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At CU, NIL Still Means Nothing
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On February 4, 2020, for my second-ever CU at the Game Podcast, I interviewed Rick George (interview can be found here and here). Coming, as fate would have it, just a few days before Mel Tucker defected (and a month before COVID shut down the sporting world), we were able to discuss a wide variety of topics, including Rick’s involvement on an NCAA committee charged with coming up with nationwide rules for Name, Image and Likeness issues.
At the time, I expressed my concerns about the new world of NIL, couching my fears in a hypothetical. I talked about an early enrollee at Nebraska showing up at his dorm room in January, finding a note on the door. The note instructed him to go to a local sporting goods store, where a line of Cornhusker fanatics awaited. After an afternoon of signing autographs and posing for pictures, the new Nebraska player posts on social media: “I made $1,500 today, and I haven’t even taken my first class!”.
My question to Rick: How can CU compete in such a world, when other schools are offering cash to players just for wearing the school uniform?
Rick’s answer was diplomatic: “Those are issues that we’re discussing, because there are some nuances out there … We want to protect the integrity of recruiting … You’ve just mentioned one area. There are probably twenty others like that that we are discussing … How do we put the right framework around Name, Image and Likeness?”.
Fast forward almost two years … and my hypothetical has been proven to be wildly naïve.
It has been reported that Texas boosters are offering up to $50,000 for offensive linemen to play for the Longhorns. Not to be outdone, Texas A&M boosters have reportedly set up a scenario where $25-$30 million is being funneled into the No. 1 Recruiting Class.
How is that even possible?
According to the article, here is how it reportedly plays out in College Station:
- A recruit is targeted for a specific recruiting class.
- A “point donor” then heads the recruiting effort.
- The “point donor” gathers other donors around him.
- Those donors create an LLC.
- The LLC sponsors the targeted recruit and pays out deals for NIL if/when he enrolls.
- That recruit, upon arrival on campus, receives money from the LLC.
- In turn, the recruit promotes the LLC and its “cause,” whether that be a charity or a business.
According to SlicedBread, the Aggies even have a backstop in place. The deals are structured to keep players in College Station for multiple years.
Contracts are set up as multi-year deals. If a player leaves, he leaves the money behind in Texas.
Now, there are those who say that such a scenario can’t take place. One is that such an arrangement will run afoul of the IRS, but I don’t see that. These are smart men with rooms full of attorneys. It’s not difficult to set up a business, be it an LLC or an S Corp, and if the investors get a “return” for their money, I don’t see an issue. If the “return” is the player endorsing a business or a charity, whose to say it’s a bad business decision?
Which leads to the argument that NIL will calm down on its own, with investor/boosters tiring of throwing in huge dollars for an injured or underachieving athlete.
I don’t buy that either.
I refer you to James Earl Jones, and his “People will come” speech about fans coming to the Field of Dreams:
People will come, Ray.
They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn into your driveway, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door, as innocent as children, longing for the past. “Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say, “It’s only twenty dollars per person.” And they’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it, for it is money they have and peace they lack.
Money they have … wins they lack.
I don’t see the faucet being turned off anytime soon.
Which brings us back to the current state of collegiate sports and the University of Colorado.
Athletic director Rick George met with media members on January 6th, and spoke at some length about the status of Name, Image and Likeness.
About the current state of affairs, and what is happening in Texas (and throughout the country) …
“With NIL, there’s some things out there that I’m disappointed in, that some schools are doing, because I think some of it falls under inducements. If you look at the bylaw 13.2 in the NCAA, we’re still members of the NCAA, there’s things that you can and cannot do with inducements, whether it’s in the transfer portal or in recruiting.
“I just think that we have to, either as the NCAA or as conferences collectively, we have to have more guidelines and more governance. There are people that go into the portal to see what opportunities they’re going to have in the NIL space. Again, as I look at this, I think it falls under inducements and that’s not acceptable as a member of the NCAA at this point.”
