Here’s an idea.
My understanding of the NIL market, generally, is that each recruit has a price unique to each school recruiting them. If Stu Joenardi is an elite kicker from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, actively recruited by Iowa State, Iowa, Wisconsin, Alabama, Boston College, and UCLA, Stu Joenardi will have a difference price at which he’d go to each of those schools. For Iowa State, a family school close to home, that price is lower than at Iowa, his loathed cultural rival. For Alabama, a school where he’ll have to compete for the starting job, that price may be lower than at Wisconsin, where he might be able to demonstrate an ability to kick in the elements and earn himself looks in an eventual NFL draft. For UCLA, which let’s say has a great kicking coach (who the hell knows who does and doesn’t have one of those), the opportunity to work with an expert in the field might make the price lower than it would be at Boston College. It’s not, I would guess, a system where each recruit goes to the highest bidder. But it is, I would guess, a system where players have a price, unstated or not. For Stu Joenardi, maybe Iowa would need to outbid Iowa State by one million dollars. For Stu Joenardi, maybe Alabama would have to outbid Wisconsin by a couple grand.
Now. Let’s say Stu Joenardi’s long-lost uncle, Joe McGrath, is a booster at the University of California-Berkeley (for the purposes of this thought experiment, neither Stu nor Joe knows the other is his relative, and neither ever makes the connection). He’s a Cal booster, he loves Cal, he loves Cal sports, but none of his booster friends share that love. None of his booster friends want Cal to be good at sports. They’re worried about solving world hunger and other things Joe McGrath refers to in his internal monologue as “loser shit.” Joe, then, doesn’t have much of an outlet for his desire to be involved in NIL. It’d be a drop in a very empty bucket.
What if (this is the idea) Joe McGrath decided to start a Haters Collective, a collective aimed solely at ruining the recruiting chances of UCLA? The Haters Collective’s function would not be to recruit players to play at Cal. The Haters Collective’s function would be to recruit players to play literally anywhere besides UCLA. If Stu Joenardi, two thirds of the way across the country, was down to UCLA and Wisconsin, Joe McGrath and the Haters Collective could swoop in, asking Stu Joenardi what price he would need met to go to Wisconsin rather than UCLA, then making up the difference in that cost. The Haters Collective would have no tie to Wisconsin. The Haters Collective would not replace the payments of Wisconsin boosters. The Haters Collective wouldn’t care if Stu Joenardi kicked there or at Alabama or at Iowa or at Iowa State or at Boston College. But if Stu Joenardi needed an extra hundred thousand dollars on top of all other promised cash to choose Wisconsin over UCLA, and that was the cheapest way to stop him from becoming a Bruin, Joe McGrath and the Haters Collective would give him that hundred thousand.
In related news, The Barking Crow is going to start exploring the logistics of paying basketball recruits to not play for Andy Enfield at USC. Andy Enfield knows what he did. It’s long past time for some practical punishment.
**
Viewing schedule for the rest of the day:
9:00 PM EST: Mizzou vs. Illinois (SECN)
It’s the Game of the NITe, and it’s one of those where there’s no clear upside for our friends at Illinois, which of course gets us all kinds of fired up. Win, and you only beat Mizzou. Lose, and a guy in a bucket hat yells on his blog about how you’re definitely winning the NIT.
5:00 PM EST: Boise State @ Santa Clara (WCCN)
8:00 PM EST: Butler @ Creighton (FS1)
First: Thad Matta might win his second NIT this year. Second: Boise State is a hell of an NIT program and we occasionally forget that.
5:00 PM EST: Portland @ UC Riverside (ESPN+)
Portland’s NIT quest has started to skid, but against Joe Kelly’s alma mater? We’re invested.
9:00 PM EST: Weber State @ BYU (BYUtv)
Go Beekeepers.
7:30 PM EST: Charlotte @ UAB (ESPN+)
NIT contender in the wild. Charlotte isn’t bad. Echoes of 2006.
3:00 PM EST: Iona vs. SMU (ESPNU)
This is the Diamond Head Classic, and you tell me Rick Pitino isn’t getting up to various shenanigans down at Waikiki.
7:30 PM EST: Armed Forces Bowl (ESPN)
Be very careful picking fights in this one. The armed forces have more resources than you do.
7:00 PM EST: Capitals @ Senators (ESPN+)
Sens took one on the chin Tuesday in Winnipeg. Tonight, with tomorrow’s game postponed due to the Red Wings not wanting to play on Christmas Eve Eve (respect), they try to bounce back, with the key storyline being that this is basically a war between the United States and Canada, ‘cause of the seats of government and all.
8:15 PM EST: Jaguars @ Jets (Prime)
No, neither of these teams would be good enough to make a hypothetical NFL NIT. Yes, both of these teams have major NIT vibes. Merry Christmas to one and all.
