Eh I don't think OP was being negative, he was more so pointing out what may fairly be a bit of misrepresentation in terms of comparing apples-to-apples for total apparel sales.
The NIL Store is an extension of Campus Ink, which has been a cornerstone of U of I merch since the 40s. The current owner bought Campus Sportswear (on U of I's campus) in 2015, rebranded and grew it substantially from a mom-and-pop print shop to a larger merch business on the U of I campus catering to sports, Greek life, other campus orgs, etc. In 2021 after NIL was introduced, they were early on partnering with players and spun out the "NIL Shop" from the company. With their success, they were able to raise a substantial amount from Mark Cuban and other investors and began launching at other schools besides Illinois in 2022. Illinois is still the foundation, but the company is now competing for merch revenue share directly with other merch businesses at several dozen other schools.
The success is awesome and the founder is a total U of I success story, but I would be worried if we didn't lead sales on the NIL store. It would be like if another state overtook Texas in Whataburger sales. I'm sure people in Texas do eat a lot of burgers, but it's probably a misrepresentation to say that Texas buys the most burgers based purely on Whataburger sales.
