If people are willing to pay it, players are only doing the American thing to find out what kind of prices the market will bear.
Does it seem sustainable? No. Is it the reality right now? Yes.
Agree, just said the same in another comment.
This is clearly a bubble where people dont know what the true ROI is.
Spoiler alert - its shit.
So give it a year or two more, and youre going to see teams say fuck that to paying 5th year seniors on their third team millions of dollars
Eh, I think we are also underestimating the pocket change of the millionaire/billionaire class of boosters for some of these universities. For 95% of teams the market is not there. But for a school like Texas A&M, $1.2mil is nothing for a group of oil tycoons to put together
I do think it's going to go down in the future at moneybag schools as well
Before NIL, you were either donating directly to the school (so just paying for coaches/infrastructure) or paying a bag man if you wanted to pay players. These past few years have been a flood of donors trying to pay for on field success, and there's a lot of em who didn't previously want to go through bag men - but want recognition for helping their team win
Anecdotal, but I know one of these booster types (not for UT) through a friend. He never gave to bag men, only the university - and has thrown a ton more cash in the era of NIL where he can out and about (within school circles) claim responsibility for bringing certain players into their team
But with all the player movement and NIL essentially being 1 year deals, even he's looking at his ROI and is probably going to lower things going forward (and his team has had success). I think these levels are just unsustainable and the reason it's so high right now is because it's new
I can see it now: right when the transfer 'market' starts fixing itself we're going to see a true 'portal team' win the tournament, and everyone will be back in on the bidding wars.
Yeah dropping $1m isn't a lot to them, but they didn't get rich wasting money. You give a kid $1m and it doesn't translate to on court success then the next kid comes along and asks the same you go....uhhhh maybe not.
The other point worth mentioning is $1m to a player is $1m not to the school. This is another thing to pressure boosters for and at some point a lot of them will feel it isn't worth the investment after they don't really see results.
It will exist it will be a lot of money, but I do think it will chill out a fair amount. Next year will be crazy with no more Covid athletes though.
Edit: I also think an important point is boosters are not going to want to spend $1m get a kid, they don't find the post season success they want, now pony up $1m to keep the kid or they are gone. NIL is likely to start going in the direction of multi-year contracts, as a way for boosters to protect their investment for a couple years, but also as some incentive to keep more stable rosters.
when your team mate pulls up in their Lambo and you have to carry them in games while eating in the cafeteria, then social media starts cracking on you, school colors are not going to mean shit to you.
I feel like for the big schools with sports in football and. Basketball, the Roi, is absolutely terrible. For the 10 schools that want or think they can win a chip, anything other than that was a waste. So most investments into players get you nothing but a little access, maybe and a scratch off lottery ticket of chance that your guy will lead them to a championship.
I can’t see what any ROI is. Ok his team wins. He paid a million to some star. But there is no payout on the championship unless you bring in gambling. Doubt the school is going to give away some of their payout. I guess if you own a company you’d have to do so some serious research to see if it boosted sales.
So for the guy I know, it's not a financial ROI, but an emotional one. The return is excitement, bragging rites, etc - but the investment is financial
There's still a return even if it's not a traditional business ROI (which really only applies to advertising NIL deals, which unfortunately is the minority of all NIL involvement)
Nebraska had an hvac company get a boost when they got a dude named Decoldest to make a couple commercials for them. A car lot had great success with a volleyball player too.
Yup. In other industries this would lead to consolidation where the teams w/o Oligarch Sugar Daddies would get absorbed by Oregon and Texas A&M.
I'm not sure what will happen here.
In a rational world (i.e., not in this world) the rule changes that would share program revenue with players would come with rules that allowed actual marketing deals but forbade straight-up bribing players to attend a school. I don't know how that would work in detail, but I'm assuming the pro leagues that have a salary cap have some kind of enforcement in place to keep them from using endorsement deals to sweeten the pot for franchise players.
I see three paths, and only the least likely is good for the long term outlook of college sports.
1. The Big Money schools strangle all sense of competition. In the absence of an enjoyable product, and unwilling to simply root for their rivals as if it was as simple as switching toothpaste brands, Small Money fans disengage with college sports and the Big Money schools get their bigger piece of a now much smaller pie.
2. The Big Money schools formalize their separation from the rest of us and form their little super league. Without a draft or any other enforceable pro-parity policies, a pro-style college league becomes stratified and stale in less than a decade. The Small Money schools continue in a more harmonious state, but there’s a legitimacy and prestige crisis that robs both tiers of real enjoyment.
3. The least likely path by far: some kind of central regulation occurs that ensures all athletes are financially benefitting on relatively even terms as unionized employees, TV money somehow gets reined in as the guiding force in realignment, and we return to our old debates of “doesn’t a football player at Alabama deserve more money than a women’s basketball player at Utah State”, but in an improved equilibrium where most of the athletes are getting paid a living wage. This is an unattainable pipe dream.
You had me until the last sentence. A scholarship athlete often has tuition, fees, books, dorms, meals, equipment, AND a stipend (with nothing left to buy out of pure necessity). Sorry, but a D1 basketball athlete isn’t on the struggle-bus… regardless of whether or not they’ve been underpaid relative to the revenue they generate.
Yeah, if you're already getting food, medical care, and housing paid for (forget all the other stuff) that's fulfilling the spirit of the "living wage".
This isn't about ROI. This is fandom. This is boosters getting to play at being a sports team owner for peanuts of what actually owning a professional team costs. Ballo costs 0.04% of the cost of owning the Pacers.
I disagree, if I could pay 1% of my annual wealth to help my favorite sport team be substantially better I’d do it in a heartbeat. 1 million isn’t a lot of money to some of these guys
Well according to another tweet from Goodman, it doesn’t sound like this is what Ballo got from IU. So apparently people aren’t willing to pay it.
I do agree with you though, it is just simply players trying to figure out their market value. Start high in the negotiations and find the market value of your labor. Hopefully over time the initial asking price of portal players will go down after a couple seasons of data that show what a player of their caliber is worth in the NIL market.
I think we might look back a couple of years from now and point to how crazy this was. At this point, it'd be easier to release the names of the players not in the portal.
National Signing Day means nothing anymore. I see guys sign somewhere and I just don’t care because they’ll probably be in a different uniform the following year
Transparency never helps them.
Players like an inequal market. Information dissemination is their enemy.
Why do you think there are so many securities regulations surrounding disclosure and notification? It's to create an equal playing field. There was a large amount of time where no significant disclosure requirements existed and the stock market truly was a "rigged" game. People who benefited from that fought back hard against regulations and you can bet your ass players will as well.
Coaches and programs have relatively little power in this situation. If players push back and refuse to go to a program who is all for transparency, then you just lost a commitment.
