More NIL fun!

[MHettel]

The whole concept of Name Image and Likeness was never even done. They just went straight to payin people lol.

They went from too much oversight, to none. How do you figure out NIL if it's not even NIL.

I'm 75% serious with this...no one knows what they hell is going on. Start taking some calculated risks while the legislation is grey as hell. You can't sit around and wait for the "rules". Just start doing some creative things.

The ones that will get ahead are exploiting anything they can right now (legally).

I assume you don’t work in the Fintech industry.

[Xville]

I assume you don’t work in the Fintech industry.

You mean the industry that’s about twenty five years behind everyone else?

[drudy23]

I assume you don’t work in the Fintech industry.

I don't - what's the correlation?

I don't know if you mean, yes, this is what fintech does to get ahead, or no, don't do that because it gets you in trouble.

[MHettel]

I don't - what's the correlation?

I don't know if you mean, yes, this is what fintech does to get ahead, or no, don't do that because it gets you in trouble.

Don’t do it. It’s under regulated and Fintechs are buying really small banks to get a charter and no they can provide their products to consumers. Several of them have been absolutely hammered trying that.

[MHettel]

You mean the industry that’s about twenty five years behind everyone else?

You’ll comment on anything apparently.

Wtf are you talking about?

[XUGRAD80]

Do you two have to muddy up every discussion with your personal conversations and bickering? Please stop.

[94GRAD]

I enjoy it when Xavier has a good women's team. The time we beat Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament so bad it gave Pat Summitt dementia was awesome. Going into Storrs and narrowly missing beating #1 UConn in the NCAA Tournament was also amazing (and shows how far we've fallen). Also thoroughly enjoyed the run to being within one missed layup of the Final Four. Painful way for that to end.

Public reps since the man is keeping me down. Thanks for the early morning chuckle!

[xu82]

Do you two have to muddy up every discussion with your personal conversations and bickering? Please stop.

It certainly does get old, while adding nothing of value.

[xudash]

WITH THE REALITY OF NIL, MEDIA RIGHTS DEALS FOR THE B1G AND SEC, IN PARTICULAR, AND THE SIZES OF MOST ALUMNI BASES FROM THE LAND GRANT SCHOOLS, JUST HOW MUCH OF A DISADVANTAGE DO WE OPERATE FROM IN BASKETBALL?

We talk about being small and having to compete against the big schools. That is an issue; that is a fact. The alumni bases of the larger land grant universities dwarfs ours at 70+k alumni.

Nonetheless, what are we truly up against here when it comes to being financially competitive?

Yes, accounting treatments at universities can be creative and certainly inconsistent, but only to a degree.

The key metric to look at, IMHO, is:

Total Allocated: The sum of student fees, direct and indirect institutional support and state money allocated to the athletics department, minus certain funds the department transferred back to the school.

Total Allocated clearly must be regarded as OTHER REVENUE. Primary revenue obviously comes from ticket sales, concessions, share of media deals, bowl money, etc. Ohio State and Texas sit at the top of that metric. 12 universities, all involving P4 athletic departments, posted $-0- in Total Allocated in a recent report. According to that same report, 62 football playing schools at the FBS level have Total Allocated that exceeds $20 million. Members of the ACC and Big XII are racking up $5 million+, $10 million and even in excess of $20 million in virtually every case (the 2 Kansas schools are interesting: Kansas is at $1.5 million and Kansas State managed to ledger up a zero dollar figure for this.

I understand that this is not a black and white thing. I'm simply coming at this by attempting to focus on the mix of the revenue package - primary v other revenue. UCONN is the poster child for a Hot Mess Athletic Department:

50 Connecticut Big East $99,041,960 $96,742,518 $55,341,505* 55.88%

$99 million in revenue, but with over $55 million of it coming from Other Revenue, so to speak.

If I have a point, or at least the point I'm attempting to make and defend is that many of these programs are already funding what is considered their primary operations via subsidies from related, but peripheral sources.

Having noted that, there is no doubt we operate at a disadvantage due to our size. The big revenue numbers, particularly now coming from the B1G and SEC due largely to their media deals, paint a less than appealing picture. Yet the expenses required to run such programs are enormous and only getting bigger as facilities investments, facilities maintenance fees, healthcare costs, and overhead (i.e. think administrative staffing) for these organizations go up. Even Maryland and Rutgers in the B1G run sizeable TA numbers.

We can't win a NIL war with the likes of Ohio State, but how far off are we when we're dealing with the NEXT TIER of these athletic departments, especially those that truly want to continue to break into the 12-team football playoff?

The other important side of this conversation must focus on supply of and demand for talent. The discussion around here involves mentioning that good guards are a dime a dozen - maybe an exaggeration, but still a valid point to some degree. Great big men are hard to find, unless, in our case, we're picking up a Jack Nunge on the rebound.

When a player makes a final decision on which uniform he will wear, it won't in all cases be just about money. How much of it is about coaching? How much of it is about being able to play the position he wants to play for his personal development (e.g. Claude)?

I guess I'm wondering if anything has really changed in the pecking order of things when it comes to talent distribution. So long as we build a level of NIL that is competitive for us, we can carve a successful path through with our hoops program.

