In this episode, we talk about the current state of college baseball & if NIL money is a good thing or a bad thing for collegiate athletes.
The ProSource Pod
NIL Money for Collegiate Sports
What's going on guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Pro Source Pod. Got Eric, Nick here. Today we're gonna be talking about NIL money. This is a thing that's fairly recent. College athletes are now able to get paid to go play their sport, which is an interesting thing. Me and Nick have been talking about this for a while now because here in New Jersey there's some really good talent and there have been reports of said talent getting paid a bag to go play sports in college. - There's rumors of a specific player getting 40K from VTEC and then 70K from UNC. - Yeah. - Like not like academic, like not like, as in like that is for their like, that's like their NIL money. - They're just getting, yeah. - But it's hard to wrap your head around it 'cause it's like, when we were playing like, I mean, everyone lies about what they actually get anyway. It's like, oh, I got like 95% and it's like 75% of it was academic, but you can kind of just tell people you got 95% and no one will ask them like, oh, you basically got a full ride. It's like, well, yeah, if you're smart, you know there's no money in baseball. - Yeah, there's really not, that's why it's like, it's hard to wrap my head around the NIL in baseball because there is no money in baseball. I mean, the only exceptions really, I feel like our ACC, SEC schools, because once again, they just have infinite funds. - Like no one's getting NIL money to go to Saint Peter's or UMass Law or a school like that. - Dude, not even getting money to go to Saint John's and Saint John's is good. - But it's like part of the NIL thing too, is like sponsorships. Like, you can actually get sponsorships now and get discount codes for like Thumb Pro or Clean Fuego or something like that and get a discount code. - I don't even know. - And not get paid a bag from that, but it's-- - I don't even know how they're getting paid, so it's like-- - Well, it's like the same thing with a-- - They're essentially an influencer, almost. - I know, but like, so some of them have clout already. The ones that have clout have their chance of just getting like stuff from like brands. I don't know how exactly they do NIL to give people money, but it might not even like come from like the school, technically. It comes from like a booster or local, like local, whatever. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - They're paid to promote something and then I don't know how it works exactly, that's how it was like kind of explained to me. Like, let's just say like, Chase Burns goes to Wake Forest, there's a local pub around there and he's like on posters of the pub and like local commercial like come eat here and it's like, no, he's got paid from that, like a lot of money, but it was really from the booster club. - Yeah. - But I don't really know. But that's whatever. - Yeah. - Here's what I've stumbled upon in trying to find NIL baseball rankings, like how much money they're making, it's undisclosed the valuation. But like, so it's like, Chase Burns was at Tennessee, right? Went to Wake Forest. Had to have been paid a significant amount of money to transfer with essentially like SEC to ACC, both good programs, didn't really have a reason to leave. So it's like got paid, Tommy White and C-State. - Got paid a bag. - What the hell is he like? - Got paid a bag. - So like just put two and two together, right? But no one actually knows how much they're making. - Correct. - So like, I could ask Kev if he knows how much advanced Honeyclud's getting because he was teammates with him and they went out together before, so it's like, he might have an idea of how much. - He probably knows. - Yeah, he probably is. And he probably is a better idea of how the whole NIL thing works 'cause he's actually better than me. - Because he's actually playing at an SEC school, or-- - He didn't get NIL. - Well, he was-- - So Jerry got NIL because his name was Peacock. - Peacock used him to promote on, it's a whole thing. Jerry would just post like tune into Peacock and he was Jerry Peacock and he played a nerd game, so he got like paid a hundred bucks for it. - Actually-- - That's where it got. - That happened? - Yeah, he was doing it for a little bit. I don't know how, I think he would perch them like or something, but-- (laughing) - But he never, he didn't fucking play, (laughing) so he literally didn't play, so that-- - Man, it was hurt like two of those. - I didn't know that. - Yeah. - You didn't know that. - Vance Honeycutt is ranked 27th in NIL. He only has 13,000 followers. Like across Instagram doesn't have that. - Oh, it tells them what their follower count is. - He's ranked 27th, but like no, follower count doesn't have to do with it. It's just like they have an idea of, it's so bizarre. They have an idea of who's wearing the rankings, but the amount they're getting is undisclosed. 