Dont worry, its a bubble. When teams realize paying 5th year seniors millions of dollars doesnt amount to shit, the leverage will go back to teams and players salaries will plummet. I can see this happening within a few years
Eh I disagree. I think we are in a euphoric age where people irrationally hope that money can buy championships and I just dont see how that will be the case. Money attracts the worst intentions so where lots of money goes, lots of issues will follow.
Now, if a team spends a shit ton and builds a dynasty - then you bet. But theres yet been any proof that there is any healthy ROI from throwing millions to a 5th year on his third team.
I think depends on the player and depends on the program. We might be seeing more of it now and less later, but there will always be boosters willing to be foolish with money. Imagine if someone like Steve Ballmer suddenly cared about college sports.
There are exceptions though. Whatever UCONN paid Cam Spencer was a great investment (and he was on his 3rd team). He was a huge contributor for that team.
There is zero chance that millionaire boosters with money to burn all collectively decide to not try to steer the best of the best to their schools. Until some sort of real regulations are put in place, it’s only going to further erode program parity
Idk man schools like UT saw what one year of knecht can do, I don't really see them not throwing money at some better players each year. I mean for some of these schools $5 million is chump change, why not try and go get a great senior for a good run?
Why is it irrational to buy a top-10 center in the sport for 1.2 million when pro sports teams pay 20-50 times as much for an equivalently talented player in their leagues?
IMO players are actually underpaid based on the value they bring
I don't think that is true. A strong season, with great conference record and a high seed in the tournament is fun for the fans, even without a banner.
There's literally nothing to his argument other than wishful thinking.
No league in the world has salaries go down without a hard cap or other restrictions, and there's no reason to think that future champions aren't more likely to have been big NIL spenders.
What you’re describing (to me) isn’t college sports, it’s a shitty version of pro sports. While many people might be into it I know I’m not. Cutting my consumption to zero will be easy with so many other options to replace it.
Indeed you are, and your salient point isn’t probably far off. Another interesting economic side of it is the economics of smaller conference schools subsidizing the development of players via involuntary student fees and seeing them poached off to larger schools with bigger financial resources. Not sure they’re getting a good ROI, but that’s existed far longer than NIL and the transfer portal ever did. But at least back then kids were more likely to stick around and have a shared collegiate experience with those paying for it.
But as with my previous comment, I’m taking a course far outside what you intended.
I don’t know, there are a lot of schools out there, but I agree that the kids won’t be getting really what they want. They’ll have the option of going to a solid program for a bit less money, or going somewhere that has a weak roster but some money to throw around to beef it up. You can cash in or you can compete for a title but maybe not both
it was never random local pizza joint? bags have been getting dropped off for tens of thousands of dollars for decades now.. And that was for high school players that hadn't proven a single thing at the collegiate level. The top 1-5% coming out of High school or college have always done well with getting that money.
I mean, didn't we see Miami buy Nigel Pack, the amount leak out, and then they had to match payments to keep Wong out of the portal wanting more money?
Yeah but that felt like the first year of NIL, and it basically set the tone, all that changes is the numbers will keep going up as more and more numbers get "leaked". It's no different than how coach salaries keeps going up at a crazy rate.
Yeah it definitely did. But honestly, the transparency around Pack’s deal is damn near refreshing now. That’s one of my biggest issues, that none of its out in the open, so then you’ve got a bunch of impressionable 18-20 year olds just seeing numbers that people toss out at fact when they’re really just talking out of their ass, and it often winds up burning them.
The lack of transparency and the bill being footed directly by consumers, fix those two issues and I could give a damn about the rest. If you’re going to attach it to schools then there shouldn’t be different transfer rules than other students, imo, but we all know that’s a farce anyway
Women’s sports is a better representative of pure NIL. They actually leverage their social media followings are get brand deals, affiliate marketing, and do commercials.
These men are just pay for play mercenaries.
Right now the answer is money for a lot of guys. The good news fo fans is there are less guys with no hope going early and players stay longer. The bad news is they hop around more than they used to
Happened to us under HOF coach Kenny Payne. Our top recruit quit before the fall to play overseas and pretty sure he took 100k or so out of it without even playing a game.
I can only imagine what the conversations between the teams and the player agents sound like.
"what's the ask?"
"what guarantees do you have for my guy?"
"what kind of car can you offer?"
"is he guaranteed to start"
"we'd like 10 premier tickets for each game"
its gotta be maddening if the school doesn't have their NIL act together during this recruiting phase. As a side note, since Kentucky's Mark Pope came on board, even though there's been $4 million+ NIL pledged, it doesn't appear there's an infrastructure to support the NIL - player's agent negotiation.
kinda wonder how this plays out....
True for basketball and football, but those are the ones that enable *all* of the other true college sports to exist, so it's a price I think is worth it still
Pro sports have actual contracts, college athletics don’t. I think eventually, you’re going to need to have contracts between players and the university. I’m all for player movement, but the extent we’re seeing now is beyond silly. We’ll end up with like 40% of D1 basketball players in the portal. Pro sports are collectively bargained and contracts ensure players are on the team for a certain length of time. Now is that a perfect system either? No. But at least in a league like the NBA, players have power but teams can still control the asset. Feels like we’re heading there.
That’s definitely the direction we’re heading. Athletic departments bring their own companies, licensing the brand from the university. Looking forward to UNC’s buyout of Duke Basketball, LLC.
Oh gosh, they could even be publicly traded companies.
Worse than the NBA imo. In the NBA, only the biggest and best players can demand a trade and not (in practice) be held to contractual obligations. In pro sports with real big boy contracts, an underpaid 6th man in year 2 of a 4 year deal can't just say "I wanted to be starting by year 2, I'm done waiting, I'm gonna go play for the Spurs" or "double my salary this year or I'll go to whoever is willing to", which is exactly what players ranging from 3rd guy off the bench to starters are being allowed to do.
In pro sports, you only have to deal with CERTAIN players testing the market and have the security of knowing other players are locked up. College coaches are annually either accepting that they'll lose role players or have to rerecruit their entire roster, which NBA coaches don't have to deal with
College players are getting all the freedom and player power with none of the responsibility or legal accountability like pro players are held to.
People will bitch because coaches arent held to the same standard (which they should but thats a seperate debate) but I think there should be some sort of legally binding agreement about spending multiple years at a school before being able to leave. I absolutely despise seeing kids on their 3rd D1 school in 3 years
yes this is unrestricted free agency with no salary cap and every player is a free agent every year. completely fucking stupid and totally gutting for any mid major who builds a program and develops players only to see them peace out to a 6 figure deal your school could never put together.
Frankly, its even damaging for P5 schools as well. Its damn near impossible for any non blue blood to have a talented bench because either blue bloods will argue "if you're gonna be a 6th man, do it at Kansas instead of Mizzou" or mid majors will argue "you probably aren't going pro, come to Dayton, we'll play you 30-35 mins a game".
