We are headed to a pro college league. This is not a new thought, it's just clearer with the NIL and this latest bout of realignment.

Imo, here's what NIL means in case you're not keeping up. It means that there will be teams that field and have an entire two strings deep of paid athletes. Alabama, Texas and others will be fielding million dollar qb's and entire crews of $100k+ first stringers. And the other 3-4 star kids who would have gone to their second or third choice schools just so they could play, will instead opt to sign at wherever they're going to get paid best, even if it means sitting on the sideline for a long while. And who could blame them? Most of them won't have a pro career anyway, and getting top dollar in college will become a priority. It's not wrong for them to do so, it's economics and should be expected given the fact that NIL is the rule of the day. I don't support or agree with NIL, but it's there and so the market has just changed drastically.

This of course is just the beginning and the competitive landscape will be drastically different in 5-7 years, where the chasm between the haves and have nots will grow even wider. Small to medium schools will have some NIL, but they just won't be able to keep up. It will be large high value schools and everyone else. The only hope for them is that NIL is reined in somehow.

So what's that mean for us? It means that this next step is likely temporary, even more so if we somehow land in a P5. And if in a P5, there's a good chance that we wouldn't be able to field a team that could compete with the large state schools once NIL is in full swing in 3-5ish years anyway. Of course there will always be the small guys that make a good run every now and again, or a high dollar athlete that goes to a small school, but it will be the exception not the rule.

So how does a BU or TCU keep up, or even stay in, with the impending college pro league? And this is just my take, what do you think NIL means for schools like BU?

Edit: And for those of you predicting a weak UT in the SEC, I just don't think you're realizing how much things have changed. I'm betting that with NIL, UT will be towards the top of the SEC in short order because they will have player endorsements that compete with bama - all the way down their roster.

I think were going to have to create another division for the Bama's Ohios State's, etc.

The rest of us will play football like it should be

fadskier said:

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I think were going to have to create another division for the Bama's Ohios State's, etc.

The rest of us will play football like it should be

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agreed, and I think that's where it's headed quickly. 5 years or so and the small/medium schools will all be in the minors anyway.

It's not much of a change from the recruiting advantage that perennial "blue bloods", if you want to call them that, have had anyway.

- Original blue bloods selected by the NCAA back in the day, when that governing body decided whose games were televised vs. those that weren't. These schools get that recruiting advantage because kids wanted to be on TV so their friends and families could see them play.

- The modern blue bloods, that perennially win because winning and championships enhances recruiting and spawns more winning.

- In both of those categories you can include those schools that cheat and pay players under the table or pay family members with cash, homes, and cars. Some of those have become blue bloods, and some had short term success.

The NIL will continue to benefit the schools in the above categories...

...but it could also help non-blue blood schools buy putting them on a level playing field. You don't think that Baylor or TCU have boosters that are willing to pony up cash to give a 5 star recruit a job on a billboard for the local car dealership, or do an add for the Magnolia Network?

Chamberman said:

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It's not much of a change from the recruiting advantage that perennial "blue bloods", if you want to call them that, have had anyway.

- Original blue bloods selected by the NCAA back in the day, when that governing body decided whose games were televised vs. those that weren't. These schools get that recruiting advantage because kids wanted to be on TV so their friends and families could see them play.

- The modern blue bloods, that perennially win because winning and championships enhances recruiting and spawns more winning.

- In both of those categories you can include those schools that cheat and pay players under the table or pay family members with cash, homes, and cars. Some of those have become blue bloods, and some had short term success.

The NIL will continue to benefit the schools in the above categories...

...but it could also help non-blue blood schools buy putting them on a level playing field. You don't think that Baylor or TCU have boosters that are willing to pony up cash to give a 5 star recruit a job on a billboard for the local car dealership, or do an add for the Magnolia Network?

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Sure, I know BU has some major boosters and blue bloods always had an advantage. But NIL changes things a hundredfold in terms of money to players. It'll be the difference between a stream and a roaring river. Money will flow in like crazy to pay athletes because the market will be open and legal. Instead of having to do things under the table through boosters, now corporations will be able to market using these athletes in their home towns. Before it was an under the table donation, now it's a legit business expense. And all the college students/alums and more importantly the boosters will reward these corporations. So in that environment can a small school compete and keep up? On average, I don't think so. But I hope you're right. And maybe I'm overestimating the impact, but I think you're going to see NFL player level endorsements being the norm for large state school players sooner than later.

