Hoping someone can explain NIL deals to me in regards to if certain schools spend more money than others and how Alabama compares to other schools in terms of how much money they are spending compared to other schools. It just seems like FSU is throwing money around a lot more.
The terminology gets mixed, and I'm lazy about how I post about it myself, but there's NIL and then there's Collectives. For NIL, a player gets paid (supposed to) for using his Name, Imagine, Likeness.... doing ads for businesses, paid promotions, paid interviews, signing autographs, clothing deals, etc... It can literally be any number of things. Collectives are things like Yea Alabama, where fans/boosters/companies donate money into a pot that is then distributed by the school. Schools with tons of wealthy boosters (Texas, Texas A&M for example) have very healthy collectives. There's also schools that get a nice influx of money from companies... (UGA has Delta, Chick-fil-A, Coke... Arkansas has Walmart, JB Hunt, Tyson...). Schools like Alabama don't really have a big corporate backing, nor do they have an abundance of mega wealthy boosters, so they rely heavily on the average fan to donate.
The other part is, different schools have different strategies in how they distribute the money. Texas and Texas A&M for example, throw a ton of money at guys, and there are significant differences in how much some guys get compared to others... like an MLB roster. Other schools, (and Bama falls in this bucket) go with a more sustainable and "fair" approach of
mostly giving guys a standard amount. And again, that's from the collective. The players have no real limit on what they can earn with NIL as long as it is approved by compliance. So when Jalen Milroe and Terrion Arnold came up with the LANK apparel idea in the NIL Advantage Center at the stadium (a classroom like area used by athletes to build and enhance their NIL opportunities), they were free to earn however much they could on it. Toward the end of the year, they began to share profits with the entire team when customized apparel became an option. But for example, Milroe could sign a deal with a dealership or a restaurant, advertise for them, and make more money (like he did with Rhoback). Some NIL deals are pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but others pay really, really well.
