Hunter Dickinson says Michigan will lose out on "so many players" due to NIL inaction
I kept waiting for this to get posted but couldn't find it on the Board... One of our highest profile student-athletes calling out the school administration for its inaction on NIL.
This is likely one of the primary reasons we seem to be struggling in 2023 recruiting vs. comparable schools like Notre Dame and even lower level recruiting schools like Sparty. We know that Raylen Wilson is still talking / visiting other schools - he is almost certainly being offered tangible numbers while Michigan is only allowed to say that "there are exciting opportunities available".
The hire of the new school president is going to be a crucial sign - it has to be someone that is either "pro-athletics" or at least neutral. If the administration does not allow for the modernizing our NIL program in the next 12 months, it is going to be very difficult to compete. Next on the list is loosening the transfer credit issue (and that is a universal problem for students, not just athletes).
This is my shocked face, I have been saying this all along about the former president, but not sure why things haven't improved much, sad.
What does the President have to do with NIL?
The point is whether Michigan is going to be pro-athletics or not. The hire of the President is a massive indicator in terms of direction.
Do you think Ohio State, Bama or Kentucky would hire a President that was not fully supportive of their athletics programs?
In the past, we could get away with a Schlissel-type President but those days are over. We either make the decision to be competitive with NIL or just accept Northwestern / Stanford level athletics. No amount of tradition or facilities is going to allow us to compete over hundreds of thousands of $$$ in NIL deals.
I would also say that the President probably has a huge say in the transfer credit issue (which is a problem for all students and not just athletes).
I would say you are wrong.,Its the Board of Regents who you have to convince to change the issue with transfer credits and probably NIL policies. President maintains policy, he / she doesn't make policy.
NIL isn't policy. The money comes from outside people/ companies. All Michigan has to do is act as matchmaker. If every other school can do this, why can't we? Because Warde and or our cheating President don't want to/ are scared to look like we care too much about athletics.
That's one of those "it's technically true" but you have not idea what you are talking about or you are gaslighting kind of statements. The president works with the Board to get their initiatives through. They don't just blindly govern based on what the Board passes. The Board is only going to muscle around a really weak or unpopular president and even then the president has to implement what is passed so it's a crap shoot what would actually happen.
Sorry, but you aren't correct. For this last president, everything went thru him. He was VERY controlling with his reports and what and how things went to and were presented to the Board.
So unless one of the Board members drafted an NIL policy, and keep in mind they are all busy outside of their Michigan responsibilities, everything came thru Schlissel.
You're missing the one big issue with the transfer credit problem........this issue isn't just an athlete issue. They can't say athletes can transfer credits in but regular students can't. The transfer credit issue comes from the fact that the University doesn't want regular students taking half of their credits at another school, transferring in and then walking away with a Michigan degree. Truthfully part of that equation is money as the University gets paid per credit that the student takes at Michigan so by denying transfer credits the student has to make the choice of ultimately getting that Michigan degree but likely having to take an extra year at Michigan since we won't accept the credits from the other school and therefore still paying usually three years at least of Michigan classes.
I don't see this being resolved. The only way it does is ease up the transfer credit rule for everyone and then the University cuts WAY back on admitting academic transfers.
It has been a while since this piece was published, but it is naive to think that many of our scholarship athletes in major sports have the same ACT/SAT scores as the vast majority of students at Michigan. I'd expect the double standard also exists for high school grades.
https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/paper-trail/2008/12/30/athletes-show-huge-gaps-in-sat-scores
Assuming the academic requirement for admission is significantly lower for athletes, why not just continue that practice for transfer credits?
I’m obviously only one man, but I took hella credits at an assortment of community colleges before I eventually transferred to UM. And UM accepted almost all of my credits as long as they were prereqs and I had I think a B or better in the course. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.
In fact, I only had to take an (unsupervised) online test to show my proficiency in Spanish so that I didn’t have to take anymore Spanish at UM after the twoish years of CC.
Granted, I had like a 3.8 overall GPA but still, that doesn’t seem especially relevant to the overall point here. I’m a nobody and they pulled it off, why tf can’t we get this figured out for high profile athletes that bring so much revenue to the university? Any guesses? Lol
Maybe our school should just collectively abandon this holier than though bs pov we seem to have on so many issues (loosely?) relating to class and race and get with the times. We’re consistently behind on a lot of these things. Leaders and best right? Go Blue
They can't say athletes can transfer credits in but regular students can't.
legally they can’t?
The transfer credit issue is determined by each individual department/college - and the president has no power to change it.
ldevon1 is 100% right. As far as NIL goes the University President will have ZERO to do with it because the University itself, nor the athletic department is putting money towards athletes. While the Athletic Department can either (a) stay out of the way or (b) help make aggregate funds of smaller donors and/or help match businesses with athletes, they're technically in the business of donations to themselves, primarily to fund upgrades in the facilities and the non-revenue sports.
Here's the truth - I don't think we have the alums to compete. We have plenty of deep pocketed donors but I think they're more interested in getting their names on buildings. I don't know that I see Steven Ross or his ilk putting hundreds of thousands of dollars or houses into any one athlete's hands to get him to come to Michigan. I don't know if we have people like that Ruiz character in Miami or all the Oil money alums at Texas A&M or the two mortgage morons at Sparty that are that sports crazy that they would turn over that kind of money to a kid.
