Are we sure this is all alumni? Are companies like Adidas and Nike contributing to get these recruits as well? They certainly have an incentive to get recruits to schools that they have big contracts with. And Adidas has shown that they were more than willing to put up money to do so in the past, even when it broke the law to do so.
I hadn’t thought about that. It feels like more of a basketball thing but I guess I could see it happening in football. Obviously if Nike was located in any other state then Oregon football wouldn’t be nearly as good. Maybe there are other examples I’m not aware of.
And as far as individual alumni donating more to historically good schools, I think you need sustained success that draws in rich donors and makes them think this is a worthwhile thing to spend their money on. If you are a school that generally falls on its face as soon as expectations get high, then it’s probably a challenge convincing people to give their money to that cause.
Because otherwise I would guess the distribution of rich alumni across schools is fairly even. If anything I would think the historically bad schools (Vanderbilt, Northwestern, etc) probably have more rich alumni than the Alabamas and Ohio State’s of the world. It’s just that their alumni give to the academic side of the school instead of the football team.
It makes it a real challenge to upend the status quo in college football.
