Evolution of The Battle's End NIL collective key to Florida State's roster retention, transfer portal success

Ingram Smith delivered a promise when he founded The Battle’s End NIL collective for Florida State football in December 2022.  

“I’m not going to tell you that I’m John Ruiz, and I have unlimited money,” the collective’s president said at the time. “But I will tell you that we can be as competitive as we want to be in this space.”

The third-party NIL collective is now set to begin its second college football season supporting the Seminoles. From the beginning, Battle’s End has been one of the most aggressive in the NIL space, allocating significant dollars to roster retention and the transfer portal. 

Now expanded to assisting sports like golf and potentially more, multiple sources tell On3 the collective will spend in the $18-million range for all sports in the 2024-25 academic year. Florida State is coming off a 13-1 season, its lone loss in the Orange Bowl with a depleted roster. 

Now with the expanded College Football Playoff and a 12-team field, expectations are high for the Seminoles. They kick off the year over the pond with an ACC matchup against Georgia Tech in Ireland. 

Smith and The Battle’s End have ensured the roster can compete for positioning in the CFP.

“Do you keep the players in the program that you want to keep in the program?” Smith told On3. “Our focus since day one has been retention. Candidly, we’ve never lost a player that we wholeheartedly didn’t want to lose, even be that to the NFL Draft within reality. Jared Verse wasn’t coming back for another year. We’ve kept guys that would have been fifth or sixth-rounders that have come back and turned into second, third-rounders.”

Florida State, Battle’s End embracing transfer portal

Florida State finished with the No. 3 class in On3’s transfer portal rankings this offseason, landing 17 transfers. As Smith has emphasized since the beginning, NIL dollars make a difference during college football’s free agency. Especially in the portal, making a competitive financial offer can make all the difference in landing a game-changing player. 

The top players on last year’s roster came from the portal – Jordan Travis, Trey Benson, Keon ColemanandVerse. The Seminoles dipped into free agency again this offseason, landing quarterback DJ Uiagalelei and Georgia EDGE Marvin Jones Jr.

“Mike Norvell and his staff displayed a significant propensity to use the portal as a tool,” Smith said. “Our ability to add a competitive asset of NIL has only allowed that to transpire all the more.

“… We were one of the first collectives to just say, ‘Yeah, y’all are being very stupid if you’re spending 70% of your money on high school kids.’ We went heavily into retention and portal. That has changed as Florida State has signed higher-ranked high school prospects and will continue to do so.”

NIL collectives facing revenue sharing impact

The Battle’s End has tried to keep sustainability top of mind from the start. Max Moody was brought on as the collective’s full-time COO in early September 2023. An FSU alumni and senior consultant at Deloitte, Moody focuses on the collective’s financial sustainability and growth strategy.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t do fundraising, but honestly, there’s probably not an hour or two-hour block that goes by where something’s not focused on a revenue-generating conversation,” Smith said.

Trying to keep up with programs like Ohio State, which is spending $20 million on this year’s roster, is a difficult task.

“I don’t know that anybody can look themselves in the mirror and say, ‘Hey, we’re looking for sustainability,” he said. “Either there has to be a massive course correction in spending, or we need to acknowledge that this is going to be a much different-looking model to continue to drive this thing.”

Battle’s End will also be tasked with evolving in the upcoming revenue-sharing era. 

Power Four institutions have spent the summer preparing for the impact of the multibillion-dollar House settlement. Schools will opt-in to a revenue-sharing agreement, with the option to share roughly $20 to $22 million per year with players. That number will increase over the 10-year settlement. Judge Claudia Wilken will rule on preliminary approval of the settlement on Sept. 5.

Sources across the country have told On3 that programs have offered higher packages this cycle because of the pending settlement. 

“This is definitely the year to be a high-level football recruit,” Smith said. “People are making assumptions based on budgets that I don’t know are going to be there. I don’t know how you’re going to justify paying a player $500,000 when he’s your left tackle and you’re paying your right tackle $40,000.”

Battle’s End addressing agents’ cut from collective agreements

Collective agreements have become the main source of NIL dollars in college football. Lucrative roster value deals are typically negotiated by agents, with some taking the industry norm of 3% while others go up to 15% to 20%. 

Smith told On3 his collective has added language so agents cannot pocket major paydays of athletes’ agreements. That still has not stopped agents from trying. 

“Here at Florida State, we were just disgusted by what some of the agents were taking from these kids last year,” he said. “We put a clause in our contract that you can only take this much off a collective deal. And I know that agents are going around it – creating very simple and stupid sidesteps around it – and are continuing to charge kids an exorbitant amount.

“There are agents in this space who do an incredible job and bring exceptional value to their clients, there are also those who do not and we will continue to do all that we can to protect our student-athletes from the latter.”

Battle’s End focused on ‘serving’ Florida State football

The Battle’s End is viewed as one of the top collectives in college football and has FSU ready to compete for a College Football Playoff berth. Florida State finished with the No. 12 recruiting class in 2024 and currently sits at No. 11 in 2025. 

The next step will be to evolve when revenue sharing begins. Smith collectives will need to be the “third or fourth column” of an athletic department. That means ensuring Norvell needs all the resources necessary to retain and attract talent. 

“I give credit to a lot of people who laid the groundwork for us at Florida State,” the NIL collective leader said. “Even before The Battle’s End came into existence, there’s been a very good structure and very good groundwork here at Florida State. And we will continue to serve as much a positive role as we can.”s