ransom

[nash78]

My son is 18 and going into aerospace engineering (he FAR outpaced me in intelligence and motivation lol). He applied to 6 very competitive schools, got in to all of them, and had his top three ranked. He made his decision based on how much money he was getting from the schools. He ended picking his #3 school. Why? Literally because of money.

Also as an 18 year old, he had a very difficult time making the decision. His mom and I sat down with him with spreadsheets, etc, breaking down costs, blah blah blah. It was a difficult decision. Could he have made it on his own? Sure. Would it have been the "best" financial decision? I have no idea, but maybe not. In the end, though, after all of the talk, we allowed him to make the decision for himself.

I'm now imagining we had an "agent" of sorts - a financial advisor, someone who could negotiate with the schools to increase scholarships, who knew who to talk to and how, who had a track record of getting prospective students the best deal. I would assume that this person would have had way more influence on my kid's decision than my little spreadsheets.

Point is: 1) 18 year olds need help making significant life decisions. 2) They also have agency. 3) Money is a huge factor in those decisions. 3) In the college sports landscape, agents might have disproportionate impact on these decisions.

 

[Anon1751335390]

Freeman thinks he has x value. UConn and UK don’t think he’s worth x. Therefore, he is trying other programs to get x amount.

 

[rick64]

I don't have a problem with the agents trying to help their client make as much money as they can. If I had an agent, that's what I'd want them to do for me. Find me great opportunities where I can make the most money.

UK appears to have an issue with closing the deal. Is this on Pope or Brown or both? Probably a combination of the two.

Brown's function at UK according to UK athletics website:

"With the Wildcats, Brown will work closely with Pope and the staff to support the program’s roster-building efforts. Specifically, he will be involved with roster construction and player acquisition strategy, including transfer portal evaluation and acquisition strategy, roster planning, scholarship allocation and resource optimization. Furthermore, Brown will be involved with player personnel scouting, evaluation and decision support. He will utilize the integration of analytics into recruiting and roster decisions, along with coordinating information across staff, agents and key external relationships."

 

[VC99]

If Freeman wants to come to UK, he'll be at UK. People acting like the agents are forcing these poor kids to do things they don't want to do. They're 18 years old and already in a higher tax bracket than everyone on this board (other than me of course)

You're misinterpretting it. The agent isn't saying "No you cannot go to that school." The player, likeyl has no clue what their evaluation is, a school like Kentucky goes "we'll give you 3 million" Freeman says, I want to go to Kentucky, he might have even given a verbal, but the agent says "hold on, not yet." The agents aren't telling kids where they have to go but they are seriously preventing commitments and trying their hardest to drag it out.