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Posted
1 hour ago, statsman said:

Question- how do the donors funding TexasOne feel about this?

I gather that a few guys have been making most of the contributions? I don’t think we should take their generosity for granted. Were they counting on the House settlement picking up a big part of the slack for them, to allow a transition away from big annual donations?

I, of course, don’t k ow shit about fuck, but I kind of think the best long term move for Texas is to use Bellmont fundraising from rank and file to fund TexasOne. 

There’s a reason OneFund announced they were remaining independent. This is good for us. 

47 minutes ago, Fondren & Main said:

Time to buttfuck Florida.

You’re right, it’s a day that ends in Y. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Machinator said:

 

 

2 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

What if I cut a deal with a kid for 4909 per week? 4900 per day? Now yall are getting the idea. 

Wait, wouldn't 4,900k be 4,900,000?

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Posted
11 hours ago, Lone Star Horn said:

 

Wait, wouldn't 4,900k be 4,900,000?

 

6 minutes ago, TxEx84 said:

Right. Confusing post.  $4.9M?

USC has multiple dudes signed for 5 million this cycle. Sure, it's spread out over years. But the point is, there is no limit. Hence the whole NOW Y'ALL GET THE IDEA part of my post. 

There will come a kid who makes a 5 million a year deal with some school. 
 

Posted

This is delicious. A SoonerScoop moderator explains how and why OU is where they are. 
 
https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/nil-collectives-that-didnt-last-long.7561589/page-2#post-158787039

Quote

OU did a few things wrong. Going with the wrong collective to start. They picked the Crimson & Cream group that was an outside group focused on running collectives for many schools. They never devoted the resources to truly build out an "in-house" collective. You can blame that on the BMDs and Joe C both.

The multiple rebranding and changing caused a lot of confusion in the marketplace. And Crimson & Cream ended up creating even more confusion by not providing any communication about refunds or switching donations to the new collective.

The people they hired to run the new 1Oklahoma Collective were good people, but they ended up just being a go-between for the BMDs. The whole operation seemed clunky and I don't have the answer to whether that was due to the support they were given or the internal operations as a whole.

I think it was more of a failure to reach people than anything else.

People on the board have continued to make it out that Joe C fumbled the bag on this. He was always planning different strategies to move forward depending on how things worked out. We were involved in a lot of stuff to help out with NIL and none of it ever materialized.

In the end, OU doesn't have the money or fanbase (strictly a population/alumni base problem, not an indictment on the passion of the fanbase as a whole) other places have. They couldn't buy their way around the obstacles like other places have been able to.

The criticism Joe C has taken all centers around one thing. OU doesn't have multi-billionaires who are passionate about winning. Or people married to Larry Ellison.

But as far as Joe C, he hasn't been living in a world with one purpose or one direction. He's been open to all directions this thing could go. And I would bet good money he's had at least 25 to 50 or more plans that just were scrapped based of the twists and turns over the last two years. 

People want to make it out that Joe C was at fault for relying too much on revenue sharing. He was, because the only way around that was to have more money than anyone else. And OU's donors have done a really good job of getting OU to where they are, but they aren't going to outspend some of theses schools. So at some point you hit a brick wall of what you can do.

OU is also losing too much. If OU was winning and in the CFP and competing for national titles, there would be a bigger ground swell of support. 

In the end, this is a leadership issue from the very top down in my mind. Everyone can share in some of the blame. But the NCAA has the most blame. They've let their members hang out to dry with very little guidance or help. They've been waiting around for the courts. 

And I think in the end, and I've said this many times, universities are not businesses. They don't run like a business. They don't think like a business. And when you have multiple departments that have to work together to adapt to the biggest change in the history of college athletics, you see how the red tape and inefficiency across departments makes it almost impossible to be nimble as an entire entity. 

The only way to navigate all of this is to bypass the bureaucracy and use the blunt force of money to accomplish your goals. And OU was never in a position to do that. 

It will be interesting to see what collectives are able to accomplish moving forward. Interesting to see what type of limitations are placed on them. But I would say turning over your collective to your MMR partner looks bad on the surface. But I do think they'll do a better job putting together legitimate NIL deals than anyone has done so far.

 

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Posted (edited)

That's some delightful reading.  They scapegoated Castiglione and his removal isn't going to solve most of their actual problems.

Edited by kevwun
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Posted

for the past 75 years, 0u has been buying national championships by handshaking or bagging the signatures of texas kids, especially from north texas

the numbers may have been an order of magnitude less

and most of the money was spent on the original commit

but what comes around goes around

plus, switzer and stoops

karma is a bitch

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Posted (edited)

Ran across an interesting and detailed report on UW-Milwaukee athletics yesterday and am highlighting parts to illustrate how vulnerable most departments are for optional distribution of $20 million in revenue to ALL their athletes, especially as the revenue-sharing cap escalates. Helps put both revenue sharing and NIL in perspective. I've supplemented my notes with outside information.

