NIL collective at ORU

[BlueGold]

Interesting... just found this while roaming out in twitterland. This account hasn't tweeted anything yet. Says it started on twitter this month.

I wasn't sure where to start this topic so I put it here.

Here's part of the home page of the website, which is linked in the bio lines: https://www.eternalflamecollective.com/

Edited April 21, 2023 by BlueGold
Added screen shot of the website

[Bogus Smith]

It is coming. We need it to be competitive!

[titansforever]

Wasn't sure where to post this article. It can be moved if someone has a better spot for it.

College basketball turned upside down

Roster chaos born of NIL money, transfer portal

DAVE SKRETTA  Associated Press   Oct 31, 2024

LAWRENCE, Kan. — KJ Adams Jr. is sitting in a corner of Hadl Auditorium, just down the hallway from Allen Fieldhouse, the historic home of the top-ranked Kansas basketball team, and the place that the senior forward has called home for the past four years.

He is a rarity these days, when players are allowed to transfer freely, often in the pursuit of lucrative name, image and likeness contracts that could make a handful of them instant millionaires. Adams joined the Jayhawks out of high school, played important minutes on a national championship team as a freshman, and has never wavered in his commitment to the program.

"I think it would be cool if more guys stayed four years," Adams says, glancing around the room at eight newcomers — including six transfers — that form the backbone of this year's team. "You miss all the guys that have come and gone."

Even at Kansas, a destination school for so many, Adams has played with 32 scholarship teammates during his career.

Yet such roster change is a fact of life in major college basketball, perhaps more than in football or any other sport. Entire teams can change almost overnight, and players that started for them one season can be starting against them the next.

To wit: There were roughly 700 players who elected to transfer from Division I programs five years ago. That number nearly tripled this past offseason, a gargantuan number made even larger by upperclassmen who were granted an extra year of eligibility because their careers collided with the pandemic.

There might have been no better example than Arkansas, where John Calipari is taking over after 15 years with Kentucky.

The Hall of Fame coach arrived in Fayetteville in April to find that 13 players had transferred, graduated or quit in the days after Eric Musselman left for Southern California. Calipari was fortunate that Trevon Brazile ultimately withdrew from the NBA Draft and returned to the Razorbacks; otherwise, he would have been starting entirely from scratch.

"I met with the team," Calipari said upon his hiring, "and there is no team."

There is now, of course. Calipari simply did what every coach has been forced to do: He mined the transfer portal. Three of his new players were relatively easy sells, given they came along from Kentucky, and three more transfers — including the coveted guard Johnell Davis from FAU and forward Jonas Aidoo from Tennessee — eventually joined the Razorbacks.

That new-look team, incidentally, beat the top-ranked Jayhawks in a charity exhibition game last Friday night.

"It is easier to build a roster. It is infinitely harder to build a program," Colorado coach Tad Boyle said, perhaps most succinctly summing up the thoughts of college basketball coaches everywhere, from the power conferences to the low-majors.

It's also really stressful, and for some coaches, not what they signed up for. That was the case for Virginia coach Tony Bennett, who decided two weeks before the start of the season to retire, explaining he was better suited for the old days when he would build a program around freshmen who might stay the entire careers.

Remember those relationships that coaches began with high school kids and their families, carefully nurtured over several years of recruiting? They've taken a backseat to the portal, and what Iowa State women's coach Bill Fennelly called "speed-dating."

"I mean, you've got to get moving," he said. "They go in the portal and you better get ready, get organized and have a plan."

It helps to have the weight of NIL money behind you, too. When the NCAA began allowing players to profit off themselves in 2021, the result was tantamount to free agency, where players are tempted by lucrative packages offered by a school's boosters.

"You may not be able to go always get everybody you want that fits what you want because you may not quite frankly have the money for it," Oklahoma State coach Steve Lutz said. "It's almost like having a budget and having to prioritize who you want."

It works both ways, though. NIL money is also a big reason some marquee players decided to stay put.

"Five years ago, I wouldn't have been here," said All-American guard Mark Sears, whose NIL package at No. 2 Alabama was enough to sway him to pull out of the NBA draft and return to the Crimson Tide for his final season of eligibility.

