I think Miami boosters should start a NIL collective to support our student athletes. I believe this will help us recruit and retain talent. In order to gauge interest in an NIL collective at Miami, please answer two poll questions below.
Note: This poll is anonymous.
On top of what you currently donate to Miami athletics, approximately how much would you donate to a RedHawk NIL Collective (annually)?
$0
$100
$250
$500
$1,000
$5,000
$10,000 or more
0voters
If you selected an amount other than $0 for question #1, which sports would you direct your donation? (Select all that apply.)
About a year ago (maybe a little more), I asked the Athletic Department if we had a collective. Their response was “we have not received a significant amount of interest from donors or supporters about creating a collective”.
Then over the summer I spoke to someone within the basketball program if there were any plans to get a collective going and they hinted at some other initiatives to get the bball players some kind of compensation. This was obviously the Niccol family gift, which is great but still not a formal collective.
I would be interested to hear what our current status is as Chuck mentioned something about NIL towards the end of football season.
In 24 hours, we have 32 people on this board who are willing to donate over $22,000 to an NIL collective. While this is not a ton of money, it is a starting point! I am most encouraged that over 70% of responders are willing to donate. It seems the critics of NIL are the loudest voices on this board, but there is a silent majority on here who supports NIL.
To answer some questions, I have no idea who would manage this fund. I would nominate @Nickskin but I know he’s a busy guy.
But I plan to leave this poll open for about a week to give people time to respond. I then plan to send the results to the AD and see what he says.
In particular this section at the bottom is relevant:
If a lower resourced program wanted to provide direct, meaningful financial support to college athletes, I believe the best way would be to provide fully funded Alston awards first. That money comes directly from the institution, is predictable, and can be funded by donors. It will also (often) be a bigger paycheck for each athlete than they could hope to earn from a collective.
If a school doesn’t have the donor support to pay for Alston awards, I struggle to see how a collective would be able to finagle enough donor money to make a competitive difference. I’d recommend walking before running, even if that makes coaches and message boards nervous.
This is what MBB did recently. Expanding to other sports would make sense to me. It’s nice spending money for athletes, plus a lump sum at graduation. If endowed, it’s much more stable for athletes as well.
Akron started awarding Alston money in the Fall of 2023 to mens and womens basketball. Akron’s Academic Achievement Awards policy says athletes who meet the qualifying criteria while maintaining a GPA of at least 2.0 will earn $250 for the semester. Athletes who earn a GPA of at least 3.0 will earn $500 per semester.
However, if an athlete meets the criteria and enrolled as a post-baccalaureate or graduate student, then the athlete will receive $500 per semester by earning a 2.0 GPA or higher for the semester and $1,000 by earning a 3.0 GPA or higher.Akron also offers what it calls graduation awards through its Academic Achievement Awards policy.
Athletes who haven’t yet graduated with their first bachelor’s degree can earn an amount equal to their semester award that will be saved for a maximum of four years or eight semesters. When the athlete graduates, the athlete will receive the amount the athlete had earned from the graduation awards.
To earn graduation awards, Akron athletes must either graduate while a member of their team or graduate after exhausting their eligibility within their five-year eligibility clock and leave the team in good standing.
The most an athlete can earn through graduation awards is $4,000.
The key to building a strong NIL collective is really to have a few larger donors to provide some seed money that allows the collective to properly prospect for lower dollar donors.
Without a larger donor to get started, the fundraising methods/marketing are likely too expensive to make much traction.
I am familiar with the preople organizing some of collectives that have been successful and those who are struggling to gain traction.
The other key is to look how the University of Georgia formed theirs and use it as the model for Miami. Cause if Miami University administration has their hands in it, it’ll be a bunch of IOU’s for expenses outside of paying athletes.
University administration involvement is a double edged sword. Without them it takes a great deal of resources to identify the likely donors. It is possible to do but a heavier lift than situations where the university is giving alumni lists, etc.
There’s a vote coming in April I believe that will allow for Univ involvement in NIL. That’s where it makes sense given the donor and corporate contacts and relationships already residing there. Collective type activity will still be important regardless of rev share, etc. to gain advantage.
The structure for a football NIL is being formed as we speak. A former football alum will be running it - more details to come, but football has basically built this - so we will all have the opportunity to contribute soon.
I would love to be in contact with them about different ways to raise money. I am involved in the tech end of political outreach/fundraising and know that there are a number of political firms getting into this world and charging substantially for their services.
My understanding is the the NIL collective being formed will focus on player retention, not on rolling the dice on outside transfers coming in. But that is just the speculation at this point - it does seem like a smart strategy - use the modest collective to keep some from jumping. And alumni can better get behind supporting retention of players they know. If a player would truly prefer to stay at MU, then maybe you do for say $25k instead of jumping on $75k from a P5. The key is for Miami to have something to offer at least.