Some things to keep in mind: UWM has no football team, but is D1 and its men's basketball has made two Sweet 16s in its history (the last in 2005). It has three consecutive 20-win seasons under third-year coach Bart Lundy. Last time they did that (four consecutive) was also when they made the Sweet 16. UWM has 22K students, about the size of Iowa and slightly more than Baylor. Has 15 D1 teams (eight men's, seven women's).

Note that half of the $10 million budget is salaries and fringe benefits. But only two athletics officials (Lundy, at $430K, and AD Amanda Braun, around $250K) are making much to speak of. About three dozen folks are listed on the athletics pages as being salaried, if I recall correctly -- many not making much, like part-time academic advisors.

By far the biggest revenue source is student segregated fees ($7.1 million). Looked this up separately, and each student pays $700 a semester for this. Pretty standard stuff -- pays for rec centers and gets students game tickets.

Note also that game operation expenses are more than double ticket-sales revenue. 

"Athletic student aid" is roughly $2,000 per athlete (about 300 total). This figure does not include room and board provision for athletes and a few other provisions that come out of other campus budgets.

Bottom line is that most D1 schools with football are much closer to UW-Milwaukee in budgeting than they are to Texas and Ohio State at north of $250 million.  I posted elsewhere that once you get past the 60 or so top schools, revenues are starting to top out around $65-70 million for football schools. But there are 261 D1 schools who play football (about half of them in FCS). 

Quick AI searches: James Madison, for instance, had about $68 million in revenue, with a whopping $53 million from student fees. Think about the implications of that: I'm a JMU student and I pay mandatory money to keep football players at their training table and getting a salary? And then they portal out?

Somewhere, there's a student government association president wondering why the SGA doesn't have the primary voice in running the athletic program, since it's the primary funder.

FCS football power South Dakota State had a $20 million athletic budget overall. How is it going to give $20 million in revenue to athletes?

Here's a screenshot from the 81-page report (which was given to the Wisconsin Board of Regents if you want to see it -- it's at the end of the audit committee report). 

image.thumb.png.2c2daf36c69f782a7cbfc6df4238533a.png

 

Edited by Hayduke
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Posted
28 minutes ago, Hayduke said:

Ran across an interesting and detailed report on UW-Milwaukee athletics yesterday and am highlighting parts to illustrate how vulnerable most departments are for optional distribution of $20 million in revenue to ALL their athletes, especially as the revenue-sharing cap escalates. Helps put both revenue sharing and NIL in perspective. I've supplemented my notes with outside information.

Some things to keep in mind: UWM has no football team, but is D1 and its men's basketball has made two Sweet 16s in its history (the last in 2005). It has three consecutive 20-win seasons under third-year coach Bart Lundy. Last time they did that (four consecutive) was also when they made the Sweet 16. UWM has 22K students, about the size of Iowa and slightly more than Baylor. Has 15 D1 teams (eight men's, seven women's).

Note that half of the $10 million budget is salaries and fringe benefits. But only two athletics officials (Lundy, at $430K, and AD Amanda Braun, around $250K) are making much to speak of. About three dozen folks are listed on the athletics pages as being salaried, if I recall correctly -- many not making much, like part-time academic advisors.

By far the biggest revenue source is student segregated fees ($7.1 million). Looked this up separately, and each student pays $700 a semester for this. Pretty standard stuff -- pays for rec centers and gets students game tickets.

Note also that game operation expenses are more than double ticket-sales revenue. 

"Athletic student aid" is roughly $2,000 per athlete (about 300 total). This figure does not include room and board provision for athletes and a few other provisions that come out of other campus budgets.

Bottom line is that most D1 schools with football are much closer to UW-Milwaukee in budgeting than they are to Texas and Ohio State at north of $250 million.  I posted elsewhere that once you get past the 60 or so top schools, revenues are starting to top out around $65-70 million for football schools. But there are 261 D1 schools who play football (about half of them in FCS). 

Quick AI searches: James Madison, for instance, had about $68 million in revenue, with a whopping $53 million from student fees. Think about the implications of that: I'm a JMU student and I pay mandatory money to keep football players at their training table and getting a salary? And then they portal out?

Somewhere, there's a student government association president wondering why the SGA doesn't have the primary voice in running the athletic program, since it's the primary funder.

FCS football power South Dakota State had a $20 million athletic budget overall. How is it going to give $20 million in revenue to athletes?

Here's a screenshot from the 81-page report (which was given to the Wisconsin Board of Regents if you want to see it -- it's at the end of the audit committee report). 

image.thumb.png.2c2daf36c69f782a7cbfc6df4238533a.png

 

Up to 20 million dollars in revenue sharing, schools can spend less than that.

Posted
5 minutes ago, Not a Sock said:

Up to 20 million dollars in revenue sharing, schools can spend less than that.

Right. Why I wrote "optional."  Few schools are going to be able to do that.

When you look at a school like James Madison, it stands to reason that if any of those $53 million in segregated student fees -- which are called that because they go to specific expenditures -- are used to pay athletes directly, there will be questions and blowback. JMU might have enough athletic revenue overall to let bookkeeping magic take broadcast/conference revenue and non-student ticket revenue to pay the athletes. But its bookkeeping expenses will probably go up, too.