Some schools, such as Cincinnati and Iowa State, returned most of their players from last season, and they used the transfer portal to merely supplement that core. But whereas in the past they represented the majority, they now are the minority, and it has created a college basketball season full of teams that look nothing like they did a year ago.

With so few rules in place, it might be that way next year — and the year after that, too.

"Really everyone is trying to do things year-to-year," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, who had three players transfer out and four in since last season. "I don't think anyone has a long-term plan until someone knows what the long-term rules will be."

 

[Keenan Henderson]

Coach Cal's classic line: I met the team and there is no team! Funny!   It is true of most teams in the off season that most years you start over.   Tony Bennett was a good Godly man and I was surprised to see him leave the Cavs after taking them to an NCAA title five years ago.

[theeagleman5]

Who wants to deal with it???....College sports are a mess due to NIL and the Portal.....it will never be the same.....MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! 

[Bogus Smith]

What is really stressful is for a team to end its season in early March after the post-season tournaments and the players jump into the portal before the first week of the NCAA tournament has been played.  Those players are still around campus finishing up the semester for another couple of months, but they are still using the facilities on campus and staying friends with their soon-to-be ex-teammates.  Talk about an awkward situation for the coaching staff!  The coaches, of course, are cordial to those players leaving but no one really likes rejection when you're trying to build a culture with your team.

The coaches must keep their current players on their conditioning routines and other development efforts, but can't do any "planning" for the next season until the fill the holes in their current roster.  Plus, they have to wait until the first week of April (after the NCAA tournament is over) to see what kind of players may be coming off those teams that are really good for the mid-major market.

If you are going to compete on the highest levels, you have to play the NIL game because every high-tier program is going to put that type of money into their program to win and compete.

[Bogus Smith]

12 minutes ago, theeagleman5 said:

Who wants to deal with it???....College sports are a mess due to NIL and the Portal.....it will never be the same.....MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! 

[Otis 83]

Seems to be what drove Tony Bennett into retirement.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/heart-emotional-tony-bennett-bids-farewell-uva-basketball

[titansforever]

Does anyone remember ORU's search for a coach in 1999? Scott was ultimately given the job, but there were 4 or 5 relatively big names under consideration. I remember that they held short press conferences with 4 or 5 of the candidates. Wasn't Tony Bennett either interviewed or mentioned?

[ORUJason]

I do not recall seeing any other coaching hiring process that was handled like that hiring process.  That was an interesting approach.

[Bogus Smith]

3 hours ago, titansforever said:

Does anyone remember ORU's search for a coach in 1999? Scott was ultimately given the job, but there were 4 or 5 relatively big names under consideration. I remember that they held short press conferences with 4 or 5 of the candidates. Wasn't Tony Bennett either interviewed or mentioned?

Yes.

[titansforever]

Bogus Smith: A man of few words. 

[titansforever]

Here's a related take on the subject. (Hasn't ORU always included an "Athletics" fee as part of a student's activity fee?)

Fans picking up tab for college athletes

EDDIE PELLS   Associated Press   11/5/24

At Tennessee, they are adding a "talent fee" to the price of sports tickets. At Arkansas, they will charge 3% more at the concessions stands. At Michigan and Michigan State, athletic directors sent letters alerting boosters that winning is going to start costing more. And, in a first, Clemson is going to start adding an athletic surcharge to tuition bills.

Winning at big-time college sports has never been free, but in a rapidly changing era in which players are allowed to earn money and be paid by their own schools, it has never been clearer that fans will be picking up a bigger part of the tab.

"College athletics hasn't professionalized as much as I think it was capable of," said Nels Popp, a University of North Carolina sports-business professor who believes most schools still rely on fans' emotional, long held school ties more than bottom-line marketing strategies. "And now, I think this is forcing them in that direction."

When the NCAA reluctantly approved payments to players for use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL) in 2021, boosters who used to give to schools and their athletic departments started funneling money to collectives — independent organizations that raised the money and paid the athletes. Those collectives are becoming more and more closely linked to the universities.

Under terms of a $2.8 billion lawsuit settlement that is on track to take effect next year, the NIL deals will remain in full force and the schools themselves will be dealing with other multimillion-dollar changes to their bottom lines, including:

■ Each school with the money to do it will be allowed to share as much as $22 million in annual revenue with athletes — money they get from tickets sales, TV contracts and other sources. They can share less, but top recruits will be front of mind in the arms race for talent.