Agree. NIL is a bigger game changer here than conference affiliation, especially when combined with the new immediate transfer rules.

Blue bloods will be recruiting other universities as hard as they recruit high schools.

It's going to cause a major separation of the top 30-40 from the rest.

Robert Wilson said:

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Agree. NIL is a bigger game changer here than conference affiliation, especially when combined with the new immediate transfer rules.

Blue bloods will be recruiting other universities as hard as they recruit high schools.

It's going to cause a major separation of the top 30-40 from the rest.

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Yep, if an amazing player is discovered at a small school, a year or two later plus a million dollars, he'll be at a 'Bama or Texas.

I'm curious how long it will be before alums get tired of bankrolling potentially 10s-100s of thousands or even million dollar plus teams with no real ROI other than pride.

Big universities really got an amazing gift with the NIL rule. They can have alumni pay their staff (the players) and it doesn't come out of their budget at all. While wealthy alums do have money to burn, this could get real expensive real quick for even very wealthy alums. It'll take those that can literally throw away hundreds of thousands or millions each year on a hobby, and that's a pretty narrow swath of people.

Especially after going 7-5 in the stacked SEC and getting an invite to the Gator Bowl for all your trouble.

BaylorGrad09 said:

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I'm curious how long it will be before alums get tired of bankrolling potentially 10s-100s of thousands or even million dollar plus teams with no real ROI other than pride.

Big universities really got an amazing gift with the NIL rule. They can have alumni pay their staff (the players) and it doesn't come out of their budget at all. While wealthy alums do have money to burn, this could get real expensive real quick for even very wealthy alums. It'll take those that can literally throw away hundreds of thousands or millions each year on a hobby, and that's a pretty narrow swath of people.

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That's why big alumni bases will have a massive advantage. Law of large #s.

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Robert Wilson said:

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Agree. NIL is a bigger game changer here than conference affiliation, especially when combined with the new immediate transfer rules.

Blue bloods will be recruiting other universities as hard as they recruit high schools.

It's going to cause a major separation of the top 30-40 from the rest.

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Yep, if an amazing player is discovered at a small school, a year or two later plus a million dollars, he'll be at a 'Bama or Texas.

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Imagine RGIII has a promising freshman year at Baylor. UT and 15 other schools call him and say you can make a million dollars here next year. He can transfer and play immediately. What are the odds he stays here?

Quote:

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I'm curious how long it will be before alums get tired of bankrolling potentially 10s-100s of thousands or even million dollar plus teams with no real ROI other than pride.

Big universities really got an amazing gift with the NIL rule. They can have alumni pay their staff (the players) and it doesn't come out of their budget at all. While wealthy alums do have money to burn, this could get real expensive real quick for even very wealthy alums. It'll take those that can literally throw away hundreds of thousands or millions each year on a hobby, and that's a pretty narrow swath of people.

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Yep, boosters role in this will be to own/influence corporations that market players, or they will work deals to become high paying "customers" of corporations that market players. It will all be legal and the money will be massive.

Another side-effect, a percentage of the NFL players will be losers in this as well, because a decent portion of the corporate endorsement money will flow down to college players.

Last, with NIL, there absolutely will be an ROI, and it'll be no different than NFL marketing. These big money boosters are now able to transfer their "bank-rolling hobby" to their corporate P&L.

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Yep, boosters role in this will be to own/influence corporations that market players, or they will work deals to become high paying "customers" of corporations that market players. It will all be legal and the money will be massive.

Another side-effect, a percentage of the NFL players will be losers in this as well, because a decent portion of the corporate endorsement money will flow down to college players.

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Additionally, some players (2nd-4th round picks) may decide to stay an extra year in school getting paid by boosters instead of go to the pros. Might actually make more money in college.

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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fadskier said:

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I think were going to have to create another division for the Bama's Ohios State's, etc.

The rest of us will play football like it should be

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agreed, and I think that's where it's headed quickly. 5 years or so and the small/medium schools will all be in the minors anyway.

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And I'm okay with that.

