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NIL - Middle Tennessee

JohnDavidBlue

All American
Sep 10, 2005
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What would be the consensus of interest on this board to get something going for Middle Tennessee? Would there be any interest in this group in starting a NIL organization?

Would be a fun side project to start and see where it goes. Initially, my thoughts are for something like this to be something where 100% goes to the student athletes as in, as long as no one makes money on this except for the ones playing the game, I'm interested.

Could get some talks going soon if there is interest in getting our own framework up and going. Thoughts?
 
I’m willing to give a little $$$ but I admittedly don’t have the time to do much more.
 
What would be the consensus of interest on this board to get something going for Middle Tennessee? Would there be any interest in this group in starting a NIL organization?

Would be a fun side project to start and see where it goes. Initially, my thoughts are for something like this to be something where 100% goes to the student athletes as in, as long as no one makes money on this except for the ones playing the game, I'm interested.

Could get some talks going soon if there is interest in getting our own framework up and going. Thoughts?
Isn’t one of the site managers an insurance salesman? Maybe we start an advertisement fund and target current/future player.

I see UGA players on billboards for lawyers around Atlanta now all the time.
 
Need to do something. I fear we are going to lose a player like Lenard and THEN the NIL $$ will flow. Why wait and lose a COY type of talent before doing something ? We need to be proactive here, not reactive.

it is shocking to me the local businesses are not all over this. Shocking.
 
We 100% will not keep Lenard without an NIL deal. The allure of going Power 5 and getting cash in his pocket will be an easy choice. We have to at least match the cash in pocket.
 
I'm looking at starting a NIL non profit. Talking to a lawyer tomorrow to understand liability. It really looks pretty simple on the front end.

Good article here: https://www.thechampaignroom.com/20...student-athletes-fighting-illini-ncaa-big-ten

you are a good man sir. Report back and let us know what you find out.

I still believe the murfreesboro business community needs to step up. MTSU built this city. It’s time to give back and show some respect.
 
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Any idea what Fantheon actually does? Tried gathering it from their Twitter but couldn't. They have a ton of schools and specific school sports under contract. But are they a facilitator or fund or????

 
Had a good talk yesterday, however, self admittedly, this lawyer was not concentrated in sports management. I am seeing if a local NIL lawyer will talk to me for a small time or as a consult. Calling today.

it did come up that with something like this, you need accounting, a non profit/or profit, a group of committed people, and stewardship.

There are multiple ways to approach this. As in, it could something small where someone’s business brokers NIL contracts l. What I am inquiring is something that manages deals and money allocated to NIL contracts.
First blush for me is…not the season of life for me. 😂
 
I feel the same. I don’t have the bandwidth to start something from scratch but maybe there is a group here who does. Or maybe one is developing.
I would love to kick in some dollars. I hate to say it but I feel like that would be better than braa contributions at the micro level.
fwiw, I'm good for kicking in a few bucks. If enough of us kick in a little, it just might help a little in letting one or two of these players know their hard work has at least a little extra appreciation.
 
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I feel the same. I don’t have the bandwidth to start something from scratch but maybe there is a group here who does. Or maybe one is developing.
I would love to kick in some dollars. I hate to say it but I feel like that would be better than braa contributions at the micro level.
Might help sway some fringe P5 qbs to give us a go.
 
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Bouncing this thread back up. Interesting article but this quote caught my eye.

“It’s totally changed recruiting,” Kiffin said. “I joke all the time about it. Facilities and all that. Go ahead and build facilities and these great weight rooms and training rooms but you ain’t gonna have any good players in them if you don’t have NIL money. I don’t care who the coach is or how hard you recruit, that is not going to win over money.”

This to me is the essence of why it's time for CRS to go. To build NIL with local companies, we have to have a relationship with said companies. Rick just isn't a run around town hype type of person. Without that persona at the helm, we are just going to fall farther behind.

Our new facilities are needed. Not saying that. Build Blue just gets us to where we should've been 5 years ago. But once they are done, a staff overhaul is needed and NIL is why.


Big-time college football programs used to spend millions on facilities to entice players. Now, they can just pay them directly.
 
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Facilities (or perceived lack thereof) are not our biggest problem.

Bill Clark is 49-26 after 5 seasons at UAB with CUSA titles in 2018 and 2020. He did it in just two years after bringing a program back from the ashes while playing in a dump shell of Legion Field and practicing in 20 year old facilities. He even made $300,000 less than our guy in 2018.

Our guy has complained about facilities for years while still cashing $900,000 checks.

There’s another guy who did the same thing at Memphis and was paid very well to be quiet and stay out of Calipari’s business. He also cashed $900,000 checks and didn’t complain publicly about facilities until the day he got fired primarily, for losing twice to Stockstill among other things. Memphis even paid him for three more years after he was canned. Fact.
 
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There’s another guy who did the same thing at Memphis and was paid very well to be quiet and stay out of Calipari’s business. He also cashed $900,000 checks and didn’t complain publicly about facilities until the day he got fired primarily, for losing twice to Stockstill among other things. Memphis even paid him for three more years after he was canned. Fact.

