I know there are a lot of very casual followers out here, and collecting NIL money is different than distributing it, but here's a few things that people misunderstand: - Schools are NO LONGER ALLOWED to provide NIL money. They can award scholarships up to the roster limit and they can award up to the $21ish M cap of REVENUE SHARING (of which 90% generally goes to FB and MBB). They can give NOTHING for Name, Image, and Likeness. - NIL is unlimited (potential legistation being proposed to cap, however), but is exclusively sourced from private 3rd parties and collectives. All contracts over $600 are monitored and regulated by an independent 3rd party for compliance to Fair Market Value practices. Compliance is NOT a rubber stamp. Unreasonable contracts have been and will continue to be denied. That is to say that an organization (collective) working with the intent of finding NIL opportunities for athletes can collect funds, but in order to give it out, the athlete must do WORK or provide meaningful use of their name, their image, or their likeness to the degree that it actually provides BUSINESS VALUE in the approximate value for the amount paid. There are no more NIL "handouts" for nothing substantial in return. Football, MBB, and to a lesser extent WBB are still "pay to play" via full scholarships combined with revenue share, but anyone who isn't getting much REV Share really does have to earn their pay. Might seem easy enough to do if you have a huge following, a sweet smile, and can actually move people to buy product, but that takes time and effort. Canady's $1M annual payout was prior to the current rule and would NOT pass the test.

If that’s true, how does that happen in light of what you describe above? I’m not arguing, I’m trying to understand

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.

Here's an article from last May about Canady's back-to-back $1M deals. For the first year, it was very much still the Wild, Wild, West days of NIL with very little regulation. Then the Matador Club renewed her deal for a 2nd year prior to the new rules being enacted. The new regulations that the article discusses were enacted last summer, essentially as suggested, although there is substantially more detail in the actual rules that were approved than they choose to go into in this piece.

Clear Plexiglass with slits in the top to collect dollars as people make their way in? Have a different non football/basketball sport for each game. Totally voluntary. Announce the amount collected at halftime. 60,000 times 5 dollars average? Today's game is softball NIL game and we thank you for your donation.

Would it be possible at check out from concessions in Lane to "Round Up" or "Keep the Change" for a designated cause, in this case towards NIL. I think it would add up in a hurry.