** QUICK NIL PRIMER ** I have had a lot of questions about this, so hopefully I can explain it briefly.
Great Stuff Halley..For those that don't do Twitter here is what Halley said:
1. A team's annual NIL budget is for the WHOLE team (85) that year, not just a recruiting class.
2. Thus, even a big budget of $15m has to be cut up 85 ways.
3. Because of this, signing a high-dollar kid in one year does NOT free up money for the next signing class. As long as that high-dollar kid is on the roster, he is eating up a part of that annual budget every year.
4. Accordingly, the amount of "free money" that a team has available for each signing class is directly related to how much cash was "saved" due to graduations or transfers out.
5. ZERO dollars from the hypothetical $15m budget are paid out BEFORE any kid signs with the school and becomes part of the team. So when you hear about what recruits are asking for, it is broken down into three future seasons: $400k/$600k/$800k (with senior season left open since none of them ever plan to stay that long these days).
6. As you can see in the example above, the kid would have to be a guaranteed All-American by his junior season to merit earning $800k, which would be about 1/20th of the whole team's budget.
7. The recent class action said that schools can pay up to $20m of NIL... but that's for every sport, male and female. Given Title IX requirements and everything, the best estimate is that a school will be able to give about $8m to Football NIL.
8. If this is correct and there is no way around Title IX, then you can see that individual and corporate donors will still be needed in order to fund a Football-only NIL of $15m every year.
9. NONE of this includes money paid to kids BEFORE they sign with a certain school, which has always been illegal but which has always taken place. Those "bag men" operate independently of the official NIL groups and do not count as part of the $15m.
10. And remember, kids are only paid NIL on a semester basis, so anyone who leaves is never paid for any time when they were not on the team. So kids like Princely and Etienne did not "steal" anything. They actually opened up free cash to help pay for incoming portal kids.
11. $15m divided 85 ways would be about $175k per year per player. Obviously some are making a lot more than this... which means that others will have to take a lot less -- or transfer elsewhere to get it.
12. The schools cannot promise any specific amount to recruits, they can only have their NIL groups talk about what other players at their position have earned in the past, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of schools completely ignore this rule. Not surprisingly, those schools many times win the recruiting battle.
13. As you might expect, every player thinks he deserves more than he is getting, so managing an 85 players roster on ANY budget is going to be a nearly impossible task. Feelings will get hurt over and over again.
14. A third-string Junior at UF who in only concerned about maximizing NIL money will ALWAYS be better off transferring out to a place where he is needed to start. That's just simple math.
15. Lastly, while $15m is a hypothetical but very healthy Football-only budget... you can see where one Mark Cuban or Jeff Bezos could easily turn their alma maters into championship contenders by donating $50m and "advertising" for 50 incoming portal transfers the following season at $1m per player. A team like Purdue could easily and instantly load up with 50 experienced superstar players. Especially if they hired someone like Belichick or Saban to come coach for a year or two.
16. It hasn't happened yet... but mark my words, it will. There are plenty of billionaires who want to see their little schools make a run for national titles.
17. When it gets to that point... all bets are off and college football as we know it will be over.
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