Michigan AD Hires Charles Scrase as NIL Strategic Advisor
Hopefully, this will start to get the NIL game more organized and coordinated with the AD.
Manuel has informed people at the university that Ann Arbor resident Charles Scrase, a 1998 University of Michigan graduate and Duke MBA, will be brought on to assist him in developing an institutional strategy and provide recommendations on how to enhance current NIL efforts.
Scrase will sign a three-month deal to assist Manuel in this endeavor. He runs a strategic advisory firm in Ann Arbor after a 15-year career at Google, including heading Google’s 500-person Ann Arbor office. He has an extensive corporate strategy, sales, and marketing experience and built a $500 million business at Google in public sector advertising sales and marketing.
While it is not a permanent hire, having someone solely focused on this seems like a step in the right direction.
Can we fund it with jersey sales in Ohio?
It's a start...
I think Scrase will continue dominating the rivalry. Hell people in Ohio are starting to believe him. Never in a million years I would have thought that. Selling Michigan jerseys is a good start.
I think Scrase will continue dominating the rivalry. Hell people in Ohio are starting to believe him. Never in a million years I would have thought that. Selling Michigan jerseys is a good start.
I think Scrase will continue dominating the rivalry. Hell people in Ohio are starting to believe him. Never in a million years I would have thought that. Selling Michigan jerseys is a good start.
I think Scrase will continue dominating the rivalry. Hell people in Ohio are starting to believe him. Never in a million years I would have thought that. Selling Michigan jerseys is a good start.
I think Scrase will continue dominating the rivalry. Hell people in Ohio are starting to believe him. Never in a million years I would have thought that. Selling Michigan jerseys is a good start.
I think Scrase will continue dominating the rivalry. Hell people in Ohio are starting to believe him. Never in a million years I would have thought that. Selling Michigan jerseys is a good start.
I think Scrase will continue dominating the rivalry. Hell people in Ohio are starting to believe him. Never in a million years I would have thought that. Selling Michigan jerseys is a good start.
(For anyone not around for it)
(EDIT: Had to make it a little more current)
From the moment I first read this post back then I laughed so SO hard. It still makes me chuckle to this day.
What we need is an endowment solely for athletics where the endowment is large enough to annually spin off significant NIL funds.
Steve Ross might get it started with 100 million or so.
Figure out how to get $1 billion in funding and you could spin off 50-60 million every year. That buys a few 5* 's in football and a whole lot more and a mini-NBA team. Getting that amount of funding is not totally unrealistic if you have a couple of very generous donors to get things moving.
Throw some money at baseball so three or four players don’t have to split a scholarship. Let’s get the women’s basketball team to the final four. Get hockey players to stay. The list goes on… great idea!
Steve Ross might get it started with 100 million or so.
Yeah, Steve, if you're reading this board--and of course you are--open up phat checkbook and cough up some cheddar already! Siphon us off some of that Hudson Yards cash! What cha waitin' on, you hockey puck?
Yeah, seemed like our NIL approach was a damn near diScrase, especially early on before football got sorted.
3 months should do the trick
Can't say it's a start, cuz UM has already started.
Still, it's something.
Maybe it’s more “lets stop talking about it and finalize a plan to start getting these kids some money”
I don't get it. We say money shouldn't be the only reason people choose Michigan, and we insist that because money is (we say) the only reason players choose MSU they're quick to leave for more money ... but then many people (including Brian) suggest that we should convince rich alumni like Ross to open up the checkbook to keep players like Hunter Dickinson (who we believe are chasing paydays), and we are convinced we're failing at NIL, despite having gotten to the CFP two years in a row.
I'm not opposed to us keeping up with the Joneses in terms of maneuvering through the current NIL system, of course, but damn I hope Division 1 universities come up with a collective solution sometime soon, because this isn't just the Wild West; this is anarchy.
So ... Ross can keep his checkbook closed as far as I'm concerned. If Hunter wasn't satisfied with what he got and could find no other reasons to stay at Michigan, fair enough. But ... this current system sucks.
It's been a major upheaval that will take time to sort out. However, in the meantime it seems pretty clear that an ad hoc approach isn't going to cut it very long. There needs to be a clear strategy with the resources available and a clear understanding of what is legal and how far the University will push to the edge of that to compete.
This at least looks like some recognition of that fact. Something we haven't seen much of from the AD prior to this.
AND we can't wait for universities to agree on a collective approach.
At best, that will take time. At worst, it will take as long as it takes the NCAA to prevent Pitino from running a basketball program, i.e., never.
AND we can't wait for universities to agree on a collective approach.
Let’s set the standard - The Michigan Difference!
More money is not a bad thing. Hope Ross sends every penny he has.
Also, the vast majority of players who contributed to the two CFP appearances were recruited in the pre-NIL era.
I can't say I'm thrilled with the current state of affairs, but I like it better than a world where most of the top-level players go to Georgia / Alabama / OSU / Clemson. In basketball it would be Duke / Kansas / Kentucky / Arizona.
