Brand New Transfer Season NIL talk

[TechPhi97]

2,000 is actually not that big of a number, if you think about it. There are ~77,000 kids playing college football right now (link). That means that "voluntary attrition" is 2.6%. My team is responsible for attrition reporting at my company, and I can tell you if we had a 2.6% voluntary attrition rate we would be pretty excited. Just for reference, the annual estimate of voluntary "quits" from BLS has ranged between 13.2% and 69.6% over the past 5 years, depending on Industry (link). If you look at the Government rates, they are 7.2% - 13.2%.

The portal doesn't count other voluntary turnover from programs but I suspect it captures 90%; the only other way to leave is to just quit. I would count graduating players that don't continue as "involuntary", even if they still have eligibility.

Anyway, this makes the volume in the portal seem exceedingly low either way. It should be below private industry (you can't really be fired) but above government (you don't get the benefits of government employment like a pension). That the annual rate is still ~1/5th of government attrition indicates that these are pretty low rates.

Sorry for replying to my own post, I just wanted to add a few things. This site shows success rates for players in the transfer portal, by sport. Probably the most interesting thing I see is the breakdown of "aided" vs. "unaided" athletes entering the portal, if you filter by "Football - FBS". First, it's important to note that players that transfer to junior colleges or other non-NCAA programs are counted as "active" even if they land somewhere else. Now, observations:
1) "Unaided" athletes make up 35% of portal entrants - these are walk-ons, basically. This make sense, because I think most FBS teams have 85 scholarship and 25 walk-on players, but it's still important to note.
2) There is a huge discrepancy in students still active in the portal when you look at aided vs. unaided. 28% of students with financial aid (read: scholarships) are still active in the portal, while 60% of those not receiving aid are still in the portal.
3) 88% of those that succesfully transfer to another NCAA school stay in Div 1.

 

[TechPhi97]

I read Bo Jackson's autobiography decades ago. One thing that stuck out to me is that he said he didn't want his kids attending schools where sports wasn't such a big deal (I read his daughter did end up at Auburn, but didn't play sports there). He wanted them to attend Ivy Leagues or a school like Duke and Stanford. Barry Sanders also said something similar (one of his sons attended Stanford on a football scholarship).

My high school teammate played at Auburn and in the NFL for 3 years. He had good grades and test scores in HS. He tells me repeatedly that he wished he had chosen GT or Duke (he almost went to GT as there was another HS teammate of ours at GT playing LB for us) instead of Auburn because the only thing Auburn coaches and academic advisors wanted him to do is get through class to play football. He never graduated from Auburn as he left after his JR season to enter the draft (drafted in the 4th round by the Titans).

It's kinda sad how some athletes get perspective on sports and the education opportunities they had after their careers are over. I wonder how many athletes would have changed their minds about factory schools if they could do it over again knowing the education opportunities they had at the time. Some do make the most of their education even at "factory" type schools, some do not.

I probably could've played baseball at a small school, but it never even crossed my mind given I could go to Tech. I had friends that played baseball at places like Berry and Shorter, but I knew I wasn't going any farther than college no matter what. Warning track power and couldn't hit the curveball!

 

[yeti92]

2,000 is actually not that big of a number, if you think about it. There are ~77,000 kids playing college football right now (link). That means that "voluntary attrition" is 2.6%.

Where I've seen it listed, 2000 is FBS only. On3 lists 1882 as having entered the portal, and there are 133 FBS teams with a max roster of 125 including walk ons, though most are slightly less. So conservatively, that's 1882 out of 16,625, or 11.3%.

 

[roadkill]

Where I've seen it listed, 2000 is FBS only. On3 lists 1882 as having entered the portal, and there are 133 FBS teams with a max roster of 125 including walk ons, though most are slightly less. So conservatively, that's 1882 out of 16,625, or 11.3%.

Good point about FBS only. Checking the database that @TechPhi97 linked, I found numbers that closely support your calculations.
Using 2022 data since 2023 transfers aren't complete, it lists a total of 16578 athletes in FBS football, and the corresponding transfer portal number is 1883 (11.4%).

One thing that stands out is the disproportionately large amount of grad transfers. They make up 540 out of the 1883 (almost 30%), and many took advantage of the extra Covid year of eligibility. So about 8% of FBS undergrads go to the portal, which in my opinion is the most meaningful number.

