What I still don't understand is... I'm not a business owner and have no other way of producing an actual NIL opportunity. I'm just a regular guy. If I donate to the collective, how does my money turn into NIL?

Even Deion Sanders agrees with you.

Crazy times. Even James Franklin is out begging for money. At Penn State. Penn Freaking State, where they just announced $700 million in stadium upgrades.


https://247sports.com/college/penn-state/article/penn-sta... /

I don't disagree with you.

But I do think this is the same money that's always been there, it's just going to a different place. These donors used to build practice centers and fancy locker rooms and fund coaching salaries and all manner of other things. The money's the same, it's just redirected to the players now.

The money was all about getting college kids to commit and play at a certain school. Now they're just allowed to do so more directly.

Its pay to play. No one is supposed to say that its pay to play but...its pay to play.
Contributions to the collective go to pay "not-salary"

This is NIL collective estimates for 2023-24. Ohio's athletic department was expected to raise over $509,000 in their collective last year based on outside projections which would be 4th in the MAC but far behind the average totals of their G5 peers.

https://nil-ncaa.com/mac /

The average G5 schools were projected to raise $1.45 million last year with 50% going to football, 37% to basketball and 13% to other sports. P5 schools expected an average of $9.8 million with 66% going to football.

Ah, the fantasy of fair play is officially over. Pay up or go home a loser. Unfettered Capitalism has finally soiled the waters of college athletics forever moving forward. What is the point of having team sports anymore anyway? Let us just turn this into a Mixed Martial Arts competition where the winner takes all. Kind of a lottery for those who are athletically gifted. As long as it is bloody, who cares.

Perhaps, the only way to even the playing field is to come up with some sort of handicap for those teams with an unfair financial advantage. Perhaps, Power 5 teams can spot us a one hundred point advantage going into a game in order to make this clown show even remotely interesting.

Personally, I am just going to stick to watching professional sports, because at least there is some honesty in it. Can’t say that I blame the athletes themselves. After all, don’t hate the player, but do hate the game.

What’s baffling to me is these payments still retain their tax deductible status. So, as the case of Jalen Rashada shows, you can pay someone $13+ million to do a job (job being boosting your ego by winning football games at your alma mater) and get a multimillion dollar tax break for it. EDIT: Florida boosters apparently didn’t pay, but I’m sure Georgia’s did.

Like, is there a way for normal, non yacht-owning, people to use this? For instance, say, Parker Navarro’s Kitchen Remodeling. Give Parker $50,000 to (using approved subcontractors) to remodel a kitchen then get a $12,000 tax break on said repairs? I’d be all in for that lol.

Seriously. Our own form doesn't even prompt for my business or what kind of NIL opportunity I have in mind before it takes my money.

The money is far from being "the same." The NIL collectives are a completely different animal than earmarked donations to athletic department projects.

There's always been a facilities race in college athletics, and it's been accelerated in the last 20 years (new buildings, new equipment, improved training facilities, academic centers, etc). The money that goes into those projects certainly has a purpose to help attract student athletes to a school. But their main purpose is to help them train and improve the students who are there while at that school. The money goes/went to a physical structure like a building, a weight room and equipment that the entire team/programs can use while affiliated with their respective programs. You can walk into Ohio's stadium tower, weight room, indoor facility or endzone facility today, and you can came back in 10, 20 or 30 years, and they'll still be standing (and will most likely have been renovated and improved with even more funds through donations). They were investments that were made that aided the construction of those facilities. Those donations went towards a project, they did not go to a student athlete for them to use the funds as they see fit. And the purpose of those donations ultimately benefits the student athletes as they become the beneficiaries, they reap the rewards from being able to utilize the projects those donations help create. It's a brick-and-mortar type of an investment that benefits many. It has a defined use and purpose.

The NIL collectives, however, are totally different. It allows people to give money to the collective that ultimately will result in a payout to players for "services." Don't even get me started on that part. But the NIL collectives are literally used to compensate players directly. Pay them to stay at a school, pay them to leave their school for another. It's taking your money, giving it to the collective, and it eventually ending up in the players' bank accounts to do whatever they want with it. Buy a new car, go on a shopping spree, drink it away on Court Street, save it, invest it, whatever. This is clearly different than making donations. Yes, it all concerns money, but it's apples and oranges as to where the money goes and how it is actually used.

You're describing how the money's being used, not where it came from.

The NIL donor base is basically exactly the same as the school's donor base for facilities and the like. These NIL collectives aren't magically creating millions of dollars in net new donations. The money's the same, it's now spent differently.

When you gave to the general fund that went to athletes in the form of summer school and basic slush funds for projects. Only gave to restricted projects, where I choose how my money is spent.