But, as pointed out in a Forbes article, rather than schools being reined in by the NCAA, this may be the beginning of the end for the NCAA as an organization:
If the NCAA is supposed to regulate college sports, it’s not doing a very good job. Do the major conferences really need it? What is to stop the Power Five from simply deciding to ditch the NCAA and write their own rules? It’s even possible to imagine the 25–35 most significant programs creating a Power Two conference—excluding the other schools—and capturing the bulk of the TV revenue for college football and basketball.
Whether schools and boosters are running afoul with the spirit of competition, or the guidelines of the impotent NCAA, is almost irrelevant.
The fact is … it’s happening.
There are almost 1,500 FBS players in the Transfer Portal, including 14 Buffs. Almost all of them – from the top of the heap, Oklahoma quarterback Caleb Williams, to the lowest-ranked offensive guard – are looking at transfer opportunities through the prism of NIL.
And what is CU doing?
NIL … I mean nothing.
Despite having a member of the committee looking into NIL legislation, Colorado is behind the curve in competing for recruits, either at the high school or Transfer Portal level.
Rick George touted CU’s “Buffs with a Brand” program at his news conference:
“We’re starting year two of our Buffs With A Brand (program). We were featured in Sports Illustrated as one of the five schools pioneering NIL landscape, and then we won a Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Award as part of that.
“The best thing that is going to happen in that regard is that once we bring this influencer marketplace… the influencer is INFLCR, that’s the company. They have this marketplace where it allows business and donors that have business to go in and match up with the student-athletes they want to provide an NIL deal with. Our compliance office in involved in that. That is probably the best way for them to do it.
“I know some schools have set up an LLC. We’re not prepared to do that at this point because I’m not certain that would be the best way for us to go. We’re looking at all of that, but right now, if they want to get involved, the best thing is to contact our compliance office and they will tell them the right way. But once we get this marketplace up and running, there will be an opportunity for them to do it above board and be able to put their business or whatever they want to do in there to support student-athletes from an NIL perspective.”
The ball dropped on NIL on July 1, 2021, when state laws went into effect allowing players to benefit from their Name, Image and Likeness. Some schools and their boosters are off and running, setting in place LLCs or other inducements to attract players to their schools.
CU, meanwhile, is “looking into all of that”.
Christian Gonzalez is gone.
Brenden Rice is gone.
Ashaad Clayton is gone.
Jason Harris is gone.
CU had four four-star recruits in its Recruiting Class of 2020, the highest-rated recruiting Class in a decade. None of the four, however, will be wearing black-and-gold in 2022.
Not only is CU not bringing in new talent in the age of NIL and the Transfer Portal, the program – with two winning seasons in the last 13 years – is falling even further behind.
If the University of Colorado is to be competitive in the brave new world of NIL, CU not only has to participate in establishing NIL opportunities for student-athletes, CU needs to be innovative, creative … ahead of the curve.
Not “looking into all of that”.
Rick George knew this was coming. We talked about it almost two years ago. He spent over a year on an NCAA committee looking into options for national legislation and regulation. He knew – or could have at least predicted – what was coming on July 1, 2021.
And yet, CU is still “looking into all of that”.
At CU, sadly, NIL still means nothing.
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32 Replies to “At CU, NIL Still Means Nothing”
Question for Stuart or anyone else connected to the AD: Is it permissable with the new NIL rules for fans to contribute to a monetary prize to go along with say a fan chosen end-of season award like the Buffalo Heart award? Or to contribute towards a pool for the team chosen awards that they give out? I can see more fans feeling like they can contribute to something like that than the sponsorship type deals that I typically think of for NIL. Feels like it should be allowed since it is not paying to play, but rewarding performance after the fact. Heck, I think it would be great to have several position based top performer awards. Thoughts?
We’ll have to see how it plays out, but that would still be paying a player for performance rather than for an endorsement of a product or charity.
I have a submission into CU to try and do something for NIL through CU at the Game, but haven’t heard back yet on my “application”.
Stay tuned …
Regarding the tweet from RG, Mr. Leading from Behind,
So, Stuart, has anyone asked Bloom for an interview and asked why he knew he had to publicly shame Rick George? I assume there is a story there. We need the truth. The student athletes deserve the truth.
This is like a slow agonizing death. There is literally no structure in place to change the losing culture at CU. This administration didn’t have any idea how to recruit and win before NIL.