 

[cpf2001]

I think there is a lot of conflation in this thread between “making more money than in the past” and “making as much money as it could.”

For instance; is the claim here that college basketball wouldn’t have benefitted from three years of Lebron? That eyeballs and the revenue that would follow would have been exactly the same? Heck, look at all the attention Wemby got last year and he wasn’t even in the same country. Players like that used to grow the NCAA hoops fanbase; now they don’t.

There is a set of die hard college fans and there is a set of casual sports fans who will follow winners, superstars, and greatness.

Take away the Mike Vicks of the college world and replace them with more Stetson Bennetts and the casual fans will gradually drift away from CFB too.

 

[cpf2001]

Kickbacks, bribes, under the table money, and illegal payments that violate contracts are not market forces. That is eevident to anyone who understand basic economics.

This is completely backwards. The only thing separating an “illegal payment” from a “legal payment” is words in the law and potential punishment. Prohibition did not stop the market for alcohol, and supply and demand forces did not go out the window for it.

Markets are perfectly happy to exist inside, outside, or entirely without laws.

In many controlled economies the black market is more meaningful than the “real” one - the government price of a loaf of bread is pointless if nobody has any to sell you at that price and you have to pay 10x that to the black market seller.

Nobody would deny that you can attempt to regulate markets out of existence but the repeated failures of nations that have tried it is in large part because the underlying supply and demand forces exist anyway - especially once some participants start breaking the rules.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I think there is a lot of conflation in this thread between “making more money than in the past” and “making as much money as it could.”

For instance; is the claim here that college basketball wouldn’t have benefitted from three years of Lebron? That eyeballs and the revenue that would follow would have been exactly the same? Heck, look at all the attention Wemby got last year and he wasn’t even in the same country. Players like that used to grow the NCAA hoops fanbase; now they don’t.

There is a set of die hard college fans and there is a set of casual sports fans who will follow winners, superstars, and greatness.

Take away the Mike Vicks of the college world and replace them with more Stetson Bennetts and the casual fans will gradually drift away from CFB too.

I don't agree with this. I think most college interest (for football especially) is for schools, not players.

 

[MWBATL]

I don't agree with this. I think most college interest (for football especially) is for schools, not players.

That’s certainly true for me

 

[cpf2001]

To clarify, I don’t think it’s a “Lebron went to OSU, I’m going to follow them now” type of player fandom at that point, I think it’s a “wow, I keep seeing these crazy highlights from this Lebron guy in these OSU games, I’m gonna turn it on next time I see it on TV level.” And then it matters if those highlights from an NBA game or a college game.

Of course, we can disagree on how important that is long-term.

 

[forensicbuzz]

To clarify, I don’t think it’s a “Lebron went to OSU, I’m going to follow them now” type of player fandom at that point, I think it’s a “wow, I keep seeing these crazy highlights from this Lebron guy in these OSU games, I’m gonna turn it on next time I see it on TV level.” And then it matters if those highlights from an NBA game or a college game.

Of course, we can disagree on how important that is long-term.

I'm not sure that type of fandomhood really exists anymore. Just my take. What would increase arbitrary player interest is if there were an upsurge in college-level fantasy football. I just don't see that happening. That's what's driven casual fans towards pro basketball and football. There's a game outside the game.

 

[cpf2001]

I'm not sure that type of fandomhood really exists anymore. Just my take. What would increase arbitrary player interest is if there were an upsurge in college-level fantasy football. I just don't see that happening. That's what's driven casual fans towards pro basketball and football. There's a game outside the game.

It definitely does in basketball - to be honest, I don’t know how much it does in football. I don’t know who the new Brady would be there.

In basketball, though… crossing the current generations there are Bron fans to Luka fans and Wemby fans. A lot turn into team fans; though some will straight up tell you on the team sites and discords that they’re gonna follow the player, not the team. (It helps if the team wins more like the Heat than the Cavs.)

But I would bet that Calvin Johnson brought some fans to GT who first saw him on the TV. New fans are born every day.

 

[TechPhi97]

Where I've seen it listed, 2000 is FBS only. On3 lists 1882 as having entered the portal, and there are 133 FBS teams with a max roster of 125 including walk ons, though most are slightly less. So conservatively, that's 1882 out of 16,625, or 11.3%.

