Isaiah Wong's money demands exposed college sports' complicated NIL issue

[Halldan1]

'I don't know what the solution is': Isaiah Wong's money demands exposed college sports' complicated NIL issue

There is a distinct difference between NIL rights and pay-for-play advocacy and the latter is taking over in college sports

www.cbssports.com

There is a distinct difference between NIL rights and pay-for-play advocacy and the latter is taking over in college sports​

By Matt Norlander

College sports' name, image and likeness landscape took on a grenade Thursday night when Miami guard Isaiah Wong's NCAA-approved agent went on record to make a threat, the likes of which had never been said on the record in college sports history.

"If Isaiah and his family don't feel that the NIL number meets their expectations they will be entering the transfer portal tomorrow, while maintaining his eligibility in the NBA draft and going through the draft process," Wong's agent, Adam Papas, told ESPN.

In other words: Pay up or we're out.

What took so long? Athletic directors and coaches have been griping, mostly privately, that something like this was bound to happen. That sound they heard was Pandora's Box cracking allllll the way open, its contents and potential consequences spewing across the NCAA.

"Insanity!" one power-conference coach texted within minutes of the ESPN.com story being published.

Less than 24 hours later, Wong backed off. He will, after all, not enter the transfer portal. Wong will either return to Miami or he will remain in the NBA Draft and pursue a pro career. (He's considered a fringe prospect.)

The context: Wong, who just completed his third season with Miami, helped guide the Hurricanes to a surprise Elite Eight run where they lost to eventual national champion Kansas. Fast-forward to April 23. Coveted Kansas State transfer Nijel Pack picks Miami. In a first, billionaire Miami booster John Ruiz co-announces Pack's decision while also disclosing the business terms of his transfer. Pack agreed to a two-year deal worth $800,000 — and a car — to play for Miami (Ruiz's alma mater). Never had an announcement like this been done. Obviously, Wong noticed. He'd already signed an inferior NIL deal with LifeWallet, Ruiz's company. Wong was set to make less than a would-be future teammate who didn't contribute a single thing to Miami's first Elite Eight run in program history.

Understandably, Wong wanted more. Apparently he'll be getting it. The gambit worked, even if Wong's bluff also kind of got called. This will freak out coaches even more.




Wong had the agency to leave Miami if he didn't get more money. The program was caught in the middle of this. College players aren't beholden to playing contracts because they are not professional athletes and they don't have unions. Wong holding his talent over Miami's head while engaging in a public stand-off with a billionaire who is not endorsed by or officially affiliated with Miami basketball is an NCAA nightmare. This is exactly what has so many across college sports spooked. What kind of future are we looking at here? In an unintentional way, Wong brought to light maybe the single biggest and most vexing problem facing the NCAA.

However, if you think this is an isolated incident, it's time to come out of the caves. By choosing to go public with his gripe, Wong has only exposed a reality that has existed for decades: under-the-table brokering to keep, or lure, college talent. In the here and now, what Wong is doing is no different than what is legally (though in some ways questionably) happening elsewhere, just without the publicity or transparency.

You might have missed it, but what Wong did Thursday also happened earlier in the week in much quieter fashion at Wichita State. Craig Porter Jr. averaged 7.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists for an underperforming Shockers team last season. Like most on Wichita State's roster, as the program lagged all season in NIL initiatives, Porter recently announced he was going to transfer.

Then Wichita State announced an NIL collective on Tuesday. That same day Porter announced he was staying at the school. Wonder why!

"The change of heart for Porter is directly tied to the arrival of Armchair Strategies, which has worked quickly to put together a package for him to profit on his name, image and likeness," according to a report from the Wichita Eagle.

The threat worked.

Many highly touted transfers are seeking the bag in similar fashion. Nearly a dozen sources told CBS Sports that 2022 transfers such as Kendric Davis (committed to Memphis), Norchad Omier (Miami), Tyrese Hunter, Baylor Scheiermann, Johni Broome, K.J. Williams, Kevin McCullar and Kenneth Lofton Jr. have all sought significant money deals. Although it might not be the primary reason for every one of them, the notion of being recruited to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars helped push all these high-end players into the portal. It's certainly driving their agents to be aggressive; the commission on some of these deals, sources told CBS Sports, is in the double-digit percentage range.