There's a wide gulf between paying people so much money that people come here just for the money and paying people so little money that people who want to go here don't because it'd be fiscally idiotic.
Is fiscally the right word there? Or financially? Or economically? I looked them all up in a dictionary and honestly none of them seem right. What's the right term?
The main reason is we are carrying the water for the NCAA and the 6,832 sports department admins and staff by calling this NIL.
This is 95%% pay to play/pay to stay
Nobody cares if Hunter represents their brand. The schools would have to give up any of their TV revenue for this to be NIL. Fat chance.
The one clear success with NIL was the Champion's Circle "one more year" campaign in football. Those are guys who are highly successful football players and it apparently played a role in them coming back to Michigan. It was well thought out and can be viewed as a success.
The assistant coach interviewed in the article said basketball recruiting has moved from being based on relationships to being "transactional", wording the university has tried to avoid, e.g. transformational rather than transactional. The transformational bit seems to have gone over like a wet fart.
The reason the NIL approach has been muddled is likely due to two factors:
- NIL is not pay for play, but Michigan seems to be one of the few schools honoring the letter of the law. Texas A&M's #1 class in football seems to be the quintessential example of NIL being nothing more than pay for play. Didn't work out so well. It seems Michigan doesn't want to be "leaders and best" at firing the money canon to get players to come to Michigan. I can see both sides here.
- Michigan and other universities are never going to willingly agree to give the players a cut of the TV money, so NIL is yet another initiative to get money from donors without impacting big money donations to the university and/or athletic department. It is clearly a conflict of interest, but the AD promotes the NIL programs while obviously wanting to keep their money canon fully stocked with ludicrous amounts of money.
My guess is they are bringing in the consultant for three months to help the NIL collectives tap new revenue streams. The two biggest revenues streams - TV money and donations from the whales - are off limits as far as the AD is concerned.
Michigan is probably big enough to shake free enough money from other sources to have a successful NIL program, and the fact "one more year" apparently raised $4 million is a good sign.
You realize it's not an either or situation, right?
Also, football and basketball NIL seems to be completely separate right now, where football seems to be way ahead of basketball
If NIL had been around 3-4 years ago, do you think that Michigan’s roster of upperclassmen would be what it is today? Those are the players that have been some of the biggest contributors in getting Michigan to the CFP the last two years.
Agree with Blue Vet above about how Michigan's moving towards an institutionally consistent NIL strategy. I liked Seth's point on the roundtable about how changing the NIL culture at the school is a much longer proposition than it is for the more 'well established' players in the game of funnelling money to players. 3 months isn't near enough time, but I'll have high hopes that it will point in the right direction. Good Luck, Chuck.
Why is it not a permanent hire and why was this not done two years ago?
I sure hope that this guy who made Google ad words successful somehow also has the knowledge on college athletics and NIL. Seems weird though, I am smelling a bit of a Dave Brandon type of odor here.
That smell would be pizza.
"Look everyone, I'm dressed like a commoner! How quaint! How novel!"
A pizza topped with Kraft macaroni & cheese
This seems like great news. Even if it only lasts 3 months, even if the hire is bad, it means the AD is trying to improve not hinder NIL which seems like a big, important shift.
Three months makes it seem like they’re bringing in an “outside consultant” to fix a “problem.” And that reminds me of “Office Space,” and The Bobs and TPS Reports and “well, I wouldn’t say I’ve been MISSING work.”
It sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays.
Have you seen my stapler?
just quit calling it NIL. it's pay for play. simple as that.
Could also be “I want to go play for Michigan, just sweeten the pot”
Is Todd J Anson butthurt that he wasn’t chosen by Warde for this?
At this point in NIL we are just Scrase The Surface!
True story: I almost bought a used Nintendo (as in, the original NES) from Scrase when we were in school together. His younger brother was in the same class as I was and he was selling. My vague recollection is of him discussing its availability and me inquiring about price and such while walking down Michigan Avenue in Ypsi, probably toward the AATA bus stop I was using after school finished. I couldn't cobble the money together and he sold it to someone else; I wound up partnering with my parents for a new one several months later. I highly doubt he remembers this or me in general, but it's fun to see his name pop back up. Good luck to him.
Two years (or so) into the NIL era and Manuel has finally gotten around to hiring someone to tell him what NIL is. Good for him - what a leader he is! I can only wonder if this is a face-saving delayed reaction to the embarrassment of the Harbaugh contract negotiation he failed to have?
Warde is a good administrator - he is not a leader.
I suspect this hire is only temporary because Warde thinks he needs to be pointed to some advertising ideas, rather than setup and run an entire NIL ecosystem. Or he expects to run it with one of his cheaply paid minions...
Let’s think outside the box. Why don’t we start paying athletes not to play for other B1G schools? NIL-X perhaps.
Since Michigan doesn’t do pay for play, does that mean Cade is still getting Michigan NIL to play for Iowa?
I still think that it's mainly an advertising issue. Do any Michigan fans outside MGoBlog and those who follow Michigan sports accounts on Twitter know about our NIL collectives?