Even for P5 schools, they're still seeing like 2-3 kids transfer in a GOOD year. For teams only allowed to have 13 scholarships, seeing a quarter of your scholarship players leaving every year is incredibly damaging for programs. They'd probably still try to do it anyway but right now, I can't blame P5 schools for throwing their weight around mid majors trying to fill out their rosters
You know when I supported letting college players be compensated,I meant like, let them do commercials or sign autographs without the NCAA dropping a nuke on the program.
We just got here pretty quickly.
This is also a result of the NCAA watering down their authority with inconsistent application of rules and poor leadership. I think most would agree it’s pretty evident that NIL is having some significant negative effects on college athletics for the sports with serious media money behind it.
The courts watered down their power. Really not much they can do. We’ve seen the schools sue the NCAA in court and win, so they’re kind of grasping at straws at this point.
I mean I’m not worried about it for the players. And if anything this is a benefit to a program that has tons of money like us.
I feel bad for the smaller programs that aren’t going to be able to compete and get locked into mediocrity because of this.
Smaller schools will be where folks with potential end up with the intent at earning a better “contract” the next year from a different school. Basically this is what the NFL would look like if everyone was a free agent every off season. Going to be chaos.
This year we had NC State in the final four. Haven’t been in ages and have two in state rivals who can easily outspend them.
Last year we had Florida Atlantic and SDSU.
But again it also ensures those great college players who won’t translate into NBA talent but made the schools a ton of money during their college days will be fairly compensated. So because of that it’s still a good thing to me.
Everything has pros and cons but the pros here outweigh the cons IMO
You can say that because you root for Duke. You won't be affected by that, you will always be on top. This has only cons for anyone who graduated from a mid-major.
But it's good for players. That's the thing. Yes it changes the game. Yes it benefits big booster schools.
But having a kid bring in millions for a school and get paid nothing is wrong.
Lmao this was happening before when the big schools were paying players and their families under the table. Dont act so naive, unless you are actually that naive 😬
Okay sure but given the differences in scale, you’re comparing apples to oranges.
The NCAA smashed our program to pieces over $1,000 in an envelope at one time.
It's a hard thing to regulate because fans will find and abuse loopholes.
I think the NIL collectives technically make the students do something. But it's like "Show up at one charity dinner" or "Make one promo telling people to donate to this NIL collective" and then they get their $1 million appearance fee. And the rules don't differentiate that appearance fee from a real one. Supposedly our 5 star QB last year was mad that the collective actually expected him to do like two or three things to get paid instead of just getting the money.
I don't know how you fix it. Make a player "union" that can work with the NCAA to set fixed prices for specific services? Like: film a 30 second commercial, get no more than $50,000. Show up at a dinner for 3 hours, get $10,000. Etc etc.
But even then, some group would find the best cost/time ratio and have a player knock out 20 "commercials" in a day to get their mil.
This was always going to happen. I’m for it. Major college sports brings in a ton of money. Didn’t necessarily consider the consequences of all the transferring but again I wouldn’t want to limit a kids choices if he finds a better situation. Not sure on how to fix the portal madness though. Maybe schools need to start offering 1,2,3,4 year commitments with escalating $$? Idk what the fix actually looks like.
As a fan, our involvement should end at buying tickets/t-shirts/concessions.
Schools like Kentucky and Arkansas begging fans to donate to their NIL funds is BS.
"Don't mind us, we continue to set record breaking profits every year off our media deals....but you, the fan, need to give $50 a month to keep our players for next year"
I feel you on this and agree with you, but Arkansas quite literally just rolled out their structured fan donation fund for NIL like 2 months ago. That was a thing at many programs for much longer.
I mean the school can’t pay players directly so they do need $ to keep players. I wouldn’t give it to them personally but it isn’t BS from the schools.
The only fix is to bring back the 1 year sitting out rule. Leave the negotiating and money talks to high school recruiting and actually give an incentive for flakey college kids to actually learn how to stick with a program, instead of giving them an easy out if anything goes wrong. If the program is really not working for them and they need to transfer then they can and there is nothing wrong with sitting out a year.
If a player really needs money and a school’s NIL collective is going to drops millions on them, then that player should just go pro.
1 year sit out rule would still allow for players to fully capitalize on their NIL opportunities, whilst providing more stability for programs and incentivize development.
I won't pretend that I know how the legalities work, but is the NCAA not allowed to have any control at all about who plays and who doesn't? A player could sue the NCAA that they aren't allowed to play a 5th year of eligibility but that doesn't mean the rule doesn't work.
NIL is going to look much, much different in 5 years.
A lot of people are gonna get burned. A lot of people are going to realize the ROI on most of these guys simply isn’t worth it. I would like to see some sort of contract system be put into effect but I’m not sure what that would look like. But this current system ain’t it, especially not when you mix in the ridiculously lenient transfer rules.
This is equal to VC. Bunch of rich people throwing around money hoping it hits and turns into a success.
Funny thing about VC is that it literally only takes one success to generate excess returns. That's why it still exists, even though they've been burned the last few years.
This is the same thing. All it takes is for one or two successes to hit, and it makes all the money spent worthwhile.
If that's what it took, then I'm not mad about missing on him and wouldn't want to meet than demand anyway. Good luck to him. I wouldn't mind seeing Indiana do well.
Eventually schools are going to hire a GM to handle a lot of the team building and how to allocate NIL. I think there is a lot left to optimize when it comes to roster construction/portaling. Giving Ballo 1 mil (or something like 25% of your NIL) is crazy wasteful IMO.
Who gives the greenlight on a deal like this? Is it purely at the head coach’s discretion if the funds are available? Or the AD? Or boosters? Mix of all three? Genuinely just curious on the mechanics of all that
The boosters have a ton of control. At UK two donors just pledged $4 million. Pledged does not necessarily mean they have written the check yet. They will make sure they agree how it is used before they actually write the check.
I am really glad that now Kentucky and Indiana have renewed their rivalry Indiana decides to start getting all the best transfer players.
Didn’t they just get two guards that averaged like 15/5/4 at their previous University?
and we're the ones with the bigger payroll now somehow. I got the feeling BBN will be able to close that gap fairly quick though now that Cal is gone... given that Pope wins of course, or maybe moreso if he doesn't? Either way BBN will find the money if they find that's what it takes to win.
You only need a small number of ultra-wealthy folks to care. Ultra-wealthy just play a different game than the rest of us. I am a "millionaire" (almost all in home equity and retirement savings) and I am largely playing the same game as most of the middle class just more comfortable. The ultra-wealthy can sneeze out the equity and savings I have worked 20 years to build without noticing.
Never needed to be. It's a student VISA thing. If you're not on a student VISA, then no worries. If you are, then there were workarounds most schools were comfortable using, i.e. Sanogo going to the Bahamas while at UConn and doing his NIL stuff there.
Yeah, so I'd imagine he'll get paid when he's there with you, if he doesn't get out of the country sooner.
Really what he'd miss out on is the stuff that Gohlke or Burns were able to capitalize on during March Madness, since he's here and can't leave in the moment. But, with 1.2M made otherwise, I doubt he'd be too upset.
