Washington State's Ethridge: 'People in our league are wildly ahead' in NIL

Washington State Athletics held an NIL Town Hall Monday night, where several of the Cougars’ athletes and head coaches spoke to stakeholders about their experiences and perspectives on the NIL landscape. Several coaches also tried to rally the school’s fan and donor base to support their athletes through NIL, an area in which some coaches said Washington State is playing catchup.

Women’s basketball coach Kamie Ethridge provided arguably the most frank commentary.

Not only did Ethridge say Washington State’s NIL efforts — or perhaps more accurately, those of its fan and donor base — are behind some of its peers, but that the university may not ever be able to compete with the NIL infrastructure at certain schools.

“We’re in a different arena in the sense of people in our league are wildly ahead of us in what they are providing for their student-athletes in our respective sports,” Ethridge said. “And we can either engage or try to continue to compete or maybe not compete at the level that we are right now. And I think that’s a real struggle for all of us at this point.

“I don’t think any of us like to be sitting up here talking about this or wanting to reach out to donors or reach out to Cougs all over the country and anywhere else and say, ‘We have a real need in this arena to level the playing field’ or ‘At least give us an opportunity to compete.’

“It may not even be, ‘Level the playing field.’ We might not be able to ever do that with what some of the schools are doing that we compete against. … We’ve got to make people understand that this is the difference of signing recruits and not. Or getting high-level recruits and not. It’s not a comfortable place to be in.”

“Well, there we go,” Washington State baseball coach Brian Green said, laughing, as he later received the mic from Ethridge.

‘We spend half our day, every day, on NIL’

Men’s basketball coach Kyle Smith estimated that he spends 35 to 40% of his day educating himself and others on the NIL landscape.

“NIL’s real. It’s a big deal. It’s not going away,” Green said. “The doors are opened and the coaches are out, we spend half of our day, every day, on NIL, because if we don’t, we’re not going to compete the way we need to compete.”

While there has been more public discussion in college football about the specific dollars amounts that individual players and entire rosters reportedly need through NIL deals in order for a school to remain competitive, a few Washington State coaches from other athletic programs alluded to a similar concept.

“Believe me, I can get very specific as to what my bottom-line needs are but I don’t know that this is the setting for it,” Ethridge said. “But I’m telling you, to compete, I’ve got to be able to come to a bottom-line number and I need to reach out and find people that are going to help us engage and try to create that.”

Green echoed the sentiment.

“There’s a bottom line for all of us, unfortunately,” he said. “So I would echo, or what I would suggest to all the Cougs out there that are watching this, just to go grab your sport and talk to your coaches and see how you can get involved with the collectives, which have been extremely productive for us.”

Washington State football coach Jake Dickert said there’s pressure related to recruiting and retention. “We’re here to really give credibility to the collective,” he said, referring to Cougar Collective.

During the NIL Town Hall, Smith named the Washington-focused collective Montlake Futures — but he refused to name the rival school whose athletes it supports — and he referenced the fundraising of the Tennessee-focused Spyre Sports Group. Dickert cited team-wide NIL deals at Texas Tech and BYU.

Washington State’s resource disadvantage

Even prior to the start of the NCAA’s NIL era, Washington State was at a significant resource disadvantage compared to its peers.

On average, Pac-12 member institutions have reported noticeably lower revenue and expenses than their Power 5 peers. Within the conference, Washington State reports smaller financial figures than most of its peers.

In each of the last three fiscal years for which NCAA Membership Financial Reporting System (FRS) reports are available, Washington State has reported the lowest, second-lowest or third-lowest total operating expenses of the 52 public Power 5 institutions.

Washington State reported $76.2 million in the 2019 fiscal year (Kansas State was the second-lowest at $83.0 million), $77.2 million in 2020 (Oregon State was the lowest at $77.0 million) and $65.0 million in 2021 (Colorado was the lowest at $64.5 million and West Virginia was the second-lowest at $64.8 million).

Each year, Washington State’s reported total operating expenses were between $40 and $50 million less than the average among public Power 5 institutions.

Washington State’s coaches ($13.1 million in total salary, benefits and bonuses) and support staff ($12.3 million) made up more than 39% of the athletic department’s expenses in the 2021 fiscal year.

“I think we can all say as coaches we’ve benefited greatly from these industries,” Smith said. “I mean, what we earn as a coach, but the one entity that hasn’t, in my opinion, is the student-athlete. There’s a lot of money that’s brought to coaches, to the NCAA administration in Indianapolis. They’ve built their bureaucracy and in this process, all this success, I think it’s fair that student-athletes get paid.

“Now, what I’m getting feedback from people, our alums and potential donors, is that they don’t like it and frankly, I don’t think any of us coaches really like it. Is that fair to say? I mean, we don’t like dealing with it.”

The competition for donors in the NCAA’s NIL era

The early-season firings of five FBS head coaches provided yet another example of the competition for donors. Athletic departments and the independent NIL collectives that support their athletes often compete for the same donors.

“First off, I think we are all unbelievably sympathetic — sympathetic, that’s probably a bad way to look at it — for Cougar Athletic Fund,” Ethridge said at the start of her time with mic. “Like we’re sitting up here and Cougar Athletic Fund does so much for us and they go from one, you know, trying to create a new facility to the next one to the next one and they go to those same donors sometimes over and over.

“And yet, here we are to basically say, ‘The game changed this year,’ and we’re playing a different game than we’ve ever played before as coaches.”

Green reiterated her point when he received the mic.

“The landscape has changed in the matter of seemingly 24 hours, where we’ve gone from out there selling facilities and facilities and facilities and facilities and the next thing you know, our athletic department is asked to come up with Alston money for student-athletes because if we don’t have it, then there’s a value statement that we’re not on the same playing level as our competitors, which is extremely important,” he said. “And now here comes NIL, which schools in the East and South are earning these types of dollars.

“We’ve got to get on a level playing field but it’s a challenge.”