Wow: Men's Basketball is 13th Most Popular Gophers Team for NIL Contracts at the U

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NIL is fake.

That 41 for softball could very easily just be some rich softball fanatic who made up NIL deals (via DTA) for all players on the team just because he/she wanted to.

Those aren’t real deals. The players barely have to lift a finger for the money.
 


I think those are the own-initiative type of contracts, where the player approaches a company to promote its product on Tik-Tok, Threads, X, Facebook, Insta, etc.
 


Ski U Mah Gopher said:
I think those are the own-initiative type of contracts, where the player approaches a company to promote its product on Tik-Tok, Threads, X, Facebook, Insta, etc.
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That’s all the DTA ones are too.

You sign an autograph or you just do an insta post promoting a product or saying you love ____ subs. Done. Couple thousand in your bank account.
 

Per the article:

The details in 272 endorsement deals recently signed by Gophers athletes are fascinating. They reveal the power of the NIL policy changes in college sports, showing how student-athletes can profit — from pocket money to mortgage payments — off of their name, image or likeness.

Student-athletes are required to disclose their NIL deals to athletic departments, which organize the data and share it with the NCAA for tracking purposes. The Star Tribune obtained the University of Minnesota student-athlete NIL reports dating from August 2022 to January of this year, and here are five more things to know about the deals going down in Dinkytown:

Gophers women scoring deals​

The women on campus are outpacing their male Gophers counterparts by a healthy margin in the number of NIL deals signed: 61% of deals in this timeframe were signed by women; 39% by men. We can't say, however, women are earning more because total dollar amounts can't be derived from this data, for two reasons: (1) many of the endorsement agreements are rate-based (several athletes, for example, make 4% commission on sales of shirts with their name on it); and (2) the data is both incomplete and heavily redacted. Removed from these reports per privacy laws, at Minnesota and any other university, are: the athlete's name, the name of the sponsoring company or donor and the exact date of the deal. Each of these 272 Gophers NIL deals does list a sport, though, and women's sports at the U of M are ahead in this count.

Go Gophers!!
 

That’s the other thing, these are total deals per team.

Not the average dollar amount per deal or per player.

Each softball player gets a $500 deal — OK so???

MBB averaging $20k.


I made those up but you get the idea
 





How can the women's team have 25 and the men 6? I get that a player can have more than one, but it still defies logic.
 

BleedGopher said:
Sadly I agree. I realize most won't care (I get it) but as a parent of an athlete on pace for D1 of a non-revenue sport, it's disheartening. But yes, it's coming.

Go Non-Revenue Sports!!
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Yep.

And all the media that's been screaming "players rights" and "pay them" for football and men's basketball will be the first ones to repond with faux outrage when non-revenue sports (more specifically women's sports) start falling by the wayside.
 





BleedGopher said:
Per the article:

The details in 272 endorsement deals recently signed by Gophers athletes are fascinating. They reveal the power of the NIL policy changes in college sports, showing how student-athletes can profit — from pocket money to mortgage payments — off of their name, image or likeness.

Student-athletes are required to disclose their NIL deals to athletic departments, which organize the data and share it with the NCAA for tracking purposes. The Star Tribune obtained the University of Minnesota student-athlete NIL reports dating from August 2022 to January of this year, and here are five more things to know about the deals going down in Dinkytown:

Gophers women scoring deals​

The women on campus are outpacing their male Gophers counterparts by a healthy margin in the number of NIL deals signed: 61% of deals in this timeframe were signed by women; 39% by men. We can't say, however, women are earning more because total dollar amounts can't be derived from this data, for two reasons: (1) many of the endorsement agreements are rate-based (several athletes, for example, make 4% commission on sales of shirts with their name on it); and (2) the data is both incomplete and heavily redacted. Removed from these reports per privacy laws, at Minnesota and any other university, are: the athlete's name, the name of the sponsoring company or donor and the exact date of the deal. Each of these 272 Gophers NIL deals does list a sport, though, and women's sports at the U of M are ahead in this count.

Go Gophers!!
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My guess: Corporations don't care about sports. They care about getting a little DEI credit. Women's sports (well women's sports + other genders) generate woke backing and its cheap, non controversial DEI. Men's sports are box office sports.

My guess is that the administration has jumped in to promote women's sports far more than they have mens with local donors. People and the U feel like the men's sports get too much already. Again, that's my guess.

You get what you promote.

6 Men's basketball NIL deals. I guess that is one for every guy Ben plays.... :)
 

bga1 said:
My guess: Corporations don't care about sports. They care about getting a little DEI credit. Women's sports (well women's sports + other genders) generate woke backing. Men's sports are box office sports.

My guess is that the administration has jumped in to promote women's sports far more than they have mens with local donors. People and the U feel like the men's sports get too much already. Again, that's my guess.

You get what you promote.
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Corporations care about their bottom line. Most Gopher athletes don't move the needle for a General Mills, Hormel, Best Buy, etc. Two years ago General Mills did a deal with Mo Ibrahim for Gushers since he was eating them on the sideline.

Most NIL deals are done by small- to mid-size local companies who's owner/CEO is heavily invested in the program and aren't doing it for the business impact or the DEI impact. They are doing to because they want to be a big shot or they genuinely want to win (likely a combo of both).

The national deals aren't DEI related either, it's a megastar - Caleb Williams, Caitlin Clark, Paige, the Oakland 3 point shooter, the Miami basketball twins from last year, etc. The belief is those athletes help the bottom line and move the business needle, or at least breakthrough from a brand perspective like Turbo Tax did last weekend with the Oakland kid.