Posted

Yesterday two House committees (Energy and Commerce Committee, Education and Workforce) advanced the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements Act (SCORE). Here's an article from this morning's Inside Higher Education that gives the best summary I've seen so far of major aspects of the bill.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/athletics/2025/07/24/republicans-rethink-structure-college-athletics

Some key points:

  • pre-empts existing state-level NIL rules
  • prohibits student athletes from being recognized as university employees
  • exempts NCAA from certain antitrust laws
  • ties athlete compensation to how much TV revenue the team generates
  • codifies the right to retain an agent
  • caps compensation level at 5 percent [not sure of what -- article unclear] and outlines regulations for revenue sharing
  • requires most colleges to maintain at least 16 sports programs
  • prohibits colleges from using student fees to support the athletic department.
  • Party-line vote in committee, although there was initially bipartisan support

The student fee bit is a big one, as so many (see UW-Milwaukee report above) rely on that model. Others mentioned in the article as having recently raised student fees: Minnesota, Clemson, Fresno State.

Article concludes there's a long way to go before it reaches the presidential desk.

My guess: if this passes and keeps most of its form, non-revenue intercollegiate sports don't have much longer to live at most schools (by that I mean the vast majority of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S., many or even most of which don't have them already). NCAA has a little more than 1,100 members and the NAIA about 250.

I also think Title IX as it applies to sports would be dead. SCORE and Title IX are pretty antithetical to each other, as Title IX is absolutely revenue-blind and SCORE is all about the revenue.

There's some nice coverage and good quotes from various parties in this piece. Worth a read if you're following this kind of stuff.

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Posted
58 minutes ago, Hayduke said:

Yesterday two House committees (Energy and Commerce Committee, Education and Workforce) advanced the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements Act (SCORE). Here's an article from this morning's Inside Higher Education that gives the best summary I've seen so far of major aspects of the bill.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/athletics/2025/07/24/republicans-rethink-structure-college-athletics

Some key points:

  • pre-empts existing state-level NIL rules
  • prohibits student athletes from being recognized as university employees
  • exempts NCAA from certain antitrust laws
  • ties athlete compensation to how much TV revenue the team generates
  • codifies the right to retain an agent
  • caps compensation level at 5 percent [not sure of what -- article unclear] and outlines regulations for revenue sharing
  • requires most colleges to maintain at least 16 sports programs
  • prohibits colleges from using student fees to support the athletic department.
  • Party-line vote in committee, although there was initially bipartisan support

The student fee bit is a big one, as so many (see UW-Milwaukee report above) rely on that model. Others mentioned in the article as having recently raised student fees: Minnesota, Clemson, Fresno State.

Article concludes there's a long way to go before it reaches the presidential desk.

My guess: if this passes and keeps most of its form, non-revenue intercollegiate sports don't have much longer to live at most schools (by that I mean the vast majority of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S., many or even most of which don't have them already). NCAA has a little more than 1,100 members and the NAIA about 250.

I also think Title IX as it applies to sports would be dead. SCORE and Title IX are pretty antithetical to each other, as Title IX is absolutely revenue-blind and SCORE is all about the revenue.

There's some nice coverage and good quotes from various parties in this piece. Worth a read if you're following this kind of stuff.

I think the student fees requirement will likely just be applied to Big Ten/SEC/Notre Dame, at least at first:

Quote

“(30) In the case of an institution that, for the most recently completed fiscal year, had annual media rights revenues (as described in section 485(g)(1)(I)(ii)) of $50,000,000 or more, the institution will not, for the fiscal year immediately following such fiscal year, use student fees to support intercollegiate athletic programs, including with respect to facilities, operating expenses (as defined in section 485(g)), scholarships, payments to athletes, salaries of coaches and support staff, and any other expenses reported under section 485(g)(1).”.

 

 

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Texas Wahoo said:

I think the student fees requirement will likely just be applied to Big Ten/SEC/Notre Dame, at least at first:

Well, that's pretty damn different than what the article conveys, but also not surprising. Just goes to show that a writer ought to read the bill they're writing about. The disappointing part is that the article is still more complete than most of what we can find out there.

5 minutes ago, Tex48 said:

So what does this mean for Texas One Fund for example? Absolutely nothing right?

 Not much info on the post, but that language on it is so broad that it could mean everything, or nothing. I'm sure we'll hear plenty about it in the coming days.

Trying not to go CR, but if there's anybody I don't want ruling unilaterally on college sports, it's Donald Trump. Not sure he's even a real sports fan, but he's definitely more confident in his own correctness about everything than would seem helpful here.

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Posted

Normally I would say that EO has an ice cubes chance in hell of withstanding a legal challenge, but these aren't normal times.

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Posted
37 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Normally I would say that EO has an ice cubes chance in hell of withstanding a legal challenge, but these aren't normal times.

To be fair, the courts have been saying Congress has to do something about NIL. So until and unless they do, this feel pretty moo 

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Posted
4 hours ago, Hayduke said:

Well, that's pretty damn different than what the article conveys, but also not surprising. Just goes to show that a writer ought to read the bill they're writing about. The disappointing part is that the article is still more complete than most of what we can find out there.

