NIL Thread

[DRK331]

Athletics Celebrates Record-Breaking Year of Philanthropic Support - George Mason University Athletics

FAIRFAX, Va. – George Mason Athletics announced a historic year of philanthropic success, highlighted by record-breaking fundraising totals, unprecedented donor

gomason.com

Thank you to everyone who donated!

Give Online Today

securemason.gmu.edu

 

[DRK331]

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

 

[Ben Chwarmer]

Mason should consider a tiered NIL collective membership program, similar to season ticket packages. Fans and alumni could contribute $100, $250, $500, $1,000, or more annually, with each tier offering perks like merchandise, ticket discounts, exclusive events, and athlete meet-and-greets.

This could create a steady revenue stream while increasing fan engagement. Just 5,000 members averaging $250 annually would generate $1.25 million to help Mason compete in the NIL landscape.

 

[GMUgemini]

I’m pretty sure the House settlement killed off the old collective model.

Here is our new collective one, but is focused exclusively on business partnerships: https://teamnovacollective.org/#mission

If you look at individual donations, they route you to the George Mason Foundation and the basketball greatness fund.

 

[jessej]

Mason should consider a tiered NIL collective membership program, similar to season ticket packages. Fans and alumni could contribute $100, $250, $500, $1,000, or more annually, with each tier offering perks like merchandise, ticket discounts, exclusive events, and athlete meet-and-greets.

This could create a steady revenue stream while increasing fan engagement. Just 5,000 members averaging $250 annually would generate $1.25 million to help Mason compete in the NIL landscape.

1) are there 5000 Season Ticket Holders?
2) how has the ticket buying public responded to the ticket price increases over the last 2 years?
especially those STH in the seats that require substantial donations to the Patriot Club?
3) are donations to the collective tax-deductible?
4) how do you sell donating money to 17-21 years old who need $200k/year to play basketball vs
donations to feed the homeless, donations to churches are other humanity serving organizations, etc., etc.

IMO - GMU Basketball needs a few $100k - $1M/year sponsors to improve the talent pool

 

[DRK331]

Mason basketball fans can donate here:

https://give.gmu.edu/campaigns/82767/donations/new?sid=1564&gid=2&pgid=651&cid=1709&bledit=1&sort=1&dids=847&appealcode=26AR24

Please share this link with other Mason fans

 

[Ben Chwarmer]

1) are there 5000 Season Ticket Holders?
2) how has the ticket buying public responded to the ticket price increases over the last 2 years?
especially those STH in the seats that require substantial donations to the Patriot Club?
3) are donations to the collective tax-deductible?
4) how do you sell donating money to 17-21 years old who need $200k/year to play basketball vs
donations to feed the homeless, donations to churches are other humanity serving organizations, etc., etc.

IMO - GMU Basketball needs a few $100k - $1M/year sponsors to improve the talent pool

Don’t disagree with you. I’d love more big time donors. Just recognizing what other programs are doing and seeing that we’re missing out.

I remember joining/paying for patriot Platoon as a student and only getting a shirt.

 

[jessej]

Don’t disagree with you. I’d love more big time donors. Just recognizing what other programs are doing and seeing that we’re missing out.

I remember joining/paying for patriot Platoon as a student and only getting a shirt.

I completely understand

GMU - under a new President and AD - are making an attempt to upgrade both the Men's and Women's BBall Teams

1) Women's BBall Coach is now making about $400k per year - with her salary and buyout putting her out of the reach of anyone but a P4 program trying to run a winning program at a deficit. (Every women's college BBall program is a money loser except for maybe 5 programs).

Now it seems we have come to the point where additional revenues are needed to pay for the program upgrade.
I do not know if any GMU women Bball players get NIL money, but we may have lost 2 of the best players to other teams that do.

I suspect that the best recognized players - those on the All-Conference Teams - will leave for better financial opportunities without a cash payment.
So fund raising is needed. It seems that option 1 is raising ticket prices and by the attendance levels of last year's games i would say that someone in the AD needs a lesson of the price elasticity of demand.

I am unsure of the value of copying/mimicking whatr other programs are doing because GMU does not seem to have the level of community support that vcu/SLU and Dayton have.