For these guys, the NBA is either saying 'no' or is saying 'not yet,' so, 'I need to put myself in a place to make the next best professional decision for me, and that is to transfer,'" a coach involved in recruiting one of the players above told CBS Sports. (Coaches are not permitted to speak publicly about unsigned players of theirs.)

That coach also said another one of the players mentioned above is shopping a price of $300,000 for his name, image and likeness rights to pair with his commitment to a school. Multiple sources told CBS Sports that another one of the transfers listed above has an agent who has told schools recruiting him that he believes his client deserves more money than what Nijel Pack received to play at Miami. In essence, if you are a school not willing to align yourself with a company or companies willing to pay north of $400,000 for this player, don't bother.

"It wasn't, this is how it might be. It was, 'This is how it's going to be,'" one power-conference coach who was looking to recruit that player and spoke with the player's agent told CBS Sports. "I just needed to hear it for myself."

Said another coach involved in recruiting that player: "How it went with my assistant was, 'I'm going to come in and you have to give a competitive offer of what he's worth and there will be no renegotiating.'"

Yet another player listed above, according to sources, had a representative lie to other schools about how much money he was being offered in an effort to raise that player's potential NIL deal. Three coaches involved in the recruitment conferred with each other to suss out what was happening.

"Some of this is liar's poker," one veteran coach who was previously involved in that recruitment said.

 

[Halldan1]

"This was the NCAA's worst nightmare," an NBA agent told CBS Sports. "This is the thing they wanted to avoid, and less than 12 months into this [NIL era] it's happening."

Things might get even noisier over the weekend. Players have until May 1 to officially request to enter the transfer portal and maintain eligibility at a new school for next season. More than a dozen coaches contacted by CBS Sports said they expect a crush of new names to enter the portal as the deadline approaches.

"Any kid entering the portal starting in the last 72 hours, it is 1,000% about leverage," one coach at a highly ranked program said. "What all of the sudden changed with your situation to make you do this now? It's because, in 48 hours, I have no leverage."

What has this NIL era become? In some ways and for some players it's a bald negotiation tactic that amounts to a pay-for-play scheme, which is still expressly against the rules.

It's what Wong has done. He explicitly said he wants more money to continue to play at Miami. Ruiz said Friday he's trying to make that happen. It's a contract negotiation, not an NIL sponsorship. It could ultimately — maybe — retroactively be deemed illegal by the NCAA. But who is enforcing these rules? Will they ever be enforced? Are the loopholes so large now they may as well not exist? Many in the sport believe there has to be some redistribution and redefinition of what is a pure NIL play vs. what Wong and others are doing.

For example, there's a difference between Oscar Tshiebwe being the universal National Player of the Year, assessing his iffy NBA prospects, being informed he stands to become a millionaire if he stays in college basketball, then opting to return to the open arms of everyone surrounding him at Kentucky who wants to make him a rich man. There's that … then there's Wong, who is already being paid, is now unsatisfied with his deal, and threatened to bounce.

The NCAA deserves what it's getting right now. Had Mark Emmert and the organization not rearranged deck chairs and instead tried to put policies into place years ago, college sports wouldn't be at this seismic period of change where the transfer portal, immediate eligibility and wild-wild-West NIL doings are converging at once to create volcanic levels of chaos behind the scenes. One coach relayed this story, which is both believable and potentially apocryphal: earlier this month a respected power-conference coach had two players walk into his office to ask how they would be able to earn in the neighborhood of $250,000 in NIL compensation.

The coach didn't have the answers. Best I can tell, those players, to this point, haven't found that money.

"I had a coach call me yesterday and said 'I don't even know what I'm doing," the NBA agent told CBS Sports. "I have no idea what's going on.'"

While I'm all for player empowerment, the question is worth asking: Is the current state-by-state-, school-by-school, conference-by-conference NIL model sustainable in the long run? Almost no one in college athletics believes that what is happening right now is viable for the credibility of college athletics going forward. But where are the answers? Nobody seems to have them.