Go Gophers!!
 

bga1 said:
My guess: Corporations don't care about sports. They care about getting a little DEI credit. Women's sports (well women's sports + other genders) generate woke backing and its cheap, non controversial DEI. Men's sports are box office sports.

My guess is that the administration has jumped in to promote women's sports far more than they have mens with local donors. People and the U feel like the men's sports get too much already. Again, that's my guess.

You get what you promote.

6 Men's basketball NIL deals. I guess that is one for every guy Ben plays.... :)
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That's a lot of "guessing" and still wouldn't explain why football is running laps around men's basketball.
 

BleedGopher said:
Corporations care about their bottom line. Most Gopher athletes don't move the needle for a General Mills, Hormel, Best Buy, etc. Two years ago General Mills did a deal with Mo Ibrahim for Gushers since he was eating them on the sideline.

Most NIL deals are done by small- to mid-size local companies who's owner/CEO is heavily invested in the program and aren't doing it for the business impact or the DEI impact. They are doing to because they want to be a big shot or they genuinely want to win (likely a combo of both).

The national deals aren't DEI related either, it's a megastar - Caleb Williams, Caitlin Clark, Paige, the Oakland 3 point shooter, the Miami basketball twins from last year, etc. The belief is those athletes help the bottom line and move the business needle, or at least breakthrough from a brand perspective like Turbo Tax did last weekend with the Oakland kid.

Go Gophers!!
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I don't think hardly any of the corps care about Gopher sports. But they do care about DEI- if they didn't you wouldn't have seen all of the "unusual" things we have seen the last few years with some national corps. Again, its just my guess but I would bet women's teams are getting a bunch of small deals.

Now Caitlin Clark- no she's a phenom and you can make money off of her- so that's bottom line stuff.
 

howeda7 said:
That's a lot of "guessing" and still wouldn't explain why football is running laps around men's basketball.
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They are running laps around basketball because there are tons more players on a football team and tons more active fans. We have something like 80-90 scholarship players for football right? 59 deals. Basketball- we have really 12 recruited players and 6 got deals- not that far off- if these stats are right. Basketball is drawing 6000-7000 adults football perhaps 40,000?
 

Do these "contracts" include DTA? Or are they for legit NIL reasons (appearances, autographs, etc.)? If they don't include DTA, I'm sure women's sports would be more active because I have to imagine they're getting little/ nothing from DTA.
 


My guess is that this reflects legit NIL deals....you know....ones that are actually based on Name Image and Likeness. The majority of the money in men's college basketball has nothing to do with NIL other than that is what people mistakenly call it.

Just a guess on my part but my assumption would be that this graph does not account for pay for play money, just actual NIL
 

MplsGopher said:
That’s the other thing, these are total deals per team.

Not the average dollar amount per deal or per player.

Each softball player gets a $500 deal — OK so???

MBB averaging $20k.


I made those up but you get the idea
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Unless it is normalized, it is meaningless.
 

bga1 said:
They are running laps around basketball because there are tons more players on a football team and tons more active fans. We have something like 80-90 scholarship players for football right? 59 deals. Basketball- we have really 12 recruited players and 6 got deals- not that far off- if these stats are right. Basketball is drawing 6000-7000 adults football perhaps 40,000?
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How many of those 90 football players can the average fan name? It sure seems like PJ is putting a lot more effort into it than they are on the basketball side. The proof is in the transfer portal, frankly.
 

MNVCGUY said:
My guess is that this reflects legit NIL deals....you know....ones that are actually based on Name Image and Likeness. The majority of the money in men's college basketball has nothing to do with NIL other than that is what people mistakenly call it.

Just a guess on my part but my assumption would be that this graph does not account for pay for play money, just actual NIL
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You may have a point there. So little is really known since the whole product got spoiled.
 

howeda7 said:
How many of those 90 football players can the average fan name? It sure seems like PJ is putting a lot more effort into it than they are on the basketball side.
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Oh I agree with that! I cannot imagine how tough it would be to manage NIL for that many recruited players. Basketball seems like it would be a lot easier but we are still screwing it up.
 

bga1 said:
You may have a point there. So little is really known since the whole product got spoiled.
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NIL only really got spoiled in the revenue sports where there are people out there willing to throw money around to try and help their team win. NIL was never meant to be a way for teams to buy/poach players....it was just easy to see that happening in basketball and football especially.

It would seem to be working as intended with the other sports based on the fact that the women's sports showed up well on this list.
 

GopherOhana said:
maybe a bit dated since PJ said every scholarship player has a nil deal, so at least 85 for football

6 out of 15 total players for mens bball? maybe a bit low
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Not necessarily no reason 1 NIL deal couldn't cover a whole team i.e. the soccer team has one like that. It is a company owned by one of the goalie's dad who has a law firm specializing in injury law I think. That company had a super bowl add in the North Carolina region (I think NC but could be SC) where women's players briefly appeared in the add.
 

What they are implying is that every contract is equal. The proper way to report this is $$$/athlete or $$$/contract, then aggregate by sport and do the descriptive stats at the sport level. Since nobody has access to the actual dollars, no reporter can do this. But MBB had 4 guys enter the portal yesterday with rumblings of NIL being a factor. Strib is seizing on a clickbait opportunity to generate views, which sells ad revenue.
 


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