Robert Wilson said:

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TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Robert Wilson said:

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Agree. NIL is a bigger game changer here than conference affiliation, especially when combined with the new immediate transfer rules.

Blue bloods will be recruiting other universities as hard as they recruit high schools.

It's going to cause a major separation of the top 30-40 from the rest.

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Yep, if an amazing player is discovered at a small school, a year or two later plus a million dollars, he'll be at a 'Bama or Texas.

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Imagine RGIII has a promising freshman year at Baylor. UT and 15 other schools call him and say you can make a million dollars here next year. He can transfer and play immediately. What are the odds he stays here?

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This will happen frequently.

I'm also wondering with NIL and realignment if we will see basketball realignment follow in football's footsteps. In other words we'll likely have the 40ish teams making up the pro collegiate football league in a decade or so. It stands to reason that a Basketball only mega-conference (or more likely two) would also form, though obviously many more participants than football. This would allow the networks to price and pay for the sports that they actually care about, while getting only the schools that add value in one form or another.

All the other sports would be in the standard conferences that pay up to 1 or 2 mill per year max (if even that).

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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I'm also wondering with NIL and realignment if we will see basketball realignment follow in football's footsteps. In other words we'll likely have the 40ish teams making up the pro collegiate football league in a decade or so. It stands to reason that a Basketball only mega-conference (or more likely two) would also form, though obviously many more participants than football. This would allow the networks to price and pay for the sports that they actually care about, while getting only the schools that add value in one form or another.

All the other sports would be in the standard conferences that pay up to 1 or 2 mill per year max (if even that).

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I think this makes a lot of sense. You're already seeing that separation happen in a number of places (Big East basketball, ND football vs basketball, BYU football vs other sports, etc.).

Robert Wilson said:

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BaylorGrad09 said:

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I'm curious how long it will be before alums get tired of bankrolling potentially 10s-100s of thousands or even million dollar plus teams with no real ROI other than pride.

Big universities really got an amazing gift with the NIL rule. They can have alumni pay their staff (the players) and it doesn't come out of their budget at all. While wealthy alums do have money to burn, this could get real expensive real quick for even very wealthy alums. It'll take those that can literally throw away hundreds of thousands or millions each year on a hobby, and that's a pretty narrow swath of people.

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That's why big alumni bases will have a massive advantage. Law of large #s.

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Yep, our boosters won't be able to keep up. And it's not just boosters, it's raw numbers of fans in general. So the law of large #'s combined with NIL will lead to the inevitable "Autograph Sessions" that will fund every player on a team. Schools (or businesses) will host autograph sessions throughout the year, at every home game and especially at homecoming. Every single athlete will make thousands to tens of thousands at the large rabid fanbase schools just for signing pictures. That's on top of any other licensing deals they may already have.

The average value of an NIL transaction so far is $930.

Reminder the NCAA spent tens of millions of dollars in legal fees arguing this would be the death of college sports. https://t.co/sc262KZ7po

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 1, 2021

The Pros have a system to counter what we are afraid might happen. It's called the DRAFT! Without some type of organization at the top the NIL's will create a horrific imbalance.

Maybe the P4's will create the ESPN Draft Day. Only the top 3500 players in the world are eligible.

One of the side effects will likely be greater pressure to play the highly compensated players when injuries are questionable. There are more than a few collateral considerations which will surface as this new system sorts itself out.

In my view, this new system may ultimately seriously wound the collegiate sport, as the great bulk of fans who have attachments to lesser programs will lose interest when championships and bowl games are no longer a realistic possibility. The networks are betting that they will transfer their interest and support to some larger program, and that may happen (the T-shirt phenomenon) Whether that happens or not remains to be seen.

BaylorGrad09 said:

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I'm curious how long it will be before alums get tired of bankrolling potentially 10s-100s of thousands or even million dollar plus teams with no real ROI other than pride.

Big universities really got an amazing gift with the NIL rule. They can have alumni pay their staff (the players) and it doesn't come out of their budget at all. While wealthy alums do have money to burn, this could get real expensive real quick for even very wealthy alums. It'll take those that can literally throw away hundreds of thousands or millions each year on a hobby, and that's a pretty narrow swath of people.

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Exactly.and then also managing a locker room where a QB is making a million and Olineman making a fraction of that? Or keeping a kid tucked away on the bench with a fat paycheck so their rivals won't get him on a transfer.