The fact is money cures losing. You want a big name coach give em 100 million. You want a huge coaching staff money… Want the best players you set up llcs.. The template is already there. We’re just refusing to play the game.
CU knows they can’t/won’t do what’s necessary to compete at this level. That’s fine, but don’t expect me to pony up 2k at Folsom for a terrible product. Right now they want the benefits of playing with the big boys without the investment.
I don’t know how you guys are going to keep giving money to a program you know doesn’t care about winning. Sorry if I’m negative but I don’t see anything positive trending.
At this point a partnership with the NFL sounds to me like the best way forward. I have for years thought CU’s biggest obstacle is sharing a market with the Broncos. Denver has one of the best fan bases in sports. Look at how well the Broncos travel, when they were in Dallas this year the place was invaded like the way Nebraska invaded Boulder two years ago. So when everyone is focusing on the Broncos who cares about the school 30 minutes away in Boulder? And that’s why I believe an nfl partnership could benefit the sport of college football. There are 32 nfl teams, give each nfl team 4-5 schools that would be feeder programs to them. Let’s say Cu, csu, Wyoming and Utah were for lack of better words minor league affiliates of the Broncos. Instead of having an nfl draft every year you have teams pick up the options on players from their schools. If they don’t then other nfl teams can then get them if they want. What this would do is force nfl clubs to actually care about their college programs and then they would poor money into them. It would also help people in colorado actually care about Cu because they have future Broncos playing there. I know sounds crazy but I would love for it to be an actual positive that we play in the same market as the Broncos instead of a negative.
AIN’T CAPITALISM GRAND
Go Buffs.
Note: Speculation Sargent’s in charge.
Note: Yup, amazing with a team full of 5 stars how you can whip a team full of 3 stars and “it ain’t fair”.
Well, let’s take this whole thing to the next absurd level…
1) Very soon, some enterprising lawyers will sue to have college football and basketball declared professional sports leagues that have nothing to do with education.
2) That being determined, they will ask that courts allow ANY player, even former NFL and NBA players be allowed to play for these new minor leagues. The precedent is already set, folks get contracts in Major League Baseball and then are sent down to the minor leagues for more development.
3)This will allow the “schools” behind the newly declared minor league system to go out and bring in ANY players to help them win. There are a great deal of very good former college players in both football and basketball who should certainly be allowed to profit from their names, images and likenesses in ANY professional league available, even if it does have names of colleges associated with it.
4) Those former players, now stuck working 9-5 jobs, will have lawyers argue that they are being discriminated against for their age, simply because they were born 3-10 years too early to take advantage of the new professional college system.
5) They will point out that it against our free market system to only allow 18-22 years olds and younger players after them to compete for these new high paying jobs. Is it fair that only those coming out of high school should be allowed access to the 6 to 7 figure opportunities now available? The courts will certainly rule that it is not legal.
6) The new reality will be that those high school kids will now have to compete for all that new money. Those 4 star and 5 star players who excelled in kiddie land (high school) will now have to beat out former collegiate All-Americans and former NFL and NBA players if they want to earn the big college booster bucks.
7) The new reality will also mean that schools will no longer be tied into annual scholarships. Any player who is not cutting it on the team may be released at any time. If they can have 85 players tied to the school, they should rightly and fairly get to pick and choose who those 85 players are. (12-14 for basketball).
8) We have to remember that there are a lot more HAVE-NOT schools than the 20 schools that currently rule the roost in old world of amateur collegiate football and basketball. Those have-not schools have much more to gain by allowing more top notch players back into the new college pro leagues. The NFL and NBA will be all for the new system, because it allows college boosters to pay the salaries instead of the NBA and NFL owners.
9) It’s going to be brave new world where former college and professional stars who love the Colorado lifestyle will be able to play here in Boulder at ONLINE SPORTS BETTING SOUTH PARK Stadium at Folsom Field ( or the Tesla Battery Powered Events Center). Tim Tebow was a pretty mediocre NFL player, but he was one of the greatest college players of all time. Wouldn’t it be great to have him running behind Ralphie onto the field before games? Think of all those former stars who would love to be making serious money once again?