Thanks for pointing this out, I went back and looked at the data and figured out how to align it all to make sense. I'm going to separate out the scholarship players, as I think it's more important. If you're interested in the data, it is here.

So, looks like the "voluntary attrition" rate for scholarship players went from 14.3% in 2021 to 17.7% in 2022. Will be interesting to see what the final numbers are for 2023, but we won't know that until after spring practice. While December was the biggest month for players registering in the portal last year, there were almost as many in both April and January (slightly more in April). Spring practice makes things clear, I guess.

% of players in the Transfer portal (2021 / 2022)
Overall: 15.7% / 17.6%
Scholarship Players: 14.3% / 17.7%
Non-Scholarship: 18.6% / 17.4%

% of players in the portal as undergrad transfers (2021 / 2022)
Overall: 11.1% / 12.9%
Scholarship: 9.0% / 11.9%
Non-Scholarship 15.5% / 14.9%

 

[Root4GT]

Two schools whose programs are in an absolute mess.

Too soon to say on FSU. How they play next year will be the tell.

 

[MusicalBuzz]

Short answer—it’s not supposed to be directed by the school or the AA.

Really, all the NIL collectives are against the rules.

Basically, a few things are supposed to be enabled by Alston:

• Players should get money from merchandise with their names or numbers, including from video game usage
• If volleyball players or gymnasts make a ton of money from their TikTok accounts, it’s theirs
• If a local car dealership pays players for an appearance, that’s ok

The rest is shady at best. If UNC is in trouble for NIL, then LSU, Texas A&M, Notre Dame, Ole Miss, UGA, and some other schools should really be in trouble

I just wanted to bump this comment from a couple months ago. Because it reads exactly how I thought NIL was intended to work. And specifically that it’s not pay-for-play.

Yet, now collectives exist everywhere. And there’s talk ala “Player A gonna get his NIL” to paraphrase. So what exactly is the deal with NIL? Is it literally pay-to-play, or are the rules literally being trashed evolving in real time??

 

[awbuzz]

Where I've seen it listed, 2000 is FBS only. On3 lists 1882 as having entered the portal, and there are 133 FBS teams with a max roster of 125 including walk ons, though most are slightly less. So conservatively, that's 1882 out of 16,625, or 11.3%.

Does this account only for players with eligibility left? If not, then the percentage would be even higher.

 

[TechPhi97]

Does this account only for players with eligibility left? If not, then the percentage would be even higher.

Impossible to identify that number, but I would call all of those “involuntary attrition”. Both would use the same denominator.

 

[yeti92]

Does this account only for players with eligibility left? If not, then the percentage would be even higher.

How would a player enter the portal if they don't have any eligibility left?

 

[leatherneckjacket]

This is completely backwards. The only thing separating an “illegal payment” from a “legal payment” is words in the law and potential punishment. Prohibition did not stop the market for alcohol, and supply and demand forces did not go out the window for it.

Markets are perfectly happy to exist inside, outside, or entirely without laws.

In many controlled economies the black market is more meaningful than the “real” one - the government price of a loaf of bread is pointless if nobody has any to sell you at that price and you have to pay 10x that to the black market seller.

Nobody would deny that you can attempt to regulate markets out of existence but the repeated failures of nations that have tried it is in large part because the underlying supply and demand forces exist anyway - especially once some participants start breaking the rules.

Again, by definition, black market activities are not market force in a free market economy. Illegal payments and under the table transactions do not allow all parties to participate or compete freely. Whether they exist or not is irrelevant. They are illegal and not a part of a free market economy, which is why they are called the black market instead.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Again, by definition, black market activities are not market force in a free market economy. Illegal payments and under the table transactions do not allow all parties to participate or compete freely. Whether they exist or not is irrelevant. They are illegal and not a part of a free market economy, which is why they are called the black market instead.

you're yelling at clouds here. While I agree with you, the font you're trying to have a rational argument with isn't aligned with your rationale.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

This make sense, because I think most FBS teams have 85 scholarship and 25 walk-on players, but it's still important to note.

NCAA average is 33 walk-ons. Max is 40. IIRC, there used to be a lower cap on the total roster limit but somewhere along the line it was raised to 125.

What’s The Difference Between A Walk-On And A Preferred Walk-On? - RecruitRef

In this post we clear up the difference between a walk-on and a preferred walk-on.

www.recruitref.com