While I generally dislike starting new threads, there seems to be some confusion around our collective and i thought it would be helpful to respond to some of those posts in a single place rather than having them buried in different discussions. Read on if you are interested.
Those who have said our collective is different than others are correct. There are things we do not and will not do that are pretty common across the industry. It is distressingly common, for example, to see promises to players broken. They are often promised vast sums in NIL earnings if they come to XYZ school only to see those promises disappearing. Players often find their promised payments going poof if they get hurt, passed over on the depth chart, fail to live up to expectations or just the collective runs out of money or reprioritizes its spending. Happens literally every day.
We don't do any of that. We fundamentally believe that a contract is binding and our word is our word (whether distilled into a contract or not). If a player commits to Cal, stays in good standing in school and doesn't enter the transfer portal we are going to give them every dime we promised them. We have never failed to do so. Matt Cindric got hurt five minutes into our first football game and he got 100% of his money for the season. A number of our MBB players missed significant playing time because of injury and it didn't impact their NIL payments by one dime. And that's not going to change while I am running this.
Pay to play is technically not permitted under the NCAA rules. You can't give players a certain amount in NIL for points scored, games played, etc. It's flatly prohibited although, as noted by others, the NCAA's ability to enforce any of its rules these days is highly suspect. But this is a rule we are going to continue following because we think it makes business sense. Eventually enough players will learn which collectives are "good guys" and which are "bad guys" and it should help our coaches with recruiting. That is not to say that the bad guys won't occasionally win recruiting battles. We've all seen that in life - sometimes evil does in fact triumph. But (to paraphrase MLK) we believe that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice. Ultimately this is the better business approach. We should see better returns than those who tack a different way. But more importantly than any of that, lying to teenagers (or anyone else for that matter) is gross and we won't do it.
None of this, however, has anything to do with our fundraising or our ability to get funds to our players. We can and do get "true" NIL (i.e. not pay to play) opportunities to our players, but the money is just as green. And far more certain than what other collectives will deliver despite their promises. So we don't lose portal recruits because we can't effectively get them paid. That's just not a thing. We can find plenty of ways to pay them.
The issue is fundraising. Our fundraising for football has, after some tense periods, come out in a very good spot. Our fundraising for MBB is also going well, but we clearly need more money to truly compete in the ACC. And we, and Coach Madsen, are working furiously to secure that. I am very grateful to the significant number of people who have stepped forward with major gifts for MBB. But I am also candidly frustrated with the large number of alumni who seem to be engaged in some kind of donor cosplay. They have the means and want to appear to be major donors but they won't do the most single most cost-effective thing they can do to help. Which is to write a five or six or even seven figure check to the collective for MBB. I think too many of our donors lost the thread somewhere along the way. They think supporting the program means showing up and bemoaning our lack of success on the court and then getting back in their Mercedes and driving away. It doesn't. You want to support the program then support it.
Please note here that I am not talking about the handful of people who have given millions to Cal athletics but yet aren't major NIL donors. They have done plenty for Cal already and while I wish a few of them would come out differently than they have, it's their call. I don't tell people how they have to spend their money and they're the only reason we still have a program at all. Here I'm talking about people of means who like to pretend like they are "insiders" and yet are nowhere to be found when the hat gets passed. They need to do better.
Had a good meeting yesterday with our AD and there are some initiatives in the works that I am very confident will soon help us fully close the gap between where we are and where we want to be in MBB. I have no interest in watching a 13 win team again next year. We have one chance to make a splash with our first year in the ACC and this is it. One way or the other we are going to get there.
Thanks for reading.
https://calegends.com/calegendsdonate/
Those who have said our collective is different than others are correct. There are things we do not and will not do that are pretty common across the industry. It is distressingly common, for example, to see promises to players broken. They are often promised vast sums in NIL earnings if they come to XYZ school only to see those promises disappearing. Players often find their promised payments going poof if they get hurt, passed over on the depth chart, fail to live up to expectations or just the collective runs out of money or reprioritizes its spending. Happens literally every day.
We don't do any of that. We fundamentally believe that a contract is binding and our word is our word (whether distilled into a contract or not). If a player commits to Cal, stays in good standing in school and doesn't enter the transfer portal we are going to give them every dime we promised them. We have never failed to do so. Matt Cindric got hurt five minutes into our first football game and he got 100% of his money for the season. A number of our MBB players missed significant playing time because of injury and it didn't impact their NIL payments by one dime. And that's not going to change while I am running this.
Pay to play is technically not permitted under the NCAA rules. You can't give players a certain amount in NIL for points scored, games played, etc. It's flatly prohibited although, as noted by others, the NCAA's ability to enforce any of its rules these days is highly suspect. But this is a rule we are going to continue following because we think it makes business sense. Eventually enough players will learn which collectives are "good guys" and which are "bad guys" and it should help our coaches with recruiting. That is not to say that the bad guys won't occasionally win recruiting battles. We've all seen that in life - sometimes evil does in fact triumph. But (to paraphrase MLK) we believe that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice. Ultimately this is the better business approach. We should see better returns than those who tack a different way. But more importantly than any of that, lying to teenagers (or anyone else for that matter) is gross and we won't do it.
None of this, however, has anything to do with our fundraising or our ability to get funds to our players. We can and do get "true" NIL (i.e. not pay to play) opportunities to our players, but the money is just as green. And far more certain than what other collectives will deliver despite their promises. So we don't lose portal recruits because we can't effectively get them paid. That's just not a thing. We can find plenty of ways to pay them.
The issue is fundraising. Our fundraising for football has, after some tense periods, come out in a very good spot. Our fundraising for MBB is also going well, but we clearly need more money to truly compete in the ACC. And we, and Coach Madsen, are working furiously to secure that. I am very grateful to the significant number of people who have stepped forward with major gifts for MBB. But I am also candidly frustrated with the large number of alumni who seem to be engaged in some kind of donor cosplay. They have the means and want to appear to be major donors but they won't do the most single most cost-effective thing they can do to help. Which is to write a five or six or even seven figure check to the collective for MBB. I think too many of our donors lost the thread somewhere along the way. They think supporting the program means showing up and bemoaning our lack of success on the court and then getting back in their Mercedes and driving away. It doesn't. You want to support the program then support it.
Please note here that I am not talking about the handful of people who have given millions to Cal athletics but yet aren't major NIL donors. They have done plenty for Cal already and while I wish a few of them would come out differently than they have, it's their call. I don't tell people how they have to spend their money and they're the only reason we still have a program at all. Here I'm talking about people of means who like to pretend like they are "insiders" and yet are nowhere to be found when the hat gets passed. They need to do better.
Had a good meeting yesterday with our AD and there are some initiatives in the works that I am very confident will soon help us fully close the gap between where we are and where we want to be in MBB. I have no interest in watching a 13 win team again next year. We have one chance to make a splash with our first year in the ACC and this is it. One way or the other we are going to get there.
Thanks for reading.
https://calegends.com/calegendsdonate/
