The Matador Club, a not-for-profit NIL collective, is very well funded and technically completely separate from the school itself. It was privately founded by wealthy energy industry money (and TT alum). It is extremely similar to "The Hokie Way" collective in that it works as follows: 1) Donors give their money to a tax-exempt collective 2) The collective, separately from the university, aligns with multiple charities 3) Athletes are contracted with the collective to promote aligned charities 4) Athletes submit contracts to the College Sports Commission (CSC) for compliance and FMV review 5) Upon CSC approval and work performed, athletes are paid by the collective on their fair market value contract basis Technically, the Matador Club could support anyone, but they align these contracts exclusively with TT athletes. For Matador to guarantee 5 figure ($10k or more) for each softball athlete, they would have to have collected $250,000. Of course we know that number is vastly understated. Matador is funding some athletes (Canady) significantly better than a mere 5 figure minimum. They're also funding TT athletes across the board, including the traditional big money sports. More importantly, they would have to align athletes with numerous charitable organizations who can consume lots of athlete promotion. Maybe that's the easy part since the recipient charity isn't actually the one who is paying... so there's no reason for them to limit their own consumption. So what does that look like? Let's say that the CSC determines that an endorsement from Athlete-X can produce $500 in value for Charity-Y. To make $10K, that athlete would have to provide 20 such endorsements. If a contract is valued and approve at $1000, then the athlete can either make twice as much, or do 1/2 the endorsements. As with any such paid endorsement opportunity, the more famous the personality (or the prettier, more influential, etc.) the more they can command (and get approved as FMV). As long as the collective has the money to pay, has charities lined up, and athletes are willing to commit their time, the more the athletes can make. Because the athlete is providing a resource of value and because the university is not involved, this is NOT pay-for-play and completely above board. If contracts are not written for FMV, that's the CSC's issue. Potential loophole is that I suppose it is possible that Athlete-X is getting paid, but actually not performing 100% of the contracted work. I don't know what is in place to identify those situations. So the donations that we make to VT via the Hokie Club, or to the HC through Chip, or directly to Pete or any other university organization, can go to a lot of things. They can buy new socks. They can buy new gear. They can fund scholarships. They can fund better coach salaries. They can fund better transportation and lodging. They can't, however, contribute to directly paying athletes. That can be done, but NOT through the university. Does this help? I can explain more, but feel like this is already way more than most people will read.