Think I’m only seeing 8 women on the list (of 100…correct me if my count is off). Suni Lee being the most rewarded for talent. So I guess it hasn’t really trickled over to supporting many women’s sports …or women for sports…quite yet.
Anyway just found it very interesting. And only time will tell what it does for/to Colleges…and for Athletics at Colleges. I’m highly skeptical that it will be anything good in the long run but I know opinions differ greatly on this.
Looks like Cam broke the top 100 so…guess I can see how this could be a lucrative rehab senior year for him. CU has a couple top 10 contracts.
I’m going to be very interested in about 5 years to see how money aligns with performance.
One word - ridiculous! Kids getting paid those amounts before ever taking a snap in a regular season game is ridiculous. It is a huge jump from HS to FBS Power 5 Football.
It goes to show some people have more money than brains.
I get most of this was going on under the table for a very long time in a lot of programs. Maybe it’s better to see all the cards on the table; but in this arms race where fans are getting economically crowded out, I don’t like it. Not one bit.
Athletes are entertainers and entertainer compensation has always been ridiculous. Elite musicians work for scraps while beautiful “artists” hit the jackpot.
So what. People pay for what they want to see. Get over the mirage of being able to control what other people do and you will be happier for it.
As for me, I’m happy that these young athletes are getting paid. Good for them. I’m not contributing any of my hard-earned resources because I agree it is ridiculous.
Looking through the top 100 list- how about the 1-armed basketball player making 1.4m/yr from NIL? That is pretty cool. I bet his “performance” does not warrant it. Again, so what. Good for him.
Those numbers aren’t deals, they’re valuations. What On3 thinks they’re worth using an algorithm.
That’s another part of this NIL issue, people are throwing these numbers around like it’s what they’re being paid, when it’s really some websites guess of what the COULD be paid.
As I said in another post, this isn’t what they’re making, it’s what this website thinks he could get paid. And mind you, NIL isn’t really about performance, it’s about advertising and marketing. How much can you get paid for using your name/image to make money for a business or product.
Wasn’t there an Ohio State QB who supposedly received a $10M NIL deal but before he ever took a single snap he transferred to Texas? I doubt he ever saw a single payment from his OSU NIL deal. I wonder what these contracts look like, if a player gets a nice NIL deal, but then is injured a few weeks later, can the person making the payments just stop writing checks?
I wonder if there will be lawsuits for pulling out of paying players for any number of reasons.
Gymnastics is easily the best team concept at Utah, but they’re an easy sell given their careers prior to Utah, and have a powerful collective formed for them.
Utahs next two recruiting classes are loaded with names, which will help NIL for the team even more.
The next couple of years are really going to be exciting with Miaile, Jaeden. and Abby coming back and the freshwomen coming in, and then the following year with Avery Neff at all. It is so much fun.
Using Outkick for news is weird. They are wrong more than right.
Also, thinking NIL is about talent is the wrong way to look at it. It’s about who has the most eyeballs. You will make more if you have more people looking at your social media outlets. Nobody thinks LSU gymnast is the next Mary Lou… they just like looking at her. So, some of this will trend away from on-field talent.
Again, don’t go to Outkick. They are a bunch of right-wing fascists who tend to get stories wrong on purpose reach a conclusion they want instead of reporting facts.
The are also athletes with mad talent who present as completely awful for any sort of marketing. I remember playing Utah Jazz post game drinking games where Uh, Yeah, Right, and You Know would make you have to drink…and in the case of the early teams where players weren’t getting taught communication skills by language instructors, one could go blind drunk after a 10 minute interview.
NIL can certainly advantage the ones who are photogenic and have excellent communication skills.
It’s definitely something to think about in this.
That said, many of these schools need to figure out how to keep things fan friendly and affordable, or they will end up shooting the golden goose. The NBA and MLB makes this case right now.
NBA is lightyears ahead of MLB. They also have more of a world appeal compared to Football. I’m an NBA homer. It’s also why kids like Bronny will make $ on NIL. Really any legacy kid will. If Tim Tebow has a kid that plays QB for Florida he will walk on campus able to retire, lol.
This is spot on.
Male sports vs Female sports and NIL $$ desirability creates a whole extra level of gender dynamic issues (and Yes they already existed but this amplifies them further.)
For others, didn’t evaluate the sites as such, rather looked up some general stories across several places then saw the two I posted as having one of the clearest lists…which also seemed to align pretty closely with the $$ being reported everywhere else. But whatevs. I don’t plan on doing a graduate paper on the topic. But I’m happy to avoid fascist sites when they are pointed out.