 Not much info on the post, but that language on it is so broad that it could mean everything, or nothing. I'm sure we'll hear plenty about it in the coming days.

Trying not to go CR, but if there's anybody I don't want ruling unilaterally on college sports, it's Donald Trump. Not sure he's even a real sports fan, but he's definitely more confident in his own correctness about everything than would seem helpful here.

We definitely need the guy who killed the USFL league to dip his toes into college sports. He's a genius. 

No CR, but I don't give a fuck about any party, and I definitely don't want any of those nerds putting their hands on our beautiful pastime. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

Careful. Super obvious shit is too Cloak Room these days. 

we can't talk about 

what happened monday

or tuesday

or yesterday

or today

and how all of it could possibly be .......

can't talk about that either

and like most other shit we can't talk about

no one will pay a lick of attention to whatever pronouncement was just made which we can't talk about

even though it is directly targeted at our success in football recruiting

but we can't talk about it here on the football board

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Posted
6 hours ago, closetojumping said:

Wheels:
Shutdown Texas One Fund? Yes I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that's the thing to do. Wait, I've got a better idea. Lets transfer the entire roster off the campus. On second thought- lets transfer the whole athletic program off the campus. saarvanash, tell those boys to get down off the field. They're packing their bags. RGBIII?

RGBIII:
[Enters the office] Sir?

Wheels:
Get me the President on the phone. We're surrendering our position in NIL.

RGBIII:
Yes, sir.

Wheels:
Wait a minute, RGBIII. Don't get the President yet. Maybe we should consider this for a second. Dismissed, RGBIII.

RGBIII:
Yes, sir.

Wheels:
Maybe, and I'm just spit balling here, maybe, we have a responsibility as boosters to ignore that EO. Maybe we as boosters have a responsibility to this athletic program to see to that the men and women charged with its quest for titles are trained professionals. Yes, I'm certain that I read that somewhere once. And now I'm thinking, saarvanash, that your suggestion of shutting down TOF, while expeditious and certainly painless, might not be, in a matter of speaking, the Longhorn way. TOF stays where it is. We're gonna pay the lads!

a man in a military uniform is saying sounds good to me .

Posted

I’m sure I’m wrong and someone will tell me all the ways I’m wrong for thinking this
but is this why the double eagle guys are going crazy with their spending on the trenches? Because they know that they have the presidents ear and they can money whip guys now and then be on equal footing later, while already have big dudes in place for a run. 

Posted (edited)

Here's the executive order for anyone who wants to read it.

I've read parts carefully and skimmed the rest, and it looks like this is going to butt up against both what the House is trying to do and what is actually going on with schools and collectives.

My guess is Trump really trusted somebody else pretty completely on this order, and whoever it was didn't bother to do much in-depth analysis of the broader issue. The biggest clue is the speculative phrase "football players at one university will reportedly be paid $35-40 million." (is this Texas living rent-free in the collective D.C. consciousness?)

Can't wait for the in-season lawsuits and injunctions. 

Edited by Hayduke
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Posted (edited)

Friday

By Bobby Burton

The president of the United States issued an executive order yesterday regarding the future of college sports.

The main tenets included eliminating pay-for-play schemes, the future of student employment, Title IX guidance, saving non-revenue sports, and reducing long-term liability of the institutions.

I’ll briefly hit on each of these topics below.

But before I do, I want to say this:

Executive orders are largely performative. What I mean by that is, the orders attempt to set direction for others, from the attorney general, to other members of the president’s cabinet. But they are not the rule of law.

In other words, the president can’t unilaterally make the rules, not in the case of the NCAA. The president can’t waive a wand and make collectives illegal or grant anti-trust exemption to the NCAA.

Only legislative bodies (i.e. congress) can do that. Then the courts rule on their legality.

Here are the topics:

- Pay-for-play: the executive does not call out collectives specifically, only that he wants any payments to athletes being purely for brand purposes.

Well, pay-for-play has technically already been illegal in the NIL era. The collectives are paying athletes for their brand. So how this could effect NIL and the future of it is murky at best.

- Student-employment: by addressing this, the EO seems to favor keeping students as non-employees.

- Title IX guidance/non-revenue sports: the EO invokes the desire to keep US Olympic sports competitive as a primary basis for the importance of these two issues. Title IX will be tricky, but the importance of non-revenue sports has been more than adequately addressed in the House vs NCAA settlement. The EO just wants to make sure no scholarships or opportunities are diminished and the House Settlement handles that.

- Long-term liability: this is where there could be real value extracted potentially by NCAA member schools IMO. If the NCAA does not have to worry about infringing on the rights of its players when enacting rules, they can rule with more of an iron fist without as much fear of student retribution via future lawsuits. Some equate this to the possibility of an anti-trust exemption.

In all, the executive order is not a game-changer. It is just another piece of the puzzle we are all wading through to get to a final resolution, which in my mind, remains years away. 

Edited by MuellerHorn
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Posted
On 7/24/2025 at 11:12 PM, Hayduke said:

Here's the executive order for anyone who wants to read it.

I've read parts carefully and skimmed the rest, and it looks like this is going to butt up against both what the House is trying to do and what is actually going on with schools and collectives.

