Why do any businesses choose to pay college athletes? Vitamin water, Fanatics , Bar stool sports, Nike etc…
St. Johns had $4 million for NIL
- Thread starter ImBadRU
- Start date
We weren’t given $3m for Ace/Dylan.
Did we get lucky that two players we already had relationships with had these deals such that incremental NIL from Rutgers was less important? Yes, absolutely. But that is very, very, very different from being given $3m to recruit them. The $3m was not a factor in Rutgers’ specific favor.
Did we get lucky that two players we already had relationships with had these deals such that incremental NIL from Rutgers was less important? Yes, absolutely. But that is very, very, very different from being given $3m to recruit them. The $3m was not a factor in Rutgers’ specific favor.
The Vitamin water guy wants St John’s to win for personal reasons. As does the Nike guy with Oregon. Framing those relationships as equivalent to normal business relationships is absurd.
"He’s not ! He’s awful! Look at any of his players that transfer. They go from 25-32 min at Ru to bench players struggling for minutes." ??? Let me see, teams went after RU players , paid them money to transfer to their schools and Pike can't evaluate players. You're just a Pike malcontent. Those other coaches like Hurley, Nate Oats, and the rest must really suck.
Correct.
But when comparing 2024-2025 Mississppi Valley State to 2024-2025 Jackson State, you wouldn't say "Well Jackson State had $1m NIL to spend on their roster and MVS only had 500k to spend. Can't expect to compete."
And completely ignore the value of Ace/Dylan.
I'm not sure anyone is saying we are a NIL powerhouse now because of Ace/Dylan.
But in the vacuum of 2024-2025, our roster (NIL internal or external) isn't as cheap as some make it out to be.
That's simply facts.
Lineup every roster in the country and what was "spent".
Unless you want to remove "outside" NIL from everyone. Good luck trying.
Wimsatt had a deal with NB Devco.
That was technically "outside" of the NIL collective.
That’s not the question! Why do businesses give money to college athletes?
Repole graduated St John’s in 91 and didn’t kick in Vitamin water money until this year. Why?? He always had personal reasons for them to be good. Why pay now???
It’s a business and he knows with Pitnos brand success he can reap the financial benefits.
So I ask again why do corporations pay college athletes
Here is why Repole has decided to pay and will continue with Pitino at the helm.
St John’s Alumni base is currently listed at just under 200k living members. The avg person spends $1,400 a year on water/sports drink a year. With the team success this year Repole is hoping that Alumni ant NYC residents think of Vitamin water before Gatorade Body armor etc. it is downstream revenue capture at its finest. So he views his 4MM NIL as R&D for a future annual payout of :
*200,000 Alumni x $1,400 = 280,000,000
* That’s excluding the millions of New Yorkers jumping on the band wagon.
Ruebenstein Fanatics
Rutgers currently has 600k living Alumni worldwide. With a historic season he was counting on the average RU fan to purchase minimum one piece of merchandise also a downstream revenue capture. The average merch ranges from $30 hat $40 T-shirt $ 85 hoodie etc.
600,000 x $30• = $ 18,000,000
* use the low end price
It’s not hard to understand the value of building reciprocal corporate NIL relationships.
St John’s Alumni base is currently listed at just under 200k living members. The avg person spends $1,400 a year on water/sports drink a year. With the team success this year Repole is hoping that Alumni ant NYC residents think of Vitamin water before Gatorade Body armor etc. it is downstream revenue capture at its finest. So he views his 4MM NIL as R&D for a future annual payout of :
*200,000 Alumni x $1,400 = 280,000,000
* That’s excluding the millions of New Yorkers jumping on the band wagon.
Ruebenstein Fanatics
Rutgers currently has 600k living Alumni worldwide. With a historic season he was counting on the average RU fan to purchase minimum one piece of merchandise also a downstream revenue capture. The average merch ranges from $30 hat $40 T-shirt $ 85 hoodie etc.
600,000 x $30• = $ 18,000,000
* use the low end price
It’s not hard to understand the value of building reciprocal corporate NIL relationships.
Cliffs minutes have been cut in half and Hurley poached a 1 year rental!
Jalen miller
Oscar Palmquist
Jayden Jones
Gavin Griffiths
Peter Kiss
Derek Simpson
Wolfe
Dean Reiber
Pikes stacking talent !