10) Sound absurd? Maybe… but it sounds a lot better and more exciting than the new professional college leagues we’re hurtling into now where unproven, illiterate and coddled teenagers think the world owes them millions because they were born with a little athletic prowess. You want the big boy bucks, kid? Then you have to compete with all the big boys, not just high school players. Welcome to the real world.
Enjoyed your piece, though fearful there’s better than just a slight chance some of your scenarios come true.
2 possible different scenarios
The courts, already backlogged, might get to their decisions long after
‘young” VK passes away or earache quits posting 12 times a day…. The caveat here is that once again the money brings these cases vaulting over things already on the docket like things that have a bearing on the future of the government
Coming generations get lost in their cyber toys like those goggles they put on that immerse them in a fantasy world and then they quit watching the real thing
What the hell does an 18 y.o. kid need millions for (?) a Lamborgini (?)
I always thought college was to get an education….. and so many of the athletes have gotten a FREE education….something many have to pay $50-80 thousand+ for (?) That’s pretty damn good compensation I’d say.
THIS REALLY HAS MY CHAIN JERKED.
Yeah, but trax, the days of leather helmets and head coaches working a day job to live, while coaching for love, are long gone. These kids generate billions, and billions of dollars of revenue. And they get a tiny, tiny fraction of it. And, in many cases, they get trashed doing it (literally and figuratively, from the beatings they take playing the game, and how some programs treat them). So, for them to get paid, in my opinion, beyond the cost of their “education” and room and board, is not a bad thing. They are, after all, not indentured servants. But, are often treated that way.
Now, the mechanics of it? That’s what NIL is causing us to focus upon. But let’s be real. The top programs always have, and always will pay players in one way or another.
Go Buffs
It’s the SAME-O, SAME-O, SAME-O. like the majority of posters acknowledge.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. (Follow the damn money…. I would like to check the off-shore accounts of some of the committee members).
It’s just the way business is done folks….it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what business genre you’re in or what organization you belong to. (City fathers are a good example).
Scheeeeesh ! SUCKIN’ HIND TIT ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK….(with a smile on our face ????).
“It’s even possible to imagine the 25–35 most significant programs creating a Power Two conference—excluding the other schools—and capturing the bulk of the TV revenue for college football and basketball.”
As long as things are going in the way they are going I hope this happens soon. Let those who want to create a semi-pro league go their own way: it will no longer be college football, it’ll be a minor league for the NFL. And, once that happens the NFL will regulate it to bring the new league into the NFL’s rules and culture, so that players merge into the NFL’s pay and agency rules from a lower position, not one from a position that is well above.
If a player makes millions in college, they will need even more to go pro, so the NFL will want to regulate it more than anyone else.
But the remaining schools will go back to being real college ball, you know where the other 85%-90% of the real student athletes go, the ones that would never go pro, the ones that play a game they love, the important part a game they love, while receiving a degree for their career after school. That’s the kind of college football where upsets happen and the fun is, school pride is (the big teams have fans that never went to that school) and etc.
Many of the top college teams are where the NFL isn’t like in AL, or lacking and far away and the college team is the local team. It’s a religion of it’s own in some parts, while in other parts of the country there are many things to distract from college ball, like the pros, skiing, beaches and other life style activities.
CU and others left behind could be the real college football with it’s own NC, while the new league becomes a minor league with it’s own NC. The real college football league will have the Cinderella stories and fun teams that come out of no where, teams where cohesion in the locker room count and great turn around stories happen. The other league will become more predictable, more like the NFL, where injuries and let downs dictate to losers rather than the winners, which are bought and traded/drafted for.
Basketball is so much more spread out that they won’t corner all of it, too many players, to small of teams.
Yep. It’s going to be interesting to watch that tug-o-war unfold.
I do think CU and similar programs can find their way in this brave new world of college athletics (we can still call it that, even if it’s not, it really hasn’t been for a while in football and basketball). Sadly, I don’t think the current administration from the Pres, to Phil, and particularly Rick and Lance have navigated it all that well. We’ll see where we go from here for our Buffs, and the sport/industry as a whole.