"I don't know what the solution is, that's the crazy part," an SEC coach said.

Said an ACC coach: "There's no education on how we are allowed to handle this, or at least the education that's been given is awful. The way the rules are designed right now make zero sense."

All of this makes for fascinating spectacle. In some ways, it's entertaining. College basketball has a jolt into its offseason news cycle in ways that's never happened before. The Wong story broke during the NFL Draft and arguably became the No. 2 story in the midst of one of the busier sports nights of the year. Meanwhile, Miami coach Jim Larranaga got caught in the middle of a business tiff between his best potential returning player and a billionaire booster who's trying to recruit Miami basketball to a place it's never been before. He was effectively helpless. By law, he's not even allowed to engage in conversations with Ruiz about the third-party deals Ruiz is running. Sources said he doesn't — that Larranaga's turned off by everything that's happened here.

Wong's decision to go public had the feeling of a star NFL running back threatening to hold out, or an NBA player choosing to leak his trade demands through his agent and to the press. College sports has never seen this before. A new era began on Thursday night. What Wong did was more than simply and publicly choosing to play hardball with a billionaire. He exposed the system as it's forever been played in the shadows. Many in the general public and in the media have sided with player empowerment. Wong's gambit was received with mixed reviews, though cooler heads (and deeper pockets) have apparently prevailed.

How Wong's story turns out will help inform how the college sports environment will modify over the course of the spring, summer and fall. Plenty of ADs and coaches are terrified over the fact that, even though Wong balked on his transfer threat, he still will get more money out of this.

"This secondary market of finding these type of players and trying to fill out rosters by paying them off, I don't think that's what we wanted to see happen," the NBA agent said. "And I don't know if that rule will continue to be, but that's the way it is now. And until there's a cautionary tale or the NCAA changes, and if that's going to be a drawn-out process, it's our new normal for now."

On Thursday night free agency truly arrived on a public stage in college sports. It was so drastic, it had one veteran coach pining for the old days.

"Why can't we go back to how it was," the coach said. "Just have someone drop a bag, go back to when it was cheating before. I like that world."

 

[CL82]

It’s a shit show at this point. Schools now have NIL collectives that are paying kids directly and I’m talking about millions of dollars in total. All because Emert was too gutless to take a position.

When this was being debated people said “well, the kids should be able to earn some money from the rights to their names”, but many of us said without regulation it’s going to be a very thinly disguised pay for play free-for-all and that’s where we are today.

To be honest, I don’t know how college basketball survives it. Even if your school has the sponsors to be able to set up multi-million dollar slush funds, are you going to feel the same way about essentially semi pro players that you do now?

Before the genie got out of the bottle, if the NCAA had just promoted legislation that allowed students up to $20,000/year, say, of NIL money each year that probably would’ve stemmed the tide. add in a limitation that prevents this money from coming from brand new start ups and you probably have a reasonable short term solution. but now, I’m not sure there’s any going back. Things are already really bad and they’re going to get worse.

 

[SHUisNJsTeam]

At some point schools need to say ‘don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!’. If they want that kind of money let them go play in Europe and prepare for whatever NBA aspirations they may have over there.

 

[Robot_Man]

Too bad he backed off. Wong was born in Piscataway and Rutgers loves overpaying people for what they're worth. Transferring to Rutgers would have made sense for both sides.

 

[CL82]

At some point schools need to say ‘don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!’. If they want that kind of money let them go play in Europe and prepare for whatever NBA aspirations they may have over there.

Yeah, except that’s not the choice anymore. He would go to a D1 high major and still be paid. As unseemly as it is, now that it’s legal, it’s kind a tough the fault a kid, especially one coming from impoverished circumstances, looking to be paid an amount that’s equivalent to his peers.

 

[SHUisNJsTeam]

Yeah, except that’s not the choice anymore. He would go to a D1 high major and still be paid. As unseemly as it is, now that it’s legal, it’s kind a tough the fault a kid, especially one coming from impoverished circumstances, looking to be paid an amount that’s equivalent to his peers.