My guess is Trump really trusted somebody else pretty completely on this order, and whoever it was didn't bother to do much in-depth analysis of the broader issue. The biggest clue is the speculative phrase "football players at one university will reportedly be paid $35-40 million." (is this Texas living rent-free in the collective D.C. consciousness?)

Can't wait for the in-season lawsuits and injunctions. 

Cody Campbell, who is trying to singlehandedly bigdog Tceh into the haves, but knows it can only go so far.

I am troubled by SCORE, as reported above, to the extent it relies on NCAA for enforcement.  NCAA is a classic example of a captured agency.  I'd like to see SCORE be enforceable by criminal authorities, the DOE or something similar, and private civil suit.

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Posted

Bobby dropping hints about NIL:

Quote

Monday

By Bobby Burton

3 hours ago

While we get ready for training camp, which begins on Wednesday, summer recruiting is close to being finished up prior to the start of the season.

As we’ve reported, two players might make their decisions in the next week - defensive back Davon Benjamin and defensive end Jake Kreul. Benjamin’s date is set for Aug. 2 while Kreul has not set anything in stone.

Given that, how and who is Texas is going to recruit beyond just the next week becomes the next question. And even more so, what is it going to take to reel in more elite prospects?

NIL will be a big piece of that. Of course, Chris Del Conte and his group is working to make the Longhorns the strongest NIL outfit in the country.

Time will tell what actually occurs, but there are some rumors that things are moving very much in the right direction.

 

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Posted

Dan Murphy: College Sports Commission loosens prohibition on NIL payments

Quote

The College Sports Commission has loosened its blanket prohibition on athletes receiving payments from NIL collectives, according to a memo the new enforcement agency sent to athletic directors Thursday morning. The collectives, an evolving industry built to funnel money to athletes at a particular school, will still face significantly more scrutiny when trying to sign deals with players than they had in past years.

Thursday's memo from the CSC, which revises guidance it issued three weeks ago, ends the first notable scuffle under the industry's new enforcement structure without needing to return to a courtroom. However, it provides more of a punt than a definitive answer to an essential question for the future of how major college sports will function: Will wealthy teams and their boosters be able to game the system designed to create competitive balance?

The new rules say athletes and collectives will have to show that each deal they sign requires the athlete to promote a product or service that is being sold to make a profit rather than just being a vehicle to channel money from boosters to athletes. Collectives might need to show documentation of "the entity's effort to profit from the deal," according to the memo.

College athletes can now make money in two ways: via direct payments from their school and through endorsement contracts with third parties. As part of a landmark legal agreement known as the House settlement, which was finalized in June, lawyers for the athletes and the schools agreed to put a cap on direct payments starting at $20.5 million per school in the coming academic year.

During the previous four years, when only NIL payments were permitted, a cottage industry of collectives evolved to provide their teams with a de facto payroll. Many of those groups gathered money from fans and wealthy boosters to give to athletes in exchange for some minimal endorsement. Some collectives also acted as marketing agencies -- pairing athletes with local companies for endorsements -- or launched subscription-based businesses to help fans connect with the players on their favorite team.

In an effort to keep teams from using their collectives to circumvent the $20.5 million spending cap, the terms of the House settlement state that all deals with "associated entities" (essentially collectives and boosters) have to be for a "valid business purpose" and fall within a reasonable range of compensation. A $1 million deal for a player to make a few social media posts, for example, won't be allowed. "Pay-for-play will not be permitted, and every NIL deal done with a student-athlete must be a legitimate deal, not pay-for-play in disguise," CSC CEO Bryan Seeley said Thursday.

The CSC is a new organization in charge of vetting all third-party deals to make sure they comply with the terms of the settlement. The conferences and CSC are using a platform called NIL Go, operated by Deloitte, to vet those third-party deals. The new guidelines mean that each deal will need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis with subjective analysis rather than running them through an algorithm, which will likely require more manpower than the fledgling enforcement group with only three employees thus far initially planned.

The CSC issued its initial ban on collectives July 10, less than two weeks after opening its doors. Several collectives told ESPN they felt the ban painted with too broad of a brush and unfairly outlawed their industry.

"Today's development is a significant step forward for student-athletes and the collectives that support them," said Hunter Baddour, executive director of an industry group called The Collective Association. "By eliminating unnecessary roadblocks, this agreement moves us closer to treating NIL collectives like every other legitimate business operating in the college sports ecosystem."

Some collectives have been consulting with high-profile college sports attorney Tom Mars to evaluate potential legal action. Mars told ESPN on Thursday that the new guidance doesn't necessarily rule out the potential for a lawsuit coming from the collectives but that it does "definitely change the situation for the better for collectives. It should be concerning that it took the commissioners more than a week to agree on the language of the new CSC guidance."