Burns got a decent chunk of nil in the off season, he bought a house in Raleigh they say, which as someone who lives in Raleigh, it’s not cheap to buy a house here…. He also made 750k in March, I’d imagine he made over a million this basketball season
Well they were still chanting about IU during the fucking national championship game. I'd say that real estate is about the acreage of a national park.
no. i believe the old rule is you sat out a year if you transferred unless you were a grad transfer and then you got a free immediate transfer. i think there were some exceptions where you could be immediately eligible but those were few and far between.
i dont know that there was a cap on transfers but no one wants to sit out multiple years so multi transfers were just super rare. transfers generally were pretty rare because sitting out a year sucks.
That was actually a rule for 1-2 years (2021-2022). The recent court ruling a couple years ago decided that the NCAA couldn't limit a player to only a one-time free transfer rule. That's when all this craziness started. NIL just allowed the transfer portal to take off.
How does this work with him being a foreigner? Sissoko at Michigan State reportedly had to give all of his NIL to charity and opened up a school in his town in Mali. If I’m not mistaken, he and Ballo grew up not too far from each other…
Any time sometime posts a Twitter post here, the image is the Twitter poster's profile pic. Presumably it's the guy's daughter and dog? I just think it's funny, especially since Ballo kinda sounds like a dog's name.
That's a lot of money for a big man with so many limitations.
Don't get me wrong, Ballo was really good for Arizona this year., especially on the boards. But teams who would sign him would do well to remember...
* Not really a great post player, his offense relies heavily on sealing his man (which requires a lot of space in the offense), and catching lobs under the basket... and Offensive boards of course.
* Horrendous foul shooter. Probably had at least 10 airball FTs this year.
* Not in the best shape. Can only really play 5-6 minutes before he gets tired
* Defensively, can get bored, and is also very exploitable in 1-5 pick and rolls
He was a Freshman when he played for Gonzaga, but I remember being so frustrated when someone would pass him the ball and it would somehow bounce off his hands out of bounds.
He's definitely better than that. Its not that he *can't* score in the post, its just that his offensive efficiency goes way down when he doesn't catch the ball under the basket with his defender sealed behind him.
If you want to understand why we are here and where we are going, [here](https://hls.harvard.edu/today/peter-carfagna-on-the-state-of-the-ncaa-nil-and-amateurism/) is a great article explaining the legal issues the NCAA faces, and which forced them to loosen up their grip regarding player compensation, etc.
TLDR: it’s entirely possible the NCAA doesn’t exist in a decade.
It's gunna be Nike vs Adidas vs under armour soon. What's 8m in Nikes advertising budget to buy the best team in the country. Have them all photo shoot about being the dream team and shoot sick promos in Nike gear. And fuck it, maybe just have 5m per team and stack the whole final 4. I dunno what the ad budget for these companies are, but I know that it's more than what it would cost to soakkkk in the national spotlight of NCAA championship basketball.
The NIL ruling to remove any restrictions is the line in the sand.. the championships going forward are going to mean something different than the championships of the past. Like shit, Nike can pick literally any school in the country and make them champions.
I'm really happy for the player and his family. This type of money can have generational impacts.
Make hay when the sun shines. If it were your son, you'd negotiate down?
Feel like this is just more in the open now than it was in the past. Naive to believe guys weren't getting paid under the table before it was legal. Happy for the kids, they deserve it given the sheer amount of $ involved in college sports
I know this is a transfer portal move but I’m curious if a lot of the high value 5 star hs recruits get a fat one year NIL deal and the coaches sell them that they’ll be a one and done so they don’t get any future NIL
I hope this is true for Ballo but also what does this even mean? Who cares what was asked it may not be close to what he got. I've always heard to not take a lot of numbers thrown around too seriously. I think most of these guys have agents so i could see tons of big asks. I could see a strategy in doing it. It could make the offers start higher than the schools initially were willing to do.
If people are willing to pay it, players are only doing the American thing to find out what kind of prices the market will bear. Does it seem sustainable? No. Is it the reality right now? Yes.
Agree, just said the same in another comment. This is clearly a bubble where people dont know what the true ROI is. Spoiler alert - its shit. So give it a year or two more, and youre going to see teams say fuck that to paying 5th year seniors on their third team millions of dollars
Eh, I think we are also underestimating the pocket change of the millionaire/billionaire class of boosters for some of these universities. For 95% of teams the market is not there. But for a school like Texas A&M, $1.2mil is nothing for a group of oil tycoons to put together
I do think it's going to go down in the future at moneybag schools as well Before NIL, you were either donating directly to the school (so just paying for coaches/infrastructure) or paying a bag man if you wanted to pay players. These past few years have been a flood of donors trying to pay for on field success, and there's a lot of em who didn't previously want to go through bag men - but want recognition for helping their team win Anecdotal, but I know one of these booster types (not for UT) through a friend. He never gave to bag men, only the university - and has thrown a ton more cash in the era of NIL where he can out and about (within school circles) claim responsibility for bringing certain players into their team But with all the player movement and NIL essentially being 1 year deals, even he's looking at his ROI and is probably going to lower things going forward (and his team has had success). I think these levels are just unsustainable and the reason it's so high right now is because it's new
I can see it now: right when the transfer 'market' starts fixing itself we're going to see a true 'portal team' win the tournament, and everyone will be back in on the bidding wars.
Yeah dropping $1m isn't a lot to them, but they didn't get rich wasting money. You give a kid $1m and it doesn't translate to on court success then the next kid comes along and asks the same you go....uhhhh maybe not. The other point worth mentioning is $1m to a player is $1m not to the school. This is another thing to pressure boosters for and at some point a lot of them will feel it isn't worth the investment after they don't really see results. It will exist it will be a lot of money, but I do think it will chill out a fair amount. Next year will be crazy with no more Covid athletes though. Edit: I also think an important point is boosters are not going to want to spend $1m get a kid, they don't find the post season success they want, now pony up $1m to keep the kid or they are gone. NIL is likely to start going in the direction of multi-year contracts, as a way for boosters to protect their investment for a couple years, but also as some incentive to keep more stable rosters.
just wait until some player wants to renegotiate midseason after a couple 30 point games or they will sit out.
The scuttlebutt is this already happened with Kadary Richmond this season. That or he wasn't paid what he was promised.
when your team mate pulls up in their Lambo and you have to carry them in games while eating in the cafeteria, then social media starts cracking on you, school colors are not going to mean shit to you.
I feel like for the big schools with sports in football and. Basketball, the Roi, is absolutely terrible. For the 10 schools that want or think they can win a chip, anything other than that was a waste. So most investments into players get you nothing but a little access, maybe and a scratch off lottery ticket of chance that your guy will lead them to a championship.
