What Has/Will The Portal & NIL Era Do To Your Michigan Sports Fandom?
I gave up on professional sports about 20 years ago for 2 main reasons: free agency and absurdly high salaries. Those things had been around prior to that, but I had finally reached an age or place in my life where they began to outweigh my enjoyment. I’m all in favor of players’ rights to change teams in order to make as much money as they can and/or to put themselves in a place for more opportunities and championships, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t eroded my fandom to almost nothing. And Patrick Ewing’s infamous quote, “We make a lot of money but we spend a lot of money.” during the 1999 NBA lockout just reminded me of how out of touch the athletes had become from every day society from a compensation standpoint. I have a hard time investing my emotions in the Lions, Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons since then accordingly.
Unfortunately I’m starting to feel the same way about college sports. The transfer portal is basically pro sports free agency. The NIL part is making college sports/recruiting feel transactional. It’s like going to a strip club when you’re young and a girl makes you feel special. Then you see her with the next guy and realize it was 100% a transaction to her. That’s sort of how I feel about paying players to play for Michigan, and the next level is then to see them leave for another school because they paid them more. And I’m not even arguing that portal or NIL is wrong at all, I think it’s great that these athletes have freedom/choices and that they are finally receiving fair market value for what they do. But it doesn’t mean my fandom isn’t dying accordingly.
And on top of that Michigan looks to be fucking awful at both the portal and NIL while our rivals seem to be very good at those things. So we aren’t even good at the things that are killing my fandom.
How do you feel about this new era of college sports? Is your fandom bulletproof, or do you feel some level of erosion occurring as well?
I just hope Michigan takes more advantage of NIL and not let the likes of sparty out recruit us because their NIL program is better. Also, OSU is going full bore into NIL. I've read where NE and WI are opening up their NIL cannon as well. Hope we don't become a middling team in the B1G because we are not keep up with the NIL neighbors.
For me it depends on whether Michigan succeeds or not. But my Fandom is pretty much bullet proof
Man some of y’all get real mad when laborers make money
PAY. THE. PLAYERS.
They deserve it.
They will just transfer to the highest bidder... The portal combined with the NIL is not good.
Genuinely don’t get your opinions on pro sports. Salaries have blown up because of revenues blowing up. Where would you rather the money go to? The billionaire team owners?
My concern is that they will eventually rule that forcing an athlete to go to school isn’t fair and they only need to be affiliated with the university to play on the team (of course playing on the school’s football team qualifies as their affiliation). The school name will basically be nothing more than a sponsorship. The Wolverine football team sponsored by Michigan University. - That would probably end my fandom or I would start following club/intramural programs. - In most ways it sounds ridiculous or absurd, but inevitable.
It does get harder to emotionally (and financially) for me to invest in players, knowing that they have such blatantly obvious different motivations than fans regarding the school they play for, and are liable to be gone the next year for a bigger, better deal. Maybe even your team's rival?
I would not be surprised if the NIL bonanza tapers off eventually, at least in terms of the ordinary fan spending. Booster money might be a different story (especially if it is clear that it is a way of buying results), but won't it be just a way of cannibalizing money that could have gone to other (arguably better) uses for the improvement of the program and university?
I really don't get this argument that it's the players' motivations that are suspect here. Do they try to win while attending a school and not do something egregiously illegal while a student? Good - that's all that should be reasonably expected as part of the scholarship deal they've had with schools for decades. If there's some money involved on top of it so be it, but Jim Harbaugh and Juwan Howard aren't coaching at UM for free and as we've seen both would seriously consider leaving UM for different jobs if they arose. There's nothing wrong with that, and yet I rarely see this type of uproar around grown men lying to students about where they'll be next season as when the students decide to look out for their own interests.
As for NIL money, I think it'll die down a bit as people recalibrate what the market can justify but this money train has been around for decades and now that it's public I doubt it'll disappear.
My overall fandom is fine as it is. I’m excited for this coming season and look forward to going to as many games a possible.
With that, if we don’t capitalize on what NIL can bring us and we drop to the middle of the pack of the big ten because of it, then I’m out. NIL can be a major positive opportunity for us, but it seems we are “above” NIL in that it would sully our academic reputation. I hope I’m wrong,
I don't think Michigan thinks its above NIL. Not collectively, anyway.
Undoubtedly there are still a few members of the old guard who still pander to the mindset of "What would Bo do?" and say "Hey you're getting a free education, that should be enough," but Harbaugh has been very vocal about granting rights and more decision-making authority to collegiate players. My understanding is that he's one of the most pro-player coaches in the game, and NIL falls squarely into that realm. It would make no sense to me that he'd be against NIL.
What I think Harbaugh and most of the other power brokers are against, though, is being the program that straight up tells a top recruit "Hey, if I pay you X money will you come play for us?"
I think his mindset is "When/if you get here, I want to encourage and empower you to use NIL to its fullest potential. We will have these opportunities for you when/if you come to campus, and I will advocate for you to have these opportunities, but if you're solely looking to play for the highest bidder, then Michigan probably is not the right place for you, and you should go play somewhere else."
I think they are just trying to weed out recruits who are just looking at the biggest $$ deal as their deciding factor.
I think your assessment is fair, but I kinda don’t care if a recruit is just looking for the highest NIL deal. I gladly welcome them, because by the looks of it that is exactly what’s happening with all the top recruits now. Taking the “school first, NIL second” approach is clearly hurting our chances with recruits now. And with Hunter Dickinson and now Sam Webb dogging our NIL approach, then we definitely have a problem.
The good news is that it won’t impact this year (and probably the next), but if we fall behind and try to play catch-up, then we are will likely be in 5-7 year slump of mediocrity.