Will also look past outside of Ace and Dylan there is not 1 other single player on the current roster who is a Power 4 talent. NOT ONE
He’s giving his money, not Vitamin water money, from what I understand.
This is a total different scenario than the NIKE and Fanatics $ for Ace/Dylan.
These companies wanted to establish deals and relationships early on, which will most likely result in more deals and multi millions of dollars down the road for all parties.
Fair but Repole money is Vitamin water money. He is donating to benefit financially. Simple
Fanatics and Nike donating to Ace/Dylan to benefit financially. Simple
We may not have a billionaire graduate wanting to play but that doesn’t mean we can’t build billionaire relationships.
We did this year and failed miserably.
It may be simple, but they are two totally different situations.
Repole is donating because he’s a massive St. John’s booster. He’s an alum. He’s looking for reasons to throw his money at things and is not looking for ROI. Repole $ will be there for St. John’s next year no matter what.
NIKE / Fanatcis are looking for ROI down the road. NIKE / Fanatics $ will only be there for Rutgers if we land a top, top recruit (5 star)…which we know is not happening.
Mike sold Vitamin Water in 2007. He founded Body Armor too and sold it for a higher price than Vitamin Water.
Both owned by Coca Cola today.
Pepsi owns Gatorade.
Doubt Mike cares if his donations boost a brand he sold 18 years ago.
I really don’t understand your take stating Mike’s NIL donations are targeted at growing Vitamin Water’s business.
After all, Gatorade is a St. John’s sponsor, not Vitamin Water.
This. I live in the city. It's been clear that Repole wants nothing but success for SJU. And those are the alumni you need. I live in Brooklyn and it's obvious that Repole wants to make NYC basketball relevant again and that's all. Those are the alumni that are important.
Somerville has Power 4 talent which would be enhanced with better coaching
We had the outside money to bring in two guys that would score 40 pts a game between them without touching our own NIL money.
We literally were given the toughest players too find. All Pike needed to do was bring in complimentary players.
We returned zero inside players with any proven experience. Pike brought in an undersized 4, two flawed wing types(one can't shoot and the other is not a big level athlete) and a scoring guard that needs the ball.
This was an example of incompetent roster construction. Woolfolk would have been better then anyone we had at the 4.
It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Find enough money to compliment Ace and Dylan.
If he cant even do that, then we should forget about any success in the future
We literally were given the toughest players too find. All Pike needed to do was bring in complimentary players.
We returned zero inside players with any proven experience. Pike brought in an undersized 4, two flawed wing types(one can't shoot and the other is not a big level athlete) and a scoring guard that needs the ball.
This was an example of incompetent roster construction. Woolfolk would have been better then anyone we had at the 4.
It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Find enough money to compliment Ace and Dylan.
If he cant even do that, then we should forget about any success in the future
Lol, yes. NIL isn't pay for play, which is what the ******** we mostly see now is. A company signing a kid to an endorsement is real NIL. I don't call pay for play NIL and neither should anyone else.
Nope, almost anything coming from "NIL pools" is just pay for play, its not NIL, no matter people calling it that.
They're just moving the goal posts as usual. 'St. John's had $4 mm nil and look at them. OK, Rutgers had $4mm and look at them? " oh no, its not the same. Oh no, what about next year. Oh no, we didn't spread it around ...." blah-blah-blah
Always freakin some excuse.
Dude, stop blaming the fans. At the end of the day, it comes down to guys who don’t care about throwing millions into a hobby (or like Larry Ellison, buying a QB as a present for a girlfriend 1/3rd their age).
The majority of the folks who bleed scarlet and show up on game day are more interested in paying their mortgages and their kids college tuition. And that’s how it should be.
This this this!!!
I don’t know why people continue to say otherwise
It’s not either/or. We have limited funding which limited the pool of candidates and Pike constructed a roster poorly based on who he did get (we all know he went after big fish - Wolf, Allocco, Bradshaw, and others and struck out).
Pike is a great guy and I couldn’t be prouder to have him as our coach. But he’s going to need to adapt and improve (and probably shuffle the coaching staff) or that seat will be really hot after next season. He had some good luck early on, and some bad breaks the last 2 (now 3) seasons.
Rutgers has no relationship with Fanatics and a very limited relationship with Nike. Those companies negotiated those deals directly with Ace and Dylan’s reps, and they would have been eager to sign them even if they had decided to team up and go to Sacred Heart or Stonehill. It means nothing for Rutgers and has nothing to do with Rutgers.