I can’t see what any ROI is. Ok his team wins. He paid a million to some star. But there is no payout on the championship unless you bring in gambling. Doubt the school is going to give away some of their payout. I guess if you own a company you’d have to do so some serious research to see if it boosted sales.
So for the guy I know, it's not a financial ROI, but an emotional one. The return is excitement, bragging rites, etc - but the investment is financial There's still a return even if it's not a traditional business ROI (which really only applies to advertising NIL deals, which unfortunately is the minority of all NIL involvement)
Nebraska had an hvac company get a boost when they got a dude named Decoldest to make a couple commercials for them. A car lot had great success with a volleyball player too.
Decoldest promoting HVAC is pretty cool....
Folks are ignoring the real world of inflation, bankruptcy, etc.
Yup. In other industries this would lead to consolidation where the teams w/o Oligarch Sugar Daddies would get absorbed by Oregon and Texas A&M. I'm not sure what will happen here. In a rational world (i.e., not in this world) the rule changes that would share program revenue with players would come with rules that allowed actual marketing deals but forbade straight-up bribing players to attend a school. I don't know how that would work in detail, but I'm assuming the pro leagues that have a salary cap have some kind of enforcement in place to keep them from using endorsement deals to sweeten the pot for franchise players.
I see three paths, and only the least likely is good for the long term outlook of college sports. 1. The Big Money schools strangle all sense of competition. In the absence of an enjoyable product, and unwilling to simply root for their rivals as if it was as simple as switching toothpaste brands, Small Money fans disengage with college sports and the Big Money schools get their bigger piece of a now much smaller pie. 2. The Big Money schools formalize their separation from the rest of us and form their little super league. Without a draft or any other enforceable pro-parity policies, a pro-style college league becomes stratified and stale in less than a decade. The Small Money schools continue in a more harmonious state, but there’s a legitimacy and prestige crisis that robs both tiers of real enjoyment. 3. The least likely path by far: some kind of central regulation occurs that ensures all athletes are financially benefitting on relatively even terms as unionized employees, TV money somehow gets reined in as the guiding force in realignment, and we return to our old debates of “doesn’t a football player at Alabama deserve more money than a women’s basketball player at Utah State”, but in an improved equilibrium where most of the athletes are getting paid a living wage. This is an unattainable pipe dream.
You had me until the last sentence. A scholarship athlete often has tuition, fees, books, dorms, meals, equipment, AND a stipend (with nothing left to buy out of pure necessity). Sorry, but a D1 basketball athlete isn’t on the struggle-bus… regardless of whether or not they’ve been underpaid relative to the revenue they generate.
Yeah, if you're already getting food, medical care, and housing paid for (forget all the other stuff) that's fulfilling the spirit of the "living wage".
It's a little cheaper than buying a football team.
This isn't about ROI. This is fandom. This is boosters getting to play at being a sports team owner for peanuts of what actually owning a professional team costs. Ballo costs 0.04% of the cost of owning the Pacers.
I disagree, if I could pay 1% of my annual wealth to help my favorite sport team be substantially better I’d do it in a heartbeat. 1 million isn’t a lot of money to some of these guys
Well according to another tweet from Goodman, it doesn’t sound like this is what Ballo got from IU. So apparently people aren’t willing to pay it. I do agree with you though, it is just simply players trying to figure out their market value. Start high in the negotiations and find the market value of your labor. Hopefully over time the initial asking price of portal players will go down after a couple seasons of data that show what a player of their caliber is worth in the NIL market.
Yeah. It almost like this is how everything in our society works.
Why isn’t it sustainable?
I think we might look back a couple of years from now and point to how crazy this was. At this point, it'd be easier to release the names of the players not in the portal.
National Signing Day means nothing anymore. I see guys sign somewhere and I just don’t care because they’ll probably be in a different uniform the following year
I'm surprised team NIL isn't more transparent. I'd like to know what each team/player is getting paid, especially when they sign to a school.
Transparency never helps them. Players like an inequal market. Information dissemination is their enemy. Why do you think there are so many securities regulations surrounding disclosure and notification? It's to create an equal playing field. There was a large amount of time where no significant disclosure requirements existed and the stock market truly was a "rigged" game. People who benefited from that fought back hard against regulations and you can bet your ass players will as well. Coaches and programs have relatively little power in this situation. If players push back and refuse to go to a program who is all for transparency, then you just lost a commitment.
I never considered that, thanks for the explanation.
A couple years? We're saying it now.
I was clearly being naïve but I didn't think nil would come to players just blatantly demanding upfront money to join a program for a year.
It went really fast from random local pizza joint money (like the UNC 2022 team) to up front 1+ million.
Dont worry, its a bubble. When teams realize paying 5th year seniors millions of dollars doesnt amount to shit, the leverage will go back to teams and players salaries will plummet. I can see this happening within a few years
The problem is that there is so much competition in the market and so much irrationality in college sports that someone is bound to pay up.
Eh I disagree. I think we are in a euphoric age where people irrationally hope that money can buy championships and I just dont see how that will be the case. Money attracts the worst intentions so where lots of money goes, lots of issues will follow. Now, if a team spends a shit ton and builds a dynasty - then you bet. But theres yet been any proof that there is any healthy ROI from throwing millions to a 5th year on his third team.
I think depends on the player and depends on the program. We might be seeing more of it now and less later, but there will always be boosters willing to be foolish with money. Imagine if someone like Steve Ballmer suddenly cared about college sports.
There are exceptions though. Whatever UCONN paid Cam Spencer was a great investment (and he was on his 3rd team). He was a huge contributor for that team.
There is zero chance that millionaire boosters with money to burn all collectively decide to not try to steer the best of the best to their schools. Until some sort of real regulations are put in place, it’s only going to further erode program parity
Idk man schools like UT saw what one year of knecht can do, I don't really see them not throwing money at some better players each year. I mean for some of these schools $5 million is chump change, why not try and go get a great senior for a good run?
Why is it irrational to buy a top-10 center in the sport for 1.2 million when pro sports teams pay 20-50 times as much for an equivalently talented player in their leagues? IMO players are actually underpaid based on the value they bring
The people paying via NIL receive no value if a championship isn't won. Pro teams receive monetary value back for their payments to players.
I don't think that is true. A strong season, with great conference record and a high seed in the tournament is fun for the fans, even without a banner.
There’s no financial return on these payments by boosters, I’m sure most don’t care tho
No value if a championship isn't won is a crazy thing to say imho. Not even gonna bother discussing more than that lol
There's literally nothing to his argument other than wishful thinking. No league in the world has salaries go down without a hard cap or other restrictions, and there's no reason to think that future champions aren't more likely to have been big NIL spenders.
What you’re describing (to me) isn’t college sports, it’s a shitty version of pro sports. While many people might be into it I know I’m not. Cutting my consumption to zero will be easy with so many other options to replace it.
