Can we stay competitive in the NIL era?

[85Escape]

I keep trying to convince my wife to let me open ours (mine). She won't sign off. Something about kids, college, food ..... I don't understand.

Probably because of the same reason that all I can offer GT is $150

 

[chewybaka]

I guess the good news is there’s only a handful of teams that really could keep up with this in college football. In the ACC, probably just FSU, Clemson.. Miami would love to try. Even those 3 are way behind the big guys like Texas, Texas A&M, Bama, etc.

They are cooking the golden goose...

When the remains of college football ameturism fades away the unique interest/support for this formerly major aspect of college athletics shall wane into oblivion...sad

 

[augustabuzz]

It appears that Pandora has left the box...

Yes, I just saw her in a limousine with Elvis!

 

[ibeattetris]

Year-in and year-out, no one in the ACC has a tougher OOC schedule than Tech. It would be very unusual for us to be bowl eligible with a less than .500 conference record.

Clemson has recently had a strong OOC and is arguably just as tough (they play one of uga, nd, lsu every year for the next 10 years plus South Carolina every year). Florida state hasn’t really been afraid of ooc scheduling either with upcoming years including nd, lsu, Alabama and Georgia along with Florida every year.

Uga is good right now, which makes our ooc rough, but they haven’t always been world beaters and plenty of other acc teams play marquee opponents.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Texas just announced a new deal for their offensive linemen that takes each player to $150k. They have a multi-million dollar fund that will clearly grow from there. No way Alabama or Ohio State falls behind.

I'm glad we were able to get the TiVo deal for our players, but I don't see a fund or large corporate contract coming to save us (sorry, my nest egg can't quite cover a fund for the team).

So... what happens next? Given the portal now allows immediate eligibility, do we see a seismic shift in 2 years or less? Even if you find a diamond in the rough, they will likely look to transfer if they shine.

Am I doom and gloom or do others see it trending this way?

Nope. As things currently stand there are about a dozen or so elite factories, another dozen wannabes willing to cheat, play players, and prostitute themselves leaving about 100 also rans scrambling for table scraps that fall their way. It is not sustainable.

 

[alagold]

If wake forest can win 10 games we can

Ye, amazing job-- but it starts with a real coach

 

[MACHETE]

I hate to say it but with the NIL and portal the only way we will be competitive is if D1 divides into 2 groups. 1 those who have money and only care about football and those schools that want student athletes get an education, Kind of sad college football is not college football it's a big business.

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That has to be the logical conclusion of all of this.

 

[RyanS12]

No.
Unless the Peloton guy wants to break off the SA’s. I don’t see anyone will to give any of ours guys much like other schools. Maybe if the wins come it will change but right now I can’t see many people wanting to give up some money to a group that isn’t the biggest draw in its own city.

 

[THWG16]

Ye, amazing job-- but it starts with a real coach

Amen

 

[RamblinRed]

The boom of dead money in college sports

What did FBS schools pay football and basketball coaches not to coach? The numbers will surprise you.

www.espn.com

We are top 20 and ranked ahead of uga in something. This does include all buyouts, which means any money paid to a person not coaching. That's why CPJ is listed on there even though he retired. Our books should be cleared of dead money (atleast for another year). This more than NIL or lack of staff or poor facilities hurt us.

For GT it is primarily basketball money. Paid out $6.1M in the previous decade to Hewitt and $1.3M to Gregory. The biggest payout to a football coach was Ted Roof who got $1.4M. Nate Woody got $640K and CPJ got $333K.

Other interesting note is that GT's dead money is more than any other ACC school. L'ville and FSU are the closest after GT at $8.4 and $7.7M.

 

[gte447f]

They are cooking the golden goose...

When the remains of college football ameturism fades away the unique interest/support for this formerly major aspect of college athletics shall wane into oblivion...sad

I sort of feel this way too. I love college sports, but I would probably lose interest if it became a league of 20 or so semi-pro or minor league teams that I have no personal connection too. I think it is short sighted of the greedy power players not to realize this phenomenon, and so they may eventually shoot themselves in the foot and eradicate their fan bases and then themselves.