■ The amount the NCAA pays more than 350 Division I schools every year is going to drop. The organization is on the hook to cover some $1.2 billion in damages under the settlement and the rest will be covered by conferences that will see less money shared each year from the NCAA and its lucrative men's basketball tournament.

■ Schools will be allowed to offer more scholarships across all sports and that costs money. For instance, a school could offer up to 20 additional scholarships for a total of 105 in football. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said adding scholarships across sports could add $29 million in education costs to the department's bottom line. And that's on top of the revenue sharing.

"Maintaining a high level of support for our 29 NCAA athletic programs will take an elevated commitment from everyone," Manuel wrote to Wolverines fans last month.

One possibility for Michigan might be placing advertising inside of Michigan Stadium, a practice the Wolverines have steadfastly avoided over the decades. The school also sent out a recent survey asking, among other questions, if fans were willing to pay between $3,000 and $4,000 for a new tranche of chairback seats, which are rare outside of club sections at The Big House.

'Donor fatigue'

In 2023, it cost two fans an average of around $180 to attend a college football game and about $340 to go to an NFL game. After all, college sports didn't have to worry about the biggest expense on a pro team's budget — player salaries.

NIL started chipping away at that, and once the terms of the lawsuit settlement go into effect, that dynamic will shift even more. Michigan State AD Alan Haller told Spartans fans his department's '25-26 budget will include between $25 million to $30 million in added expenses.

"As a department, we will continue to explore new opportunities for both revenue generation and cost containment," Haller said. "However, without a doubt, your continued generosity and involvement will be paramount to our quest for excellence."

Some fans will undoubtedly keep writing checks to keep the players — and hopefully, the wins — coming, along with retaining their "rights" to buy a certain number of tickets for football games.

A tour around the parking lot before this season's Michigan-Michigan State game found others who sounded more reluctant.

"The price of the education is out of hand," said Michigan State fan Mike Bouchard, citing a more than $55,000 price for an out-of-state undergrad to attend his alma mater. "There's absolutely no way I'm going to dig into my pocket over and above that amount. Tell them to use their hundreds of millions in endowments."

"Absolutely not," said Ann Arbor resident Michael Ketslakh when asked if he would give more to support Michigan athletics. "I think it's excessive. It's bad for the sports."

Rick Karcher, the faculty athletics representative at Eastern Michigan, said fans continue to pay because, unlike pro sports where everyone knows the profits go to billionaire owners, the economic models in college are often hard to nail down.

"College sports fans, students and boosters are willing to continue absorbing the operational costs while the team's coaches and administrators get richer because they view athletics as separate from the university," he said.

Absorbing higher costs

Earlier this fall, Texas Tech said it was budgeting $14.7 million for this fiscal year—about $9 million more than the previous year—in support for the athletic program, which has a budget of nearly $129 million.

"I think if any unit on this campus was facing a 20-something-percent cut in their revenue, we would have to look at how we might respond, and we will in this case," school President Lawrence Schovanec explained.

Texas Tech is hardly alone in contributing to its athletic program, but not every school runs by the same model. At Florida, for instance, sports are run by the University Athletic Association, which not only has funded sports but has often given money back to the school.

A story in the student-produced Florida Independent Alligator said UF sports revenue was eighth highest in the nation; two of its biggest boosters have given eight-figure sums to the UAA's fundraising arm.

Clearly, though, it's not only eight-figure donations that will keep college sports running.

Tennessee was among the first to grab headlines early in the football season when AD Danny White said the school was adding a 10% "talent fee" for 2025 football ticket renewals. That was on top of a 4.5% hike in ticket prices.

"That connection between resources and competitiveness has never been tighter," White said. "Only now we have the ability to share these resources with our athletes."

At Arkansas, AD Hunter Yurachek explained the 3% fee on concessions in a letter to fans that noted the importance of continuing to "maximize additional revenue opportunities" At Clemson, which long prided itself on not charging fees or ticket prices to students, the plan is to raise between $7 million and $8 million by adding a $150 "athletic fee" per semester to the price of tuition. The Tigers have been to four national title games over the past decade and won it twice.

"I think it's kind of ridiculous, but there comes a point when we have good enough sports teams that it's kind of valid," student Sam Gault told South Carolina's WSPA-TV when the fee was unveiled earlier this month.

