in buying a sports team for a season or two for a university.

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Yeah, I mean why not just buy a pro sports team?

I had dinner with a Missouri alum last night. He said Mizzou had reached out to alum Stan Kroenke about NIL. My friend told me Kroenke politely declined and indicated he'd rather invest his money in the pro sports teams he already owns.

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I can't blame him. If he puts the money in his pro teams, he is making an investment that will probably see financial returns. I personally don't know why any BMD would spend tens of millions of dollars a year to pay college athletes. If I had that type of money, I could think of much better places to give it to such as student scholarships, children's hospitals, Mission Waco, World Vision, etc. Hell, I don't have that kind of money, and I find better ways to give.

RightRevBear said:

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Jacques Strap said:

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PartyBear said:

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I would guess most billionaires out there are not actually interested in buying a sports team for a season or two for a university.

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Yeah, I mean why not just buy a pro sports team?

I had dinner with a Missouri alum last night. He said Mizzou had reached out to alum Stan Kroenke about NIL. My friend told me Kroenke politely declined and indicated he'd rather invest his money in the pro sports teams he already owns.

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I can't blame him. If he puts the money in his pro teams, he is making an investment that will probably see financial returns. I personally don't know why any BMD would spend tens of millions of dollars a year to pay college athletes. If I had that type of money, I could think of much better places to give it to such as student scholarships, children's hospitals, Mission Waco, World Vision, etc. Hell, I don't have that kind of money, and I find better ways to give.

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pretty sure all of Baylor's BMDs already do all of that other stuff too...

If you play football at Texas Tech, NIL doesn’t just have to be while you play. Our donors set you up with employment and career help. Lifetime wealth. From here, it’s possible https://t.co/DzYoJEu3zu

— Coyote Raider 🌵 (@CoyoteRaider) January 16, 2026

Redbrickbear said:

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montypython said:

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Dumping millions a year into Tech's program isn't a long term fix, even for Campbell, because it doesn't address the underlining problem.

Campbell is pushing for change across the CFB landscape and has gone to numerous events and spoken with many media outlets to get his opinions across. That's what he's trying to buy - a seat at the table.

With a handful of exceptions, everyone not in the P2 is a farm team now.

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I would say it's pretty sustainable for Cody Campbell given his wealth.

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Having reread my post, I can see I didn't focus my point well enough.

He could dump millions a year into their football program every year, but my point is that it doesn't fix the underlining problem. A problem he's trying to address..

Midnight Rider said:

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Texas Tech paid 28 million dollars to a bunch of kids hoping that the kids would win a Big 12 Conference championship in football, which they accomplished, only to receive an old fashioned butt kicking in the Playoff.

The lesson learned here seems to be that 28 million dollars might buy you a Big 12 Conference championship, but that's about all.

Was this a wise investment by Texas Tech?

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Sure it was. Everyone is talking about them and they are positioned to be even better next year.

I'm not sure if you watched their game against Oregon, but Oregon couldn't move the ball on them. In fact Oregon's points virtually all came from Baron Morton's mistakes. Some pundits suggested that game meant the Big 12 was weak, but it didn't anymore than Alabama's loss meant the SEC is weak. TTU lost that game because their hobbled QB was a statue who lost his composer under pressure; the final score was also exaggerated because Dan Lanning ran up the score with under a minute left in the game with a cheap score due to TTU turning it over on downs. 16-0 is a much more accurate view of the game than 23-0.

I write that to point out how aggressively TTU moved to address the problem -- they immediately went out and got the top QB in the portal and some top notch WRs. So even if their D isn't quite as dominant next year their O will likely make up for it and then some.

Baylor needs to embrace NIL like they have and be as aggressive as they are. I don't like the NIL era, but it's here and the ones who resist it like Mike Gundy are going to be left behind. My understanding is TTU has a fund set up by Cody Campbell for donations, and a lot of their NIL came from small alumni donations that he offered to match. We have rich alumni too and there's no reason we can't do the same thing they are doing. I read an article about Campbell and he even said he doesn't like the direction of college football either, but he felt like they had a limited time opportunity to exploit the loophole. Indiana did the same thing with Mark Cuban and Oregon with Phil Knight. People talk about TT buying a team, but they did exactly what Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, and others are doing by patching their holes with elite portal talent.

Baylor could be doing the same, we just need a couple of rich donors to show up and help spearhead it.

boognish_bear said:

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If you play football at Texas Tech, NIL doesn’t just have to be while you play. Our donors set you up with employment and career help. Lifetime wealth. From here, it’s possible https://t.co/DzYoJEu3zu

— Coyote Raider 🌵 (@CoyoteRaider) January 16, 2026

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No sure about the spin around "being a landman will bring you great wealth" stuff

But this is damn good marketing I will say for them.

These guys are smart and know how to recruit young men.

Money to play ball. Promise of money and job later after. Young men tend to like that kind of stuff

ImmortalTen said:

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Midnight Rider said:

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Texas Tech paid 28 million dollars to a bunch of kids hoping that the kids would win a Big 12 Conference championship in football, which they accomplished, only to receive an old fashioned butt kicking in the Playoff.

The lesson learned here seems to be that 28 million dollars might buy you a Big 12 Conference championship, but that's about all.

Was this a wise investment by Texas Tech?

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Some pundits suggested that game meant the Big 12 was weak, but it didn't anymore than Alabama's loss meant the SEC is weak.

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It's not clear that anyone would declare that 2025 Alabama was to the 2025 SEC what 2025 Texas Tech was to the 2025 Big 12, as they certainly were not comparable in that manner. Alabama was blown out in its conference title game, lost to a non-bowl eligible FSU, lost to Oklahoma in the regular season and should not have made the CFP to the benefit of either Notre Dame (who only lost to Texas A&M and Miami) or BYU (who only lost to Texas Tech x2), while Texas Tech (at full strength) was head and shoulders above the entire Big 12 in way that rarely happens*. To rephase, if Texas Tech was in a tier of its own in the Big 12 in 2025, then it's overall non-competitiveness against the #3 team in another league would absolutely reflect poorly on it - and by virtue of that, the rest of the league.

*Usually, the best team in the conference takes at least one or more losses even when it has its starting QB and also has multiple close games in terms of final scores.