On other message boards, you hear the same delusional ND fans that we all know and love so well, refer to 'NIL opportunities', when talking about NIL and ND. That if you come to ND, and you're a very prominent grad transfer QB like SH, that you'll have all these opportunities, on account of ND's fame and brand name recognition, and thus advertisers will naturally want to hire SH and use his NIL when it comes to marketing their product. And on that basis ND is a great NIL landing spot for CFB stars and it's where you want to be. And SH will make bank, and any prominent player would, and it would all presumably be squeaky-clean and 'legal'......
Unfortunately there's no mention made of pay-for-play, other than to scorn and weaponize it rhetorically against other outlaw programs as illegal even though it's totally legal.... and which is all the NIL phenomenon really is in truth. Or at least that's the impression that we're all under. And nobody has much of an interest, other than a genuine well-known star like Bryce Young, in paying CFB players big/good money in all innocence to do various advertising spots. There's some of that for sure, but for the most part it is wealthy boosters who want player X to play for their team. And the marketing/NIL deal is but a stalking horse. 'Legit' NIL opportunities are nice. But the real money is from boosters....
The scumbag evil NCAA, perpetrators of the hated plantation system, hated at least by decent people if not ND fans, is desperate to maintain any and all semblance of said system and to hold on til the bitter end until their fingers are ripped away from it. Think Golem and the ring of power. So for them NIL strictly means no pay for play, which as good plantation owners is their defining purpose on this earth. Free labor. And of course ND for its part defines itself by its goody-goody conformity, and the phony, pseudo moral superiority they like to tell themselves comes with it, so they are reliable supporters of the status quo, however awful and corrupt and perverse. And so ND fans get all bunched up over the 'legit' NIL opportunities that a ND player might come across, from earnest advertisers wanting in apparent good faith to associate their product with the ND brand. But the real money, and the real action, is in paying players directly, paying them to be on the team. Pay for play, baby.....
And so ND needs to start doing that, by way of their boosters, their generous, multitudinous, football-loving boosters, not only to stay competitive, but to save their own souls. I presume that's already happening, if I had to guess, and they're just being hyper-discreet about it. After all they do have their collective, their little soup kitchen collective, through which to disperse the monies, as well as their carefully manicured holier than thou brand they have to maintain. So good luck to them....