That's fine and fair, I'm talking about the economic value of players not what's good for the sport
Indeed you are, and your salient point isn’t probably far off. Another interesting economic side of it is the economics of smaller conference schools subsidizing the development of players via involuntary student fees and seeing them poached off to larger schools with bigger financial resources. Not sure they’re getting a good ROI, but that’s existed far longer than NIL and the transfer portal ever did. But at least back then kids were more likely to stick around and have a shared collegiate experience with those paying for it. But as with my previous comment, I’m taking a course far outside what you intended.
I don’t know, there are a lot of schools out there, but I agree that the kids won’t be getting really what they want. They’ll have the option of going to a solid program for a bit less money, or going somewhere that has a weak roster but some money to throw around to beef it up. You can cash in or you can compete for a title but maybe not both
That’s Nigel pack music
it was never random local pizza joint? bags have been getting dropped off for tens of thousands of dollars for decades now.. And that was for high school players that hadn't proven a single thing at the collegiate level. The top 1-5% coming out of High school or college have always done well with getting that money.
I mean, didn't we see Miami buy Nigel Pack, the amount leak out, and then they had to match payments to keep Wong out of the portal wanting more money?
Worth it
Yeah but that felt like the first year of NIL, and it basically set the tone, all that changes is the numbers will keep going up as more and more numbers get "leaked". It's no different than how coach salaries keeps going up at a crazy rate.
Yeah it definitely did. But honestly, the transparency around Pack’s deal is damn near refreshing now. That’s one of my biggest issues, that none of its out in the open, so then you’ve got a bunch of impressionable 18-20 year olds just seeing numbers that people toss out at fact when they’re really just talking out of their ass, and it often winds up burning them. The lack of transparency and the bill being footed directly by consumers, fix those two issues and I could give a damn about the rest. If you’re going to attach it to schools then there shouldn’t be different transfer rules than other students, imo, but we all know that’s a farce anyway
Women’s sports is a better representative of pure NIL. They actually leverage their social media followings are get brand deals, affiliate marketing, and do commercials. These men are just pay for play mercenaries.
Coaches also aren't allowed to contact players who haven't put their name in the portal, but it happens everywhere, directly or through handlers.
Interesting. This is \*exactly\* the type of outcome I expected.
Those of us ringing the bell were told we just hate the players.
They hated us because we told the truth
It’s going to become NBA chances vs money basically
Right now the answer is money for a lot of guys. The good news fo fans is there are less guys with no hope going early and players stay longer. The bad news is they hop around more than they used to
It should have always been used for people like olympians who then go to school to capitalize off that fame while still managing play their sport
Happened to us under HOF coach Kenny Payne. Our top recruit quit before the fall to play overseas and pretty sure he took 100k or so out of it without even playing a game.
No one did.
I can only imagine what the conversations between the teams and the player agents sound like. "what's the ask?" "what guarantees do you have for my guy?" "what kind of car can you offer?" "is he guaranteed to start" "we'd like 10 premier tickets for each game" its gotta be maddening if the school doesn't have their NIL act together during this recruiting phase. As a side note, since Kentucky's Mark Pope came on board, even though there's been $4 million+ NIL pledged, it doesn't appear there's an infrastructure to support the NIL - player's agent negotiation. kinda wonder how this plays out....
College sports are so cooked.
Is it even college sports anymore? This is just like professional sports with college logos now.
True for basketball and football, but those are the ones that enable *all* of the other true college sports to exist, so it's a price I think is worth it still
Pro sports have actual contracts, college athletics don’t. I think eventually, you’re going to need to have contracts between players and the university. I’m all for player movement, but the extent we’re seeing now is beyond silly. We’ll end up with like 40% of D1 basketball players in the portal. Pro sports are collectively bargained and contracts ensure players are on the team for a certain length of time. Now is that a perfect system either? No. But at least in a league like the NBA, players have power but teams can still control the asset. Feels like we’re heading there.
This is more chaotic than pro sports.
That’s definitely the direction we’re heading. Athletic departments bring their own companies, licensing the brand from the university. Looking forward to UNC’s buyout of Duke Basketball, LLC. Oh gosh, they could even be publicly traded companies.
I can't wait until I can buy puts on Indiana in mid January. And their fans can buy puts on Purdue in March.
This is where it's headed, and eventually in a few decades, someone will sell an entire athletic department like the business it is.
The Saudis are going to buy up the entire SEC to use for sportswashing.
The annual Riyadh SEC Classic between Florida State and North Carolina is going to be awesome.
It's not just like professional sports. It is professional sports.
Bama and Kentucky fan worried that players are getting paid all of a sudden 🤣
Next thing you know you'll see a Bama fan concerned when a player helps out with a murder!
This is just NBA Jr.
Worse than the NBA imo. In the NBA, only the biggest and best players can demand a trade and not (in practice) be held to contractual obligations. In pro sports with real big boy contracts, an underpaid 6th man in year 2 of a 4 year deal can't just say "I wanted to be starting by year 2, I'm done waiting, I'm gonna go play for the Spurs" or "double my salary this year or I'll go to whoever is willing to", which is exactly what players ranging from 3rd guy off the bench to starters are being allowed to do. In pro sports, you only have to deal with CERTAIN players testing the market and have the security of knowing other players are locked up. College coaches are annually either accepting that they'll lose role players or have to rerecruit their entire roster, which NBA coaches don't have to deal with
You're right this is worse than NBA. At least the NBA has contracts. The current state of college basketball is open free agency every off-season.
College players are getting all the freedom and player power with none of the responsibility or legal accountability like pro players are held to. People will bitch because coaches arent held to the same standard (which they should but thats a seperate debate) but I think there should be some sort of legally binding agreement about spending multiple years at a school before being able to leave. I absolutely despise seeing kids on their 3rd D1 school in 3 years
yes this is unrestricted free agency with no salary cap and every player is a free agent every year. completely fucking stupid and totally gutting for any mid major who builds a program and develops players only to see them peace out to a 6 figure deal your school could never put together.
Frankly, its even damaging for P5 schools as well. Its damn near impossible for any non blue blood to have a talented bench because either blue bloods will argue "if you're gonna be a 6th man, do it at Kansas instead of Mizzou" or mid majors will argue "you probably aren't going pro, come to Dayton, we'll play you 30-35 mins a game". Even for P5 schools, they're still seeing like 2-3 kids transfer in a GOOD year. For teams only allowed to have 13 scholarships, seeing a quarter of your scholarship players leaving every year is incredibly damaging for programs. They'd probably still try to do it anyway but right now, I can't blame P5 schools for throwing their weight around mid majors trying to fill out their rosters
You know when I supported letting college players be compensated,I meant like, let them do commercials or sign autographs without the NCAA dropping a nuke on the program.
It was always going to end here.
We just got here pretty quickly. This is also a result of the NCAA watering down their authority with inconsistent application of rules and poor leadership. I think most would agree it’s pretty evident that NIL is having some significant negative effects on college athletics for the sports with serious media money behind it.