Very honestly, I have two friends from my days at Michigan who are CRAZY wealthy (like F-U money, one who already stopped working and just invests in start ups at 50). Both have their names on things at Michigan including in the athletic department. I've talked about this with both. Both are not doing NIL. One said its a combination of insulting to him that the kids don't see the value of the school he loves and that he's turned off by what he describes as Free Agency with even fewer rules to bind the athletes. The second guy said "if I wanted to pay athletes I would have bought a minority interest in a pro sports franchise."
If we're going to compete for the kids with their hands out this is about a hundred or so Michigan alums/fans with wealth that 99.99% of us don't have being willing to part with significant sums of money to a bunch of 18 year olds who will take it and then the following year, say "what else do you have because USC is going to give me this..." I have yet to see or hear that we really have those people who care THAT much about football to buy in to those kinds of fights. I don't think the University President or even the Athletic Director will ever have influence enough to change that.
If I get super wealthy you can count on me to be that sports lunatic that will fund all the NIL deals. I have a two step plan. First step, get super wealthy. Second step, fire money cannon.
You missed step 3 . . . Profit
Seems like it worked better when there was some money going to athletes than tons of money to each athlete just to get them to come here.
Even osu's boosters signed nil deal with osu players that the money was spread out over 4 years and was cancelled when they left osu no matter when. Seems legit till you realize schools like aTm and other sec schools will just give money to athletes to come.
Miami, the U had a player put out a social media message saying, get me a better NIL deal or I'm out. It is completely a free agency right now because the ncaa did not put rules in place about all of this before allowing it. Wild wild west as they say is what it is.
Michigan is going to have to win to keep good classes coming in, just like last season. But that won't matter much if Lsu, Bama, Georgia, aTm, Texas, Usc and others come calling to our players with massive NIL deals and Michigan's partners aren't ponying up with deals...
A sample size of 2 isn’t large enough. We had a donor, before the pandemic, pay for the entire football team to travel international. Your 2 idiot friends had no problem with Michigan paying coaches professional salaries but when it comes to paying the talent that is a bridge too far?
And that donor who footed the bill for the international travel may have been one of those "idiot friends" because this is exactly what they believe in-not individual deals.
Paying exorbitant salaries to coaches is a very valid point.
Point taken on the Europe trips etc. But for the coaches there is at least a contract typically with a buyout clause. Obviously, coaches do their own thing and the contracts are somewhat worthless but there is at least something there. I know if I had given say a 5 star QB from Texas a million dollars and then he transferred out after 1 year on the bench, I'd be pretty sour about my NIL investment and not inclined to keep pumping big money into HS kids.
College athletes, if they are great, only last 3 years in college and typically only produce on the field for 2 of the years. That athlete could get injured the ala Luigi and be nothing in terms of production or bail after 1 year like Frankie, but Michigan won’t sniff top shelf talent if won’t play today’s game. Michigan might as well petition to join the Ivy League.
Let the church say Amen
@Blomeup2day Right? Thank you!
And please stop criminalizing these kids for wanting to share in the revenue they create! No one has his "hands out", they're demanding a small part of what they plant.
JBA hits the nail on the head. The reason NIL is exploding at places like College Station and Miami is because more alumni of those places with means care about the fortunes of the respective athletic programs.
Michigan is not OSU or the SEC. Interests are more well balanced.
You can't tell me that USC alums care more about football than Michigan. The entire PAC12 has given up on revenue sports and USC is still outbidding teams for players not even in the portal.
USC Alums would do things ours wouldnt. They have no issue paying to have the best team on the field. They did it before. Michigan has too much disinterest and at best a "lets wait and see how this plays out" attitude.
Do you think guy #1 in your post would have the same love for Michigan if sports, especially football and basketball, fall off a cliff? Not being snarky, genuinely curious. I know I shouldn't admit to this but if it weren't for sports, I wouldn't pay any attention at all to UM. Graduated 30 years ago, live in a different state, no family back there . . . it wouldn't be on my radar at all.
In fairness to our former president, he seems to have had a lot of things on his plate in addition to his job. Probably kept him from focusing on athletics too much.
Seems like UofM would rather disband all athletic programs and focus solely on academics
EDIT: I see I was beaten to the punch.
Great minds yada yada...
This would not be the worst thing, but if it's the thing, then they need to commit to the thing.
Passively leaving athletics to wither on the vine is going to piss off everybody.
Lol no it doesn't
If that's the case, then the University should hire some new accountants because someone will have to foot the bill for South Campus when the boosters stop giving a fuck.
Bourbon
No, they just want to be another Northwestern or Harvard.
I am reminded of the wise words of one Mr Miyagi
Either do karate yes, or do karate no. If do karate so-so, squish, just like grape
And walk away from all of the money? Not a chance.
Well we had a good run. What should this blog cover now that sports are done?
I understand that the debates in the faculty senate are quite compelling
a cappella choir battles?
Flat Earth Theory😂
This is the obvious choice of uniform then.
BIRDS AREN'T REAL!!!!
BIRDS AREN'T REAL!!!!
various parlor games, maybe monopoly or parcheesi, for instance. card tricks. races of various mammals such as horses and dogs, maybe camels, too.
the on-going feud between rgard and meanjoe.
farming. i'd like that. yeah, farming.
MGoFarm
That's Sharty's niche. We'd never beat the Michigan Agricultural College.
i'm here to even the score. my kids are 5* farming recruits, and we have a load of them.
I hear politics and religion could be fun!!
Doesn't seem like a whole lot going on in those areas today. In related news, I haven't had a chance to fire up the old Twitter machine yet this morning . . .