Go Buffs
Well said. I for one would like to see some real leadership from schools like CU, Stanford, Duke, etc. Instead of waiting for the big dollar folks to go create the Super league (aka NFL minor league), create the new/old college sports. No more multi million dollar contracts for coaches, games on Tuesday nights for TV, etc. Just good old fashioned Saturday afternoon games. As Eric stated this would be somewhere between the Ivy league and SEC. I am all for it. I tire of the insane money of college athletics and would be glad for CU to compete at this lower level because we will never be able nor should we as a university be in that environment. Let’s lead the way out of this mess rather than wait to be left out.
Halfway through the season I was prepared to drop my 5 touchdown club seats. Losing is one thing, not being remotely competitive is another………but then while faint, I saw enough want to improvement in the last part of the season that I thought to myself I’ll give it one more season and then the offseason happened. I am at a loss, there is nothing I see that says CU can and or will be remotely competitive in this new world, hell we weren’t in the old one. But my blind loyalty kept me coming back and hoping. This new world realistically has closed the door to all but maybe 30 programs. Sad.
I couldn’t disagree more. Colorado is MY state and CU is MY university, funded by MY tax dollars. You’re saying we need to jump to the forefront of paying high school kids 6 or 7 figures to come to Boulder for a free education? Screw that.
Around the country, many schools have been illegally paying their football and basketball players for decades. And on top of that, those same schools have arranged for players not to have to bother with passing college courses, or even taking them for that matter.
What the federal government needs to do is have some balls and require that any school receiving ANY federal funding at all set up compliance offices that actually determine that college athletes are actually STUDENTS, taking and passing classes to be eligible. And it should have to be written into any NIL agreement that the student signing the agreement must meet academic standards to both compete and earn their NIL payments.
Not only that, it needs to be written into those agreements that the boosters setting up those NIL agreements have to be held criminally responsible for fraud if they are found to be responsible for paying off schools, professors, and/or compliance officers to keep their “kids” eligible. Now that gambling is legal, there is big money behind all these nefarious efforts.
But I’m not holding my breath that the simple solution will ever be done. But it has to be done at the federal level. The NCAA has no power, and the States are not going to do anything by themselves that they think will put their schools at a competitive disadvantage.
Until then, college sports are a joke. What’s next? Are the institutions of higher learning just going to start handing out degrees that are bought and paid for by some booster? I can see it in the future, not being able to trust those diplomas on the wall for our doctors and lawyers.
Back in the 1980s, the news program 60 Minutes did an expose on athletes being graduated from a school in the SEC who could only read at the 5th grade level. In the decades since then, a great many articles have been written about schools across the country who forced folks at their schools to change grades to keep players eligible.
Now that players can be paid, without oversight, the problems will become staggering. It is no longer intercollegiate athletics. It’s minor league sports. Collegiate athletes will become a collection of Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh (Bull Durham) clones. Uneducated… but driving a fancy car and wearing a lot of jewelry.
What can be done?
If the Pac -12 and the Big 10 (and any other schools or conferences that value academics) want to band together with real rules as to what being a student/athlete means, I will gladly watch and support those efforts.
Until then, however, I will pass on what a few folks are trying to do to further corrupt and ruin what remains of college athletics.
I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. There are so many outdoor things to do here.. We have Rocky Mountain National Park, Garden of the Gods, the Great Sand Dunes, world class skiing, rock climbing, hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, etc. For sports we have the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, and the NHL, along with Major League Soccer. We have museums and theater, opera and the most unique amphitheater in the world in Red Rocks.
It’s not like there is nothing else to do here besides live and die with college football. Back when I was an undergrad, we loved making fun of the folks from places like Nebraska who had nothing else to care about but college football. Now, some of the “fans” want us to treat college football as the most important thing in the world, even to the point that the players are professionals and NOT students. No thanks.
I’ll be waiting patiently for the powers that be to fix this mess. But I won’t be holding my breath.
You bring up some very compelling points Old Man (and here I thought that was just a few others around here).
But, this is exactly why I think it’s going to be interesting to watch all this unfold. Well, one of many reasons. And, it’s also where I think the Pac 12 and Big 10 will land. Somewhere between the military academies and Ivy League and the SECSPN. Where academics still have at least a little import and graduating their kids – even if w/ a little help at times – still matters.