His peers? Who else in his high school graduating class is making that kind of coin?

 

[catholicman]

Perhaps this is why Jay Wright retired.

 

[The Crows Nest]

It’s a shit show at this point. Schools now have NIL collectives that are paying kids directly and I’m talking about millions of dollars in total. All because Emert was too gutless to take a position.

When this was being debated people said “well, the kids should be able to earn some money from the rights to their names”, but many of us said without regulation it’s going to be a very thinly disguised pay for play free-for-all and that’s where we are today.

To be honest, I don’t know how college basketball survives it. Even if your school has the sponsors to be able to set up multi-million dollar slush funds, are you going to feel the same way about essentially semi pro players that you do now?

Before the genie got out of the bottle, if the NCAA had just promoted legislation that allowed students up to $20,000/year, say, of NIL money each year that probably would’ve stemmed the tide. add in a limitation that prevents this money from coming from brand new start ups and you probably have a reasonable short term solution. but now, I’m not sure there’s any going back. Things are already really bad and they’re going to get worse.

And there goes the “don’t boo players, they’re student athletes”…now they’re professionals. Just on a lower level.
But, a professional is a professional.
Agree, could be the ruination of the sport.

 

[SHUSA]

end is near

 

[HallBall02]

NCAA bears most of the blame for this mess but IMHO politicians and Supreme Court members lit it on fire when each state started creating their own rules with most stating the NCAA couldn’t restrict pay or out a cap on it. The HailMary to the Supreme Court to create a national policy further clipped the powers of the NCAA.

Ncaa created issue with years of neglect and ineptitude but folks in power who know nothing about college athletics made it worse by their aggressive language and unique state rules.

 

[CL82]

His peers? Who else in his high school graduating class is making that kind of coin?

Well Nijel Pack obviously. There are others.

 

[CL82]

NCAA bears most of the blame for this mess but IMHO politicians and Supreme Court members lit it on fire when each state started creating their own rules with most stating the NCAA couldn’t restrict pay or out a cap on it. The HailMary to the Supreme Court to create a national policy further clipped the powers of the NCAA.

Ncaa created issue with years of neglect and ineptitude but folks in power who know nothing about college athletics made it worse by their aggressive language and unique state rules.

The devil is in the details right? The NCAA may not be able to camp individual player earnings, but they can member organization ability to participate in the postseason. Structure the rules so the limits are on member organizations, which are voluntarily a part of the NCAA, and I think you are fine.

 

[pokeyshu]

USC just pilfered Pitts and nations top returning receiver Jordan Addison with approximately a $2 million dollar NIL, Pitt is claiming tampering as he wasnt yet in the portal. All hell may be breaking loose.
Bit the Steeelers drafted well.

 

[CaptBob]

 

[chickenbox]

I suppose it's all for the best because it'd be better for me to spend less time watching basketball and message boarding about it, and I'm having a hard time imagining how this won't lead to a wildly less interesting sport.

 

[walshtrips]

Emmert's retirement is the best thing to happen to the NCAA, this is the result of kicking the can down the road.

I don't believe this is the end of NCAA basketball, however, there will be a year or so of chaos.

Food for thought:
- The NCAA made $1,150,000,000 in revenue in 2021 and 90 percent of that revenue came from the NCAA Basketball Tournament. There are 24 NCAA sports and D-1 basketball generated $1 billion in income.
- Left unchecked, fewer than 5% of D-1 teams will be able to compete for the best basketball players. Ultimately, there will be no madness in March Madness. The NCAA cannot afford to let the NCAA Dance disappear.
- The D-1 NCAA Basketball Tournament draws an addition $3 billion in gambling revenue. Sportsbooks cannot afford to lose March Madness either.

