NIL Economics For UConn | Page 3 | The Boneyard

NIL Economics For UConn

temery said:
Can anyone explain to me what the difference between image and likeness is?
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image: your exact picture in life
likeness: an impression of you like an avatar of you or rotoscoped or any other variant that gives rise to knowledge it is you.
 
IndyLives said:
NIL is destroying college sports. It's happening faster than I even thought. UCONN could be one of the first big casualties, being a state school, playing in the BE without any big Donors to outbid peers for talent.
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The reason I started this thread was because I have no idea who gets approximately what on our roster, what the overall budget is, or where we stack up against other top programs.
I thought someone on this board might have some info on that. Don’t we have insiders here?
That said there are a lot of numbers being thrown around from time to time.
How bout this?
Solo?
Silas?
Ross?
Furphy?
Stew?
Landrew?
County?
Potential new signings?
Anybody know anything close to reality? I certainly don’t.
 
jibsey said:
The reason I started this thread was because I have no idea who gets approximately what on our roster, what the overall budget is, or where we stack up against other top programs.
I thought someone on this board might have some info on that. Don’t we have insiders here?
That said there are a lot of numbers being thrown around from time to time.
How bout this?
Solo?
Silas?
Ross?
Furphy?
Stew?
Landrew?
County?
Potential new signings?
Anybody know anything close to reality? I certainly don’t.
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UConn like many other schools is tight lip about revenue/nill available for players. Only way you will know is if you become a big time booster.
 
JwittersPAC said:
UConn like many other schools is tight lip about revenue/nill available for players. Only way you will know is if you become a big time booster.
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So the “boosters” know who gets what, and we have no boosters on The Yard who can shed a bit of light?
 
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MrDownunder said:
We can not match NBA offer. If he stays another year in college,
he is another yr from a second contract that can run 15 to 25 million per year..
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This logic only applies to max career guys, top 3 picks or the like. Guys like Mullins may have a 10 year career. Its better to start that career as a higher draft pick, when hes more physically ready. His team will support him more and he'll be more likely to get a second contract. Based on data from 2012–2021, approximately 25.6% of non-lottery first-round picks (picks 15–30) sign a second contract with the team that originally drafted them. In other words, it's more important to be drafted higher than to start your clock ticking on a second contract.
 
IndyLives said:
NIL is destroying college sports. It's happening faster than I even thought. UCONN could be one of the first big casualties, being a state school, playing in the BE without any big Donors to outbid peers for talent.
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We were literally in the championship game this season. Not even a month ago! We have 2 championships in the NIL era!
 
temery said:
Can anyone explain to me what the difference between image and likeness is?
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Your image would or could be your photo while your likeness is a rendering, or a caricature, like the one you got at yesterday's fan fest showing you rising up over Eric Reibe and dunking on him with a big smile............
Oh, just saw Mr. French's comment. Sorry to be repetitive.
 
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Kembacity said:
Maybe we’ve reached out to our former NBA guys who have committed a few extra mil among themselves to keep a guy like Mullins on the roster.

I’d guess expecting to “match” what he might make in the NBA would be a combination of his NIL deal and working to find him a Dunkin sponsorship or some annoying billboards with that lawyer woman who can’t leave CT drivers alone
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The only public information I've seen about former players' donations seems to be limited to Ray and Donyell
 
JwittersPAC said:
UConn like many other schools is tight lip about revenue/nill available for players. Only way you will know is if you become a big time booster.
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I agree that it is likely very few outside of the Program truly know. If Matt Norlander, Connecticut native, and CBS Sports has legitimate sources, Uconn was not in the 10mm bracket for NIL last year, but in the 8-10mm bracket. They created this list April of 2025. I assume this Season 10+ will be 12+ and 8+ will be 10+ for many schools.

10+
Arkansas
BYU
Duke
Indiana
Kentucky
Louisville
Michigan
North Carolina
St. John's
Texas Tech

8+
Auburn
Connecticut
Florida
Houston
Kansas
Kansas State
Miami
Purdue
Tennessee
Texas
UCLA
USC
Villanova
Virginia
 
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storrsroars said:
What's your definition of "unknown"? I'd think $4 mill could net a couple of very good mid-major guys.