Attorneys Jeff Kessler and Steve Berman, who represented all Division I athletes in the House settlement, sent a letter to the CSC two weeks ago stating that the ban on collectives overstepped the terms of the settlement. Kessler and Berman negotiated with lawyers from the NCAA, CSC and the power conferences during the past two weeks to revise the guidance. Kessler and Berman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The adjusted rules likely open some loopholes for creative boosters to continue funneling money to athletes for recruiting purposes via deals that are crafted as endorsements on paper. However, college sports leaders are hopeful that the various restrictions that remain in place will provide enough friction to keep deep-pocketed schools from gaining an insurmountable advantage in what they are able to pay their players.

 

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Posted

Here’s a snippet about Ohio State’s NIL situation fed to Bill Kurelic from one his AD sources. The one thing he’s not telling them, that @alincoln previously noted in one of these threads about OSU for this cycle is donor fatigue. I’ve since heard the same. They’re not going to get Hiter, apparently losing him to Michigan, and their class is just “good” and they’re not in on a ton of remaining prospects for the cycle either. 

“

** The why of NIL? 
 Why?

That seems to be a common question among ’Nutters when it comes to NIL. There’s a belief that Ohio State has missed out on several high-caliber recruits because other programs are willing to amp their NIL game when the Buckeyes are not. 

We’ve asked around - a lot - and have a few vibes to pass along today and in the next few Houses about that. As one might expect, there were strong opinions on how Ohio State is approaching NIL and WHY. We will dive deep on that. 

Today is a little more basic. One source in the know’s opinion on the biggest factor working against the Buckeyes is “it’s a way more level playing field.”

While Ohio State did not get off to the fastest start in the NIL era, your Buckeyes were elite over the last 18 months. Ohio State was among the best at generating funds and was “up there with Oregon and Texas” when it came to available NIL resources.

Then came the NCAA change on July 1 that allows schools to directly spend up to $20.5 million annually on athletes.

“Now literally everyone has money,” our source said. “That’s the main reason why it’s so tough. Lots of leverage out there.”

More to come 
 a lot more.”

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 Sam Khan Jr.: Inside Texas Tech’s ‘open checkbook’ and the school’s quest to rule the Big 12

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LUBBOCK, Texas — Last July, around a conference room table inside Jones AT&T Stadium, the Texas Tech football braintrust laid the foundation for a roster budget that would surpass that of the 2024 Ohio State Buckeyes, the eventual national champions. Inside athletic director Kirby Hocutt’s suite, about a half dozen of the program’s key stakeholders, including head coach Joey McGuire, general manager James Blanchard and mega booster Cody Campbell, discussed how they would attack the 2025 offseason.

Campbell, a Mike Leach-era offensive lineman at Tech, oil and gas magnate and co-founder of the school’s name, image and likeness collective, made it clear that nothing should stand in the way of the Red Raiders acquiring who they needed to win a Big 12 championship. In the pay-for-play era of college sports, Texas Tech would position itself as a disruptor.

“Cody came in and said, in a professional way, that we had an open checkbook,” Blanchard recalls. “Telling that to a personnel guy is like telling a 6-year-old, ‘Here’s my platinum credit card, go get whatever you want.’”

Campbell identified that the transfer portal windows ahead of the 2025 season would be the last “Wild West portal periods” for every sport and “we needed to do everything we could to frontload those contracts so that we could recruit well during those transfer window periods.” Tech leadership concocted a plan. The donors lined up. Eventually, the players followed.

When the winter transfer portal window opened in December, Blanchard, who runs Tech’s personnel operation, channeled his inner Richie Rich, running up a colossal tab. When the dust settled, Texas Tech spent more than $12 million — or almost as much revenue as some Power 4 programs will share with their entire roster — on 21 transfers. The total roster budget for the 2025 Texas Tech football team? Roughly $25 million, Blanchard said, which surpasses the $20 million the Buckeyes spent en route to last season’s national title.

It was part of Texas Tech’s athletic department-wide effort to capitalize on the final months of unlimited NIL spending before capped revenue sharing kicked in. And spend the Red Raiders did, raising $55 million to utilize on player compensation via NIL and revenue sharing across its 17 sports for the 2025-26 athletic season, according to Campbell. Of that, roughly $35 million was paid out before July 1, when the cap — roughly $20.5 million, a result of the House v. NCAA settlement — officially took effect.

Texas Tech’s willingness to splash the pot has opposing schools griping and expectations skyrocketing. But the Red Raiders haven’t even played for a Big 12 football championship in the league’s 29-year existence. They haven’t recorded a nine-win season since 2009, when Leach was their coach. The last conference title Tech won outright? The Border Conference championship in 1955 (their 1976 and 1994 Southwest Conference titles were co-championships).

But that’s what the money is for: for Texas Tech to break new ground and spend its way to success. It’s Big 12 title — and College Football Playoff — or bust. And the Red Raiders are embracing those expectations. During a video tour for their new football facility guided by football administrator Antonio Huffman, he pointed to a spot left open in the trophy room for their "eventual" Big 12 trophy. “If we win 10 games but we don’t win the Big 12 championship, I think we’ve missed the mark,” McGuire said.

Heading into the 2023-24 offseason, Texas Tech had only $1 million in NIL money to allocate to transfers, Blanchard said — roughly the amount it takes to get a Power 4 starting quarterback now. That meant Texas Tech couldn’t get into bidding wars for top-tier talent. “I needed to be really diligent and make sure I’m not wasting (Campbell’s) money,” Blanchard said.