As I see it:
- The NCAA is going to hire a no nonsense commissioner to replace the impotent Emmert. Condi Rice always dreamed of being the MLB Commish, maybe the NCAA can lure her (this is tongue and cheek for those who take all comments seriously).
- This issue can be solved quite easily should the NCAA find a capable replacement.
- The 68 teams in the NCAA Tourney share in a pool of money that is generated from revenues, about $170,000,000 in 2021
- The new NCAA Commish should set aside a pool to be divided evenly among all D-1 teams, enabling every school to compensate their players. The Tourney pool can be decreased a bit and will be the incentive to get more resources from March Madness.
- The NCAA should change NIL and allow schools to use the evenly divided pool to compensate athletes. In addition, allow athletes to earn money on their NIL - limiting that income to perhaps $20,000 per year. Athletes earning more NIL money would be ineligible to compete. Schools caught cheating receive an automatic ban from NCAA competition for two years.
- Any solution that enables athletes to share in the wealth that their work generates, is a good solution.
- College basketball is nothing without the NCAA and the NCAA is nothing without college basketball.

Bottom Line - the NCAA cannot afford to lose $1 billion in income and sports betting can't afford to lose $3 billion. NIL will be a poop show in the short term, there's no way that NCAA or sports betting allows the Golden Goose to be euthanized.

 

[sami]

Emmert's retirement is the best thing to happen to the NCAA, this is the result of kicking the can down the road.

I don't believe this is the end of NCAA basketball, however, there will be a year or so of chaos.

Food for thought:
- The NCAA made $1,150,000,000 in revenue in 2021 and 90 percent of that revenue came from the NCAA Basketball Tournament. There are 24 NCAA sports and D-1 basketball generated $1 billion in income.
- Left unchecked, fewer than 5% of D-1 teams will be able to compete for the best basketball players. Ultimately, there will be no madness in March Madness. The NCAA cannot afford to let the NCAA Dance disappear.
- The D-1 NCAA Basketball Tournament draws an addition $3 billion in gambling revenue. Sportsbooks cannot afford to lose March Madness either.

As I see it:
- The NCAA is going to hire a no nonsense commissioner to replace the impotent Emmert. Condi Rice always dreamed of being the MLB Commish, maybe the NCAA can lure her (this is tongue and cheek for those who take all comments seriously).
- This issue can be solved quite easily should the NCAA find a capable replacement.
- The 68 teams in the NCAA Tourney share in a pool of money that is generated from revenues, about $170,000,000 in 2021
- The new NCAA Commish should set aside a pool to be divided evenly among all D-1 teams, enabling every school to compensate their players. The Tourney pool can be decreased a bit and will be the incentive to get more resources from March Madness.
- The NCAA should change NIL and allow schools to use the evenly divided pool to compensate athletes. In addition, allow athletes to earn money on their NIL - limiting that income to perhaps $20,000 per year. Athletes earning more NIL money would be ineligible to compete. Schools caught cheating receive an automatic ban from NCAA competition for two years.
- Any solution that enables athletes to share in the wealth that their work generates, is a good solution.
- College basketball is nothing without the NCAA and the NCAA is nothing without college basketball.

Bottom Line - the NCAA cannot afford to lose $1 billion in income and sports betting can't afford to lose $3 billion. NIL will be a poop show in the short term, there's no way that NCAA or sports betting allows the Golden Goose to be euthanized.

Simple rebuttal? It’s not up to the NCAA, the P5 football schools drive the bus.

If they ever decide to exit the NCAA and form four 16-team super conferences, they could run a 64-team basketball conference that would destroy interest in the other 280+ division 1 schools. They’ll still exist, they just won’t matter. Us included.

 

[SHUisNJsTeam]

Simple rebuttal? It’s not up to the NCAA, the P5 football schools drive the bus.

If they ever decide to exit the NCAA and form four 16-team super conferences, they could run a 64-team basketball conference that would destroy interest in the other 280+ division 1 schools. They’ll still exist, they just won’t matter. Us included.

An NCAA basketball tournament consisting of only F5 schools will be nothing even close to what the tournament currently is, not even close.

 

[sami]

An NCAA basketball tournament consisting of only F5 schools will be nothing even close to what the tournament currently is, not even close.

Did I say it would?

The football schools don’t care about the prestigious NCAA allure. They care about money. Money comes from TV. TV buys content that viewers will watch. Viewers will watch college football and a tournament consisting of 64 football schools.

If they were to break away, you think they’d care about the better version of March Madness? No, they’d be too busy rolling in cash.

