VU NIL Organization?

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Doreknox
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VU NIL Organization?

Post by Doreknox »

Boosters of many Power 5 schools have created fund raising bodies to finance NIL deals. The link below discusses UT's two such organizations. Are any of you aware if Vanderbilt alums/fans have any plans for a similar kind of effort? With the salaries and net worth of our alumni, we should be able to outspend a lot of schools in the SEC for NIL deals.

I know many of you blanch at the thought of paying student athletes, but it is the reality we face in college sports. If we want to attract the best and brightest, we must be competitive with NIL deals from other schools. This would be the best way to get the kind of talent Clark Lea and all our VU coaches need to field great teams.


https://www.volnation.com/forum/threads ... ts.337424/


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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by VandyPhile »

Wasn’t this formerly named, “McDonalds bag”?
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by Doreknox »

VandyPhile wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:38 pm Wasn’t this formerly named, “McDonalds bag”?
If it was, then I apologize. What I asked about complies with NCAA rules, whereas the McDonald's bags did not.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by cjdore »

When I warned that the nCAA ruined college sports with two decisions many balked. This two are:

1) NIL moneys legalized for college players
2) Transfer portal established with no penalty to transfer

Soon college stadiums will be half full at best.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by admin »

We should all go in to set up an NIL fund for a 5-star defensive tackle to come to Vandy. If we don't jump on the bandwagon we'll get run out of college sports.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

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admin wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:21 pm We should all go in to set up an NIL fund for a 5-star defensive tackle to come to Vandy. If we don't jump on the bandwagon we'll get run out of college sports.
Where would this end? We would get maybe say 5 Mill and then the next school would offer 6-7 mil, and then the next at 10 mil. I think the days of college sports as we new them are OVER.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by Johnmn555 »

Here we can see how NIL is not just for high profile QBs or stars who might actually appeal to advertisers. This is just boosters funneling money, probably to whole recruiting classes. Does anyone think Vanderbilt football can survive in an environment where the cash that might once have been in a McDonald's bag is now right out on the tray next to the McPayoff Burger and Fries?
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by Doreknox »

Johnmn555 wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:02 pm Here we can see how NIL is not just for high profile QBs or stars who might actually appeal to advertisers. This is just boosters funneling money, probably to whole recruiting classes. Does anyone think Vanderbilt football can survive in an environment where the cash that might once have been in a McDonald's bag is now right out on the tray next to the McPayoff Burger and Fries?
If we want to continue to be a Power 5 athletic program, then we will have to get busy with NIL and give $$$ to players. As far as being outbid, I say let the market set the price. If we have a big enough war chest, we won't be outbid.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by geeznotagain »

Doreknox wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:18 pm
Johnmn555 wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:02 pm Here we can see how NIL is not just for high profile QBs or stars who might actually appeal to advertisers. This is just boosters funneling money, probably to whole recruiting classes. Does anyone think Vanderbilt football can survive in an environment where the cash that might once have been in a McDonald's bag is now right out on the tray next to the McPayoff Burger and Fries?
If we want to continue to be a Power 5 athletic program, then we will have to get busy with NIL and give $$$ to players. As far as being outbid, I say let the market set the price. If we have a big enough war chest, we won't be outbid.
Letting the market set the price is capitalism at its finest, but it's not amateur sports (he naively commented, with a sigh of resignation).
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by FayetteDore »

Certainly true that VU has some wealthy alums and boosters - and regular, everyday grads too - who have demonstrated their willingness to donate to the University: for scholarships, buildings, renovations, endowed faculty chairs, important research, the general foundation, and other specific programs and purposes.

Questions are how many will be willing to give money for NIL, how much and will they give year after year. Because NIL payments are ongoing, not a one-time "investment."

Until the news surfaced about UTexas boosters raising money for NIL focused on linesmen and other players without high profiles, I hadn't seen anything about boosters doing that. Prior to that, NIL was portrayed as more of a corporate- or business-funded advertising thing.

Back to the OP's question: I still haven't seen anything where VU has a booster-funded NIL program. Has that occurred? Are there plans for it?