2) The Men's team has been the beneficiary of a major upgrade / improvement. Team is now at the edge of being a top 100 team, and has a $2M per year coach. But has yet to turn the corner on being a consistent NCAA Tourney Team.
I am unsure how much attendance has improved over the past 3 years, But it seems that the time has come to pay for the program upgrade, with one aspect being an increase in ticket pricing. Only time will tell if this aspect of financing the upgrade will pay off.

But there are other programs, operating in a different community/alumni/donor support environment, who are on a different program Trajectory due to a core of multi-millionaire alumni/friends of the program who are donating large sums of money to support the program. We are potentially in the top group of vcu/SLU/Dayton, but our environment and communities are very different,

Having lived in NOVA for the last 31 years i don't expect GMU to be able to raise a lot of money from average citizens who have many other higher priorities than paying GMU basketball players $200k a year and up to play on a yearlong contract.

I appreciate and thank those of you who give your hard-earned money to pay the players on the GMU BBall team. But I still believe the only path for sustained excellence of GMU BBall is a multi-millionaire alumni and friends who love the program and donate to it.

 

[jessej]

Mike Tirico Worries About Donor Fatigue in College Football

Speaking at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit, Mike Tirico sounded the alarm on potential donor fatigue in college football.

frontofficesports.com

on the subject of donor fatigue

1) Congressional Acts controls the flow of money to athletes but there is no control over coaches salaries
2) The analogy for GMU and other basketball only conferences
assuming vcu, Dayton, and SLU are the top 3 A-10 programs both in terms of fundraising and wins, how much does it take to break into the top 3 in terms of money and can it be sustained.
3) NCAA Tourney expansion from 68 to 76 hopefully makes the A-10 a consistent 2-3 bid conference
4) But the loss of teams for the NIT is a loss for the just under the NCAAA Tourney teams

 

[DRK331]

The GMU Women's basketball players do get NIL

 

[Jack Strop]

Mike Tirico Worries About Donor Fatigue in College Football

Speaking at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit, Mike Tirico sounded the alarm on potential donor fatigue in college football.

frontofficesports.com

on the subject of donor fatigue

1) Congressional Acts controls the flow of money to athletes but there is no control over coaches salaries
2) The analogy for GMU and other basketball only conferences
assuming vcu, Dayton, and SLU are the top 3 A-10 programs both in terms of fundraising and wins, how much does it take to break into the top 3 in terms of money and can it be sustained.
3) NCAA Tourney expansion from 68 to 76 hopefully makes the A-10 a consistent 2-3 bid conference
4) But the loss of teams for the NIT is a loss for the just under the NCAAA Tourney teams

This is exactly the concern I had when NIL collectives, revenue sharing, etc. first came onto the scene. Donors donate and fans buy tix and merch to see their teams win. When that does not happen then fans stop throwing away good money after bad. The model is unsustainable for most programs by far.

If there's one thing that I believe Coach Tony is getting right is that teams need to to recruit, maintain, and retain players who are motivated by and attracted to program offerings beyond money.

For the teams that do get money to come their way, players are going to seek more of a cut. Hence, donors are going to be asked to pony-up more cash. And if the team doesn't meet expected results then *poof* there goes the money, there go the players, and there goes the program.

 

[jessej]

This is exactly the concern I had when NIL collectives, revenue sharing, etc. first came onto the scene. Donors donate and fans buy tix and merch to see their teams win. When that does not happen then fans stop throwing away good money after bad. The model is unsustainable for most programs by far.

If there's one thing that I believe Coach Tony is getting right is that teams need to to recruit, maintain, and retain players who are motivated by and attracted to program offerings beyond money.

For the teams that do get money to come their way, players are going to seek more of a cut. Hence, donors are going to be asked to pony-up more cash. And if the team doesn't meet expected results then *poof* there goes the money, there go the players, and there goes the program.

or players ask for a raise, then leave when they don't get it, or another university offers more,
then the original team nearly start over

but when donors don't see the value in their donations it all dries up

this is effectively raising the cost of doing business - by each level

 

[jessej]

P4 / BE NIL Spending

College basketball's NIL arms race, from $5M to $25M+: Breaking down roster values, spending tiers for 2026-27

CBS Sports contacted more than 100 sources to discover how much each power-conference hoops program invested this season

www.cbssports.com

This is the botom tier

 

[GMUgemini]

P4 / BE NIL Spending

College basketball's NIL arms race, from $5M to $25M+: Breaking down roster values, spending tiers for 2026-27

CBS Sports contacted more than 100 sources to discover how much each power-conference hoops program invested this season

www.cbssports.com

This is the botom tier
View attachment 3156

I thought schools were limited to 21.3 million total spending. How is Duke spending 20 million on men’s basketball alone? Or are they counting endorsement NIL deals that get negotiated through the schools as part of the roster spend?

