NIL is actually the one area I’m not happy with IU on. They need a few guys on staff that act like agents for all the athletes. I should not be doing deals with the athletes mid season, they shouldn’t have to worry about deciding on mostly sketchy endorsement deals (obviously Cavanagh’s corner excluded, I pay straight cash homie) where they get a percentage off sales made down the road etc.
They also should have classes for this, that the football and basketball team should be strongly encouraged to take.
Compliance needs to be better, again they need a really sharp agent like guy running the show. I will be recommending they spend an additional 500k-1M on NIL staffing and support.
i think the problem with having an IU (or any school) guy acting as the agent, is that an inherent conflict, or the perception of one, or both, is inevitable.
when different guys are getting different amounts from NIL, if an IU guy is the agent, it looks like IU could be representing some more than others, regardless of if so or not.
the greater the disparity, the more IU itself can be pointed to or blamed as a cause of said disparity, and the sht really hits the fan if a white guy is doing better than a black guy, and the agent is an IU guy.
all that said, NIL is a total and complete disaster in the making.
while, (in theory anyway), the great thing for the capitalist university corporations is that while they can claim players can now be compensated, in theory anyway, not one cent of that compensation comes out of the university corporation's pocket. (until it does, with no guard rails).
as to why it's a disaster in the making,
A), in making it so theoretically all compensation comes from outside the schools, the schools give up all ability to regulate or police anything.
B), a school's appeal to recruits will in the future be tied to the media market a school is in, or the rabidness of it's wealthiest billionaire boosters, or the desperation of a school or administration circling the drain.
C), zero way to keep it from blatantly being pay to attend this or that school, or even stay at this or that school.
remember, of all the entities that can compensate a player, the entity for whom the player will be worth the most by far, is the school itself, or even the coach(s) themselves.
and since schools or coaches can easily get around any and all rules restricting their compensating the players themselves, simply by paying them through a third party acting in their behalf, there is no way to stop pay for play in the slightest.
and while schools and coaches may walk the straight and narrow in the beginning, all that goes out the window once a school or AD or coach is doing poorly and jobs are on the line.
once things start going south for a school or coach, all intended rules go out the window, and it becomes "whatever it takes". (just as in the corporate, small business, or even political worlds).
and while "in theory", player compensation will come from outside the school, inevitably theory will give way to reality when push comes to shove, and schools will have already given away any ability to even control their own spending for players, which they at least would have had had they "officially" compensated the players themselves, instead of making compensation "unofficial", or indirect, thus giving up any ability to even police or regulate themselves or anything else.
and with NIL, just like with Fight Club, the first rule, is that there are no rules.
