Money Talks

I remember being in high school and having a bunch of friends that HATED the New York Yankees. Why? Because they WON. That was the bottom line. The reason I was given was because they "bought" championships. New York had the most expensive roster in MLB for a long time; they still might have one of the biggest. But the reason they won and were as successful as they were was because they bought the best players. Seems to make sense. In a league with "no cap" the rich have the opportunity to get richer. The small market teams had to get lucky or break their backs just to keep up.

"Collectives" have now been created across the country to help fund athletes NIL. I shared a similar article the other night on FB, but you can take a look at the Dallas Morning News article HERE as it has a little bit more information.

It's safe to say that many people knew something like this would happen with NIL having little to no restrictions. This group supporting SMU is raising $3.5 million dollars a year to champion the NILs for football and basketball players each season at the tune of $36k a piece. Compare that to the collective created in Lubbock that is dishing out $25k a year for those athletes. For just a little perspective, from a quick Google search, it looks like half of the athletes in the WNBA are making less than $75,000 a year.

What are the volleyball athletes at these schools getting from these collectives? At this point we don't know. A spokesperson for this collective at SMU said they were planning on expanding this effort to other sports as well and that they, "weren't done." This is going to be something to watch going forward.

Nebraska has potentially one of the biggest and best fan bases in the country for women's volleyball. The coach there has already said publicly that their athletes will have more opportunities for NIL money than any other program. He's correct in saying that I think. While the women's volleyball team at Nebraska probably doesn't need $36k a piece, if you're wanting/trying to be THE best (they are already one of the best) programs in the country year after year, how much will that cost? How much are the boosters in Nebraska and alumni around the country willing to pay to see the BEST players in the country bring home that trophy each and EVERY season. With only 14 athletes on the roster currently - could a "Collective" of Nebraska fans collect $140,000 each season to get each athlete $10k? Is that enough or do you need more? Plenty of schools in the Power 5 conferences are already separated by razor thing margins. If you wanted to increase that gap or even move from the bottom to the top of the conference, you just need something to offer those athletes. I would imagine a nice little NIL deal through Opendorse would sway transfers pretty easily. Incoming athletes out of high school getting COA can now add on top of that guaranteed money from NIL.

What's a National Championship costing these days?

Maybe the highest paid NIL team ISN'T winning a national championship every year. The Yankees didn't win every year they had the highest paid roster...but it certainly put them in the running right? How many thousands of dollars are we going to start paying athletes (base salary) be AT LEAST in the running for a National Championship? Certainly this is why alumni are willing to "donate" millions of dollars right? They certainly aren't doing it to go .500 every season. Or at least I can't imagine they are.

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