Well, Notre Dame brags to all the recruits about being a National Brand and all the Alumni connections and 40 year decision. So, let the players have a taste now and hopefully the University doesn’t screw this up. Let all these rich and powerful Alumni and business owners step up and start sponsoring and doing endorsement deals… this is one area where ND should never be lacking…if they can buy building and endow coaching positions, I am sure they can do for the players and recruits….not saying I wanted this for college athletics, but it’s here and we need to play big boy ball.
So, what you’re suggesting is a strategy to compete on the NIL playing field. Makes perfect sense, and for ND it may, in fact, be an existential imperative. For football. Additionally, if your
wealthy alumni strategy is adopted, the MONETIZATION of college football will be COMPLETE.
Because once ND goes for the brass ring, who’s left who won’t?
What this does, though, is contrast ND’s
deeper mission with the significant material success of many of its graduates. But then is ND’s mission to make its graduates rich, too? Or is that merely a potential by-product of a good education that stresses both knowledge acquisition and a commitment to values?
Regardless, it’s clear that
students enroll in superior schools to receive superior educations so as to experience SUPERIOR LIVES. And in the real world that often means ACCESS TO MORE MONEY. This is probably true of most students at most universities.
But how will ND, the value-laden institution, define its relationship to NIL once it’s fully up and running, especially should it be embraced in a HIGHLY COMMERCIALIZED WAY by elite ND alumni as per your strategy?
Normally, ND doesn’t view the monetary success of its graduates as a knock on the university’s
deeper mission. Why would it? Education leading to prosperity is the key element of the entire AMERICAN DREAM MACHINE – where everyone is supposed to wind up far better off than where they started from.
But is that the same thing as commercializing the football recruiting process? Which is what in practice NIL COULD INEVITABLY BECOME?
In other words, is moving up the MONETIZATION payday from a) its current POTENTIAL REWARD for acquiring an ND degree to b) an INDUCEMENT TO ATTEND to play football the same thing? Or is it something fundamentally different?
To me, it seems materially different and,
mission-wise, STRETCHING IT. And while I’m not suggesting how ND should play this, I’m interested in HOW THEY MIGHT COUNTER if NIL’s more blatantly commercial approach revolutionizes recruiting. A big IF . . . but possible.
Will ND simply look the other way if NIL should dominate the CFB landscape, or will it –
in pursuit of its deeper mission – take a harder and MORE RESTRICTIVE view as it has with admissions, class work, living arrangements and remaining independent, i.e. whatever distinguishes ND from most other programs?
What I’m curious to see is how many ways can a university, such as ND PARSE ITS EDUCATIONAL MISSION without admitting – VIA ITS REAL-WORLD ACTIONS – that its college football program is ever more dependent on not only cash flows but also CASH FLOW INCENTIVES to remain competitive.
Assuming it comes to that –
which I think it could.