We won a massive contest against a top team in front of their 18,000 loyal fans. We've pulled even at 4-4 in the BE. We have a long way to go, but, even with the injuries and continuing to mesh these guys together, we have a coach that can absolutely navigate this program to success.

NIL and the portal are doing everything they can to screw up the sport for many people - and I certainly respect that - but I believe we're still pretty well positioned in the "industry". It's not about the big revenue numbers at football schools. It's about what comprises those numbers. And it's about the amount of resources a football program devours within an athletic department.

It's like the man said, basketball schools may have an advantage in all of this. I believe that's true, but mostly for basketball schools that have a BIG EAST PATCH on the front of their uniforms.

Pardon me if you take this as rambling, but I feel pretty good right now.

[MHettel]

WITH THE REALITY OF NIL, MEDIA RIGHTS DEALS FOR THE B1G AND SEC, IN PARTICULAR, AND THE SIZES OF MOST ALUMNI BASES FROM THE LAND GRANT SCHOOLS, JUST HOW MUCH OF A DISADVANTAGE DO WE OPERATE FROM IN BASKETBALL?

We talk about being small and having to compete against the big schools. That is an issue; that is a fact. The alumni bases of the larger land grant universities dwarfs ours at 70+k alumni.

Nonetheless, what are we truly up against here when it comes to being financially competitive?

Yes, accounting treatments at universities can be creative and certainly inconsistent, but only to a degree.

The key metric to look at, IMHO, is:

Total Allocated: The sum of student fees, direct and indirect institutional support and state money allocated to the athletics department, minus certain funds the department transferred back to the school.

Total Allocated clearly must be regarded as OTHER REVENUE. Primary revenue obviously comes from ticket sales, concessions, share of media deals, bowl money, etc. Ohio State and Texas sit at the top of that metric. 12 universities, all involving P4 athletic departments, posted $-0- in Total Allocated in a recent report. According to that same report, 62 football playing schools at the FBS level have Total Allocated that exceeds $20 million. Members of the ACC and Big XII are racking up $5 million+, $10 million and even in excess of $20 million in virtually every case (the 2 Kansas schools are interesting: Kansas is at $1.5 million and Kansas State managed to ledger up a zero dollar figure for this.

I understand that this is not a black and white thing. I'm simply coming at this by attempting to focus on the mix of the revenue package - primary v other revenue. UCONN is the poster child for a Hot Mess Athletic Department:

50 Connecticut Big East $99,041,960 $96,742,518 $55,341,505* 55.88%

$99 million in revenue, but with over $55 million of it coming from Other Revenue, so to speak.

If I have a point, or at least the point I'm attempting to make and defend is that many of these programs are already funding what is considered their primary operations via subsidies from related, but peripheral sources.

Having noted that, there is no doubt we operate at a disadvantage due to our size. The big revenue numbers, particularly now coming from the B1G and SEC due largely to their media deals, paint a less than appealing picture. Yet the expenses required to run such programs are enormous and only getting bigger as facilities investments, facilities maintenance fees, healthcare costs, and overhead (i.e. think administrative staffing) for these organizations go up. Even Maryland and Rutgers in the B1G run sizeable TA numbers.

We can't win a NIL war with the likes of Ohio State, but how far off are we when we're dealing with the NEXT TIER of these athletic departments, especially those that truly want to continue to break into the 12-team football playoff?

The other important side of this conversation must focus on supply of and demand for talent. The discussion around here involves mentioning that good guards are a dime a dozen - maybe an exaggeration, but still a valid point to some degree. Great big men are hard to find, unless, in our case, we're picking up a Jack Nunge on the rebound.

When a player makes a final decision on which uniform he will wear, it won't in all cases be just about money. How much of it is about coaching? How much of it is about being able to play the position he wants to play for his personal development (e.g. Claude)?

I guess I'm wondering if anything has really changed in the pecking order of things when it comes to talent distribution. So long as we build a level of NIL that is competitive for us, we can carve a successful path through with our hoops program.

We won a massive contest against a top team in front of their 18,000 loyal fans. We've pulled even at 4-4 in the BE. We have a long way to go, but, even with the injuries and continuing to mesh these guys together, we have a coach that can absolutely navigate this program to success.

NIL and the portal are doing everything they can to screw up the sport for many people - and I certainly respect that - but I believe we're still pretty well positioned in the "industry". It's not about the big revenue numbers at football schools. It's about what comprises those numbers. And it's about the amount of resources a football program devours within an athletic department.

It's like the man said, basketball schools may have an advantage in all of this. I believe that's true, but mostly for basketball schools that have a BIG EAST PATCH on the front of their uniforms.

Pardon me if you take this as rambling, but I feel pretty good right now.

The numbers you quote have zero meaning. Zero.

I say this every time. And then it’s like yes, but….

There are no buts. At all the schools have the latitude to account and report using whichever methodology they decide upon. The only expectation is that each school does it consistent with their own methodology of the past.

The number mean nothings.

Conclusions drawn from the number mean nothing.

Feeling drawn from the conclusions mean nothing.