I don't know what the total NIL $ availability will be, but needing two bigs trumps retaining Mullins as the #1 priority. If we can afford it all, great.

We're not keeping Mullins for more than one more year regardless. So can we build an NC-quality team around him if we commit $4 mill to him? That's really the only question I think needs to be answered.
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Based on Dybantsa at BYU, he'd have to become top three in the draft level to make him worth the money and even that didn't work for BYU. Although the loss of Saunders was certainly part of the problem.
 
Scrutineer said:
Based on Dybantsa at BYU, he'd have to become top three in the draft level to make him worth the money and even that didn't work for BYU. Although the loss of Saunders was certainly part of the problem.
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When Hurley told Dan Patrick that the most a Player has asked him for was $4.5m, it was probably Dybantsa. Public reporting was suggesting he was asking for $5m before he signed. That's a lot of cash, even for a top 3 player...
 
Bigbrad1029 said:
This is fair assessment, you are right he would need a huge improvement to justify that…I would add that if Mullins goes it opens up opportunities for J Ross and Furphy whom many NBA experts like Sam Vecenie are really high on and has clearly benefited from his year at UConn from a fitness standpoint which was only knock on him coming out of Australia…also we have Landrew and County coming in and people really high on Landrew as a physical 3 and scorer who can defend bigger players which Mullins can’t…if Mullins goes then you also have $$ to spend on quality bigs
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Good points, but we don't have the insights Dan Hurley and the staff have regarding just how good he is as a shooter and what it will cost to fill his spot and/or the center and power forward positions.

Dan Hurley has gone to great lengths talking up his form and how great he is and he did shoot 56.1% on twos without a lot of layups or dunks to pad the stats. However, he ended the year at an unremarkable 33.5% on threes, so how hard they work to keep him will likely depend on how much they believe the low percentage was due to late clock shot selection, freshman fatigue and the impact of injuries.
 
temery said:
And that is likely the only reason he'd be back: to improve his stock in next year's draft. If he goes in the first round, he's gone, and we should all wish wish him the best of luck.
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He will be top 5 in lousy draft next year. No brainer to stay, physically not ready. Not a gear plan to be hawkins 2.0
 
First, NIL is either thru a collective or is a 1:1 deal like Nike signing a player.

Second, only the latter would ever disclose, especially in CT where these deals are exempt under the Freedom of Information act.

And once UConn facilitates payment to the players under the House vs NCAA they will disclose per team, not athletes due to age limits.
 
The real question is profit. Did Dybantsa produce ROI? In this case the return might be measured in wins. But unless teams are getting value for their investment the market will weaken.
 
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uconn_jack said:
Do we really need 3 bigs? Unless you mean including a PF? I wonder if Rrezon is capable as a break glass in case of emergency center.
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You can throw out THAT theory about Rrezon. He's gone as well. This leaves the front court pretty much empty, unless I'm missing something.
 
RBHusky7 said:
The clock is ticking as UConn may soon not have the $ needed to assemble the type of roster via the portal to compete for a title every year like we’ve been recently accustomed to. Wealthy schools will large media rights $ or wealthy donors will outbid us or may even start poaching our own guys. It’s not just buying 2 bigs and a PF to come here, we also have to pay up for current guys to stay who could command a lot in the portal. Yes, we have the name brand, the best Hc in the country, the history, etc, but most guys aren’t going to the NBA and will hop into the portal to maximize their 4 or 5 year window to make $. That’s just the reality of it now unless laws or collective bargaining are brought into play.
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That’s not the way the current rules work, FWIW. Schools are capped, and we have a large advantage over other state universities in that our football team is not competing for the FBS playoffs. Wealthy donors at other schools is a worry, but that’s irrelevant to TV revenue. It’s only a matter of how important winning is to donors.
 
