Specific question about State’s involvement with NIL

Seinfeld

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If we went into the archives to pull up NIL threads from 12 or even 6 months ago, we’d find a lot of statements from people feeling like State was not moving quickly enough with it, and then also a lot of rebuttals from posters assuring us that the university was doing all it could. Sure, we’re never going to be able to compete with the Bamas and Georgias of the world, but we’re maintaining equal ground against the middle of the pack.

Fast forward to today, and clearly Cohen is frustrated by it, we’re publicly missing out on key transfers due to NIL, and schools like LSU, A&M, and UF to name a few are already reaping the benefits. Then, and I say this with all due respect to Charlie, but it takes an MSU fan putting something together in his spare time to get anything remotely organized on this subject. Not only that, and I may be alone on this, but it seems like this NIL fund is an entirely new required revenue stream coming out of fans pockets as opposed to our athletic department getting creative in re-allocating some of its $112M budget.

I guess my question in all this is… what exactly is the university’s role in all this, and what have they been doing for the last 2 years? If I’m being honest, the optics right now don’t make it look like much.
 

The Peeper

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athletic department getting creative in re-allocating some of its $112M budget.

what exactly is the university’s role in all this

Isn't that the whole problem, they CAN'T have any "role in all this" can they?
 

Smoked Toag

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University doesn't have a role. It's ultimately going to be fans reallocating their current giving to the university, over to NIL. The university I guess will just take in the TV money.

That's how I see it, but the way I see it may be wrong. And of course, I doubt you'll ever see the university come out and say it, because they still want your donation.

It would seem that the easiest way to get this done would be to somehow funnel the TV money to the players. Then alumni can just give to the school and feel better about life. Does this make too much sense?
 

8dog

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Feb 23, 2008
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NIL has only been around for just over a year. The University cant use its money for it and yes it’s well documented this will require new money or take away money from the BC.

The university should have seen the collectives as the primary vehicle by last fall though and rallied it’s key alums to get it going. Instead we sat on our hands and let a guy fresh out of law school spin his wheels.

Can you provide the quotes from Cohen on frustration? Also who all do we know we have lost?
 
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Maroonthirteen

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By rules, The University can't be involved with implementing or executing a NIL program. However like anything with the ncaa. They can sure oversee that rules are followed, approve deals and strike down deals they don't like, for whatever reason.

With that said, the future of all this is people are going to pull back their donation money and give to NIL collectives instead. Assuming nothing changes rules wise. How the university can help is lowering donation requirements for seats. Especially in a sport like football where you have unsold inventory every season.

if a school really wanted to get aggressive, is award jobs to friendly companies that you know will give to the NIL. (I admit I don't know the approval process for awarding jobs to companies). However if the university wants to pay a booster an absorbent amount to cut grass, Hopefully they give 50% of their profit back to NIL. However State is far to conservative to get that aggressive. I bet cha other schools will try it though.
 

ababyatemydingo

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University doesn't have a role. It's ultimately going to be fans reallocating their current giving to the university, over to NIL. The university I guess will just take in the TV money.

That's how I see it, but the way I see it may be wrong. And of course, I doubt you'll ever see the university come out and say it, because they still want your donation.

It would seem that the easiest way to get this done would be to somehow funnel the TV money to the players. Then alumni can just give to the school and feel better about life. Does this make too much sense?

It's going to be a catch 22. Yes, alumni and fans are going to have to shift to giving to NIL funds. On the flip side, they'll also have to keep giving their same amount to the university. In order to maintain seat assignments, suites, club seating, parking lot assignments, etc (not just for football). It's a real mess, and, at present, seems unmanageable.
 

CochiseCowbell

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let a guy fresh out of law school spin his wheels.

Are you speaking of Charlie here? I looked it up for that didn't sound right and he graduated from Notre Dame Law in 1997. Was this obvious sarcasm and my meter's off today?
 

8dog

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No. I am talking about a guy who was fresh out of law school and tried something last year.
 

johnson86-1

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It's going to be a catch 22. Yes, alumni and fans are going to have to shift to giving to NIL funds. On the flip side, they'll also have to keep giving their same amount to the university. In order to maintain seat assignments, suites, club seating, parking lot assignments, etc (not just for football). It's a real mess, and, at present, seems unmanageable.

MSU needs a way to be able to give donors credit for contributions to NIL for players. Otherwise, you're going to have people forced to choose between giving money to NIL and benefitting the program more, or giving to the University and them personally benefitting from better seats and BDC ranking. If the NCAA makes it against the rules to give credit to people giving to NIL, then it's going to be hard for MSU to get fans to just pony up a lot of additional money. .
 

The Peeper

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Seinfeld

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Can’t provide exact quotes because the comments I’m referring to were from recent podcasts, but he pretty openly voiced his frustration with the current state of NIL + the portal, and it was mostly centered around the fact that there’s zero rules or regulations over it today. Not the concept of NIL itself

Completely agree with the second paragraph, though. I mean, I get that the university can’t run the NIL program. Likewise, it couldn’t sit at the head of the table organizing booster payments for the last 60 years either. That doesn’t mean that the right approach was to sit back for the last 12 months and survey the field, though. We know the whales that we swim with every year, and it was entirely ludicrous to think they weren’t going to bend and/or break every rule to take full advantage of all of this.

Maybe I’m not giving our admin enough credit, but on a scale of 1 to 10, all signs are pointing towards our NIL preparedness level being a 1
 

Junction John

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Charlie said something on a podcast a week or two ago that makes a lot of sense, when considering our place in the world and MSU's history of being conservative (some would say overly cautious) when it comes to NCAA, recruiting, etc.

I'm paraphrasing, but he said basically there are some icebreaker programs out there (Miami was the example) who are more than willing to get out front and test the market. As we saw, they recently pretty brazenly announced putting together a $9.5M deal for a QB to come to their school. I mean, they are talking openly about breaking NIL rules on inducement... but until the NCAA challenges and/or stops them from doing it, they will push that envelope. We are not icebreakers. Never have been, and I guess never will be. All I'm saying is, Charlie's example rings true to me - we will be one of the slower ones involved, and we will wait and see what some others get away with before we make moves.
 

paindonthurt

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I’m not sure they can oversee or strike down anything.

If I win the lottery and want to start paindonthurt nil initiative, I can give to whatever athletes I want at msu. I’m pretty sure there is nothing the university or ncaa can say outside of it being a deal to get a recruit. Even then it’s probably hard for the ncaa to do much now.
 
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