OT - Rumor Texas A&M allegedly paid 25-30 Milly for recruits

Just because people will throw a large chunk of money at a person, that doesn't mean they *deserve* it.  This is true for so many scenarios besides college sports... capitalism is a good system in general, but it is *not* necessarily equivalent to a meritocracy.

I find it sad since it further destroys having real college students (i.e. not full-time paid athletes) playing college sports at major schools... and even the mid-majors to an extent.

All the more power to Ferris State for what they accomplished this year.

What is it ruining? Unless you believed players weren't getting paid for the last 30 years its the exact same sport its been for decades just with the deals public knowledge.

I mean they can transfer and sue, but if these donors paid even the dumbest lawyer to look at the contract, they should be covered. You typically can't walk away from a service contract and still get paid. I've litigated a few of these in my career and it's usually the product of very unsophisticated parties not spending less than a $1,000 to have their contracts properly drafted and reviewed or they're getting taken advantage of by the other party and don't read what's put in front of them.

The player being a bust is interesting. Generally, if the person is an at-will employee you can fire them for any reason or no reason (provided you don't discriminate). If they have an employment contract or IC agreement, depending on how that's structured, you might not be able to terminate for just poor performance (i.e., no cause) and not pay out something. Obviously, if you get kicked off the team, arrested, convicted of a crime, etc. that could be cause to terminate. 

I'd be really interested in reviewing one of these agreements.

Everyone is vastly overlooking that A&M got extremely fortunate this year in their ability to grab a ton of texas kids because Texas, LSU, and OU couldn't recruit as well this year. Sure the money plays a role but its not Michigan could offer those four Texas four stars more money and have them go to Michigan over A&M.

Especially because that continues to pay off down the road. Having the prestige of signing that many highly-recruited players leads to success on the field and in recruiting future players to come in even if you don't pay as much in the future. I hope we do this somehow. 

Rankings for A&M classes, 2017-2022 (so far): 13,17, 4, 6, 8, 1

Rankings for UM classes same years (so far): 5, 22, 8, 10, 13, 9

That may not LOOK like that big of a difference, but looking at the past 4 classes, check this out:

A&M: 11 5 stars, 60 4 stars

UM: 4 5 stars, 50 4 stars

That's 7 more ELITE players on the roster and 10 more very good players on the roster. That makes a huge difference in playmaking and depth.

The $25 - $30 million sounds huge because we are mere mortals.  But that is a pittance compared to what Michigan spends for football success on coaches, facilities, AD administration, etc.

As a fanbase we could do this ourselves if we wanted to.

The truth is that the University of Michigan itself can't actually prevent it under NIL rules.

If some rich Michigan boosters want to do this on their own, they can.  It's not that big a secret what Michigan's recruiting needs are by position.  

The key is coordination of the donors.

Hell, I'll throw a few hundred dollars into the pot every year if somebody who knows what they are doing takes the lead.

We collectively have the money as a fanbase.  We would just need to pool it and aim it. 

The university gets to stay out of it and keep their semi-pure morals intact.  We will make prized recruits unexpectedly fall into their laps like manna from heaven.

Maybe would could have an MGoBlog LLC that does NIL deals.  This site knows our recruiting needs better than anybody!

I agree, probably. Coaches now have no reason not to lie during recruiting though. What is the player gonna do? He is under contract. Also, if the player is a raging ass hole, like many of them are, the player can't leave without getting out of the contract? Who knows what the language is about leaving, they might have to give back all the money, which they won't have. 

Yes, I'm incredibly confused as to why the post talks about this being what everyone was "concerned" about with NIL?  And most of the responses here act as if the sky is falling...huh?

Great for the players.  If billionaires want to pay them their market value, isn't that a big win for everyone? Seems like a perfect application of capitalism (compared to the onerous restrictions previously).

It's an interesting question.  In another thread I asked about whether performance bonuses could be tied into these contracts, and someone here answered that performance bonuses would be paying the player to play football, and that's not allowed via NIL.  NIL is simply compensating for name, image, or likeness, not expressly for playing the game. 

I would think that a contract stipulation prohibiting opting out of bowl games would be construed as compensation for playing the game, and that would be, I would think, not permitted.

If the contracts are structured as multi-year, then it works out to $250K/year, which is a lot, but not shockingly out of line, given all the other money in the game.  Like you, I could be wrong, but I suspect the $1M average is probably true.

What I wonder is how they hold the locker room together when some players are awash in money, and others have no NIL at all.

Players were getting paid under the table for far less than market because it was all illegal.  Once it's legal, I'm sure top recruits could easily command $1M to sign.  If Mel Tucker is worth $9.5M per year, a roster that could actually contend for a national championship is probably worth $30M-$40M easily.  And I guess it's relative to the wealth levels of the donors, but say the Walton family cared enough about Mizzou football to try and win a national championship, $40M is chump change to them.