We Will or CGC?

So can’t answer the question then? What is the goal? What are we competing for? Are people going to be capable of accepting and funding 4-8 - 8-4 forever?

What are the metrics for success?
Sounds better than being Kansas of the last decade.
 
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Really? You mean my contribution won't guarantee an 11-1 season? That is so disappointing to hear!

Only one comment though - you couldn't be more wrong on using the word "accept.". Thank God you weren't my parent.
Lol. You're going to accept what you get whether you like it or not. Unless you plan on putting on the pads or a headset.
 
So, legit question here then. There's really no way to ask this without sounding like a massive douche so it's whatever I guess, but why do you still watch and care? If we're destined to suck forever and never will compete with anyone in your eyes, why even want to be a part of it?

I don't expect Iowa State to ever win a national title. But as long as we have a seat at the table, which we do, I can't mentally shut that door, even if I think it's <1% of a chance. It seems like that's been totally slammed shut in your mind though. I personally couldn't get myself to want to watch or care if I never thought we'd be anything other than a 4th rate program doing 4th rate things and nobody can ever chance that

Because Iowa State is my school. I don’t really care that much about how good we are. I just like cheering for my team. Is it more fun to do so when we win? Of course. But my enjoyment level doesn’t take some drastic drop off when we aren’t winning.
 
Because Iowa State is my school. I don’t really care that much about how good we are. I just like cheering for my team. Is it more fun to do so when we win? Of course. But my enjoyment level doesn’t take some drastic drop off when we aren’t winning.
If we were as putrid as Kansas has been at football and as bad as Prohm's final year in bball vs at least looking like we belong in D1 with some good years mixed in you don't find any difference in enjoyment?
 
If we were as putrid as Kansas has been at football and as bad as Prohm's final year in bball vs at least looking like we belong in D1 with some good years mixed in you don't find any difference in enjoyment?
I felt a total malaise towards Iowa State basketball from 06-10.

I have never felt so unconcerned about the Iowa State basketball team.

At least the futility from the Prohm era was only two seasons long.

Winning, being competitive or at least being exciting goes a long way. I remember how crazy Hilton got in such a short time from 82-86.
 
If we were as putrid as Kansas has been at football and as bad as Prohm's final year in bball vs at least looking like we belong in D1 with some good years mixed in you don't find any difference in enjoyment?

Correct. Would I be as interested in certain years? No. Will I want coaching changes made if we suck? Yes. But really I’m not going to walk around mad and concerned all of the time because Iowa State isn’t good at sports.

People are way too transactional about college sports. It lost most of its enjoyment for that reason alone.
 
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I felt a total malaise towards Iowa State basketball from 06-10.

I have never felt so unconcerned about the Iowa State basketball team.

At least the futility from the Prohm era was only two seasons long.

Winning, being competitive or at least being exciting goes a long way. I remember how crazy Hilton got in such a short time from 82-86.

Some of my favorite ISU basketball memories are from the Johnny years and we weren’t even all that great anyway. It was a different thing when we had the Big 8 and all the rivalries that went with it, all the familiarity with the coaches and the players from other teams. It’s just a straight money pump now. They are even pumping the fans directly for ZERO return except people saying “we have to do this to compete”. Whatever that means and even then it’s like “how do you know?”.
 
Some of my favorite ISU basketball memories are from the Johnny years and we weren’t even all that great anyway. It was a different thing when we had the Big 8 and all the rivalries that went with it, all the familiarity with the coaches and the players from other teams. It’s just a straight money pump now. They are even pumping the fans directly for ZERO return except people saying “we have to do this to compete”. Whatever that means and even then it’s like “how do you know?”.
Sighs, you are right. I really miss the old Big 8.

Johnny's teams did have several seasons of struggles but there was something about them especially at Hilton. Every game there and then was so exciting. They were in every game and even his worst teams put up epic battles against the best of the Big 8.

Johnny only finished above 500 in Big 8 conference play in two seasons. But something really stayed from that time and those games. Maybe just nostalgia, maybe because we felt like we won so many we shouldn't have had a chance in at all.