 

[gte447f]

So, with this Texas deal, what exactly are these linemen doing in exchange for $50,000? This NIL stuff seems to have nothing to do with name, image, or likeness, and instead just provides a convenient way to blatantly hire “student athletes” to play football professionally.

I know I probably sound naïve, but I guess I figured NIL would be something like the star quarterback getting paid to do a car commercial or something, or a player profiting from sales of their uniform replica or something. Instead, the model that has emerged right away seems to be teams signing sponsorship deals and distributing payments to players.

College sports are screwed.

 

[PVdad]

It appears that Pandora has left the box...

When we were at the Elite 11 they had an NIL session with a company that helps kids manage it and work on their social branding. They have an app that basically links the players social media accounts to their app to let them know their worth based on their social media presence, how to improve it, etc. The owner of the company started the presentation with “Yes Pandora’s box has opened, welcome to the new era of college football”.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

Depends on what you mean by competitive, but short answer is without a high-acumen coach with something difficult to defend, no. (My opinion)

 

[awbuzz]

Do you mean Pandora has opened the box?

Maybe I should have added "unattended"..., and it has now been opened.

 

[gville_jacket]

When we were at the Elite 11 they had an NIL session with a company that helps kids manage it and work on their social branding. They have an app that basically links the players social media accounts to their app to let them know their worth based on their social media presence, how to improve it, etc. The owner of the company started the presentation with “Yes Pandora’s box has opened, welcome to the new era of college football”.

Just curious, I know GT has advertised they have partnered with a branding company to give the SA’s the support to help tackle this stuff. Was that part of the pitch? I also know that partnership was mainly between the program and marketing which was prior to NIL but I gotta think they’ll bleed into helping the athletes.

 

[BuzzThePlumber]

If wake forest can win 10 games we can

Of course we can. Not sure why this is even a question. A few rough seasons does not change the entire equation.

 

[PVdad]

Just curious, I know GT has advertised they have partnered with a branding company to give the SA’s the support to help tackle this stuff. Was that part of the pitch? I also know that partnership was mainly between the program and marketing which was prior to NIL but I gotta think they’ll bleed into helping the athletes.

We haven’t really dug into the NIL stuff yet. He’s not really focused on that, he feels it’s too much of a distraction. Don’t get me wrong if that time comes then I’m sure he’ll appreciate it, but right now not so much. They have talked about it but nothing substantial mostly because we’ve told them it isn’t factoring into his decision.

 

[chewybaka]

Of course we can. Not sure why this is even a question. A few rough seasons does not change the entire equation.

Get old and stay old would be the eventual model…it is the path college basketball has adopted…but we are on a tight schedule now so let’s see….

 

[Jophish17]

In short, yes I believe Tech can still compete. By that I mean NIL isn’t an isolated variable driving us to doomsday.

• There are still only 11 players on the field at once. Maybe 40 players per school get meaningful playing time in a season. If you want to jump to the NFL, you need to be producing on the field. System capacity for players hasn’t changed.
• Starting players will probably earn more than bench players; I admittedly haven’t looked very far, but I can’t imagine someone 5th on the depth chart at Bama earns materially more than a starter at Tech. So if you’re not going to the league, where can you maximize your payout? The starting team or the bench?
• On the transfer portal: refer to point #1. Players will move from Tech, yes. But we could also get players at schools who are good but not quite good enough for Clemson or UGA… a lot like how recruiting works today.
• Tech has regularly found money when it needed it for facilities upgrades, and there are many executives and entrepreneurs who support Tech that we could draw from. Tech has no shortage of corporate partners.

Yes, it’s still TBD what tech will look like long term in the NIL era, but I’m not convinced it will be doom and gloom. We can still compete in the ACC for sure.