(Sorry for yet another NIL thread, please delete if too repetitive)

A top NIL program needs two things:  A numerous, rich alumni base and a deep passion for football.

In that aspect, Michigan is top 3, at least top 5 in the entire nation for that. The only schools on par or better are the University of Texas and Texas A&M, both extremely wealthy schools. USC, Alabama, Penn State, or even Ohio I'd say is at best on par or a bit lower than us.

For so long, our expectations always were a bit larger than any of our built in advantages. Ohio will always have more talent with no in-state rival. ND will always recruit well nationally. MSU exists to beat us. Not to mention recruiting players to the northern tundra is always difficult, no matter how great Ann Arbor is.

But the NIL changes everything. If the Texas A&M rumors are true, they are paying each member of the incoming class an average of 260k per year, and College Station is a boring town that gets way too hot way too often. We can easily match that in a world where head coaches are getting 10 million plus, assistants are routinely getting 2~3 million.

Does it sound a bit uncomfortable? Perhaps, but I go to Texas A&M for grad school after a Michigan undergrad, and literally nobody is bothered anymore, if they ever were. Everyone is too busy looking at all the 5 stars and beating the shit out of the sips year after year.

So I'd say without going overboard, go for it. It's not our fault our state doesn't have the best talent and has snowstorms in May, but the alumni base and football passion is something we've built over decades. It just takes a few wealthy connected alumni to get the ball rolling. Nothing wrong with using that at all. Texags.com very recently started basically a gofundme for NIL two days ago, and already have 21k in MONTHLY commitments.