To win big, schools will have to pay big, and simply fielding a competitive team is no longer a given. The question hanging over college sports is where the money will come from.

"You can pay more for tickets, put a sponsor patch on the uniforms, cut non-revenue sports or (start calling) the Big 12, the 'Dr. Pepper Conference,'" said Popp, the professor at North Carolina. "I don't think fans are anxious for any of those, but what might they be willing to accept? I think that's what athletic departments have to figure out."

[Bogus Smith]

44 minutes ago, titansforever said:

Here's a related take on the subject. (Hasn't ORU always included an "Athletics" fee as part of a student's activity fee?)

Fans picking up tab for college athletes

EDDIE PELLS   Associated Press   11/5/24

At Tennessee, they are adding a "talent fee" to the price of sports tickets. At Arkansas, they will charge 3% more at the concessions stands. At Michigan and Michigan State, athletic directors sent letters alerting boosters that winning is going to start costing more. And, in a first, Clemson is going to start adding an athletic surcharge to tuition bills.

Winning at big-time college sports has never been free, but in a rapidly changing era in which players are allowed to earn money and be paid by their own schools, it has never been clearer that fans will be picking up a bigger part of the tab.

"College athletics hasn't professionalized as much as I think it was capable of," said Nels Popp, a University of North Carolina sports-business professor who believes most schools still rely on fans' emotional, long held school ties more than bottom-line marketing strategies. "And now, I think this is forcing them in that direction."

When the NCAA reluctantly approved payments to players for use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL) in 2021, boosters who used to give to schools and their athletic departments started funneling money to collectives — independent organizations that raised the money and paid the athletes. Those collectives are becoming more and more closely linked to the universities.

Under terms of a $2.8 billion lawsuit settlement that is on track to take effect next year, the NIL deals will remain in full force and the schools themselves will be dealing with other multimillion-dollar changes to their bottom lines, including:

■ Each school with the money to do it will be allowed to share as much as $22 million in annual revenue with athletes — money they get from tickets sales, TV contracts and other sources. They can share less, but top recruits will be front of mind in the arms race for talent.

■ The amount the NCAA pays more than 350 Division I schools every year is going to drop. The organization is on the hook to cover some $1.2 billion in damages under the settlement and the rest will be covered by conferences that will see less money shared each year from the NCAA and its lucrative men's basketball tournament.

■ Schools will be allowed to offer more scholarships across all sports and that costs money. For instance, a school could offer up to 20 additional scholarships for a total of 105 in football. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said adding scholarships across sports could add $29 million in education costs to the department's bottom line. And that's on top of the revenue sharing.

"Maintaining a high level of support for our 29 NCAA athletic programs will take an elevated commitment from everyone," Manuel wrote to Wolverines fans last month.

One possibility for Michigan might be placing advertising inside of Michigan Stadium, a practice the Wolverines have steadfastly avoided over the decades. The school also sent out a recent survey asking, among other questions, if fans were willing to pay between $3,000 and $4,000 for a new tranche of chairback seats, which are rare outside of club sections at The Big House.

'Donor fatigue'

In 2023, it cost two fans an average of around $180 to attend a college football game and about $340 to go to an NFL game. After all, college sports didn't have to worry about the biggest expense on a pro team's budget — player salaries.

NIL started chipping away at that, and once the terms of the lawsuit settlement go into effect, that dynamic will shift even more. Michigan State AD Alan Haller told Spartans fans his department's '25-26 budget will include between $25 million to $30 million in added expenses.

"As a department, we will continue to explore new opportunities for both revenue generation and cost containment," Haller said. "However, without a doubt, your continued generosity and involvement will be paramount to our quest for excellence."

Some fans will undoubtedly keep writing checks to keep the players — and hopefully, the wins — coming, along with retaining their "rights" to buy a certain number of tickets for football games.

A tour around the parking lot before this season's Michigan-Michigan State game found others who sounded more reluctant.

"The price of the education is out of hand," said Michigan State fan Mike Bouchard, citing a more than $55,000 price for an out-of-state undergrad to attend his alma mater. "There's absolutely no way I'm going to dig into my pocket over and above that amount. Tell them to use their hundreds of millions in endowments."

