Ask yourself whether your interest in Aggie football has gone up or down since NIL started.

I have been a rabid Aggie fan ever since my first game as a freshman. I thought college football was the greatest sport. However, my interest has waned considerably since NIL. New stories like this will only accelerate my disinterest. So, no it's not sustainable.

As long as a school as dumb donors who think giving tons of money to teenagers is a smart idea, it'll continue to happen.

I do think if the portal stays the way it currently is, donors will get somewhat tired of throwing money at kids only for them to transfer after 1 season and will stop giving as much as they are.

Is that SlicedBreadmaking **** up again?

"Ohio State Reportedly Spent Over $34 Million To Piece Together This Group Of Players And Coaches For This Season"

Not sure what coaches they hired this year but I'm sure that's a big part of this number...

This is unimpressive. Why doesn't tOSU hold our beer, we spent like $75M to fire a guy.

They spent most of that on Bluto and his staff

OrygunAg said:

---

They spent most of that on Bluto and his staff

---

spot on!

AggieZUUL said:

---

why does NIL have to stop at the college level? Let's see this through to Pop Warner ball!

If NIL is going to stay, the money needs to be deferred until after they GRADUATE with a degree.

---

Dads of standout junior high players have received "job offers" to move towns since the 1970s, maybe longer. NIL just makes it legal. That said, NIL, portal, etc. need to be somehow regulated.

Haleyscomet50 said:

---

First team to go all in on recruits and transfers. If they win it all this year it will change the game forever. If they flame out and don't win it all maybe it will pump the breaks on spending. Spending big on next years class as well so will see.

---

Brakes

General Jack D. Ripper said:

---

Ask yourself whether your interest in Aggie football has gone up or down since NIL started.

I have been a rabid Aggie fan ever since my first game as a freshman. I thought college football was the greatest sport. However, my interest has waned considerably since NIL. New stories like this will only accelerate my disinterest. So, no it's not sustainable.

---

We have no connection like we did. The connection was because they were our fellow students/Aggies. They didn't come to A&M for money. They came because they liked something about the university: people representing us (staff), our commitment to excellence on the field, culture, history, campus., whatever... That's gone with NIL. I'll still watch because of the A&M logo on the helmet, but its not the same anymore.

General Jack D. Ripper said:

---

Ask yourself whether your interest in Aggie football has gone up or down since NIL started.

I have been a rabid Aggie fan ever since my first game as a freshman. I thought college football was the greatest sport. However, my interest has waned considerably since NIL. New stories like this will only accelerate my disinterest. So, no it's not sustainable.

---

Honestly, this is the reason I dropped my stars after a decade and quit following the day-to-day of Aggie football. It wasn't worth the time and investment anymore. Looch and Co. put out a great product. It just wasn't for me due to the portal and NIL.

I think this NIL will be more short lived than many think. And I think because there is just no payoff to it. People like to compare it to pro athletes getting endorsements and things like that, so why shouldn't these kids, but it's a totally different thing. I think it may have initially been intended to be like that, but has morphed into something far from the original idea.

Let's look at the endorsement side of things for pros, because I think this was where the heart of NIL was meant to be. How many pro athletes have endorsements? Especially football players since you don't know their faces behind the helmets, and their gear they are wearing isn't daily use type of stuff. It's not nearly as many as you may think. Some players transcend the facemask, especially for local market businesses being able to use them, but it's not EVERY player on the team. Basketball and golf can make the endorsement things work better because basketball is selling the shoes, and the shoes the basketball players wear in game are the same ones kids wear to school. Golf, many people buy the clubs and other gear associated with a player, even though 99% of the time the pros clubs are so custom and modified they bear no resemblance to what you are buying at Dick's. But also their clothes. How many men wear basically gold attire to the office on a regular basis?


Back to football endorsements. There are a few bigger than the game type players, like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes, etc, with big endorsement deals. But if I am the business paying for their endorsement, I expect a return on that endorsement. If Tom Brady is paid 6 figures to eat my company's potato chips and say how good they are, but I don't see a marked improvement in the sales of my chips, I am not going to continue to pay Tom Brady to eat my chips. Maybe I find someone else to pay, or maybe I decide that athlete endorsement wasn't a viable strategy for my product. BUT, I am not paying Tom Brady just to be on my hometown team. That is what NIL has become. Collectives are putting up money just for the kids to be on the team. With no repercussions if they do or don't end up playing, and it's not tied to my business in most cases, so I am not getting any return on that endorsement investment. That's the part of NIL that I think will ultimately do it in sooner rather than later.


