NIL- Blue Hen Collective

[Cluck U]

An informative piece on how a few schools are using apparel to fund NIL. Interestingly, UD does have some products with Homefield Apparel.

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/p/nil-col ... might-help

Interesting...but will it work? It appears that the apparel NIL idea in your post drives money towards a general NIL fund...and not particular players. To make it worthwhile, it would have to be done at a pretty large scale...and how much would these NIL sales cut into the general logoed merchandise sales of the schools?

https://businessofcollegesports.com/nam ... red-beers/

The above link is the link to the NIL collective beer efforts. I can see people drinking a beer that relates to their favorite sports team. Since the beer doesn't represent one specific athlete, the funds would go towards general NIL expenses. IF the beer is decent enough to drink, fans would have no problem drinking something that tastes good and supports their team.

But, I don't see fans buying and consuming EXTRA beer just because it throws some money to their favorite team's NIL collective fund. The consumers would most likely just substitute the beer for one of their regular beers.

Similarly, I don't see a lot of people purchasing an extra generic NIL t-shirt/sweatshirt on top of their purchase of the general UD themed items. Sure, some fanatics who want to specifically support the NIL efforts might pony up extra cash for an extra wearable item, but not a regular fan. The only way that works would be to have some awesome designs that far outshine what UD has to offer on their regular UD swag...but that would probably result in UD losing sales on their regular merchandise.

Tribe's post had the Indiana coach wearing one of her player's NIL sweatshirts while coaching a game. I'd imagine that player would get the money for her number and specific name being used. Wonder how much, if any, of that NIL money was shared with the team?

The new money stream isn't coming from a magic bottle...fans have to be convinced to spend more money on more products. That will be a hard sell for a collective...let alone for the specific image of the overwhelming number of players, especially if the players consistently transfer in and out of schools...who wants to pay for a journeyman's name on their UD shirt?

Curious how this stuff will impact high school sports. You know it is coming...the players will get paid...it is just a matter of time. Of course, students getting paid is better than that story where the high school art teacher was selling his students' artwork without their knowledge.

[Bluewyn Gold]

Interesting...but will it work? It appears that the apparel NIL idea in your post drives money towards a general NIL fund...and not particular players.

My reading is that this could potentially be one tool, not nearly a single solution.

[RalphD58]

I think their needs to be sports specific collectives. What SDSU does is pretty cool IMO... https://www.jackrabbitfpa.com/membership. For the money, they get a lot in return. I love the idea of being able to buy team issued gear. You know how athletes love their numbers. I'd pay top dollar for one of those team issued warm up hoodies with my name and number. Delaware has been doing better with reaching out to football alumni, but I think they can do much better. This wouldn't generate a ton, but it might open the door for more donations.

[Roger_Podacter]

Article today by KT in the News Journal talking of how NIL could come to the HS level.

[Baltimore Hen]

Jay Bilas chimed in on NIL saying that athletes are now essentially employees and that they should be under contract with buyout clauses. I think it makes sense. Every other professional sport has rules and regs that the athletes have to follow and it is not a free for all like the NIL is in "college" sports. this would almost certainly require a "collegiate" players union to collectively bargain the rule structure....i can very easily see this coming to pass.

[HENJOHN]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/13/sport/ni ... index.html