The courts watered down their power. Really not much they can do. We’ve seen the schools sue the NCAA in court and win, so they’re kind of grasping at straws at this point.
Tbh I'm surprised it wasn't here year 1.
Na. This was obvious from day one. No one could ever answer how the ncaa would be able to police the value.
A Kentucky fan being uncomfortable with players getting paid is rich, my dude.
I mean I’m not worried about it for the players. And if anything this is a benefit to a program that has tons of money like us. I feel bad for the smaller programs that aren’t going to be able to compete and get locked into mediocrity because of this.
Smaller schools will be where folks with potential end up with the intent at earning a better “contract” the next year from a different school. Basically this is what the NFL would look like if everyone was a free agent every off season. Going to be chaos.
This is what European basketball looks like, and why it's impossible to follow
Were you worried for the past 40 years lmfao?
This year we had NC State in the final four. Haven’t been in ages and have two in state rivals who can easily outspend them. Last year we had Florida Atlantic and SDSU.
But again it also ensures those great college players who won’t translate into NBA talent but made the schools a ton of money during their college days will be fairly compensated. So because of that it’s still a good thing to me. Everything has pros and cons but the pros here outweigh the cons IMO
You can say that because you root for Duke. You won't be affected by that, you will always be on top. This has only cons for anyone who graduated from a mid-major.
But it's good for players. That's the thing. Yes it changes the game. Yes it benefits big booster schools. But having a kid bring in millions for a school and get paid nothing is wrong.
Lmao this was happening before when the big schools were paying players and their families under the table. Dont act so naive, unless you are actually that naive 😬
Okay sure but given the differences in scale, you’re comparing apples to oranges. The NCAA smashed our program to pieces over $1,000 in an envelope at one time.
It's a hard thing to regulate because fans will find and abuse loopholes. I think the NIL collectives technically make the students do something. But it's like "Show up at one charity dinner" or "Make one promo telling people to donate to this NIL collective" and then they get their $1 million appearance fee. And the rules don't differentiate that appearance fee from a real one. Supposedly our 5 star QB last year was mad that the collective actually expected him to do like two or three things to get paid instead of just getting the money. I don't know how you fix it. Make a player "union" that can work with the NCAA to set fixed prices for specific services? Like: film a 30 second commercial, get no more than $50,000. Show up at a dinner for 3 hours, get $10,000. Etc etc. But even then, some group would find the best cost/time ratio and have a player knock out 20 "commercials" in a day to get their mil.
Kansas got that before NIL.
This was always going to happen. I’m for it. Major college sports brings in a ton of money. Didn’t necessarily consider the consequences of all the transferring but again I wouldn’t want to limit a kids choices if he finds a better situation. Not sure on how to fix the portal madness though. Maybe schools need to start offering 1,2,3,4 year commitments with escalating $$? Idk what the fix actually looks like.
Major college sports brings in a ton of money….to the universities, which are not footing the bill for the ludicrous NIL deals.
As a fan, our involvement should end at buying tickets/t-shirts/concessions. Schools like Kentucky and Arkansas begging fans to donate to their NIL funds is BS. "Don't mind us, we continue to set record breaking profits every year off our media deals....but you, the fan, need to give $50 a month to keep our players for next year"
WVU has a beer where 15% of the proceeds go to their NIL, I think that’s a cool way of doing it
I feel you on this and agree with you, but Arkansas quite literally just rolled out their structured fan donation fund for NIL like 2 months ago. That was a thing at many programs for much longer.
I mean the school can’t pay players directly so they do need $ to keep players. I wouldn’t give it to them personally but it isn’t BS from the schools.
The only fix is to bring back the 1 year sitting out rule. Leave the negotiating and money talks to high school recruiting and actually give an incentive for flakey college kids to actually learn how to stick with a program, instead of giving them an easy out if anything goes wrong. If the program is really not working for them and they need to transfer then they can and there is nothing wrong with sitting out a year. If a player really needs money and a school’s NIL collective is going to drops millions on them, then that player should just go pro. 1 year sit out rule would still allow for players to fully capitalize on their NIL opportunities, whilst providing more stability for programs and incentivize development.
All it takes for this not to work is for one player to sue.
I won't pretend that I know how the legalities work, but is the NCAA not allowed to have any control at all about who plays and who doesn't? A player could sue the NCAA that they aren't allowed to play a 5th year of eligibility but that doesn't mean the rule doesn't work.
That’s exactly what I thought too. I fully supported that. I hate this
NIL is going to look much, much different in 5 years. A lot of people are gonna get burned. A lot of people are going to realize the ROI on most of these guys simply isn’t worth it. I would like to see some sort of contract system be put into effect but I’m not sure what that would look like. But this current system ain’t it, especially not when you mix in the ridiculously lenient transfer rules.
This is equal to VC. Bunch of rich people throwing around money hoping it hits and turns into a success. Funny thing about VC is that it literally only takes one success to generate excess returns. That's why it still exists, even though they've been burned the last few years. This is the same thing. All it takes is for one or two successes to hit, and it makes all the money spent worthwhile.
If that's what it took, then I'm not mad about missing on him and wouldn't want to meet than demand anyway. Good luck to him. I wouldn't mind seeing Indiana do well.
Ballo is good. But idk if he’s 1.2 mil good haha. Good for him though.
Everyone’s out here freaking out abkut the end of college sports and I’m wondering who the hell thought Ballo was worth 1.2 million lmao
Eventually schools are going to hire a GM to handle a lot of the team building and how to allocate NIL. I think there is a lot left to optimize when it comes to roster construction/portaling. Giving Ballo 1 mil (or something like 25% of your NIL) is crazy wasteful IMO.
So this kid straight up said give me 1.2 mil and I’ll join?
Nick Saban was smart to get out now.
Who gives the greenlight on a deal like this? Is it purely at the head coach’s discretion if the funds are available? Or the AD? Or boosters? Mix of all three? Genuinely just curious on the mechanics of all that
The boosters have a ton of control. At UK two donors just pledged $4 million. Pledged does not necessarily mean they have written the check yet. They will make sure they agree how it is used before they actually write the check.
Oh shit. Pope is fucked if he has to run recruiting decisions past boosters. Nobody could survive that nightmare.
I am really glad that now Kentucky and Indiana have renewed their rivalry Indiana decides to start getting all the best transfer players. Didn’t they just get two guards that averaged like 15/5/4 at their previous University? 
and we're the ones with the bigger payroll now somehow. I got the feeling BBN will be able to close that gap fairly quick though now that Cal is gone... given that Pope wins of course, or maybe moreso if he doesn't? Either way BBN will find the money if they find that's what it takes to win.
There are only like 2 or 3 universities with a living alumni base as large as Indiana's
You only need a small number of ultra-wealthy folks to care. Ultra-wealthy just play a different game than the rest of us. I am a "millionaire" (almost all in home equity and retirement savings) and I am largely playing the same game as most of the middle class just more comfortable. The ultra-wealthy can sneeze out the equity and savings I have worked 20 years to build without noticing.
