I read through the NIL poll thread again. I put in for a modest $ amount in that poll. I was serious. But the bulk of the funding was the 13 people who said $20,000, fewer of whom might be serious.
What I'd really rather do is have my consumer-facing business sign a particular set of Purdue athletes (maybe one from each revenue sport, three total) to actually endorse our service at the level of a few $thousand. It could even be a good business idea if done right. I bring this up because it sounds like this is the approach Purdue is taking officially, to try to get athletes paired up with businesses, through that 100-business meet-and-greet that they set up (kudos for that). And to that point, for retaining and even recruiting key athletes with larger amounts, you have to assume that conversations with business are being facilitated at a high level in a way that gets around the NCAA's flimsy "no recruitment use of NIL" prohibition. We all want Mr. Pack at Purdue. I hope we can trust the people and the process on that.
But how to sweeten the pot? Which brings us back to the fan collective idea of a private NIL fund, and the poll. Taking one person's estimate that 25% of those funds would actually materialize, just based on one little poll of Knuckleheads, it's about $100K. The pollster didn't specify if it was an annual amount but I assumed so. But $100K is only chicken feed in the current environment where you need to take care of Zach Edey and Gillis, you need to take care of Furst and TKR and Loyer and Newman and hopefully Pack, potentially EHJ, not to mention Tyrone Tracy, Brady Allen, Milton Wright, Jalen Graham etc. At least AOC isn't a flight risk for the coming season, haha. (For those who might leave, using big-bucks NIL for player retention is potentially huge. Just ask Brad Underwood.)
Then another person said with the right person running it it would be easy to raise $1 million per year from the broader set of Purdue fans. I think that is totally correct and a more useful number. Purdue isn't likely to facilitate that in any obvious ways, plus I would be concerned Purdue might be penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to nudging the fattest cats into that in non-obvious ways, because it could divert some funding from Purdue itself. Discouraging private NIL funds would be a poor investment decision by Purdue in my opinion, so I hope I am wrong, and I know there are some smart people involved at all levels at Purdue.
So who has the inside scoop on a private NIL fund? Who might be organizing it? How does a Knucklehead get on their list?
What I'd really rather do is have my consumer-facing business sign a particular set of Purdue athletes (maybe one from each revenue sport, three total) to actually endorse our service at the level of a few $thousand. It could even be a good business idea if done right. I bring this up because it sounds like this is the approach Purdue is taking officially, to try to get athletes paired up with businesses, through that 100-business meet-and-greet that they set up (kudos for that). And to that point, for retaining and even recruiting key athletes with larger amounts, you have to assume that conversations with business are being facilitated at a high level in a way that gets around the NCAA's flimsy "no recruitment use of NIL" prohibition. We all want Mr. Pack at Purdue. I hope we can trust the people and the process on that.
But how to sweeten the pot? Which brings us back to the fan collective idea of a private NIL fund, and the poll. Taking one person's estimate that 25% of those funds would actually materialize, just based on one little poll of Knuckleheads, it's about $100K. The pollster didn't specify if it was an annual amount but I assumed so. But $100K is only chicken feed in the current environment where you need to take care of Zach Edey and Gillis, you need to take care of Furst and TKR and Loyer and Newman and hopefully Pack, potentially EHJ, not to mention Tyrone Tracy, Brady Allen, Milton Wright, Jalen Graham etc. At least AOC isn't a flight risk for the coming season, haha. (For those who might leave, using big-bucks NIL for player retention is potentially huge. Just ask Brad Underwood.)
Then another person said with the right person running it it would be easy to raise $1 million per year from the broader set of Purdue fans. I think that is totally correct and a more useful number. Purdue isn't likely to facilitate that in any obvious ways, plus I would be concerned Purdue might be penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to nudging the fattest cats into that in non-obvious ways, because it could divert some funding from Purdue itself. Discouraging private NIL funds would be a poor investment decision by Purdue in my opinion, so I hope I am wrong, and I know there are some smart people involved at all levels at Purdue.
So who has the inside scoop on a private NIL fund? Who might be organizing it? How does a Knucklehead get on their list?