People who have millions of extra dollars lying around to put into NIL collectives didn't get to a position to have all those extra millions by being stupid with their money. Putting it into buying a college football team is stupid. Now it's still new and fun, so there is a decent sized pool to get money from. And I think it's substantially more prevalent at A&M for a couple of reasons. One of those being we have a huge school, with a huge alumni base, with a lot of wealthy alums, and we have no hardware to speak of in football for nearly 100 years. Our wealthy alums are hungry for a winner, and are willing to do what it takes to buy that winner. Seeing the same thing with Ole Miss right now, they are all in for a winner right now. But if it doesn't pan out, and 3-4 years down the road, I've dumped millions into this thing, my business hasn't benefitted at all like if I would have put that money into JJ Watt single a jingle on the radio about my Ford dealership, AND we haven't built/bought a winner, I'm not going to keep giving, at least to the level I was. And for the schools that already have been winners, are their fans and rich alums hungry enough for a winner they will pony up? Or for the smaller schools with not so rich alums? Maybe somewhere like Alabama or USC, with their winning traditions will have years where their alums want to get it back to where it was and will kick in more than normal, but will it be long term or sustainable? Or just a short term, tired of being beaten by Auburn or UCLA so we kick it up a notch to get one back on them?

Ultimately, I think it is just the return on the money spent. There may not be a price tag to some donors on the glory of a championship, and they will keep spending until it happens, but I think those are few and far between.

Now, if NIL does get some rules around it, or it shifts more towards being business endorsements where I can get something back for the money I'm putting up, which like I said is what I think it was supposed to be, then maybe it will survive. But with so many major universities in small(er) towns and communities, how many businesses in those places can afford to keep up? Much of the wealthy Aggie alums aren't in consumer businesses, they are energy folks. Are you going to get more business for your oil field services contractor operation because there is a billboard in Houston with Connor Weigman on it beside your logo? You might even lose some business. One advantage the pros have is it is tied to the city, or the state. Aggies, horns, owls, cougars all can get behind a Texans player supporting someone's business. But universities divide within the cities, not everyone in Houston is an Aggie or a horn, so it wouldn't be as effective.

I don't know how they could do it without college ball becoming some kind of mini pro league with agents and CBA's and unions, but that seems like the only logical direction, because then this stuff can be out in the open and contractually based. Remineration based on performance, years of service, results, etc. Leave for somewhere else and you owe us buyouts. Things of that nature. I would hate to see it get there. As another poster above mentioned, this current trajectory I think is causing interest to wane in the sport. I think it's still too new to get a good metric, but 5 years from now, who knows.

I tend to think I am a sports target demographic. I'm a 40 something, married with children, college graduate, with a little extra discretionary income available. Since childhood, I have loved college football. Much more than NFL. I love my team and my school, I love hearing the bands in the background, the school rivalries, all that kind of stuff. But as all of this has gone on, my outlook on the sport has soured significantly. I used to be a get up at 7am Saturday, put it on GameDay, watch all the way up to kickoffs, watch any and all interesting games all day, regardless of when the Aggies played, all the way up through the PAC after dark games late Saturday night. Now, I will still put on GameDay, but not religiously, and mostly just for background noise while the family gets up and about and we get our day going. And I don't watch all the games. Very few in fact. Mostly, I just watch the Aggie game, nothing before or after. I just don't have any interest anymore. I liked knowing the players, and seeing them progress up through the years. I liked when they would introduce the players in the beginning and it would show what their hometown was. Maybe it was the same as mine, or a neighboring town, or rival, or whatever. Now, it may be some kid from Trenton, NJ who I've never heard of because he is a junior who just transferred to A&M via Maryland for $1M who has no ties to anything and won't be on the team next year. That's not any fun. If I want that, I'll just watch the NFL.

That's just my $0.02, now I'll hop off my soapbox.