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businesslawyer said:
That’s not the way the current rules work, FWIW. Schools are capped, and we have a large advantage over other state universities in that our football team is not competing for the FBS playoffs. Wealthy donors at other schools is a worry, but that’s irrelevant to TV revenue. It’s only a matter of time of how important winning is to donors.
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but we have a disadvantage that we are going to undoubtedly spend to keep the women's team at the top of the world as well. The number of schools spending like we do on the women's team is probably countable on one hand.
 
IndyLives said:
NIL is destroying college sports. It's happening faster than I even thought. UCONN could be one of the first big casualties, being a state school, playing in the BE without any big Donors to outbid peers for talent.
Expand ...
Don’t disagree with the first sentence. The problem is that once players are no longer amateurs what is the legal basis for telling them that if a sneaker company wants to use them in an ad they can’t take the money. No one tells you or me that.
 
businesslawyer said:
That’s not the way the current rules work, FWIW. Schools are capped, and we have a large advantage over other state universities in that our football team is not competing for the FBS playoffs for another season or two. Wealthy donors at other schools is a worry, but that’s irrelevant to TV revenue. It’s only a matter of how important winning is to donors.
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Fixed it for you BL.
 
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The circumstances surrounding Dybantsa is an anomaly - we shouldn't even use Dybantsa as any type of measuring stick unless we have someone like Ryan Smith (BYU alum and Utah Jazz owner) funding our NIL. There's a lot of gray area and smoke surrounding Dybantsa's recruitment to Utah Prep and ultimately to BYU and Ryan Smith's involvement.
 
This season feels like the tech investing prior to the bubble. Everybody is changing their portfolio to put more in Hoops. It's like they all decided that they want to compete and that numbers 10 million. The FOMO aspect is hitting hard too. It's going to impact quality control with many schools just throwing money at it without a process or a GM that's tested in these waters. I think the dollars to compete next year will be substantially higher than I imagined. Now we will get to see who the NY Mets of basketball spending are going to be.
 
OceanDoggie said:
I agree that it is likely very few outside of the Program truly know. If Matt Norlander, Connecticut native, and CBS Sports has legitimate sources, Uconn was not in the 10mm bracket for NIL last year, but in the 8-10mm bracket. They created this list April of 2025. I assume this Season 10+ will be 12+ and 8+ will be 10+ for many schools.

10+
Arkansas
BYU
Duke
Indiana
Kentucky
Louisville
Michigan
North Carolina
St. John's
Texas Tech

8+
Auburn
Connecticut
Florida
Houston
Kansas
Kansas State
Miami
Purdue
Tennessee
Texas
UCLA
USC
Villanova
Virginia
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I think the upper NIL numbers are more than $20-25 million now far from $10 million. Rumors are that Louisville just spent $9 million on Bidunga and Shelstad and is chasing John Blackwell from Wisconsin who is rumored to be seeking $5-6 million so if they sign Blackwell then it could be $14-15 million on three players…again rumored.
 
Palatine said:
The real question is profit. Did Dybantsa produce ROI? In this case the return might be measured in wins. But unless teams are getting value for their investment the market will weaken.
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At a lot of schools the ROI is zero because the people funding NIL are exceptionally wealthy individuals who just want to see their team win. It's not like they get any benefit from the wins like schools do in exposure/enrollment benefits/etc. These boosters also didn't become wealthy by throwing money away or being stupid with it, so I don't see how this continues unimpeded at the rates we're seeing, because rich folks will realize they get nothing out of these expenditures - they're not even tax deductible in most states.

Exploding player salaries in other sports make sense because the owners do reap the benefits of a successful team. The people funding this nonsense will see zero ROI, and that isn't going to be able to last long term I don't think. But I've been wildly incorrect in my takes so far about what has been going on, so that probably will continue because none of this makes any sense.
 
nycscooby said:
I think the upper NIL numbers are more than $20-25 million now far from $10 million. Rumors are that Louisville just spent $9 million on Bidunga and Shelstad and is chasing John Blackwell from Wisconsin who is rumored to be seeking $5-6 million so if they sign Blackwell then it could be $14-15 million on three players…again rumored.
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the question is how much of that is coming from the school vs the collectives? The existence of the school payments isnot going to eliminate the collectives.
 
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