Max
Member
Chatted today with the founder of an NIL agency, who shared a pretty interesting story about his early experience in the marketplace that may perhaps dovetail with Nick Saban’s ire… a quick 
"Last summer, end of August before football season, we got hired by a media co. to bring in between 6 and 8 SEC football players to do an appearance on their podcast network. We were asked to spend $500/wk for 15 min, to hire these student-athletes to do these podcasts.”
"We ended up bringing in a number of them -- Bo Nix being one of them. Bo was paid $500 or $600 a week, and it was like an $8,000-$9,000 deal for the semester. It was probably more than what should have been paid, but nothing crazy.”
"When I called Texas A&M, I spoke to an agent representing 3 or 4 of their players, incl 1 coming in that was a highly recruited kid. When I offered him this deal, he said, 'We are getting $5K/wk to do a 2-min radio spot on an alumni's radio station in College Station.”
“That's when the light bulb went off in my head that this is going to change very quickly, bc if kids are getting paid $50-$100K to do radio spots on some radio station in College Station, that's a joke, right? They weren't interested because their market is $5,000.”
You can certainly argue that if players can get that kind of $$ for doing a bunch of 2-min radio spots… great. But the point this agent made was… how long is this sustainable? Will those funds be replenished if A&M goes 8-4? Can you keep asking those same donors for more?
He was optimistic that the NIL marketplace would be a net positive longterm, but he thinks the market is just not tethered to any reality at this point and, in the next couple years, the well in many places will start to dry up when the ROI isn’t there.
FWIW, all of this was in response to my question: What's the market value for an avg starter? And as the lovely and vivacious @MattBrownEP wrote today… that is the trickiest question in CFB right now bc there’s limited info & those with actual data don’t want to share.
"Last summer, end of August before football season, we got hired by a media co. to bring in between 6 and 8 SEC football players to do an appearance on their podcast network. We were asked to spend $500/wk for 15 min, to hire these student-athletes to do these podcasts.”
"We ended up bringing in a number of them -- Bo Nix being one of them. Bo was paid $500 or $600 a week, and it was like an $8,000-$9,000 deal for the semester. It was probably more than what should have been paid, but nothing crazy.”
"When I called Texas A&M, I spoke to an agent representing 3 or 4 of their players, incl 1 coming in that was a highly recruited kid. When I offered him this deal, he said, 'We are getting $5K/wk to do a 2-min radio spot on an alumni's radio station in College Station.”
“That's when the light bulb went off in my head that this is going to change very quickly, bc if kids are getting paid $50-$100K to do radio spots on some radio station in College Station, that's a joke, right? They weren't interested because their market is $5,000.”
You can certainly argue that if players can get that kind of $$ for doing a bunch of 2-min radio spots… great. But the point this agent made was… how long is this sustainable? Will those funds be replenished if A&M goes 8-4? Can you keep asking those same donors for more?
He was optimistic that the NIL marketplace would be a net positive longterm, but he thinks the market is just not tethered to any reality at this point and, in the next couple years, the well in many places will start to dry up when the ROI isn’t there.
FWIW, all of this was in response to my question: What's the market value for an avg starter? And as the lovely and vivacious @MattBrownEP wrote today… that is the trickiest question in CFB right now bc there’s limited info & those with actual data don’t want to share.
