Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

[the juiceman cometh]

Well hold on.

Like Robert discusses in his article, there’s 2 ways players can get paid:

— Revenue sharing
— NIL

Every team has up to $20 million and some change they can spend on revenue sharing. Most programs spend $15 million on football. $4 million on basketball. And the remaining million or so on all other sports combined.

Looking at Duke specifically, since they have one of the lowest paid football rosters in the country, is it possible they’re giving a larger percentage to basketball than most programs? Yes.

When it comes to NIL. Of course, NIL is supposed to be completely legit. A player receives a fair market value compensation from a brand or company for using their Name, Image, and Likeness to market that brand or company.

Are there programs that stretch what “fair market value” means more than others? For sure.

But, a star Duke basketball player is still more marketable than a basketball player on almost every other team in the country. So the fair market value for a Duke player NIL likely is higher than most other teams.

A lot of the deals Illinois players land comes through Learfield. They work with a lot of programs and arrange deals between companies and players. I know Matt Bailey and Andrej got a commercial deal and I believe both were Learfield arranged. The bigger the brand the player plays for and the more of a star that player is, the more compensation they can receive for advertising.

Excellent summary, and I'd also point out that the job now is not really getting X booster to give this much and Y booster to give that much and using NIL to divert those funds. It's getting the right companies in league with your program so you can bring real, actual marketing opportunities to your program's players.

In a way, you can see how this could turn into a kind of meritorious cycle, where more successful programs are able to get better recruits, because on-court success means more exposure, which means more lucrative NIL deals including from companies that aren't boosters and truly and genuinely just believe there is a value in having your player (and by extension your program) as an ambassador or spokesperson or whatever. As an example, during our Final Four run, Andrej got a deal with Raising Cane's, a company headquartered in Louisiana and founded by a Georgia alum, and another deal with PAPATUI, the skincare brand founded by The Rock (who is obviouly a Miami alum).