Ok, well that's what literally everyone else is talking about so you just sound like you are talking about something completely different because you refuse to use the language that everyone else is using. The vast majority of "NIL" is pay for play, yes. That's pretty important to the thread.
Exactly. Your point will be proved out when Rutgers announces a relatively ****** new apparel arrangement as we have little leverage with these national brands to demand a better deal.
Mens and women’s hoops have **** the bed in regards to making consistent appearances in the NCAA tournament which is a showcase for national brands and an integral part of such apparel negotiations. Football barely holds their own in this regard.
so you believe that both Ace and Dylan, 2 potential generational talents, were so content with their Fanatics and Nike deals that they forgoed the additional $ millions of school specific NIL at schools like Duke, Alabama, Texas and dozens of others, just so they could play for our lightly regarded basketball school coached by someone with minimal success and no track record of developing players for the NBA?
That defies logic and just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know the real story but that can’t be it.
Last edited:
Dylan' s family has a special relationship with Pikiell. He absolutely chose RU because of Pikiell.
My man, the entire world is talking about NIL to mean these thinly disguised pay-for-play arrangements. That's what this thread is about. If you refuse to use that meaning, you are the one changing the meaning of things.
The product on the court is a function of fan support. When other fan bases are ponying up, and we aren’t, it puts us at a huge disadvantage.
This results in a weak supporting cast and a disappointing season. Next year is looking like more of the same unless people pony up.
You can’t refuse to donate and then complain about the teams performance because then you are part of the problem.
When UConn, a program without a single whale, is running rings around us, thx to fan support, it is unacceptable. Yes they’re struggling this year, but they’ll be back next year.
We wish we could "struggle" like UConn is this year. We've had two teams as good as current UConn in a span of like 40 years.
Anyone who follows horse racing knows about Mike Repole’s passions for sports, competition and having fun with large groups of friends and family, and his long-time friendship with Pitino. He has a lot of Adam Sandler-like qualities. He pours money into SJU simply because it’s fun for him.
I don’t know what Rutgers is paying them, but they both have millions of dollars of endorsement deals that have nothing to do with Rutgers and everything to do with with the fact they are both anticipated to be top 5 NBA draft picks. I also know no money from the collectives went to them, this has been confirmed by Jon Newman. I would guess some of the money from the Vegas tournament went to them, but we probably wouldn’t have considered for the Tournament if they weren’t coming here. When you can generate as much income in real endorsements as these two, you have a great amount of freedom to do whatever you want and go wherever you feel like going.
this is a fair point
these are 'Stony Brook" type of recruits, not P4 recruits
I agree that Sommerville is P4 talent, and Grant may be by his Jr/Sr year.
I think this also falls on his staff, and who the asst's are bringing Pike
But that begs the next question, if not Pike, then who does RU get for their next HC ?
Last edited:
Villanova has top NIL and sucked for 3 years. Calipari spent a fortune and they are just sneaking in as a 11. Texas nil is getting them a Crown Invitation
Stop blaming the fans
Of course not every program with a big NIL budget isn’t going to be successful.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be striving for a big NIL budget ($ that is available to spend on all players, not just company $ earmarked for a 5 star recruit).
My goodness.
If you have premium go read Richie's thread on Prior year player performance this vs. last year (posted last night). Not so much that but this whole debate on Fans NIL contributions (and the $ for Cliff or another center) is discussed there with Richie's insights on it.
Yes, it’s not a great take by him and further solidifies the cultural issues we are up against here.
Everyone wants results but nobody wants to pay for it.
Regardless of what someone can give it’s a mindset and we just don’t have it across the board at Rutgers relative to many of the other successful Division 1 Atheltic programs.
Latest
-
01
Rivals Basketball Recruiting
Top-75 Drew Cabana details Rutgers, Purdue, Creighton & his priorities
-
02
The Knight Report
Join The Knight Report TODAY and get it for 60% off!
-
03
The Knight Report
Rutgers Football Injury Report: Latest ahead of the Wisconsin game
-
04
The Knight Report
Rutgers Women's Basketball downs La Salle for second straight win
-
05
The Knight Report Basketball
Analytical look Rutgers Women's Basketball opening the season with a 31-point win