Give Us Your NIL Pitch - How, Specifically, Should Michigan Approach It?

Take what we are doing now... then do the opposite

like a market. 

Things cost what the market says they cost not what you wish you could pay (or not pay) for it.

Well how would YOU do it?

Spend the fucking money

Whatever Warde wants.

Thats the perfect model 💦 

Giving kids millions of dollars for their signatures seems like a bad idea. I would prefer we use the money cannon on transfers, where we've seen actual college tape on them. 

That said, if Michigan wants to compete they will probably need to start throwing money at these kids to induce them to sign, but along with that they need to be comfortable knowing probably half of them are gonna transfer away for better offers if they're not playing here.

Paying players is fine by me, but it needs to be a sustainable model for it to work. You can't just toss $5M at Bryce Underwood then when he doesn't win the job as a frosh he transfers and you're out $5M. The current system is too heavily weighted in favor of the players as 'mercenaries' and the schools stand to lose most of the time and maybe win once in a while.

I'm not even sure what, precisely, NIL means at this point.  First, I thought it was that student athletes were going to be able to benefit from potential and accomplishments based on essentially market forces.  They would be compensated based on private agreements between themselves and companies/vendors.  Then it became that rich alumni can basically buy players and/or coaches on behalf of schools.  Now it seems that people are angry that our athletic director won't "spend money" on players, money that I don't think he actually has to spend or even can spend.

I don't really know what NIL is.  I am pretty sure it is what got my son to be able to meet Blake Corum and take a picture with several players.  If that is "NIL," keep it up because that was awesome.

Hi Warde!

This place has gone mad. We just won a NC and you would never know it. 

My problem isn't how we spend the money. It's that we don't have money.

If Michigan wants to willingly shoot themselves in the foot with recruiting and transfers for the sake of being an academic institution, that's one thing...

But there's no reason Michigan can't be on the same tier as other elite programs when it comes to NIL fundraising. That's directly in Michigan's wheelhouse. One of the biggest alumni networks. Tons of corporate ties. Over $640M in donations to the University last fiscal year. Yet, our own assessment puts us as a Tier 1 NIL program, with our peers at the top (Tier 3) ...

-Continue focusing on retaining and adding proven players

-Pay up front for premium positions-with incentive escalations: QB, DB, and DL

-Pay up front for every position, but structure as move heavily incentive-laden with retention bonuses basically. I.e. $50,000 upfront, payments each year you stay, with an escalation to $1m if your an all american for example, $250k, $500k, $750k for various levels of all big ten. These are example numbers but the structure is not far off from my vision.

Maybe look at what Georgia and Notre Dame are doing. They seem to have pretty good cultures, they are signing great recruiting classes and there don't seem to bee any crazy number of transfers. There's clearly a way to play the game to win more top 150 players without going full Miami on the recruiting trail.

It depends on the environment and the amount of resources at hand.

In this current environment with Harbaugh + staff leaving you got to empty the coffers on the starters and get them to stay. You can't let a guy like Kenneth Grant walk and if the coaches they had relationships are leaving then they have to fill the void with some cash. That might mean there isn't enough money for backups in which case so be it. 

Long term they have to start paying recruits as well. This isn't sustainable and was only working because 1. Harbaugh is a kick-ass coach who overcame NIL deficiencies with coaching and awesome assistant hires and 2. because it was early in the NIL era and the market was still somewhat a black box. Now players know their worth and you cant expect to keep a Mason Graham or Kenneth Grant, or even recruit them, unless they are compensated appropriately.

The back third of a roster is not worth anything and resources shouldnt be put towards it

I think paying guys to stay, and paying guys to transfer in, makes a ton more sense than paying HS recruits to sign on. For all the gripes of our NIL, OSU is basically trying to copy it. Yes, we'll need 5* at certain positions - but spending on glue guys matters too, as well as spending on proven up and comers at other places at positions of need.

I think the fundamentals of our NIL are actually pretty good.

Love this thread; thanks for posting it. 

Current. To be honest, I don't precisely know what Michigan is doing now vs. other schools, but from what I gather, Michigan pays for performance and pitches development to reach that performance instead posting up-front money. So maybe one way to frame it is that Michigan pitches value. I like this idea, and I think it can work if Michigan can show how its value differs from other schools. 

Adjustment. I haven't read that Michigan is doing this, but if they already are, apologies. I don't have insider subscriptions or whatever.

I remember either reading or seeing Stanford's old pitch. They're like, "Here's the value of a Stanford degree. Here's the probability you'll go to the NFL and make an average amount. Here's the expected value of your decisions." I think you can take that formula and adjust it with NIL. Michigan can do this in an ongoing fashion, constantly updating the kid on their value, using tons of available metrics--combine numbers, on-field performance, and in lieu of field time, their heavy load of practice metrics to approximate that performance. They can use comps from the draft to update a given player's EV and use that to adjust for value, and if another school is offering more money, either match that in total value dollar-wise, or push other parts of Michigan's value. 

Why all this? Because I have an idea that other schools, while pitching more NIL, may also give less overall value. 

This has an added benefit of sorting for kids who are playing the long game, which plays into Michigan's 'development' pitch (though, maybe not as great with Herbert leaving). Further, I think it will improve your value metrics down the line, as the kids will make better choices with overall better data. 

Do what we're doing now -- finding guys that fit the culture.

EXCEPT

CFB is different now. It's a free market. For the guys that Michigan wants, they have to be willing to spend. Just like the top coaches command X million bucks to come and coach, the top players -- on our recruiting lists -- may command a price too. That's just how it is.

We have to be willing to play that game, or count on finding special players that are not concerned with pay-for-sign. As inducements get more and more entrenched, I'd figure there will be less of these.

I would start by reading the NIL laws for the state of Michigan so you have better understanding on what is and isn't allowed. There seem to be many that need that info.