'Cause there's cats with like 2,000 followers, like Benjamin Blackwell, but he's above Vance Honeycutt. So it's very interesting. Like number, number, where is he at? Chase Burns was ranked 15th on this list. Trey Morgan has 96,000 followers across Instagram, TikTok, and Xbox, it's really mainly. It's 85% Instagram, but it's undisclosed, but he's number one ranked on that. - That's insane. - I don't get it. I don't know what's going on. - Some of these kids are probably getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to go play baseball. - Yeah. - And like that's just baseball too. Like imagine what football players are getting. - It was, you don't know about what happened with Caleb Williams? - No. - Caleb Williams, the number one draft pick in this draft, he had another eligibility and he even said like, if depending on what teams get the number one pick, like I might just not go 'cause like, I can make more money in college than I can. - In college. - That is a real deal. So he's like, I want to go to a situation that's not bad. - Crazy. - Yeah, so it's like, that is fucking crazy. - Like he knew he's the number one pick. It doesn't matter if it's this draft or the next draft. 'Cause if it was the draft earlier, he would have been number one pick. He's like, yeah, like. - It's like, if I don't want to go to that team, I'll just go back and play in college. - He's making more money in college, yeah. - Dude, that's incredible. He's not going to class. - Well, he got your number one, but it's like, yeah, there's guys aren't going to class. - What team did he go to? - The Bears. You really have no idea about that sport. - I don't follow football. - You don't follow football. - Yeah, but it's like basketball, same thing. Those guys are getting paid. Those cats are getting paid. They're all getting paid, apparently. But baseball, I just want to know how many people are getting paid and how much. 'Cause Erachi said something about, I don't remember the kid's name, but he went somewhere and then transferred out and got paid 500K from Vandy. I don't know if that's true or not. - That seems so unreasonable. - Half a million dollars. - That seems so unreasonable. I don't know if he knows what 500 grand means. It might have been like 500 dollars. - 500 grand dude, half a million dollars, get the fuck out of here. - Like I don't know. - That there's a no way. - It was apparently a BPC cat, so I'd have to look that up. - There's no shot. There's no shot. I mean, I can do my due diligence on it, but like there's no way, 'cause you can't tell me Trey Morgan's getting paid like three million dollars. - No. - He might be getting back three million dollars. But like in baseball, dude, no one gives a shit about baseball. You're not, dude, no. Trey Morgan's not making more than Tommy White signed for with the A's. They don't have that. They just don't have that. It literally, they just don't have, I don't know. The question is, do you think it's good or bad? I'm putting this away. I don't care about this ranking board. Is NIL good or bad for college sports? (sighs) - I think it's a good thing. I used to think that and now really looking at it, I don't believe so. - Why? - There's no, one, there's no loyalty. People are just flip-flop and it's a bad product. Like the transfer portal shouldn't exist the way it does. Like if you go somewhere, like that's where you go. And like if you want to leave, you can get out of there, but there's going to be like restrictions like limiting how much you can flip-flop around. 'Cause it's like not the whole like the guys before us. Like even when we were around, like the one, NIL only didn't exist to like, to dance up to something, it was like, it's like, doesn't that piss you off? Like, knowing how good you were and it's like, this is going on and it's like, well, yeah, I understand it, but it's like, I'm not, it's like one of those things that it's 'cause it's like, if you see what's going on and who's playing now, and then it's like, you could be the bitter old guy, but it's not even like the bitter old guy take. It's just like, it's monopoly money. And like these kids don't need that now. Like it's just like, it's a whole world trend. Like there's no reason for these kids to get paid that. - I get what you're saying. I do. It's just like, it's just going to breed the generosity, like in the grand scale, because one, like no one knows what like dedication is anymore. - I think part of it, and this might be completely off, but it's like, I think part of why they do it now and why NIL money is a thing, it's like, dude, nobody watches college baseball. Nobody like, nobody pays attention. - It was never done for college baseball. It was like, so like the whole reason it was done was for football players and basketball players. That was primarily why it was done. It's not done for baseball players. Like so for me, my take isn't, it has nothing to do with like specifically baseball. It has to do with the umbrella of everything. 