Michigan making moves on the NIL front!
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2022/06/10/michigan-donors-launch-champions-club-help-navigate-nil-the-right-way/7566701001/
Looking forward to donating once it's up and running with their big, anchor donors. This NIL program is going to be run with clear, audited financials and an audit committee with outsiders in it, so it's going to be done right.
Excited for this. Great work Valiant.
Soon to be playing the title role in the Lifetime original "The Jim Harbaugh Story: I'm battle-tested bayonets, bro")
I'm addicted to non-paywall stories https://www.mlive.com/wolverines/2022/06/ad-warde-manuel-nil-collectives-are-coming-to-michigan.html
UM NIL: no longer a null set.
OF THE TRANSACTIONS
WHOOOAAAAA NIL-EE!
Wait, did something happen to him?
Wait…did he die?
Don't be ridiculous!!!!
That was a great episode.
They are all great episodes l. It's the greatest show ever made
Married with Children is the greatest TV show of all time. Full stop.
Just think if Bo recruited Al Bundy. I mean 4 touchdowns in one game.
But no one, not even his family, would remember it.
You know Ed O'neill did play for Jerry Hanlon when he was in High School.
Used to come to Michigan's practice. . .
Next to the wire
I don’t know what this means. I feel like they’re trying to be different , as I’m not just straight up paying players, giving cars. Time will tell if it works
agree - doing it differently might work, but if it does not, then saying it was "right" is .. wrong!
Stripped down to its primal form it's basically this.
If you are committed & signed, or on campus and playing, you are allowed to be paid by collectives to give you the NIL money you seek or deserve.
If you are a recruit and want money to sign @ Michigan you are SOL...look elsewhere.
Warde says this is doing it the right way and follows the Harbaugh narrative of transformational as opposed to transactional.
I have no opinion here, just showing it in its simplicity, although it's all transactional no matter how you dress it up. It's just a play on words and intent.
That's what I thought I remember reading from Harbaugh in some article a little while ago. That when you got on campus and were a member of this team, he wanted you to feel empowered to utilize NIL to its fullest potential, but if you were just coming in with the mindset of "pay me X amount and I'll come play for you," then he essentially said this program isn't for you and you should go somewhere else.
I'm a bit like you, not entirely sure how I feel about that. I believe Harbaugh is coming from a good place with it, but like you said, this is all transactional in some form. Whether a kid looks at it as thinking he's getting the money upfront, or he just talks to a booster after he gets on campus and gets the deal then, he's still getting the deal. Just depends on how you look at it.
I guess Harbaugh is trying his best to weed out the kids who are solely looking to play for the highest bidder, because then you can legitimately ask how much he really cares about the program he's going to, the guys he'll play with, the coaches he'll play for, and I get that.
I wonder how some of these kids will handle things when they find out that they are expected to win games. C.J. Stroud may like having a new high performance car every month but the shine on that may fade quickly when he finds out he is expected to have wins along with that.
You don't think high level athletes don't want to win intrinsically? These guys don't become 5 stars just due to genetic lottery.
I think that comes down to what the total compensation is. If A&M is handing you 500k to sign and then once you get in you make 50k per year but M is giving you 0 to sign, but you then get 200k per year, I would think that most kids will go after the 200k option. If we're on equal footing with A&M or not substantially less on a per year earnings, then A&M is going to grab the kids by being willing to give them money just to sign. I think the success of this program is how much we are able to incentivize the transaction after signing. A education at M is great, and you can probably show stats that show future earnings impact, but what else do we need to be offering to compete?
The "transformational" BS is the saddest NIL-era recruiting pitch ever. The kids who are worthy of NIL money right out of HS are hoping to play only the mandatory three years of college football and go to the NFL. It's a mandatory experience. The only thing transformational for them is a big wad of cash that they can get at college now instead of having to wait to (hopefully) get it from the NFL. "Transformational experience" is some crap you could try to pitch when money wasn't in the equation bc you needed to find something to convince kids not to go to warm weather colleges or whatever.
Unless you are clearly going to have the most money and bid whatever you want for players, you are going to be competing with lots of teams that are willing to throw out money. To be successful, you’ve got to differentiate yourself somehow. If you don’t have year round nice weather, actual BCS championships, or Jesus on your side, you’ve got to find something else. The challenge for Harbaugh is that he just made the challenge of their is something better about the Michigan way a much harder sell after trying so hard to leave Michigan.
It is a good point RobM and I agree with your take (other than you only have to be 3 years removed from high school, it has nothing to do with how much time you play in college).
But here's the rub; If Michigan would go full Texas A&M, and if the NCAA gets off there worthless asses and they begin puppet investigations in an effort to flex muscles to find someone to make an example out of, I can guess where they start...Michigan.