We shall see.
Last edited by FayetteDore on Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by alathIN »

cjdore wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:02 pm When I warned that the nCAA ruined college sports with two decisions many balked. This two are:

1) NIL moneys legalized for college players
2) Transfer portal established with no penalty to transfer

Soon college stadiums will be half full at best.
The NCAA didn't do either of those things voluntarily. They were under pressure from legal actions, basically challenging the notion that the NCAA has the power to stop students from transferring from one school to another or stop them from accepting a side job to promote Billy Bob's Kia-Ferrari dealership.
The NCAA would never have voluntarily lifted restrictions on student-athletes that helped sustain their business model.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by alathIN »

geeznotagain wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:21 pm
Doreknox wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:18 pm
Johnmn555 wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:02 pm Here we can see how NIL is not just for high profile QBs or stars who might actually appeal to advertisers. This is just boosters funneling money, probably to whole recruiting classes. Does anyone think Vanderbilt football can survive in an environment where the cash that might once have been in a McDonald's bag is now right out on the tray next to the McPayoff Burger and Fries?
If we want to continue to be a Power 5 athletic program, then we will have to get busy with NIL and give $$$ to players. As far as being outbid, I say let the market set the price. If we have a big enough war chest, we won't be outbid.
Letting the market set the price is capitalism at its finest, but it's not amateur sports (he naively commented, with a sigh of resignation).
It hasn't been amateur sports at least since I started watching in the 1970s. It's been a very big business with undercompensated talent. You can argue all day long about the value of a college education, but the fact that boosters have been willing to hand out bags of cash for all these years proves that the market value of these players is much higher than the value of the scholarship.
A layer of the pretense of amateurism has been peeled away, but it's not any more a professional entertainment business since NIL than it was before.

I don't see Vanderbilt alums shelling out like they do at the big state schools. The number of alums is vastly lower and they're very national/internationally located - not hanging around their college town absorbed in sports. When was the last time you saw a parking lot full of Vanderbilt-themed luxury motor coaches? It takes a combination of numbers, wealth, and local or regional concentration that Vanderbilt doesn't have.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by Seadog73 »

alathIN your last paragraph is spot on. And with the University's emphasis on geographical/international diversity, that handicap will only grow. We may soon be the overweigh muni player with a 28 handicap being required to suffer through all four rounds of a major tournament; without a chance of being anything but embarrassed.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by Mrcommodore »

Basically the NIL stuff is a bust of the antitrust monopoly the NCAA had going. The market is going to meet the demand and find ways to pay players. The question for us is whether we want to spend the market rate to play those financed teams. I say our money is better spent elsewhere.

It'll be interesting though to see if money equalizes some of the big powers. Before, why would a top recruit go to Ole Miss over Alabama? Now there's a reason - $$$.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by FayetteDore »

Mrcommodore wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 9:16 am ...The market is going to meet the demand and find ways to pay players. The question for us is whether we want to spend the market rate to play those financed teams. I say our money is better spent elsewhere.
And then, if that question is answered in the negative, the question for VU becomes: is it fair to continue to subject VU student-athletes to increasingly unfair competition against highly paid mercenaries for NFL farm teams?

That reckoning is coming, sooner or later, whether we like it or not. It HAS to come at a values-focused place like Vanderbilt.
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Re: VU NIL Organization?

Post by alathIN »

FayetteDore wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:25 pm
Mrcommodore wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 9:16 am ...The market is going to meet the demand and find ways to pay players. The question for us is whether we want to spend the market rate to play those financed teams. I say our money is better spent elsewhere.
And then, if that question is answered in the negative, the question for VU becomes: is it fair to continue to subject VU student-athletes to increasingly unfair competition against highly paid mercenaries for NFL farm teams?

That reckoning is coming, sooner or later, whether we like it or not. It HAS to come at a values-focused place like Vanderbilt.
I suspect you're right. The rest of the SEC is turning into a professional sports league/broadcast network. I do not see Vanderbilt going that direction.
I think it's misguided because the core strength of college football is game day in the stadium. College football has never had the TV numbers to match the NFL - and the NFL has never had live fans / game day experience to match college football. Arrowhead in KC comes close... but you just don't see acres of tailgaters outside Lucas Oil Stadium on days the Colts are playing, and of course NFL stadiums are nowhere near the size of Neyland, the Swamp, etc.
Of course TV is where the money is, so the SEC can make more money moving in that direction. But it's hard to imagine that will work outside of the core of football-crazed America. I just can't see Purdue or Kansas State or Stanford or Vanderbilt competing in that arena - where boosters are feeding millions of dollars per year in to the NIL fund.
My guess is that "pro college football" and "semi-pro college football" will split off from each other at some point. But I have no idea what that will look like.
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