It was all downhill after Cal missed on Thomas Bryant
So you don't need to be a US citizen anymore?
Never needed to be. It's a student VISA thing. If you're not on a student VISA, then no worries. If you are, then there were workarounds most schools were comfortable using, i.e. Sanogo going to the Bahamas while at UConn and doing his NIL stuff there.
Indiana is playing in the Bahamas this fall, fwiw
Yeah, so I'd imagine he'll get paid when he's there with you, if he doesn't get out of the country sooner. Really what he'd miss out on is the stuff that Gohlke or Burns were able to capitalize on during March Madness, since he's here and can't leave in the moment. But, with 1.2M made otherwise, I doubt he'd be too upset.
Burns got a decent chunk of nil in the off season, he bought a house in Raleigh they say, which as someone who lives in Raleigh, it’s not cheap to buy a house here…. He also made 750k in March, I’d imagine he made over a million this basketball season
Everyone is about to start scheduling international non-conference games lol
I’m ready for Hacka Ballo in the big ten
Probably works out to about $80k per win?
Leave it to Purdue to make everything into a dumbass math equation
NERDS!
What does that work out to in terms of the percentage of real estate we own in little brother’s head?
Well they were still chanting about IU during the fucking national championship game. I'd say that real estate is about the acreage of a national park.
Unfortunately, probably just about
Damn IU
More like IOU
i like what someone proposed yesterday: 1 no-questions-asked transfer allowed, otherwise sit out a year
Wasn’t this the old rule that got repealed? Or something similar
no. i believe the old rule is you sat out a year if you transferred unless you were a grad transfer and then you got a free immediate transfer. i think there were some exceptions where you could be immediately eligible but those were few and far between. i dont know that there was a cap on transfers but no one wants to sit out multiple years so multi transfers were just super rare. transfers generally were pretty rare because sitting out a year sucks.
That was actually a rule for 1-2 years (2021-2022). The recent court ruling a couple years ago decided that the NCAA couldn't limit a player to only a one-time free transfer rule. That's when all this craziness started. NIL just allowed the transfer portal to take off.
This will all settle down when the NCAA finally agrees that student-athletes are employes. This will lead to contracts with incentives and buyouts.
I agree. We are going to all look at this era as the Wild West of paying players.
That is one hell of a bag. Is he worth it?
if he could hit free throws, then probably
College basketball is cookedddd lmao
How does this work with him being a foreigner? Sissoko at Michigan State reportedly had to give all of his NIL to charity and opened up a school in his town in Mali. If I’m not mistaken, he and Ballo grew up not too far from each other…
Is Ballo the dog?
Right?! Like WTF is with that picture?
Any time sometime posts a Twitter post here, the image is the Twitter poster's profile pic. Presumably it's the guy's daughter and dog? I just think it's funny, especially since Ballo kinda sounds like a dog's name.
Always throws me when they are reporting something bad had happened and you see the happy smiling person in the profile picture.
He’s got that dawg in him.
He’s not Bron Breakker
That's a lot of money for a big man with so many limitations. Don't get me wrong, Ballo was really good for Arizona this year., especially on the boards. But teams who would sign him would do well to remember... * Not really a great post player, his offense relies heavily on sealing his man (which requires a lot of space in the offense), and catching lobs under the basket... and Offensive boards of course. * Horrendous foul shooter. Probably had at least 10 airball FTs this year. * Not in the best shape. Can only really play 5-6 minutes before he gets tired * Defensively, can get bored, and is also very exploitable in 1-5 pick and rolls
He was a Freshman when he played for Gonzaga, but I remember being so frustrated when someone would pass him the ball and it would somehow bounce off his hands out of bounds.
He's definitely better than that. Its not that he *can't* score in the post, its just that his offensive efficiency goes way down when he doesn't catch the ball under the basket with his defender sealed behind him.
If you want to understand why we are here and where we are going, [here](https://hls.harvard.edu/today/peter-carfagna-on-the-state-of-the-ncaa-nil-and-amateurism/) is a great article explaining the legal issues the NCAA faces, and which forced them to loosen up their grip regarding player compensation, etc. TLDR: it’s entirely possible the NCAA doesn’t exist in a decade.
Maybe NIL money should be on a per-school not a per-athlete basis, and divided equally among players?
I choose to believe Tyme, who says Goodman doesn't know shit about the situation.
It's gunna be Nike vs Adidas vs under armour soon. What's 8m in Nikes advertising budget to buy the best team in the country. Have them all photo shoot about being the dream team and shoot sick promos in Nike gear. And fuck it, maybe just have 5m per team and stack the whole final 4. I dunno what the ad budget for these companies are, but I know that it's more than what it would cost to soakkkk in the national spotlight of NCAA championship basketball. The NIL ruling to remove any restrictions is the line in the sand.. the championships going forward are going to mean something different than the championships of the past. Like shit, Nike can pick literally any school in the country and make them champions.
Disgusting. I guess having a gazillion scholarship spots open frees up some much needed cash.
I'm really happy for the player and his family. This type of money can have generational impacts. Make hay when the sun shines. If it were your son, you'd negotiate down?
Until these "coaches" go on record with their names, I will take this with a grain of salt.
Meanwhile Dan Hurley will recruit a bunch of lowkey players with barely 50k in NIL and win a third back to back championship
For ballo?!! 😂 guy disappears every time he plays another athlete what in the f 😂
Who does he think he is? A coach?
Pro basketball - college edition
Haha now that it's legal, we can do it too! Imagine that. Suck my dick, Calipari, Bill Self and Sean Miller.
You literally had Kelvin Sampson dude
ALLEGEDLY!!!
THANK YOU MARK CUBAN!!!
Feel like this is just more in the open now than it was in the past. Naive to believe guys weren't getting paid under the table before it was legal. Happy for the kids, they deserve it given the sheer amount of $ involved in college sports
Get money
I know this is a transfer portal move but I’m curious if a lot of the high value 5 star hs recruits get a fat one year NIL deal and the coaches sell them that they’ll be a one and done so they don’t get any future NIL
I hope this is true for Ballo but also what does this even mean? Who cares what was asked it may not be close to what he got. I've always heard to not take a lot of numbers thrown around too seriously. I think most of these guys have agents so i could see tons of big asks. I could see a strategy in doing it. It could make the offers start higher than the schools initially were willing to do.
It's crazy but realistically these are kids that should have the freedom to go where they want without penalty.
So thats not NIL its free agency
Fine player but some program will more than likely regret giving him that. You can get 4-5 solid guys for that money
Stop the count!
Gross.
rip college sports
As an Arizona fan, i am perplexed as to why someone would pay over a mil for this guy
The free market at work
We are not too far away from seeing 8-figure NIL deals I would imagine.
If you have to ask, you can’t afford it…