I don't know if it's going to go exactly like OP suggests, but I am confident this stuff is not going to be good for college football.

" Autograph Sessions "...... So Meet The Bears might not be free to the public anymore. Very sad if that happens. It's always fun to watch everyone, especially the kiddos, getting autographs.

There may be ads on the screen to Venmo player x 20 bucks after a great play . In addition to what the BMDs are doing.

A cool kid to even try to get more may say something like I'll donate back half or some percentage to Baylor.

I've seen a few of our players partnering with this new fan gear company. I'm assuming they are getting a little NIL $ out of it.

Excited to announce that i will be partnering with @BearSkinzApp !! Get my personalized gear starting August 1st on https://t.co/ohKLx423iQ #AthletePlus 🤝 pic.twitter.com/E5a9FDWTfU

— HollyWood🎬 (@abramsmith_28) July 28, 2021

Say welcome to our first official athlete! @_Sqwirl 🐿https://t.co/5swPGMCBoY#GetMyGear pic.twitter.com/GNfCAsjCrt

— BearSkinz (@BearSkinzApp) July 21, 2021

https://bearskinz.com/password

Like the Sqwirl logo. Not bad at all ...

I've got no problem paying a kid, but I've met maybe 5 kids under 21 in my lifetime that will work is another story,.

Considering how 18 year olds treat their Twitter account, giving them 1 million dollars is like loading a gun. This makes "college athletics" more like the xfl than college athletics.

What happens when an 18 year old is given $1M and then they never put in the hard work to make the NFL?

This will be huge for CPAs as none of these kids will have experience paying taxes like this or know the rules about buying mom that $60k Merc.

It's still early....but surprised to see that almost half of athletes taking advantage of NIL are outside of football and bball.

Excerpt from the article above:

One early window into the NIL space comes from INFLCR, a Birmingham, Ala.-based company that provides 170 NCAA Division I athletic departments with brand-building technology to assist their athletes in maximizing their NIL value. Among the schools: Auburn, Baylor, Duke, Kentucky, Michigan State, Oregon and USC. Most of INFLCR's clients have added the company's suite of products, known as Verified, to offer athletes resources to help them with education around relevant NIL topics; access to the INFLCR Exchange of marketplace partners they can research and engage in transactions with; and reporting technology enabling them to disclose NIL transactions.

After one month of NIL deals, here is data from the transactional activity within INFLCR's community of more than 100,000 athlete users:

• As of Thursday, there were 1,361 NIL transactions reported by athletes at INFLCR schools.

• Roughly 1 percent of all athletes in INFLCR's community reported engagement in NIL deals.

• Transactions totaled $1.256 million.

• The average transaction value: $923, with individual transactions ranging from $0 in cash value to the low six figures.

• 802 athletes reported transactions themselves through INFLCR, from 64 Division I schools.

• 53 percent of all transactions were reported by athletes playing sports outside of football or men's and women's basketball.

• 34 percent were football players.

• 13 percent were women's or men's basketball players.

• 10 percent of transactions were by athletes in lacrosse or swimming and diving. Those were the most common sports initially reporting summer camps and lessons transactions.

• 20 percent were female athletes

• 12 percent of transactions were from non-Power 5 schools.

Let these clowns go to these schools and get paid. Let's see what happens when the Tax Man shows to collect....when the average NFL career is 2.5 years and 78% of the players file for bankruptcy two years after they leave the NFL....Yeah, they will be wishing they followed advice from little Auntie who told them to get an education at the same time.

LondonBear said:

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Let these clowns go to these schools and get paid. Let's see what happens when the Tax Man shows to collect....when the average NFL career is 2.5 years and 78% of the players file for bankruptcy two years after they leave the NFL....Yeah, they will be wishing they followed advice from little Auntie who told them to get an education at the same time.

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I'm sure some will squander it like some people do when they get a windfall....but I don't assume that's going to happen with everyone.

Any time I heard our basketball players interviewed last year they always came across as very mature and grounded. I would expect players like that to make smart decisions with the money they could potentially earn.

QB room at Ohio State will be destroyed in 6 months with four freshmen on the roster in 2021.

— Blake Brockermeyer (@BBrockermeyerFW) August 2, 2021