It will be interesting to see who wins that tug-o-war, b/c the SEC won’t be all that compelling as a 16-team league of their own. The NCAA will be gone, but the superconferences will have their own governing body – of sorts – by another name.
It’s also what I see as the key delineator, that I’ve brought up many times. Football (or any sport) has a horizon. There’s a lot of life left once you hit it, and for most, that transition is bumpy. CU and similarly positioned institutions can leverage that to their advantage. It will not resonate with everyone, but it will with enough talented kids to still be competitive, fun to watch, chase the occasional championship, and be positioned for life after your sporting career ends. Just look at Tad’s team. Was stoked to see he’s now making $2.5mill/yr.
Go Buffs
Read my post, I was writing while yours was waiting approval, but I think we both agree. I just came at a little different angle, but same student athlete.
Stuart — this is exactly right. I don’t know what Rick George was thinking when he came out and said these things. Even if this is the way things will be at CU I don’t know why he would say it. Just imagine what the current players, coaches, and recruits think when they read this.
Dear Stuart, Buff Fans,
Stuart, thank you for putting this forward. Keeping this on the agenda.
Just make a list of the mind numbing decisions and actions after they hired Tucker. One might argue, someone has been actively burning down the program. Maybe they don’t know it.
And, well, if there were a CU supporter willing to organize it, run it, find others to fund it, well, CU Administration really could not keep the supporter from doing so. My guess its someone that can recruit supporters that we need to count on.
CU needs to be aggressive in NIL simply to remain a ‘meddling’ PAC-12 team, let alone ascend to perennial top-25 status.
The only saving grace I can see for the Buffs is that they reside in the Denver media market which is in the top 20 nationally… that fact alone at least provides real ‘value’ for the Buffs from a conference standpoint should everything consolidate into a couple of mega-conferences. In reality, we shouldn’t be looking to Rick George for action relative to NIL, but instead the donor base. Donors at these others schools aren’t waiting around to be told what to do…. they’re JUST DOING IT
(pun intended)
It would be interesting to learn what the core of the problem at CU is; why is this major university with such a strong history in collegiate, competitive athletics, is so ill prepared to effectively compete? Is it the administration, the athletic department, the senior management, the government of the state of Colorado, the board of Regents?
Major figures in the state, business leaders, alumni, politicians, donors, should form their own organization to force this now sleepy, backwater, university to wake up to – not even the future but wake up to the present – by withholding financial and structural support on a unified basis until the powers that be in the university create and execute an actionable plan to attack and participate effectively in the major sports arena.
The University of Colorado, even with beautiful surroundings and top notch facilities, sits mired in the bottom rung of the worst performing (athletics wise) of the Power 5 conferences. The Pac 12 is an afterthought when football or basketball championships are discussed, and CU is an afterthought of an afterthought when contenders are considered for even this lowest of comparative league championships.
Where have we failed? Any ideas out there? Anyone willing to begin to organize interested persons or organizations to help drag the University of Colorado kicking and screaming into the present?
Colorado is a transient state and when I attended even in the late 60’s half the other students I met were from either coast….Most of them came from wealthy families. I’m not blaming them but they weren’t instilled with the Colorado pride of being a native.
The downfall began immediately after the DP and their favorite yellow journalist Mark “mealy mouth” Kizla and a couple others started accusing Barnett of “serving women up like steaks.” It didnt matter that the targeted players were exonerated by DNA or that the simpson woman got 2 million from the school for handing out condoms at her party.
Then came a parade of crappy coaches and the accompanying stigma of being a perennial loser.
I dont why the school didnt sue the DP and the other outlets dragged in by hyperbolic and other outright false statements by the media. Yet Kizla is still the king over at the DP….even after rifling Rocky lockers. Add to that the DP owning the Daily Camera.
Howell does his best effort at being a button down impartial journalist but compare the Buffzone to Husker extra. Yea, I know they already had a lot more fans before cornhole came along but that doesnt mean the Buffzone couldnt be more effusive about things, rare as they are these days, when things do go right with the Buffs. He could also do a lot more in depth reporting about recruiting and some other things but :
Does he have other outside interests restricting him like Ringo did with the recruiting services?