"Absolutely not," said Ann Arbor resident Michael Ketslakh when asked if he would give more to support Michigan athletics. "I think it's excessive. It's bad for the sports."

Rick Karcher, the faculty athletics representative at Eastern Michigan, said fans continue to pay because, unlike pro sports where everyone knows the profits go to billionaire owners, the economic models in college are often hard to nail down.

"College sports fans, students and boosters are willing to continue absorbing the operational costs while the team's coaches and administrators get richer because they view athletics as separate from the university," he said.

Absorbing higher costs

Earlier this fall, Texas Tech said it was budgeting $14.7 million for this fiscal year—about $9 million more than the previous year—in support for the athletic program, which has a budget of nearly $129 million.

"I think if any unit on this campus was facing a 20-something-percent cut in their revenue, we would have to look at how we might respond, and we will in this case," school President Lawrence Schovanec explained.

Texas Tech is hardly alone in contributing to its athletic program, but not every school runs by the same model. At Florida, for instance, sports are run by the University Athletic Association, which not only has funded sports but has often given money back to the school.

A story in the student-produced Florida Independent Alligator said UF sports revenue was eighth highest in the nation; two of its biggest boosters have given eight-figure sums to the UAA's fundraising arm.

Clearly, though, it's not only eight-figure donations that will keep college sports running.

Tennessee was among the first to grab headlines early in the football season when AD Danny White said the school was adding a 10% "talent fee" for 2025 football ticket renewals. That was on top of a 4.5% hike in ticket prices.

"That connection between resources and competitiveness has never been tighter," White said. "Only now we have the ability to share these resources with our athletes."

At Arkansas, AD Hunter Yurachek explained the 3% fee on concessions in a letter to fans that noted the importance of continuing to "maximize additional revenue opportunities" At Clemson, which long prided itself on not charging fees or ticket prices to students, the plan is to raise between $7 million and $8 million by adding a $150 "athletic fee" per semester to the price of tuition. The Tigers have been to four national title games over the past decade and won it twice.

"I think it's kind of ridiculous, but there comes a point when we have good enough sports teams that it's kind of valid," student Sam Gault told South Carolina's WSPA-TV when the fee was unveiled earlier this month.

To win big, schools will have to pay big, and simply fielding a competitive team is no longer a given. The question hanging over college sports is where the money will come from.

"You can pay more for tickets, put a sponsor patch on the uniforms, cut non-revenue sports or (start calling) the Big 12, the 'Dr. Pepper Conference,'" said Popp, the professor at North Carolina. "I don't think fans are anxious for any of those, but what might they be willing to accept? I think that's what athletic departments have to figure out."

There was an athletic fee when many of us on this board attended, but that went away when enrollment was declining and athletics was being deprioritized (i.e., buildings were open during games, students weren't attending, etc.). 

In the last year or two, the athletic fee was re-instituted as part of the enrollment process.  It doesn't generate a significant amount for the athletic department's budget, but it is a start.  Costs are going up-up-up (especially with the House v. NCAA decision), but the revenues aren't able to go up as fast.

[titansforever]

There are no easy answers, but I think we can all agree that NIL (and the portal) have really messed things up. If both endure, it means the suffering will continue. 

[theeagleman5]

Yeah when TheEagleman attended ORU during the "glory days" of the early-mid 70s there was a $25 athletic fee that covered tix to all the games....seems like nothing now but i can remember it being included in my fees for each semester....of course I went to school for probably under $8000 total for all four years....LOL 

[titansforever]

Today, students pay a $1,240/year General Fee which goes to this:

• The general fee listed above covers matriculation and general student activities such as health services, campus security, campus publications, intramurals, library services, athletic events, and others.

Not sure how much goes to athletic events. There's no more yearbook, and The Oracle is online only. 

[Bogus Smith]

33 minutes ago, theeagleman5 said:

Yeah when TheEagleman attended ORU during the "glory days" of the early-mid 70s there was a $25 athletic fee that covered tix to all the games....seems like nothing now but i can remember it being included in my fees for each semester....of course I went to school for probably under $8000 total for all four years....LOL 

When I started ORU in 1977, it was cheaper for me to go to ORU for a year ($2,900) than it was to go in-state to WVU ($3,200).  Obviously, things changed as the City of Faith was built.  My last year was around $11,000. The prices went up quickly.