Old guy

He adds vodka when he wants to be optimistic.

Hoosier, I am not predicting doom for St. Bona, what I am really saying is that they tried as best as they could to keep one of theirs in the team by raising an $80,000 NIL, and were beaten elsewhere. As long as it is play for pay, they cannot compete.

So, they have a steel man and a tin man in now, plus a gaping hole of ??? in their bench. I guess we are going to see a few kids playing 40 min per game for St. Bona every game. What better way is there to develop the new future iron man squad than to use whatever they have in the team until their legs cannot go any longer for a full season? They know now that they cannot compete in term os NILs, they are out of that race, so they have to go at it in a different way.

People are what they are, you cannot make an apple tree produce oranges. Obviously the AD at UNC has a level of business ability which is probably lacking among most other college ADs. If he could see an opportunity to get ahead instead of fearing change because it is change, much the better for him and for UNC, they got ahead early in the race.

He will have to turn into the steel one, and carry the whole team.

If you check Olean, NY in Wikipedia you will find out that it is a city of about 15,000 which has experienced a flight of businesses headquartered there with CUTCO knives as the only major manufacturer located there. I really think that offering an $80,000 in NIL money was a heroic effort in their part. However they just cannot compete with other bigger places in terms of money for NILs. I am sorry they lost to Florida, they are nice people.

The concept of student athletes is a valid concept. Maybe they are not the majority of players but these guys are looking for a good education not for an NBA slot. Congratulations, well done.

If you have never seen a Capoeira exhibition, you should check this out. Capoeira is the Brazilian brand of martial arts. It is different from anything else you have ever seen, except this stuff is for real and not computer generated on green screens (as in the movies). From time to time there have been Karate vs Capoeira matches in St. Louis, the Brazilians are hard to stop. The video is from the European games of 2018, at the very end of the video there is an exhibit fight between two black belts (not real, but you get the idea). So, this is a taste of Capoeira for you all:

Make sure to check America's Test Kitchen site for ways to prepare hats, just in case.

You are absolutely correct, and we will not know which way the changes will go, it will take years to see what comes out of this change.

When I was in training I knew an orthopedic surgeon that was depressed and frustrated with his life and fate. He was one of two kids, he went to med school and was "our son the Dr" to his family, the other one played the guitar and the family thought he was a bum. The guitar player, I forgot who he was, made all kinds of money, and the roles reversed. "Our son the Dr." became the forgotten kid in the family. He hated it. Money can and does buy family approval and "love."

OK, look at it from the point of view of the player's family. There is a very good chance that they are plainly not qualified to review and find the pitfalls of a NIL contract like this one offered to the kid. How about their agent? The agent is likely to be out to make money for himself; just look at the advise Willie Reed got from his agent. I bet this kid and his family are not likely to understand the concept of "caveat emptor," which in this case should be "signer beware" instead of "buyer beware." Ever heard the saying "fool's gold?" What is best for the kid should be the mantra of the NIL "revolution", but is it? Is the NIL "revolution" an extension of old games of smoke and mirrors, or switch and bait which are well known in the business world? Yes, but owning/operating a business and being a star athlete are not necessarily occupations that are compatible with one another, and there is the small problem of maintaining the minimum required school grades involved in here as well. You think a regular high school kid can do all of these things at the same time?

Of course it is a good idea, primarily for the company. A logo from a recognizable star on the company's product line is a great sales idea. If this is limited to profit sharing of a 20,000 ball batch with the kid, the company is golden, as long as the kid has a great season. You can be certain that the contract signed protects the company in all kinds of different ways.

Analyze what you know about this deal. I think they are wrong about how much money the kid is going to make out of selling 20,000 out of a "limited edition glow basketball line." Glow basketballs sell for about $30 in Amazon, so potentially we are talking bout $600,000 raw sales revenue for the 20,000 balls. I am pretty certain that unless the total number of limited balls allowed in this run is specified in the contract, the company may make a much higher number of balls than the 20,000 ball batch specified. The kid also agreed to share his proceeds with Detroit Mercy Athletic program, and has promised to share his take with his team on top of it all. There are all kinds of expenses involved in here including production and selling expenses, company taxes, company overhead and the % donation to Detroit Mercy Athletic agreed upon. The kid has to pay his own agent fees, his income taxes, and the amount he will share with the team that he promised. His actual take will be dependent upon how the deal's details are structured in the NIL contract. I honestly doubt this kid will wake up one morning and find out a number of semi's in front of this house with his 20,000 basketballs, which he then will have to store and sell. I assume the company will do the leg work and give him the profits (minus the share sent to the Detroit Mercy Athletic program) from a 20,000 ball batch sale. He is not likely to see anything close to $600,000 coming to him. This is not a simple "I give you money, you play basketball" NIL deal.

This is a quote from Winston Churchill: "Lies, lies, and dam_ed statistics."