Troy Dannen reveals how Nebraska built rev-share strategy: 'We probably have 24 different models'

As Nebraska made its preparations for the revenue-sharing era, Troy Dannen had a plan. He thought the school would need a “one-size-fits-all” strategy to deal with the cap set by the House v. NCAA settlement.

During those meetings with coaches, though, Dannen saw the need to change course. As a result, Nebraska adjusted its plan.

Those meetings included Jonathan Bateman, the school’s assistant athletics director for NIL strategy and governance, and coaches shared what they needed. Nebraska built its blueprint from scratch, just like others around the country, and Dannen estimated the university has 24 different models. Huskers football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and volleyball will participate in rev-share.

“We’re starting from nothing,” Dannen told reporters Friday. “Nobody knows what anybody else is doing. Normally, a coach will say, ‘I need what they have.’ But they had to really show something that, what do you think you need? We took that and then, had another meeting a little bit later and kind of got the coaches’ input. My mindset, coming in, changed from talking to the coaches.

“I thought we were going to have one program and one plan, one-size-fits-all. I would tell you we probably have 24 different models for, what does football need, because it’s different than baseball? Baseball needs scholarships maybe before they need rev-share dollars. So there’s a lot of that that the coaches had to decide. Once we make the allocation of the revenue, it’s no different than allocating budget dollars to them.”

‘What are we going to do with high school recruiting?’

In the lead-up to the House settlement’s approval, the sense was schools were frontloading deals for recruits before the NIL Go clearinghouse went into effect. Troy Dannen predicted that likely wouldn’t stop, but also argued high school recruiting is where it’s currently happening.

Dannen said the relationship with high school recruits with regard to rev-share is his biggest question. He and other leaders are asking the College Sports Commission for more clarity about dollars before enrollment, and ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported early talks have taken place about changing the signing day process. Schools can currently make rev-share offers to recruits Aug. 1, but they cannot sign until their respective signing day.

“The biggest question is, what are we going to do with high school recruiting?” Dannen said. “Because the frontloading has moved to high school recruiting. You can give anybody anything right now and it’s unregulated by the terms of the settlement. It is probably circumvention of the settlement. And I hear various things about what’s happening – some of it true, some of it not true. Probably shouldn’t repeat it because I don’t trust a lot of what I hear unless I see it, to be sure.

“But I do know there’s a lot of money going pre-enrollment right now as a way to circumvent – I would say it’s moved from recruitment and retention to recruitment. How that’s handled, and there’s a lot of us that have made suggestions on what we should do from a regulatory standpoint, we’re waiting.”

As for the early frustration during the House settlement’s implementation, Dannen said it’s part of the process. He called for patience as the landscape settles.

“This gets back to, I think a lot of there’s a lot of frustration,” the Nebraska AD said. “Why don’t we have that answer right now? Well, it’s because it’s brand new. It’s going to take a little bit take a little bit of time. And that’s where we have to have patience.

“We can be frustrated that this is happening at that school or this is allegedly happening to that school. But we’re going to get a set of rules to deal with, and then we’re going to go forward and we’re going to optimize what we can do within that set of rules.”