I can see it both ways, but the unfortunate reality is we are on the side lines to let OSU, SEC, pick your team etc...to go across the rickety rope bridge first.
I have no clue if this is Michigan's thinking, but if it's not, we will be pulverized if we don't follow suit over that bridge.
Our experiences attending UM must have been pretty different, because I consider mine to have been transformational.
As a normal student, yes, it can be a transformational experience. For HS athletes who are good enough to get NIL money to play football, the transformation was when they became good enough to make money playing football. The experience of playing football at Michigan isn't more "transformational" than playing at Notre Dame, Ohio State, TAMU, or anywhere else. It's a lame pitch in my opinion -- as if Michigan is so much better than other great schools like USC or ND who are doing just fine with facilitating the regular "non-transformational" method of shelling out legal money to football players.
The experience of playing football at Michigan isn't more "transformational" than playing at Notre Dame, Ohio State, TAMU, or anywhere else.
yes, it is, or it can be if you recruit kids capable and interested in the transformation. i’ll take kids who come to michigan for the transformation all day.
Suuuuuch a bad take. Very few guys are ready to play in the NFL coming out of HS regardless of their talent. They still need to transform significantly over those three years. And it's exactly the guys who think they're entitled to the NFL without putting in the work to transform that we don't want.
I love the message.
And yes, players should also get paid what they're worth, but their primary focus should be getting better.
If you've ever hired anyone and all they care about is what they're getting paid, that's a major red flag. The best employees want to work on interesting problems, develop their careers and be part of a great company first and foremost. And those are the employees you want to then take care of financially.
That part is important - Michigan should strive to have a reputation of being the place where you get paid extremely well, like Google or Goldman or McKinsey. But those companies don't lead with the pay while recruiting, they don't even talk about it until it's time to make an offer. They talk about working on super interesting problems as part of the best teams in their respective fields because they want the people that care about those things.
I think Harbaugh's spot on here (and they need to make sure they're paying their stars a ton when they get here and prove themselves).
Kids who are good enough to make NIL money right out of HS are the ones who have day-1 NFL aspirations. You don't need NIL money for the kids who aren't good enough for it -- the system takes care of itself. Could there be a Ronnie Bell level recruit who Michigan recruits and transforms into a great player? Sure. But that's not who we're talking about here. We're talking about the kids who you need NIL money for just to get them to campus. And those kids will have a goal of making the NFL in 3 years. They don't care about character building, becoming a man, or any of that BS. Money and football are what matter. Michigan is trying to dress it up to be something it isn't, and it just sounds pompous. What can Michigan legitimately offer a 4* or 5* football recruit that Stanford, Notre Dame, Texas, USC, or a couple dozen other schools can't? What is this transformational experience that they speak of, that others can't offer? To me, it sounds like trying to convince an NFL player to take a hometown discount. This is football, not normal college, or normal business. Football has always been about going to where you can make the most. The NFL has always been that way, College Football was largely that way in the past (illegally), and now moving forward College Football will become that (legally). Michigan is just shooting itself in the foot, especially with the alumni network, donors, and money that they could have working in their favor just like Texas, TAMU, and others.
We're talking about the kids who you need NIL money for just to get them to campus.
I'm not exactly sure who you are talking about here, but yeah, Harbaugh is saying we don't want you if you feel entitled to be paid before you've even come to campus and there is nothing wrong with that, IMO. To me, this sounds like saying, we're not interested in paying you a big signing bonus, come and work hard and you'll be rewarded handsomely (again, this is critical - there can't be a discount, there has to be a big reward for the best players).
I'm going to assume you're talking about all five stars or all top 100 players or all top 250 players, but I don't think all of them need NIL money just to get them to campus, if they know they'll be highly compensated once they get here.
If Michigan is place where its stars make $2M a year, I think plenty of four and five stars would accept that challenge and bet on themselves rather than take an offer of $500,000 just to enroll (again, it's critical that our stars are very highly compensated). And make no mistake paying guys simply to enroll takes money away from what you could be giving your stars. I don't think I need to tell you that not all four and five stars do well so you'll end up wasting a lot of money paying guys that never pan out.
This is what JJ said about their pitch per Angelique: “If the kid wants to be here and he wants to play and work hard, we’re welcoming him in with open arms. But if he wants a check, he’s fine going somewhere else.”
JJ is either really drinking the kool-aid or he believes that guys would be willing to bet on themselves by coming to Michigan. That not all good players need money before matriculating.
ALSO, this ignores transfers. Guys like Ronnie Bell do matter here. They might not need money to enroll but they'll need money to keep them around (like Ryan Day saying they need $13M to keep the team together). As in the real world, better to pay proven players (your own or others) than to pay unproven players, especially when demanding to be paid upfront is a red flag that you might not want to work to earn it.