'Cause it's like, dude, like-- - Yeah, mine has to do with just specifically baseball. - 'Cause like women's volleyball, like there's girls-- - I don't watch any of their sports. - Yeah, there's girls making bags in women's volleyball because there's some places in the world and this state specifically, they're not in this state, in this country. Like I think it's in Nebraska or like Wyoming. The only thing they care about is the women's volleyball team. So like they get paid handsomely. So it's like, it's a really weird one, but it's also, it's like, I just don't think it's good for the world, essentially. But like, it's so weird 'cause my take used to be, I was anti like the colleges doing what they do. So it's like, okay, put it this way. There is the money there for every single sport to have full rides everywhere on the whole roster. They don't do that. Or like they could budget where everyone has a full ride and is making $4,000 for the season. You're already playing a sport, like that's your craft in itself, like depending on what scale, like what conference, like they could figure out a way where depending on what conference you're in and the competition you're facing and like the revenue coming in, how much you like everyone gets allotted. 'Cause it's like now it's just like, it's sloppy. It's sloppy, don't like it. 'Cause it's just like, it's just gonna breed the generous and people flip-flopping, leaving, no one's happy, this and that, well I can go here. It's like, dude, like just tough titties, stick it up. 'Cause even if you're not getting paid, people transfer left and right. - Well that's like, like in the coaching carousel now, is even more ridiculous than it used to be. Like there's like coaches. - That's a whole nother thing dude. Yeah, coaches jump-trip just as much as players do, but it's like, think about why coaches are leaving. Why? I'm asking you, why do you think these coaches are leaving? - Well they're getting paid. - Yeah, it's money. - Or they're fired. - It's money. - They're gonna fire or they're paid. - Yeah, but like most of the time they get, well at least what I've seen, 'cause every school that I've gone to, the two school, well no, Charles and Southern and then Mercer coaching changes. Like I've seen so many coaching changes and it's always money related. They just get paid a bag to go somewhere else. And it's like I get it. - I mean Gorman essentially told all of us, he's not going anywhere and then he dipped the barn after we won the World Series. - Yeah, money will. - But you know what's funny though? Like they were a horrible program and now they're actually coach. - He's good at what he does. - He's a good coach. - He's good at what he does. - Gorman, good at what he does. - Regardless of like baseball stuff, like he's good at coaching. - Yeah, but it's like the whole time. - Yeah, he got pissed when I didn't want to go there. - You ever sweat the caramel? What do you say to you? - He called me, he called me one day. He was like, "Hey, you're..." (laughing) He's good smoocher. - He's very smooch. - You don't realize when you walk in that door, he's gonna be it. - I never, I never visited, I never visited the caramel. But he called me. He was like, "Hurt you through." 89, there showcased this past weekend. He's like, "That's pretty good." We can use an arm like yours. (laughing) It's like, fuck yeah. - But back to the whole NIL thing. The only reason, like, what I was getting at is like, my take has to do with just baseball, 'cause I don't watch any other sport. - Well, if there's no money in baseball. - Okay, I get it, but it's like, the NIL thing, in my opinion, I think the ratings in the College World Series were up this year. Like, I think more people watched the College World Series this year than in the past like 10 years or something like that. So like, it shows you the game's going to, maybe not the game's going in the right direction, but attention from fans is going in the right direction. And it's like, if part of that has to be players getting these insane deals and marketing the fuck out of themselves and being flashy and doing all that, then so be it. - Is it good for baseball? Isn't it good for the world? - Yeah, I do think it's good for baseball, 'cause it's like if more people are watching baseball, what does that mean? More money is going to be going to baseball. - Or more people actually watching baseball. - Yeah, I mean, you can-- - Baseball's not gaining more people. - Baseball's not gaining more people. - I'm not talking about baseball in general. - You just said it, you just said it a second ago. - Yeah, I was talking about the College World Series this year. I don't know about like, major league baseball ratings this year. I don't know what they look like. I don't know if more people are watching baseball, but it's like. - All right, think of the actual baseball product of what it is today. No, this is its own separate thing, but it's like, we'll talk about this in a different episode. Is baseball getting better or worse? - Is baseball getting better or worse? We'll leave that for the viewers to ponder, and we will come back to that in another episode. But for this one, I'm going to wrap it up. That's NIL money. We'll catch you guys in the next one. - I don't think it's good. - I think it's good. Catch you on the next one. Peace. (wind blowing) [BLANK_AUDIO]