 

[jruby]

I'm becoming convinced these college basketball NIL valuation websites are all flawed. The more I dig into them, the more obvious it becomes that we're looking at wildly inconsistent estimates being presented with a level of precision that simply isn't justified.

I've been comparing the numbers across multiple websites, and some of the discrepancies are absolutely ridiculous.

Take George Mason and vcu.

Portal Edge estimates:

• George Mason: $3.1 million
• vcu: $6.6 million

The Sideline estimates:

• George Mason: $6.3 million
• vcu: $2.4 million

So according to one website, vcu has a roster worth more than twice Mason's. According to the other, Mason has a roster worth more than twice vcu's.

That's a $3.2 million discrepancy for Mason and $4.2 million for vcu.

I could actually believe Mason has somewhere around $3.1 million committed to its basketball roster. That doesn't sound unreasonable in today's college basketball environment. But $6.3 million? That seemed awfully high.

Then I started looking at The Sideline's individual player valuations, and things got even more ridiculous.

The Sideline assigns the following estimated values to Mason players:

• Elijah Jones: $450,000
• Brayden O'Connor: $392,000
• Baraka Okojie: $392,000
• Malik Presley: $392,000
• Ben Woodward: $392,000
• T.J. Prosise: $382,000

Here's the problem.

Ben Woodward has been identified as a walk-on. Yet this website assigns him a $392,000 valuation, exactly the same as Brayden O'Connor and Baraka Okojie, both preseason All-Atlantic 10 selections.

T.J. Prosise has also been identified as a walk-on, and the website values him at $382,000.

Think about that. Two players identified as walk-ons account for a combined $774,000 in estimated roster value according to this model.

Now, being a walk-on doesn't automatically mean a player can't receive NIL money. But does anyone seriously believe those two players have a combined market value approaching $800,000?

This is where the entire methodology starts falling apart for me.

The Sideline lists 17 Mason players with a total estimated roster value of $6.3 million. That's an average of approximately $371,000 per player. And when you start seeing multiple players assigned nearly identical six-figure values regardless of their roles, it raises the question of whether the website is actually evaluating individual players or simply distributing an assumed team budget across the roster.

To be clear, these aren't verified salaries or confirmed NIL payments. They're estimates based on proprietary models.

And that's my bigger issue with this entire NIL valuation industry.

These websites publish very specific dollar figures that look authoritative, but there's often little publicly available evidence showing what players are actually receiving. A theoretical market valuation is not the same thing as a signed agreement or an actual payment.

Even CBS Sports' recent investigation into college basketball roster spending relied on interviews with more than 100 people involved in the sport to develop estimates. It didn't include Atlantic 10 programs.

I'm not suggesting Mason isn't spending significant money to compete. I think the program has clearly invested in its roster, and $3.1 million seems entirely plausible to me.

But a model that assigns a walk-on the same $392,000 valuation as two All-Conference players has some serious explaining to do.

I'm digging further into this for a potential News-Press story because I think there's a much bigger issue here: We're creating an illusion of financial transparency in college athletics by publishing numbers that may have very little connection to actual spending.

And fans are using these numbers to judge programs, coaches, recruiting classes and expectations.

So what do Mason fans think? Is $3.1 million a realistic estimate? Does anyone believe $6.3 million? And how much credibility should we give a valuation website that puts a walk-on at nearly $400,000?

Sources:

Portal Edge: https://myportaledge.com/nil-budgets

The Sideline's George Mason roster: https://thesideline.co/nil-school/george-mason/basketball

CBS Sports: https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...ending-value-tiers-ncaa-hoops-2026-27-season/

 

[GMUgemini]

I saw one that put us at 3.9 million. So if I had to guess we are somewhere between 3.1 and 3.9. 6 million plus seems unrealistic to me, especially since I know our “goal” was to eventually get to 5 million. And I just don’t see our deals with like McKay Chevrolet et al being worth an extra 3 million (but maybe we are all wrong on that front).

 

[mkaufman1]

I don't have exacts but everything that has been fed to me says our roster is around 5 million. I was reassured several times during "roster freakout season" that we had no constraints or issues getting our resources together.