 

[CL82]

Did I say it would?

The football schools don’t care about the prestigious NCAA allure. They care about money. Money comes from TV. TV buys content that viewers will watch. Viewers will watch college football and a tournament consisting of 64 football schools.

If they were to break away, you think they’d care about the better version of March Madness? No, they’d be too busy rolling in cash.

March madness is a cash cow that funds the NCAA’s operations. It is too much cash to just leave on the table.

 

[SHUisNJsTeam]

Did I say it would?

Did I say you did?

 

[sami]

March madness is a cash cow that funds the NCAA’s operations. It is too much cash to just leave on the table.

And what is the NCAA’s position of power if 64 (or 80) schools decide to leave the NCAA and form a new organization?

Not saying it will happen, but the separation that NIL will expand between the haves and the have nots and football greed (do you blame them) could eventually relegate the NCAA into a second tier organization.

If the new collective wanted to govern themselves and split those mega-TV contracts across a smaller group of schools, what exactly is stopping them? NCAA foot stomping screaming “you can’t do that!”?

Try to stop them.

 

[sami]

Did I say you did?

True, I agree it wouldn’t be the same product. No magical SPU run. You’d have the “Cinderella” Wake Forest team (or insert other mediocre also ran) make the Sweet 16 and some would cheer.

It would suck. I probably wouldn’t watch much. But many would.

 

[CL82]

The NCAA is gearing up to fight back against NIL collectives

We shall see. It may be a case of pad locking the gate after the horse is already off the farm though.

 

[lokiSHU]

The NCAA is gearing up to fight back against NIL collectives

We shall see. It may be a case of pad locking the gate after the horse is already off the farm though.

a number of these players will have to take pay cut to go pro.

 

[CaptBob]

Just wait until the IRS gets involved with players & their agents !!

 

[TomD82]

Boomer Esiason said this morning on his show that people from Maryland contacted him to contribute to their NIL collective. He said he refuses to contribute, but does donate to the scholarship fund and the sports fund and designates the $$ for football. Said he refuses to pay a 17 yr old kid to come to Maryland. Gio also talked about the Pitt WR who was not in the transfer portal, but USC called with 6 figures $$ plus a house NIL deal.

 

[Halldan1]

Wow, who could have seen this coming????

 

[SHUHoopsFan]

Just wait until the IRS gets involved with players & their agents !!

The problem is the IRS never came in over the years and hit the boosters giving the money under the table with gift tax problems. Maybe the game would’ve been less dirty the last 75 years or so.

 

[CL82]

Just wait until the IRS gets involved with players & their agents !!

In this brave New World wearing I would fully expect players to receive W-2’s or 1099s. It’s different then just handing a kid a bag of cash.

 

[sami]

If it’s not already obvious, the new cheat will be how much “off the books” income a school can slide to a recruit while publicizing NIL to minimize tax impact.

Hey, we’ll slip you $250k but W2 you for $75k to lessen the tax burden.

 

[Section112]

Boomer Esiason said this morning on his show that people from Maryland contacted him to contribute to their NIL collective. He said he refuses to contribute, but does donate to the scholarship fund and the sports fund and designates the $$ for football. Said he refuses to pay a 17 yr old kid to come to Maryland. Gio also talked about the Pitt WR who was not in the transfer portal, but USC called with 6 figures $$ plus a house NIL deal.

I'm with Boomer. As much as I love SHU basketball and give to Pirate Blue I'm not giving a cent to an SHU collective.

 

[Seton75]

Well Nijel Pack obviously. There are others.

Are any of them great tennis players?

 

[TomD82]

Are any of them great tennis players?

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[CL82]

If it’s not already obvious, the new cheat will be how much “off the books” income a school can slide to a recruit while publicizing NIL to minimize tax impact.

Hey, we’ll slip you $250k but W2 you for $75k to lessen the tax burden.

Yeah, I don’t see this happening at all. First, the NIL money is coming from “outside” businesses, not schools. Even the big NIL collectives are going to have accurate 1099s or W-2s. If the athlete is technically an employee, they’ll withhold enough to pay for the taxes.

