UM alumnus pays for 100+ students to go to Indy
Very cool story. More than 100 members of the Maize Rage will be able to take a bus and get a ticket for the game on Saturday with the expense covered. It definitely crossed my mind that when I was in school, there's no way I would miss this game but also no way I'd be able to afford it (especially with hotel prices). We only had to worry about B1G Basketball Tournaments in those days, a far more manageable expense.
As the kid says in his tweets, "WE ARE MAKING THIS A HOME GAME"
https://twitter.com/SpencerTreyWood/status/1466072227678502918
December 1st, 2021 at 1:53 PM ^
Absolutely incredible act! heard the same guy has donated a lot to small businesses too through the pandemic. Seems like a great person.
December 1st, 2021 at 7:56 PM ^
That guy also irresponsibly convinced a lot of people to invest in a wildly overpriced stock for the memes before he sold his position so let’s not canonize him yet
December 1st, 2021 at 1:53 PM ^
I was wondering how this would get posted...
December 1st, 2021 at 1:58 PM ^
AWESOME!!!!! BEAT IOWA!!!
December 1st, 2021 at 1:59 PM ^
Yeah, nobody wants to mention who the alumnus is? LMAO! It's Portnoy!!!!! GO BLUE!!!!
December 1st, 2021 at 2:51 PM ^
Not a big Portnoy fan but this is awesome.
December 1st, 2021 at 3:34 PM ^
Agreed. Not a fan of the person, fan of this deed.
December 1st, 2021 at 2:08 PM ^
Good for him and cool thing to do for the Michigan students. He can be charitable and still be a complete douche at the same time. The Sackler family have donated billions of dollars to the arts and charities, and well, you know the rest. Philanthropy is good, but it is also a way very rich people can launder their name and reputation.
December 1st, 2021 at 2:19 PM ^
"but it is also a way very rich people can launder their name and reputation".
The "but" nullifies the "Philanthropy is good" part. Your sentence makes it sound a bad thing. I am curious whether I am reading your sentiment correctly.
Shouldn't the (very) rich people give away/donate/spend their money to benefit folks who are not so rich?
December 1st, 2021 at 2:32 PM ^
I don't see why it can't be both. Philanthropy can be abused by the very rich. Portnoy making this donation is the equivalent of me donating $100 to a cause. The philanthropy part is good. The bad part starts when people start lionizing and celebrating very rich people for making donations (which will have a very sizable tax benefit for them) while glossing over or ignoring problematic things those people have done.
Anand Giridharadas has written pretty well and extensively on this subject.
December 1st, 2021 at 2:44 PM ^
The part in the parentheses is as important as the rest of what you wrote.
Not only do donations make large tax benefits, WE the people are in effect paying for their apparent largesse. Donations enable them to pay fewer taxes, which means we have to pay MORE taxes.
However, that's about the system. Regardless of that, it's good that someone's paying 100+ students to go to the game Saturday.
Go Blue! Beat Iowa!
December 1st, 2021 at 3:02 PM ^
If Portnoy donates $1 million, that enables him to pay $500k less in taxes (assuming a 50% marginal tax rate to simplify things) which means he is still out $500k (which we can call the grand total of his "largesse"). It is not "apparent" largesse, it is $500k in actual largesse, after consideration of tax benefits. And yes, that tax benefit means that the rest of us will have to pay an extra one-hundredth of a cent "MORE" in taxes. But still not nearly as much as Portnoy, who may be a douche.
December 1st, 2021 at 3:48 PM ^
Rich people don’t pay tax rates that high. If I had to guess I would say his effective tax rate after qualifying expenses, depreciation, etc is in the 10-15% range. Not saying it’s right, just reality.
December 1st, 2021 at 4:02 PM ^
47% of the eligible tax paying populace doesn’t pay income taxes. The wealthy already pay most of the income tax. But yes, everyone should be pay same or similar effective rate.
A just and equitable tax system would be simple and without means of tax mitigation for everyone.
December 1st, 2021 at 4:43 PM ^
Billionaire's pay income taxes. It's just that their income can be defined such that most of it can be shielded. Most regular working folks can't do that. I am neither supporting nor opposing this. It is just what it is.
December 1st, 2021 at 6:38 PM ^
I realize that. We can fix that by reforming the tax code. But no, people would rather demagogue and say shit like “Eat the rich” with its murderous overtones.
December 1st, 2021 at 3:14 PM ^
It can be both if you used "and". Anytime "but" is used, it nullifies the previous part.
I haven't read Anand Giridharadas before. To remedy that I have downloaded his latest book from my local library. Interesting PoV.
December 1st, 2021 at 3:55 PM ^
Governments do the same thing something people like Anand Giridharadas either don’t understand or ignore.
Cuban government provides “free” healthcare and college education whilst also controlling the lives of citizens and gross human rights violations.
It’s almost like concentrated power is bad in all of it’s form or something.
December 1st, 2021 at 4:33 PM ^
let me direct you to the endless parade of "devos this" and "van andel that" crap in grand rapids. i'm all for those assholes giving away their fortunes, as long as they do it from their jail cells.
December 1st, 2021 at 6:36 PM ^
They should be joined by radicals activists and kooks who murders, steal, and incite with glee.
