They were trying to get ahead of things on revenue sharing and bet on the settlement passing. Their timing was off. The settlement will pass. The big mistake they made was fighting when the kid left without a leg to stand on. Lets be honest no one knows what NIL looks like next year. But given where its going and whats out there revenue sharing is going to at least be in place for a few years. Honestly, revenue sharing is probably the lesser of evils because it distributes the money more evenly and creates more transparency. It does, however, create a haves and have not situation. All based on... yup again, market size.INo need. I am very aware of the current situation. Only a few schools are doing that. They're trying to replace them with school sponsored NIL to tie contracts to the school. Incidentally, that's a violation of current NCAA rules.
If the House case settlement falls through, which is very possible, then the schools like Colorado that dropped their relationship with a private collective are stupid.
The Lucas Wisconsin situation isn't actually a private NIL issue. Wisconsin doesn't use private NIL. The Lucas situation involved university NIL, which is sketchy legally. It's not actually NIL. It's revenue sharing, which violates NCAA rules until at least July 1.
That issue is primarily a transfer portal issue. The NCAA admitted, in writing, that college athletes can disenroll at any time they wish, without entering the portal. They can then enroll in another school without penalty or NCAA interference. Lucas is suing Wisconsin for withholding his transcripts in retaliation for him leaving, based on an illegal contract that they made him sign.
That's basically extortion. It will be interesting to see if this adds a criminal case against the Wisky administration and AD in addition to the civil suit. Based on the legal climate, it s likely.
Lets use realUT and Bama as examples. You have a kid who has offers to both schools. Both can offer him the same amount via revenue sharing.
Knoxville has no State income tax. A bigger market means more NIL opportunities outside of the school. Those marketing opportunities will exist even if UT is winning 7-8 games a year. Knoxville also has some amount of border appeal.
Tuscaloosa. State income tax means that money from the school is actually less (about 5% given the likely amounts involved). Smaller market means less NIL opportunities. Bama winning big covers up their small market to some extent for now. But they seem to be on a downward trajectory.
Speaking deeper on markets Bama is literally surrounded by teams of equal or bigger markets and has a lower population base. on all sides. UT does not share borders with any historically successful football programs except for Georgia and Bama. they also bleed over into VA, KY, NC and SC and pretty much own the state of TN. Bama is literally surrounded (Ole Miss, LSU, GA, TN, FL) and shares a state with Auburn. Virginia, NC and SC are all bigger markets than Bama and Kentucky is right behind Alabama. All of those markets don't really have a higher chance to bleed over to UT than say the folks from MS, LA, GA and FL are to Bama. Not to mention all of these are smaller markets than Bama also.
Name a business in Tuscaloosa bigger than the college itself? The university of Alabama is not just the biggest employer in Tuscaloosa its the third largest in the state. Dollywood which is tenth in East TN would be tied for second in Tuscaloosa wit the Mercedes factory..Full disclosure UT is the third biggest employer in east TN at almost 10k employees, nearly twice the size of the University of Alabama 7k. That's a lot of sponsors with deep pockets. Knoxville has multiple large companies in the area. Tuscaloosa outside of the Meredes-related business are all govt jobs. You work for the school system, the city, a hospital or Mercedes and its supporting businesses.
TLDR market size matters a lot. You can nuh-uh your way around it and ignore the obvious proof (check the top 25 this year compared to pre-NIL) but math is undefeated.