Trying to fund NIL with a bunch of small contributions vs having a dozen big donors. Fans think giving $20 is "doing their part". That's not going to work as far as keeping up with NIL of other schools like Iowa, KState, Kansas, Baylor, etc... We could have 50,000 fans contribute $20 and only get $1mill. Another school will have 10 donors combine for $8-10mill.
Iowa NIL Update
- Thread starter Jer
- Start date
But if we have the major donors that are providing $2M, having that extra $1M adds up trust me. And the major donors want to know they aren’t the only ones doing the heavy lifting.
Do you just find donors who are willing to give large chunks out of the blue? Not generally. Most of the top end cyclone club donors I bet started with a hundred or so and have built up over time. The 20 dollar person gets a couple raises and now you have a 2500 donor and in a few years a 5-10k donor. You need them all and it helps over time.
But U of Iowa has Des Moines on lockdown, or so I am told over here in Eastern Iowa.
Wanted to share some of what I’ve put together on Iowa NIL from various sources since there is a lot of talk about what we might be up against.
From what I’ve heard – Iowa could pull together roughly $5-6 mil for NIL right now between their various channels. That’s expected to increase another $5-7 mil in the next 12-18 months as they realign where donors direct money. There are some that believe they could get to $20 mil by 2025 as the new media contract allows further realignment of funds.
While $10-12 mil/year wouldn’t put them in the same category as the elite NIL schools (Bama, Georgia, USC, tOSU, Michigan, TN, Miami, A&M, Oregon, Florida, Texas, Nebraska, etc), it would put them in the Top 30. If they got to $20 mil, they’d be closer to 15-20th.
We Will Collective Club
www.wewillclub.com
We Will Collective | Supporting ISU Student Athletes
Explore events and collaborations that support Iowa State student-athletes through NIL opportunities and community involvement with the We Will Collective.wewillcollective.com
So what are the rules around the school tracking NIL contributions? For example, can an NIL contribution be counted towards priority seating? Or does that all have to stay separate? Maybe the big donors don't care if they donate to both the AD and NIL funds, but your average level donor would want to make sure that transferring their donations to NIL doesn't adversely affect their seat selections.
I see what you're saying but I don't really buy this. ISU has a lot of great majors with people making some good money. Just think of how many engineers alone come from ISU. They make some great money, and combined with mostly living in the affordable midwest, I would believe there's some extra cash there. Combine this with all of the other majors ISU offers that provide a good living (business, ag, design, etc.) and I feel like we do just fine.
I really think we are just a stingy group, mixed with the fact that we don't have t-shirt fans. If someone grew up in Iowa and either went to a small school or a school out of state, or UNI, they are much more likely to follow and donate to Iowa.
I think the law/med school argument is a bit overblown. Yes, I'm sure that's gotten Iowa some good money and yes they make great money, but many of those folks come to those programs with allegiances to their undergrad.
The school isn’t supposed to be involved so this could get into some legal issues as the school could be seen as funneling money towards NIL groups which depending on how it is distributed would cause problems. There is a reason these funds have little to no school involvement.
Vets need to adjust their fee scale. Cyclone fan: $50 for pet visit, Hawkeye fan: $500
Difference is slid into the NIL fund.
Where can I sign up for a $50 vet visit? I can't get a grooming appointment for less than $75 these days.
My love of college sports has been at least cut in half by all of this. I will always love ISU sports, but I'm getting to a point where I don't care about anything non ISU.
My wife pays $35 for our dogs haircut and I think that is crazy, 75 sounds really goofy. Honestly though, a vet visit is about 50 bucks last I knew.
They need to outlaw collectives whether it be the NCAA or Federal legislation. NIL was always legally intended for direct relationships between the athlete and vendor without 3rd party collectives for commensurate services rendered by the athlete. That has obviously not turned out to be the case as high dollar collectives have turned into recruiting inducement mechanisms.
I know if I were a major donor and I was the only one funding the AD, I would probably get tired of it and potentially stop over time.
But the bolded is important for us to realize that we all need to have skin in the game in order to be competitive. So long us fans are showing we have a little skin in the game, that will continue to motivate our higher end donors to keep it up.
I just spent $750 at the vet last week for our normal annual shots.
If you outlawed collectives then only the school with major donors or connections would be able to compete. Honestly that would be even worse for schools like ISU that doesn’t appear to have many of those donors. Collectives in theory give schools with great fan bases a chance to be on the same level as the big time donors, ISU is just in a weird place where the fans are extra extra frugal.
Most are non profits so yes. However this is most likely going to be corrected at some point in the near future.