This is normal business. That's exactly what it is now. You are irrationally caught up on some idea that "transformational" is non-football related. It's exactly what JJ said: playing and working hard. You seem to have no understanding for how far HS kids need to improve their football to get to the NFL. Even the best ones have to be willing to transform from a HS player to an NFL one.
And yes, Michigan doesn't really offer anything football related that other top programs don't offer but if they pay their stars more than other schools (which again is a must and is easier if you're not wasting money on unproven guys), the bet is that they'll get guys to self-select into the program that are confident they'll be stars and are willing to work for it.
Or maybe JJ comes from a situation where money isn't a pressing need. But why does wanting money need to have a negative feeling about it? If a recruit wants to make sure he's in a situation where money will be on par with the competition, I'd say that's a smart recruit. Who doesn't do that is a job or business transaction? Why keep pretending that any of this is about college and the college experience, when we all know it's a big business?
Michigan is treating this whole thing as if recruits need to prove that they are worthy of Michigan, and if they prove themselves then NIL will be there for them down the road. But that isn't reality. With NIL, the school needs to prove they are worthy of the player. The player already established their value by being a top recruit. We need them, they don't need us. Which is honestly how it should be. It was a crooked system for way too long.
"Transformational experience" , "Michigan Man", "NIL the right way", and all of that needs to go. It's a business that took advantage of players, and now the players have the power. They shouldn't feel bad about asking for money, and if you exclude those kids, then that's a very dumb approach. The recruiting results so far have shown that to be true.
Man, you still just don't get anything I'm saying.
Of course, guys that play for Michigan need to make great money. Don't know how many times that needs to be said. Hence the comparison to Google, Goldman, McKinsey, etc. Those firms pay really well but they don't lead with the pay, they lead with the developmental opportunities you get. Which helps them get the character of workers they want.
Jared Wangler said about the collective: "And it’ll be known that if you come to Michigan, you have potentially the highest NIL earning opportunity.”
That's a must.
And there's nothing wrong with expecting to get paid what what you're worth. But again, if you've ever hired anyone, you'd understand that if a candidate is merely going with the highest bidder and not considering (or caring about) things like fit, developmental opportunities, etc. then he's probably not the best hire. Pay has to be competitive but once you're in the same range, you have to care about the fit.
Yeah, I think this really gets at the heart of it. As an employer, you can't/don't want to rely on always outbidding other people for talent, so you have to have a hook/recruit for culture. That being said, you have to at least be in the general range of everyone else in ultimate money. I think of my job now, and I don't necessarily believe there are not other jobs that wouldn't pay more, but I like my boss and the work I do is fairly enjoyable, so I'm not looking to jump ship.
I think the concern some people have, whether well-founded or not, is that Michigan will go the "non-profit" route, where they try and say "Well sure we won't pay you what other people will, but you're working for a CAUSE". Obviously some people really go for that, but many people do not.
I guess as of now we don't really know if that's the plan or not, but I think that's the concern.
Exactly. Michigan can't get by on the cheap here. Can't say that enough. So guys that are here need to be making a lot. But they also can't just get into bidding wars before guys get on campus, IMO.
Yeah - I figure if you visit and the top guys on the team are clearly well compensated- then you’ll be excited if your a top guy who is truly looking to be part of something great.
It will be interesting to see what A&M’s money truly buys them. We’ve all seen dysfunctional top talent teams underperform. Especially bag recruited Ole’ Miss, etc.
Yes, exactly. A&M might have a good class on paper but...we'll see. They need to work and develop and have the right chemistry, etc.
If recruits are just thinking about getting that initial wad of cash, then fine but imo they're doing it wrong. Sure it's nice to have that wad of cash at 17 years old, but you only make a little in college, and then maybe get to the NFL--but here's the key is that every solid recruit is not going to spend 10 years in the NFL and make generational wealth (or even enough to set up their own life). We've all heard of the short lifespan of a pro career, the non-guaranteed contracts etc. If they were smart, they should be trying to get some of that "transformational" because that's what's going to sustain most of them throughout their entire lives (not just the couple years before and maybe a couple of years in the NFL if they're lucky and really good).
What years did you attend Michigan?
Something positive from DetNews about Michigan? Things must have changed. Excited about this and hope we can fire our money cannon to the fullest extent.
You dissing Angelique?
EDIT: This was intended as a response to UMForLife.
No -- the Freep is the shit paper in Detroit. Sample:
That'll draw the Sparty fans!
Less click-baity DetNews version:
That'll draw the Sparty fans
…also a nonzero portion of this here board, unfortunately.
Fuck the Freep!
Agreed. Same goes for Detnews.
Both outlets have a writer that will occasionally show Michigan in a good light, but generally both outlets will shit on UM every chance they get.