December 1st, 2021 at 2:33 PM ^
Philanthropy and examining the motives of philanthropists are both good.
December 1st, 2021 at 2:19 PM ^
Very cool, but sending members of the basketball student section to the football championship is peak Barstool logic
December 1st, 2021 at 4:43 PM ^
So true, no chance these people root for 2 sports!
December 1st, 2021 at 2:20 PM ^
Mods please ban this ASAP. We have strict rules about this and they must be followed.
/s
December 1st, 2021 at 2:53 PM ^
My daughter can’t rent a car as she and her 6 friends are only 18-19 year old freshmen. They weren’t sure how to get there so they are taking the Greyhound bus route. Leaves Ann Arbor at midnight Friday and 11 hours to get there with stops (Wowsers). No excuses, she said “dad, I’m going to that game no matter what.”
I live in Florida or would drive them myself and was just there last weekend. Love the story above, wish there were more options for the students, but if there is a WILL there is a way!!!
December 1st, 2021 at 2:59 PM ^
When I was a student, we went to the Rose Bowl my senior year. The university offered hotel packages with transportation to and from the game. IIRC, we had to get our own flights, but they may have even offered packages for those, too. I do remember the whole thing was much cheaper than if we had tried to plan the whole trip ourselves. Too bad they're not offering something similar, like chartering buses and giving students discounted prices.
December 1st, 2021 at 3:39 PM ^
.... like chartering buses and giving students free rides. They do this for high school games, no reason they can't do it for college students considering how much they pay to attend.
December 1st, 2021 at 3:02 PM ^
Lmao -- Good work on the OP.
December 1st, 2021 at 3:07 PM ^
Dave portnoy from Barstool! You legend
December 1st, 2021 at 3:35 PM ^
Don’t understand for the life of me how Portnoy gets such a bad rep. A great dude all around.
December 1st, 2021 at 4:56 PM ^
Sure, if self-promoting douche bags are your thing
December 1st, 2021 at 6:16 PM ^
We’re hating on him cause he’s self-promoting? If that’s the main complaint, yeeesh. The dude raised millions of dollars to help people during COVID and now gives 100 tickets to our student fanbase. Call me crazy, but I’ll support him.
December 1st, 2021 at 4:31 PM ^
there's a nonzero chance that that fuckhead is paying for college students to go to the game so he can scout out college-aged women to sexually assault.
EDITED to include non-paywalled stories:
https://deadspin.com/report-women-accuse-barstool-s-dave-portnoy-of-fright-1848000690
tl/dr: fuck that guy.
December 1st, 2021 at 4:42 PM ^
Honestly F Business Insider for hiding their article behind a paywall. If such a thing were true(which it is not), why would they do this? Oh....that's right, $$$$$$$. Clowns
December 1st, 2021 at 6:20 PM ^
Lol @mattyblue still trying to short his stock on mgoblog. Invest in your time and look at all the information. Not just one side, that has serious deep and moral flaws (BI)
December 1st, 2021 at 7:57 PM ^
yah, i'm sure the guy is a real sweetheart, that's why some of y'all are so studiously avoiding saying the word "barstool" and the name "portnoy."
December 1st, 2021 at 4:37 PM ^
OMG. This is wonderful and bonkers.
Go Blue.
December 1st, 2021 at 4:40 PM ^
What a generous Alumn! Shoutout to whoever that might be!
December 1st, 2021 at 4:55 PM ^
props for the "whoever that might be" line, literally two minutes before you defend this supposedly anonymous person on my comment. i guess you became an expert on a) the allegations, b) the accused, and c) his ethics in such a short period of time. impressive!
December 1st, 2021 at 5:39 PM ^
I knew who it was before I even read the post. I've followed that story for weeks, thanks for dropping in today with a random article you probably didn't read and acting like an expert.
December 1st, 2021 at 6:14 PM ^
Please calm down matty blue. We get it. You hate Portnoy and think he’s a scumbag. We get it. We’ve all got it noted now. Can we enjoy that 100+ students are going to get to go to the big ten championship for free? This is a great story and we need as many raucous fans there as possible to make it like a home game.
p.s. - we didn’t forget. We still know you hate Portnoy and think he’s a scumbag.
December 1st, 2021 at 4:56 PM ^
double post.
December 1st, 2021 at 5:12 PM ^
I remember Northwestern did something similar back in 2018, and I thought it was really cool. I think they offered it as an option for just about any student who wanted to go, that they would offer to bus them to the game and either offer them a free ticket, or a severely discounted one at face value.
I hope Michigan takes over that stadium. I'm sure plenty of Iowa fans will be there, but I also have to believe that after having never been to the BTCG before, that Michigan fans from all over the country are coming in droves to see this game. Just as long as a bunch of OSU fans who already bought their tickets don't hold onto theirs out of petty spite.
December 1st, 2021 at 5:45 PM ^
Go UM Alumnus Go!
December 1st, 2021 at 6:11 PM ^
These young folks are going to have a great time and support the team. I tip my hat to the donor and lets leave it at that. Who cares about his taxes and all that BS. Leave at he did a nice thing for the students. I remember Coach H saying "no good deed goes unpunished". Don't punish and judge this generous donor.
December 1st, 2021 at 6:57 PM ^