What a loser that dude is.

I wonder where he is today and what program he's loafing about, running into the ground.
 
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What a loser that dude is.

I wonder where he is today and what program he's loafing about, running into the ground.
Well….…….
He was 15-36-2 lifetime as a DC and 3-21 at his last two stops between Memphis and Murfreesboro. What’s really sad is one of those 3 wins for UAB in 2011 was against Memphis and they were still paying him. The genius AD at Memphis guaranteed those remaining 3 years owed with no offset if he took another job.

84-96 as a Head Coach so he’s probably where he belongs. Right in the Middle at Middle. 😂😂

Coaches and their agents will forever continue to ask for more money, facilities and contract years. It’s what they do. An AD, Univ. President or both who give away the store get the mediocre returns and results they deserve while the fans and school suffer for it.
 
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A Texas Tech booster group for NILs is giving 100 football players and their womens bball team $25,000 each per year. That’s apparently in addition to the 240 NIL deals TTU athletes had signed prior to that.
 
For those interested, I believe GBR announced something regarding NIL in the last few weeks.
 
A Texas Tech booster group for NILs is giving 100 football players and their womens bball team $25,000 each per year. That’s apparently in addition to the 240 NIL deals TTU athletes had signed prior to that.

That school has more $ than they know what to do with. The new FB facility they recently announced is amazing. Be one of the nicest in the country. At Texas Tech of all places.
 
Getting it started for businesses. Hopefully they will expand for individuals much like WVU Country Roads Trust.



 
Wiley's month of March statement about Lenard being courted by power 5's is dead on. If you go back a few weeks to listen to George Plaster podcast with Massaro he talks MT & NIL. Plaster stated we have a rising sophomore basketball player with approximately 15+ power 5 schools strongly interested if an anticipated breakout year occurs. Name not brought up, but pretty obvious who the subject was about. Lenard will be hard to keep without a nice little NIL package.
 
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A Group of 5 vs. Power 5 NIL analogy if you don't mind. As a young man I had an $8/hour job. A bigger competing company offered me $15 for a similar job. Liked my old job, really Iked my old friends & mgmt. My company couldn't match it, but they wanted me to stay & came up with $11/hour. I took it & stayed another happy 3 years. That's how I see the NIL. No way can we offer Lenard or a Boldyreva 50k -100k like P-5's, but that may not be necessary. If they truly enjoy it here & would like to stay with friends & coaches they've developed relationships with huge money may not be everything. A smaller deal, but enough to show a little care & respect could make all the difference. One thing for sure. If we're going to do it, better come up with something before end of season next March
 
Regardless, we can't compete financially with Power 5 schools so think we just need to expect it.
 
Wiley's month of March statement about Lenard being courted by power 5's is dead on. If you go back a few weeks to listen to George Plaster podcast with Massaro he talks MT & NIL. Plaster stated we have a rising sophomore basketball player with approximately 15+ power 5 schools strongly interested if an anticipated breakout year occurs. Name not brought up, but pretty obvious who the subject was about. Lenard will be hard to keep without a nice little NIL package.

I would have loved to have been wrong but it would be very naive to think someone won’t try to poach him (and others) from a mid major like us. Lenard is very raw with plenty of holes in his game but his athleticism is as good as any bodies in the country and you simply can’t teach that. If he does continue to develop and fills those holes in his game he would be a bonafied NBA prospect. Coaches see the potential plus the fact he’s already very good and having huge impact with the limited minutes he has gotten. He could end up being the best high school prospect to ever sign with MT. It’s going to be very difficult to keep him in murfreesboro if we don’t find a way to get some coin in his pocket. Impossible, actually. I see him entering the portal next off season if we don’t get him paid.

With transferring, It’s sad because in the past you rarely saw good G5 programs losing good players to transfer. It happened, but it was not common. Now I worry it’s going to become an epidemic and thus be basically impossible for a school like us to have a Cinderella run. The number of players in the portal is truly insane.

I just hate all this transferring. There was and still is something special to me about college athletics and players sticking with who they sign with and developing their talents over 4-5 years. Nobody wants to have a team with fresh faces all the time and their best players transferring out to bigger schools for cash grabs. That sounds like quite a nightmare actually and unsustainable. I don’t see how any fans would continue to watch or support something when you go from being a traditional respectable G5 mid-major to a glorified junior college farm system for the power 5s of the world. Unsustainable.

Thankfully, that hasn’t happened at MT yet. But I guarantee it will if some local businesses don’t step up and find some NIL deals for our teams. In the long run it’s probably a futile effort. We will never be able to compete with and match funding with power 5 schools, especially with the pathetic support from the murfreesboro community and local businesses. The surrounding community and local businesses might be some of the worst in Division 1 sports and support from those entities is not only more important than ever, it’s imperative for survival going forward.
 
No doubt, NIL for supporters of MT is a fearful thing. Share both the skeptical view of local businesses & some of our alumni base. The positive thing is statistics show over 100,000 MT alumni in Tennessee alone. Next concern is what % of those would throw their income for NIL towards schools like UT, Bama, or Ole Miss over their own university?
 
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