The Red Raiders were competitive in 2024, going 8-5 and making a bowl for the third straight season under McGuire and fourth consecutive year overall — the longest such bowl stretch for the program since the Leach era — but they were lacking in a few areas, particularly on the offensive and defensive lines. They fell short of a Big 12 title game appearance as a result. And they vowed to learn their lesson after shopping in the bargain bin.

After Tech lost to Colorado in early November and Campbell posted on X to complain about officiating, a Tech fan replied with an expletive directed at Campbell and ordered him to “buy us an O-line (sic).” Campbell’s reply: “I will.”

Blanchard believed Campbell when he said he had an “open checkbook,” but he wasn’t 100 percent sure until they started hosting visitors. When former UCF defensive tackle Lee Hunter visited and Blanchard called Campbell to find out if it was OK to go over the amount they projected it would cost to get him, Campbell told him, “Yeah, I told you we’re gonna do whatever it takes.” When Blanchard heard that, it was off to the races.

Tech's top-10 portal adds (On3 industry)
 
Player / Position Rank / Former School
Lee Hunter, DL
1
UCF
David Bailey, DE
2
Stanford
Howard Sampson, OT
3
North Carolina
Hunter Zambrano, OT
5
Illinois State
Terrance Carter, TE
5
Louisiana
Cole Wisniewski, S
7
North Dakota State
Quinten Joyner, RB
7
USC
Romello Height, DE
8
Georgia Tech
Skyler Gill-Howard, DL     
10     
Northern Illinois

As commitments rolled in, McGuire and Blanchard pivoted from their original plan of signing 10 to 12 transfers to taking as many as they could. They finished with 21, including six who were ranked at the top of their board at their respective positions. “You had this perfect storm,” McGuire said. If the Red Raiders prioritized a player, the goal was to not let him leave campus without a commitment. McGuire credits the positive vibes that permeate the building. The new, sparkling $242 million football facility — which Blanchard has called “a football resort” — didn’t hurt. And then there’s the money.

Tech paid multiple transfers over $1 million, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, granted anonymity to discuss financial decisions schools are not compelled to publicly disclose. Many who didn’t reach that threshold are getting compensated in the high six figures. Personnel staffers at schools who competed for some of Tech’s transfers have remarked that the Red Raiders have gone well above “market value” to obtain players.

Campbell calls it sour grapes. “Market value is what somebody’s willing to pay for them,” he said. “So that’s just mostly from people that are upset because they get outbid. 
 I think other places just didn’t have the resources or weren’t organized enough.” Blanchard viewed it as a necessity, given Tech’s historical place in the national football landscape and lack of blue-blood status.

“We can’t say, ‘Someone offered this player $500,000, so we’re going to match.’ That’s not gonna work,” Blanchard said. “You’ve got to put your ego and pride to the side and say, ‘If one of the top five schools in the country offered $500,000, for us to be equal, we have to offer $675,000. Some people may say that’s over market value. No, I got the f—ing player.”

McGuire, who is entering his fourth season and is 23-16 at the school, knows that if Texas Tech doesn’t win the Big 12, everyone will point the finger at him. “But isn’t that what you want? Don’t you want a roster that people expect you to win?” he said. “You don’t want to be in the conversation of, ‘They’re going to have a hard time winning because their roster isn’t very good.’” Said Hocutt: “The expectations are exactly what we want and what we expect. It now becomes time to deliver upon those expectations.”

Blanchard feels a similar pressure. McGuire gave him the keys to the roster when they arrived in Lubbock on Campbell’s jet in November 2021. This offseason Blanchard flirted with taking the GM job at Notre Dame but ultimately stayed after Tech gave him a raise. “We have top-three-in-the-country resources. There is no reason for failure,” Blanchard said. “If we don’t get to the Big 12 Championship Game, I’m gonna feel like I failed.”

Hocutt, who has been AD at the school since 2011, said a Big 12 title and a Playoff berth are the expectations, “period.” While acknowledging possible mitigating circumstances like injuries or bad luck, Hocutt said, “We will be extremely disappointed if we’re not in Arlington playing for that Big 12 conference championship this season.”

Football isn’t the only place Tech boosters are spending. Tech spent more than $3 million to retain forward JT Toppin to the men’s basketball team, which was agonizingly close to the Final Four. They spent more than $1 million in 2024 to sign former Stanford pitcher NiJaree Canady to the softball team. That paid off handsomely, as Canady took the Red Raiders to the championship series of the Women’s College World Series before they fell to Texas. And the softball team had a recent portal run that resembles the football team’s in December, plucking top players from across the country to load up for another run to Oklahoma City.

Campbell, who was recently appointed to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition and has served as a White House advisor on college sports, may be the most visible of Tech’s money men. But he’s not the only one. John Sellers, who co-founded Double Eagle Energy Holdings with Campbell, also co-founded the Matador Club — Tech’s NIL collective — and played a major role in it, especially in softball, where he spearheaded the effort to sign Canady.