I really don’t see any of these organizations fraudulently reporting income to the IRS. It’s just dumb, and I really don’t think the average college athlete gives two seconds of thought to taxes. Why create liability?

JMO

 

[sami]

Yeah, I don’t see this happening at all. First, the NIL money is coming from “outside” businesses, not schools. Even the big NIL collectives are going to have accurate 1099s or W-2s. If the athlete is technically an employee, they’ll withhold enough to pay for the taxes.

I really don’t see any of these organizations fraudulently reporting income to the IRS. It’s just dumb, and I really don’t think the average college athlete gives two seconds of thought to taxes. Why create liability?

JMO

Didn’t say they’d be fraudulent, ever hear of a front? You think they can’t do $75k on the books and then the big cheat schools enhance with a dufflebag?

 

[CL82]

Didn’t say they’d be fraudulent, ever hear of a front? You think they can’t do $75k on the books and then the big cheat schools enhance with a dufflebag?

Lol, how is that not fraudulent?!

in any event, I guess they could do that but why would they if they’ve got a perfectly legal vehicle the funnel money to kids? It doesn’t make sense. Why incur risk with no reward?

I actually suggest it would make that offer less attractive. Having a big NIL deal is becoming a new bragging point that can be used to enhance social media value. The notion that kids are going to be attracted to a deal that requires them to pretend it’s smaller than it actually is isn’t much of a draw, in my opinion.

 

[sami]

Lol, how is that not fraudulent?!

in any event, I guess they could do that but why would they if they’ve got a perfectly legal vehicle the funnel money to kids? It doesn’t make sense. Why incur risk with no reward?

I actually suggest it would make that offer less attractive. Having a big NIL deal is becoming a new bragging point that can be used to enhance social media value. The notion that kids are going to be attracted to a deal that requires them to pretend it’s smaller than it actually is isn’t much of a draw, in my opinion.

My god you're dense. Of course it's fradulent.

Pre-NIL, did teams cheat? Yes. Did some teams cheat more than others? Yes. Will some teams still illegally pay players while they're under the guise of a lesser payment through W2 for IRS purposes? Uh, duh.

If you tell a kid "we'll get you an NIL for $75k with the local auto dealership and W2 you, and oh, wink wink, there's another $300k that we'll slide you off the record", you don't think all parties would jump at that?

You think a kid wants a $500k payment hitting the top tax bracket when someone can explain to him that they can put more in his pocket because they're willing to cheat, it might not be another selling point? It just might be another differentiator if a program runs dirty around the rules. No proof, but it can happen. I never said it wasn't cheating. The "collective" could be legit while the school/program can enhance the offer.

 

[CL82]

My god you're dense. Of course it's fradulent.

Pre-NIL, did teams cheat? Yes. Did some teams cheat more than others? Yes. Will some teams still illegally pay players while they're under the guise of a lesser payment through W2 for IRS purposes? Uh, duh.

If you tell a kid "we'll get you an NIL for $75k with the local auto dealership and W2 you, and oh, wink wink, there's another $300k that we'll slide you off the record", you don't think all parties would jump at that?

You think a kid wants a $500k payment hitting the top tax bracket when someone can explain to him that they can put more in his pocket because they're willing to cheat, it might not be another selling point? It just might be another differentiator if a program runs dirty around the rules. No proof, but it can happen. I never said it wasn't cheating. The "collective" could be legit while the school/program can enhance the offer.

LOL, so first you’re saying schools (not NIL collectives mind you, but schools) should promise kids money that won’t be reported. When I pointed out that no schools are going to commit fraud on this, use suggested that Schools should only report 75,000 of $175,000 that they’re paying a kid, so that it wouldn’t be “fraudulent”. Are you kidding me? I mean seriously, do you actually believe the stuff you post. Tell me it’s an act, really.

Somehow you think tax fraud is attractive to kids. I doubt kids are dreaming of getting lower nominal deals with money under the table. There sure not if they’re getting any halfway sane advice. This is, and I hope you’ll forgive me for saying it, what really dumb crooks do to get in the prison.

Lol, please, please tell me this is an act.