Would he even be allowed to go into greater depth in his reporting if he wanted to?
and is the DP paying him enough?
Buffzone even had a comment section like the one here but rather than go to the trouble of moderating it like Stuart does, they just shut it down entirely.
Ok
I’ll end the rant by saying there is absolutely no media promotion of the Buffs even in their home town. This site is the only one, outside the subscriptions, where Buff fans can commiserate and celebrate.
You’re right about the transiency of Colorado and CU in particular. We didn’t call it the University of California at Boulder for nothing, ep. Boulder definitely brings wealthy kids from all over the country – and the occasional “diversity hire” of a white kid from a rural town in eastern Washington. But, despite basically only a small handful of friends from CU who were born and raised – or mostly raised there (and fewer who stayed there after graduating) we’re all still pretty die hard Buff fans.
And, that also brings opportunity. And is by and large, why CU wanted to join the Pac 12. CA based alumni (as well as other western states). And that has largely worked to build fundraising. So, baby steps? I know you love that term these days.
Go Buffs
Not everyone. I was raised by a single parent and worked all the way through school in Boulder, taking student loans as mom didn’t have the means to pay tuition (I did get residency) and stayed in Boulder for 15 years.
Freshman year my dorm mate took me to his house in Carbondale and we went hunting…great experience
Just adding some color, will post later about this article subject
Cheers
Yeah, I paid my own way too, for the most part. Was the only one of my friends who did though. I think two others had jobs during school, for extra cash.
Go Buffs
Someone help me out with RG’s whining about “inducements.” From where I sit its all about inducements. How do you get away from inducements? RG is almost as naïve as Earache thinking A&M is going down.
Its free enterprise. College football is now professional football…..its a market….test the market.
How far will the market go?
Its bound to flourish in Texas, Alabama and possibly Ohio State. Will the folks in socal ante up? Ohio State possibly will. Will even the “rabble” in the SEC survive the market. Will the ones who dont survive the market, and CU is looking like one of those, separately reorganize under a new regulatory agency similar to the NCAA but one that isnt tainted by money? if thats possible. At any rate right now I see what ever whatever the NCAA is trying to do right now to redesign itself is a joke
Genie is out of the bottle folks
I think you misunderstood me. I don’t think A&M is going down. I just don’t buy the story that Stu posted as the way – and thus the dollar amounts – that they’re buying players. There are way easier ways for them to accomplish the same thing, that places have been doing for decades, many of which NIL made easier. Creating separate LLC’s for each recruit or group of recruits “sponsor” w/ multiple donors is not the easy path to accomplishing the goal of buying players. That’s all I’m saying.
Go Buffs
If you stock your team with mostly 4/5 star players you will field a NC caliber team each year. So what if you have a few busts, they’re 3 deep in 4/5 star players in each postion. You normally don’t have that many busts that it will matter. So if this is unrestrained, you’ll be looking at the same 10-15 teams in the playoffs each year. Not so good for the health of FBS football. This could devolve into a FPS (football playoff) division with just those teams but I doubt it, they wouldn’t have enough teams in that division and they need some patsies to beat up on. Any way you look at it the NCAA dropped the ball here including RG. The plaring field isn’t tilted its pure vertical.
True. And guess who’ve been in the playoffs and BCS championship games before NIL? Those same teams. With the same players (ie 4/5 stars three deep). Wonder how they got ’em? I don’t believe it was all coaching. I mean, just looking at the Alabama “kids” vs. Cincy was laughable. Kinda looked like CU’s against most teams. And ‘Bama’s “kids” are 320 and run a 4.7 40. And they’re just one example of the handful. Kliavkoff touched on the same thing. And Old Man above did as well, albeit differently. The West has a slightly different ethos than the South East when it comes to football, life, etc.
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Me again. It’s not just that the atm story structure is fraught with problems, it is that there re much , much simpler ways to pay players, with much, much less exposure to either the irs or any, deep scoff, ncaa action.
As to CU and Nil? Rick George is basically saying “have you seen my stapler?” On that, we agree.
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