Dusty Womble, a wealthy businessman and Texas Tech regent, has his name on the school’s pristine basketball practice facility and new football facility. Many of Tech’s major donors, including Campbell, Womble, Sellers and Gary Petersen, have their names prominently displayed in the concourse of the south end zone of Jones AT&T Stadium. Campbell estimates that the Matador Club, which had 3,000 donors, had “about a dozen or more” members who contributed seven figures. Tech’s power brokers have put their money where their mouths are.

It’s not a one-time thing, either. As college sports evolve amid the House settlement and direct player compensation, Texas Tech intends to remain a major player in hopes of elevating itself into the elite tier of multiple sports, even if the Red Raiders haven’t historically been there. Campbell scoffed at the idea of anything holding Tech back. “Why shouldn’t we be able to win? Just because we didn’t win a national championship 100 years ago? That doesn’t make any sense. 
 We have all the elements and ingredients you need to win.”

Tech’s recent high school recruiting signals the continued commitment to spend. The Red Raiders landed a commitment from five-star Felix Ojo, the No. 1 prospect in Texas and one of the top offensive tackles in the nation, with the help of a three-year $2.3 million revenue-sharing contract. That total could go up to $5.1 million if the regulation of player compensation reverts to the almost nonexistent manner that it did the last four years.

As for its roughly $20.5 million revenue sharing pool, 74 percent, or roughly $15.1 million, will be allocated to football. Another 17-18 percent, or around $3.5 to $3.7 million, is to go to men’s basketball, 2 percent to women’s basketball, 1.9 percent to baseball and the rest to Tech’s remaining sports. Campbell vows Texas Tech will pay up to the cap and work hard to get as much third-party NIL as possible but said it’s unlikely to see those numbers skyrocket nationally.

“Except for a very few marquee national players, there isn’t a whole lot there on the (true NIL) front,” he said. “There is some. But it doesn’t compare to the amount that is being paid out through revenue share.” Whatever the situation is, Campbell said Tech will follow the rules with a plan to spend as much as is allowed.

Is it enough to take Texas Tech football to unprecedented heights? The 2025 roster isn’t without its questions. The one position Tech opted not to take a transfer, quarterback, is one of the biggest unknowns. Behren Morton, the highest-ranked high school QB recruit in program history and Tech’s starter the last two years, is considered a solid but not elite Big 12 quarterback. He played the last year-and-a-half with an AC joint injury that was finally repaired in the winter. Can a healthy Morton take the Red Raiders to the next level?

Tahj Brooks, Texas Tech’s best offensive player in 2024, is now in the NFL. The Red Raiders are excited about his successor, USC transfer Quinten Joyner, but his production last season (478 yards, three touchdowns) pales in comparison to Brooks’ (1,505 yards, 17 touchdowns).

Hunter Zambrano, who was widely viewed as one of the top offensive linemen in the portal, has not played at the Power 4 level and is coming off a hip injury that kept him out most of last season at Illinois State. He missed spring while rehabbing, but Blanchard said Zambrano is viewed favorably by NFL scouts. Zambrano said, “I’m moving better now than I have in a while.”

Safety Cole Wisniewski, an FCS All-American at North Dakota State, missed most of last season with a foot injury. Edge rusher Romello Height is on his fourth team and has only one season as a starter under his belt, though it was a productive one last year for Georgia Tech (6 1/2 tackles for loss, 2 1/2 sacks, two forced fumbles).

The Red Raiders are confident they’ve built a championship roster. “We’re, on paper, the most talented team in the conference,” Campbell said. “It’s not really even close.” Blanchard has a vision that Tech could become the new Clemson. But for all the bluster, even he knows this is no sure thing. While the portal has become a catalyst for some quick turnarounds, no program has proven that you can sustainably build a program this way.

“I don’t think it’s anywhere near a do-or-die situation,” Blanchard said. “But it is a proof-of-concept situation.” What if it doesn’t work? What if Texas Tech wins eight games (or fewer) again? Will the money faucet shut off? Will McGuire and Blanchard be in trouble? Will the Red Raiders pivot to a different roster construction strategy?

Neither Hocutt nor Campbell gives the impression that they are thinking that way. Both are full-throated in support of McGuire and Blanchard and the plan they’ve executed. “I am confident that we’ve done everything we can possibly do to control the things that we control,” Campbell said. “We’ve given ourselves the best probability of success, but you still have to go out and win the games. And there are a lot of things that are outside of our control that affect those outcomes.” Said Hocutt: “I’ve never been more confident that we’re positioned extremely well for success.”

After Campbell fired off his “I will” tweet after Tech’s loss to Colorado last November — which essentially knocked Tech out of serious contention for the Big 12 Championship Game — it became a meme in Tech internet circles, especially as the Red Raiders stocked up on stars in the portal. Someone even turned it into a T-shirt, and Campbell has one.

But it brought him back to why he thinks, in the NIL era, anyone has a chance to win: even Texas Tech. “People can sit around and get mad about the state of affairs,” he said. “They can criticize the coaches. They can criticize the leadership. They can be unhappy about the position we’re in or they can go do something about it. I felt like I was in a position to do something about it. So I said that I would and I did.”

 

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