As for pro sports, I don't mind the money the players make, at all. I don't even pay much attention, honestly. I think they deserve it far more than the owners do.
But ... although I recognize the flaw in trying to apply the concept of "loyalty" to players, when it doesn't seem to apply much to the organizations that employ them ... I really wish there were some way of keeping players in cities longer. I hate that, in all the major professional sports, winning these days pretty much means you're going to lose *some* of your best players to free agency, forcing front offices to decide which players are most important and which are easier to lose. The concept of building to a championship (or building to a dynasty) seems almost a thing of the past.
Yes, it still happens. But not nearly as often as it used to. And ... that's a shame. And having "your" team stick together for a long time was a pleasure I think kids today may not get to enjoy very often.
As for college sports and Michigan ... I think it's just too early to tell. I think money has already significantly diminished the product (the ungodly number and length of TV timeouts in football and basketball, for instance, not to mention the price of tickets and food). And while, yes, I assume I'll always cheer for Michigan, good GOD it was fun to know you had players like Harbaugh and Anthony Carter (and Gary Grant and Glen Rice) coming back for another year or two or three, and seeing our best players jump ship immediately will be seriously disappointing.
On the other hand ... maybe that won't happen? Maybe NIL will actually help KEEP players around longer? And Michigan has, so far, benefitted from the portal much more than we've suffered from it. Mike Smith and Chaundee Brown all day, seems to me.
So ... I don't know. But if it all ends up in players leaving from Michigan immediately after garnering wide attention, or players shutting seasons down as soon as they've generated pro attention to avoid injury (which they're already doing for Bowl Games) ... that will certainly diminish the product for this Michigan fan.
The fact that players can play where they want and receive fair compensation is not going to ruin college football for me. It will still be football. It will still be young mean out there who want to represent our University.
I don't know...but it could do something.
I haven't watched an NFL game in years. Or NBA, or MLB, or any other pro sport. It's not some high and might morality or purity thing I find it dreadfully dull. I don't really know whey though exactly so it may have nothing to do with the money and free agency...maybe I just find it boring. I'm not sure to be honest.
With college I view it the same way. I don't think any of these things make me want to put a line in the sand and just give it up but will I eventually find this all boring? I don't think so but who knows.
Very, very little. This is still my alma mater. I'll always be rooting for them, and I'd be lying to you if I said it didn't sting when they lost. I won't pretend that it wasn't cathartic to watch them pummel OSU last November.
What I have dialed back on, though, was just how emotionally devoted and committed I was to the football team. And that has nothing to do with NIL. That just had everything to do with how I reacted to the 2015 MSU loss. As bad as it was to watch it, looking back on it I'm just kind of ashamed of how I reacted afterwards, and alcohol had very, very little to do with it. I just shut down and turned into an annoying, self-pitying jerk for a solid 12 hours. My wife (then girlfriend) shared her quite candid thoughts with me about how I needed to grow up and stop feeling sorry for myself over what is essentially an inconsequential football game. She was right, and what I shared above was much more the PG version of what she said.
After the 2016 OSU game, that was really the final nail in the coffin. Not on my fandom. Trust me, that's never going away. But allowing myself to get overly emotionally invested in the outcome of the game. To allow it to dictate how I carry myself before, during and after the game. I didn't turn into a jerk after the game or anything like that.
It's all just entertainment, folks. Whether Michigan beats OSU by 40 and wins the national title every year for the next decade straight or not, it doesn't change my day-to-day. I'm still needing to wake up on Monday morning, go to work, take my kid to school, pay my bills, put food on the table, all the truly important things in life.
OSU fans have to do the exact same thing. How good their football team's recruiting or NIL is don't mean a damn thing about how it affects or betters their day to day life.
TL; DR version of this: no it won't.
If anything my fandom has increased. It's way better now that the players actually putting their health at risk are getting paid rather than only everyone else in the program who wasn't putting their bodies on the line.
If someone doesn't want to play for Michigan, they shouldn't. It's that simple, I don't want to see people playing who don't want to be there. I love knowing that everyone on the field is there because that's absolutely where they want to be and nobody is there because the NCAA says they have to.
As long as they're taking classes at Michigan I will love watching them play football. (That's the only thing that would hurt my fandom, if somehow we had players who weren't actually students.)
Only one thing really changes for me and I’ll use two guys for my example: Chris Spielman and Desmond Howard. Spielman spent most of his NFL career with the lions, but when I think of him, I think Ohio State. Same with Howard, but for the obvious. To me, there will be far fewer of the “that’s OUR guy” type players since I think many will be transferring around. It just won’t be the same saying “that was our guy…for that one season anyway”. And I also suspect we’ll have fewer guys like Charles Woodson that absolutely bleed school colors around. It certainly won’t affect my enjoyment of watching or attending games, but it’ll be something lost none the less.
Go Blue!
I am on the fence. If NIL and portal were regulated, I would be more for it. As is, it is being very abused. Players are making bank without even taking a snap of college football; players are transferring to schools paying them ridiculous amounts of money...
Schools like OSU and TAMU are milking this system for all it's worth. How can teams compete with OSU who get a 5 star every day? Schools like Pitt develop players like Jordan Addison and they up and leave to USC through the portal?
The current form of CFB just makes me want to support the NFL, because at least it is fair... And if not, just stop watching football altogether.
God the pearl clutching. How boring.
It makes the strong stronger. Bottom line is if Michigan does not start ponying up the money like Ohio, Texas’s, Bamas, Penn st, msu and so on it is going to hurt in the long run. So in general I am not a fan of it.