My favorite Cyclone team of all time is the 1985-1986 team. They weren't the very best and several seasons have equaled or surpassed them. For me that basketball team will always be the quintessential Iowa State basketball team.
 
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They have said the We Will is to retain players not to recruit them. I assume that it would be a loss of a player.
Seems like all of this will be a moving target....as didn't another thread Jeremy said Omaha is getting paid?

We need the AD to find out how to launder a little of that media money into the pot.
 
Seems like all of this will be a moving target....as didn't another thread Jeremy said Omaha is getting paid?

We need the AD to find out how to launder a little of that media money into the pot.
This could be bad information - but thought I heard Omaha has a contract /agreement with somebody outside of WEWILL for next year.
I think when you are a 5* some other opportunities open up.
 
This could be bad information - but thought I heard Omaha has a contract /agreement with somebody outside of WEWILL for next year.
I think when you are a 5* some other opportunities open up.
That's fair and I could see that. Which is another layer to all this....meaning, I'd assume WeWill has a fairly good understanding/discussions with staff/coaches about needs, etc...but other deals and agreements outside of that could create a variety of dynamics, etc.

Again, this is all moving so fast and being figured out (around college athletics) in real time.
 
That's fair and I could see that. Which is another layer to all this....meaning, I'd assume WeWill has a fairly good understanding/discussions with staff/coaches about needs, etc...but other deals and agreements outside of that could create a variety of dynamics, etc.

Again, this is all moving so fast and being figured out (around college athletics) in real time.
I thought Will had something like this also.

Either way, we need donations to go up. We have a nice athletic complex we have to pay for. Usually when people pledge, let’s say 10MM or so, it quite often is like 1MM for 10 or 2 for 5. The large ones are typically over a period of time and not one big one.
 
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I know the answer is to donate to both, but if that isn't possible is it now more important to give money to We Will or to the gridiron club? I'm not trying to cause a rift, just trying to figure this out.
Donate to we will, the school makes plenty of money. This would at least insure the kids get something out of it.
 
That's fair and I could see that. Which is another layer to all this....meaning, I'd assume WeWill has a fairly good understanding/discussions with staff/coaches about needs, etc...but other deals and agreements outside of that could create a variety of dynamics, etc.

Again, this is all moving so fast and being figured out (around college athletics) in real time.
Agree
Regarding WEWILL - they have great leadership, and I am confident have their fingers on the pulse of the situation. Tough job.

Some ramblings from me:
I wish some body ( used to be NCAA) could put some controls / rules into this. Eventually the lack of financial parody will be bad for sports -imho. Even most professional sports make an attempt at parody which allows the possibility for everyone to rise to the top. I think they realize that too much disparity is bad.
There certainly are kids that are benefiting greatly from this. I think they deserved a greater piece of the pie, but I think this is out of control. I find it hard to believe this is what people envisioned. I have no idea how to fix this, or if powerful people think it needs to be fixed. I have zero legal knowledge, but fear it may be very difficult to successfully regulate. Might be why the ncaa backed out.
Sorry - not a very informative post.
 
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I’
Seems like all of this will be a moving target....as didn't another thread Jeremy said Omaha is getting paid?

We need the AD to find out how to launder a little of that media money into the pot.

I think we're trying to be way too by the book on the NIL stuff. I've been listening to a lot of podcasts on NIL stuff lately and there's a lot of cases of kids not actually getting the big number they are promised upfront. This seems to be the best way to do it. Promise a lot upfront, but have a lot of loopholes in the contract to get out of paying the full amount. Most of these kids aren't going to have lawyers review these deals.

If the kid pans out and is killing it, pay him every penny. If not, start witholding the money. Roll it over to pay other kids. Just getting them to sign is the main goal, once they are here, either they play well and we then pay to keep them. If not, we save the money. I really doubt many of these kids are going to want to spend the time and money filing a lawsuit to get paid out the full amount.
 
I know the answer is to donate to both, but if that isn't possible is it now more important to give money to We Will or to the gridiron club? I'm not trying to cause a rift, just trying to figure this out.

My recommendation is to donate to We Will.

