A New Type of NIL

[C0|dB|00ded]

Love all the supposed economic free-market lovers start to hate the idea of a free market when it's a bunch of college basketball players wanting to participate. Who, other than the market is to say their monetary demands are unreasonable? If they don't get the amount of money they are asking from any school, then the market says their request is unreasonable. If just one school is willing to pay it, then they are reasonable.

Bottom line is that college athletics has become a big money industry over the last three to four decades, and the college players upon whom it has been built are now getting a piece of it. Within a decade or so it will probably calm down and all the big donors from big schools will start to believe it's just not worth it to pay a guy hundreds of thousands to sit on the bench. Or maybe not. Who knows. But right now, if you want to participate, you've got to either pay up or get extremely lucky getting a kid who's spending a year at WSU putting out a showcase to try to get big money elsewhere the next season.

The flipside of all this is that now it's actually possible for a school like Wichita State to land a top 5 recruit. All it would take is the money.

We assume the actors to be rational in a capitalist economy. I believe NIL to be irrational behavior. But perhaps the entire world could be considered irrational at this point. Someone actually paid $91.8M for an NFT ("non-fungible token").

NIL could very well be a function of the exponential increase in wealth in America over the last decade or so. The top of the top literally have money to burn. Why not burn it on your alma mater? Elon Musk could fund the NIL of every D1 college program with his pocket change.

Perverse. Dislocated. Inefficient.

[DwShock]

I won’t give any money for NIL. Heck, I’m at a point in my life where I could support the alumni association but someone decided to take that away. I guess the only money WSU will get from me is the occasional shirt, hat or occasional game I can attend.

[Aargh]

Capitalism has entered college athletics. And, just like in the business world, the big boys are moving in and shutting down the Mom and Pop shops. It's the old adage about the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.

[shockrah]

I won’t give any money for NIL. Heck, I’m at a point in my life where I could support the alumni association but someone decided to take that away. I guess the only money WSU will get from me is the occasional shirt, hat or occasional game I can attend.

What happened to the Alumni Association?

[Aargh]

What happened to the Alumni Association?

They're getting hit up for $$ to keep WSU in business after all the funding cuts out of Topeka.

[Dan]

For now it’s the P4 trying to outspend everyone else so we close our doors. Once that happens they feast on each other. Plenty of schools inside the P4 that can’t keep up with others.

[1972Shocker]

What happened to the Alumni Association?

It was combined with the Wichita State Foundation. It is now called the Wichita State University Foundation and Alumni Engagement.

https://foundation.wichita.edu/

image.png

[rjl]

You all act like other teams are playing by different rules. If anything, all the cheating the big boys have supposedly done in the past is now out in the open. Everyone is playing by the same rules now.

Nothing is stopping WSU from paying huge NIL money to players other than the fans. I guess WSU basketball needs to be cool in Wichita again for the fans to care.

[Ta Town Shocker]

Nothing is stopping WSU from paying huge NIL money to players other than the fans. I guess WSU basketball needs to be cool in Wichita again for the fans to care.

Being cool would be a good start. Turned on the Texas Tech vs DePaul game for a moment and the atmosphere in Lubbock was electric. Freaking Lubbock TX. Our program has fallen off a cliff and not sure there's a way back up at this point.

[ShockerFever]

You all act like other teams are playing by different rules. If anything, all the cheating the big boys have supposedly done in the past is now out in the open. Everyone is playing by the same rules now.

Nothing is stopping WSU from paying huge NIL money to players other than the fans. I guess WSU basketball needs to be cool in Wichita again for the fans to care.

Not a great economy right now. People are still miffed about how the Marshall situation was handled. A coach was hired that has the personality of a coconut. And team is now coming off a pretty terrible losing season. Picking a fight with the fans and asking them to shell out more money in this current state is probably not the correct thing to be doing. WSU is gonna have to win fans back with W's and basic economic principles before you start seeing fans back again. That's the only way it's gonna happen and if that means it's not gonna happen here again, then so be it. People aren't gonna bet on their paychecks and invest in something unproven and frankly undeserving.

[rjl]

Not a great economy right now. People are still miffed about how the Marshall situation was handled. A coach was hired that has the personality of a coconut. And team is now coming off a pretty terrible losing season. Picking a fight with the fans and asking them to shell out more money in this current state is probably not the correct thing to be doing. WSU is gonna have to win fans back with W's and basic economic principles before you start seeing fans back again. That's the only way it's gonna happen and if that means it's not gonna happen here again, then so be it. People aren't gonna bet on their paychecks and invest in something unproven and frankly undeserving.

I'll concede that WSU got hit with the double whammy of Covid and Marshall's departure, all at pretty much the same time. Like him or not, Marshall was an outsized personality that brought continuous attention to the program, even in the latter years when the team was having issues.

The economy excuse, though.... Every other basketball program is operating in the same economy as Wichita State.

It all falls on the fans. Given every other program's NIL fund comes from their respective fans, the only thing keeping WSU players from getting big NIL money is the fans.

[C0|dB|00ded]

I'll concede that WSU got hit with the double whammy of Covid and Marshall's departure, all at pretty much the same time. Like him or not, Marshall was an outsized personality that brought continuous attention to the program, even in the latter years when the team was having issues.

The economy excuse, though.... Every other basketball program is operating in the same economy as Wichita State.

It all falls on the fans. Given every other program's NIL fund comes from their respective fans, the only thing keeping WSU players from getting big NIL money is the fans.

That's incorrect.

Schools like Florida have what is called a lucrative conference media deal. Florida gets over $50M a year for simply being a member of the SEC. They have multiple direct/indirect avenues for funneling money in the direction of the kids.

Wichita State has ONLY their dwindling fanbase to keep them competitive in the NIL debacle.

But we are supposed to continue paying for everything else as well.

We are in a very bad situation.

[ShockTalk]

I'll concede that WSU got hit with the double whammy of Covid and Marshall's departure, all at pretty much the same time. Like him or not, Marshall was an outsized personality that brought continuous attention to the program, even in the latter years when the team was having issues.

The economy excuse, though.... Every other basketball program is operating in the same economy as Wichita State.

It all falls on the fans. Given every other program's NIL fund comes from their respective fans, the only thing keeping WSU players from getting big NIL money is the fans.

As it's been said before, when you talk about fans and money, my guess is many of the healthier (money wise) donor fans may not have come back. You know......the ones that took out the full page ad in the Eagle. Hopefully they will someday.

[WuShock16]

I had an offline discussion with some esteemed members of this community. I asked this theoretical question.

If we joined the Big East at the same time Creighton did (I know it wasn’t an option, but work with me here), would we be relevant? Would the WSU fanbase have been more accepting of NIL if we would have been in a power spot from the beginning? My overall question just ponders how Creighton has handled this so much better than we have. Obviously, conference affiliation is a big piece, but what else is the issue?

The answer I got was that 3G leadership from the start of NIL would have put us in a completely different timeline. I’d even argue that, for as much as some didn’t want this, Turgeon leadership also puts us in a different timeline. He can coach. He has a sideline intensity that fans desire. And he connects with big money guys. I saw him visiting with Shane Prill and Jeff Johnson during the UNI game. NIL support would not be a problem under MT.

[Dan]

Isaac Brown severed the relationship with the donors. That timeframe, combined with Covid, was enough time to change habits and attitudes. Our fans obviously lost the taste for Shocker basketball. It’s not coming back until we start winning rings, and I don’t see that happening under Mills.