The reality (in my opinion) is that coaches and facilities are key components, but now, the ability to make money on NIL is becoming more and more important.

Currently, the ISU athletics budget is around $100M. Sure this is not as much as other schools, but we have slowly moved up the rankings and started to narrow the gap a bit. As of 2019* we were within 30M - 40M of the top 20-25 schools (teams like Nebbie, Clemson, Washington). This is still a significant gap, but we are competitive (within 30% - 40% of their revenue) and have been gaining ground.

What money do we have in the collective? I am not sure.. but I would guess we likely have $1M or less. Competitive levels are estimated to be in $10M range, top schools are 20M+. So, percentage wise, we may be 90% behind the top 20-25 (estimate) and our athletic budget (which currently cannot be used to pay players) is within 30% to 40% of of the top 25.

Basically, I think we are over indexed on athletic department revenue and not enough NIL money. Since the university cannot move funds to NIL, it is up to us.

That is just my 2 cents.


Note on 2019 Revenue Data:
*2019 is the last year I have "clean" data for all the schools. The 2020 season is an outlier since there were huge differences in how conferences addressed this from media payouts to ticket sales, etc. So, not a good comparison. The 2021, and 2022 seasons should be cleaner data when available.
 
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I’


I think we're trying to be way too by the book on the NIL stuff. I've been listening to a lot of podcasts on NIL stuff lately and there's a lot of cases of kids not actually getting the big number they are promised upfront. This seems to be the best way to do it. Promise a lot upfront, but have a lot of loopholes in the contract to get out of paying the full amount. Most of these kids aren't going to have lawyers review these deals.

If the kid pans out and is killing it, pay him every penny. If not, start witholding the money. Roll it over to pay other kids. Just getting them to sign is the main goal, once they are here, either they play well and we then pay to keep them. If not, we save the money. I really doubt many of these kids are going to want to spend the time and money filing a lawsuit to get paid out the full amount.

And we for sure should follow the rules...and i imagine those rules are evolving/changing always (just recently schools could associate with a collective, for example). As stated in another post, likely there may be some donors that say "where is my money best used?" and at some point the AD may have to say "you should go to WeWill" vs to an AD donation....but is there a way, at some point, for the AD to say "We are having X% of the Leerfield (or Trademark, or whatever)" directed to WeWill (or some other way to indirectly or directly move funds).

10 years ago it was "we need a new locker room to get recruits here" and now is it about facilities or NIL? And of course we know that there also needs to be good coaches, etc. So many moving parts.
 
My recommendation is to donate to We Will.

The reality (in my opinion) is that coaches and facilities are key components, but now, the ability to make money on NIL is becoming more and more important.

Currently, the ISU athletics budget is around $100M. Sure this is not as much as other schools, but we have slowly moved up the rankings and started to narrow the gap a bit. As of 2019* we were within 30M - 40M of the top 20-25 schools (teams like Nebbie, Clemson, Washington). This is still a significant gap, but we are competitive (within 30% - 40% of their revenue) and have been gaining ground.

What money do we have in the collective? I am not sure.. but I would guess we likely have $1M or less. Competitive levels are estimated to be in $10M range, top schools are 20M+. So, percentage wise, we may be 90% behind the top 20-25 (estimate) and our athletic budget (which currently cannot be used to pay players) is within 30% to 40% of of the top 25.

Basically, I think we are over indexed on athletic department revenue and not enough NIL money. Since the university cannot move funds to NIL, it is up to us.

That is just my 2 cents.


Note on 2019 Revenue Data:
*2019 is the last year I have "clean" data for all the schools. The 2020 season is an outlier since there were huge differences in how conferences addressed this from media payouts to ticket sales, etc. So, not a good comparison. The 2021, and 2022 seasons should be cleaner data when available.
I think your numbers are reasonably accurate. I think you are low on the dollars in NIL for the big boys. Our goal is $2M, but we are far short of that, so your estimate seems correct. Iowa expects to get to $20M, which would put them in the top 30, as I understand it. I would not be surprised that the big dogs are $50m. Ohio State plans $12M just for football.
 
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