College Name-Image-Likeness (NIL)

[SoxJox]

I don’t think alumni wealth as a whole matters as much as alumni - and other people who want to be associated with a school, which is often relevant for state universities - who are willing to donate to boost the school’s sports, and NIL isn't really going to change who wants to pay money to attract talent. Stanford today already could get a bigger time coach and nicer facilities to recruit more aggressively with its alumni contributions, but my sense is that its alums don’t care as much about that.

I'm not sure how the number of alumni translates into donations. I'm sure some/many alumni do donate. So, here are the top 15 alumni associations:

Interesting the B1G holds 7 of the top 15 spots.

1. Penn State: 673,845
2. Indiana: 650,000+
3. Michigan: 575,000
4. Ohio State: 550,000
5. UCLA: 530,000
6. UC Berkeley: 500,000
7. Texs: 500,000+
8. Rutgers: 486,000
9. Purdue: 479,000
10. NYU: 470,000
11. Texas A&M: 436,000
12. Wisconsin: 435,000
13. Illinois: 425,000
14. Florida: 413,000
15. Arizona State: 400,000+

Yet, here are the top 10 schools in terms of %age of alumni that donate (2-year average for 2017-2018 and 2018-2019):

1. Princeton: 55%
2. Williams College: 50%
3. Bowdoin: 47%
4. Alice Lloyd College: 46%
5. Amherst: 45%
6. Carleton: 45%
7. Thomas Aquinas: 45%
8. Holy Cross: 44%
9. Dartmouth: 44%
10. Wellesley: 44%

Those are some pretty heavy giving rates when you consider that giving rate averages for National Universities and National Liberal Arts, and Regional Universities and Regional Colleges are 3% for each group.

Using that as a test average, if 3% of Penn State's 673,845 donates, and let's assume they donated an average $1,000 *(pulled out of posterior orifice), that would be donations totaling $20,215,350. Not a negligible number, but there is no way of telling how much of that makes it to the Athletics Department.

I think more schools hope that the very wealthiest of alumni will donate. Folks like these (I've left off donors to non-US universities or where the donation was for a specific purpose):

1. Michael Bloomberg's donation of $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University.
T-3. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty, donated $600 million over 10 years to the California Institute of Technology in 2001.
T-7**. Philip Knight donated $500 million to Oregon University in 2016, the largest donation to a public flagship university in US history.T-7. Helen Diller, wife of real estate billionaire Sanford Diller, donated $500 million to the University of California-San Francisco last year.T-13. Holocaust survivors Howard and Lottie Marcus donated $400 million to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel in 2016.
T-13. Television mogul John W. Kluge donated $400 million to Columbia University in 2007.
T-13. Hedge-fund manager John A. Paulson donated $400 million to Harvard University in 2015.
T-13. The Hewlett Foundation donated $400 million to Stanford University in 2001, at the time the single largest gift to an American college or university.
T-13**. Nike co-founder and billionaire Philip Knight donated $400 million to Stanford University in 2016.
14. An anonymous donor gave $360 million to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2001.
15. Chuck Feeney, who helped pioneer duty-free shopping, donated $350 million to Cornell University in 2011.

**In addition to these donations, Knight donated $500 million to Oregon Health & Science University to fund cancer research, bringing his total donations to $1.4 billion, just shy of Bloomberg's eye-popping $1.8B. Alas, Johns Hopkins is competitive only win men's lacrosse, as far as I know, although they have been VERY good at it for a long time...winning the second most national championships (9 to Syracuse's 10).

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

Donation percentages are nearly useless. Schools organize “give a buck” campaigns to score well in those.

 

[SumnerH]

I'm not sure how the number of alumni translates into donations. I'm sure some/many alumni do donate. So, here are the top 15 alumni associations:

Interesting the B1G holds 7 of the top 15 spots.

1. Penn State: 673,845
2. Indiana: 650,000+
3. Michigan: 575,000
4. Ohio State: 550,000
5. UCLA: 530,000
6. UC Berkeley: 500,000
7. Texs: 500,000+
8. Rutgers: 486,000
9. Purdue: 479,000
10. NYU: 470,000
11. Texas A&M: 436,000
12. Wisconsin: 435,000
13. Illinois: 425,000
14. Florida: 413,000
15. Arizona State: 400,000+

Yet, here are the top 10 schools in terms of %age of alumni that donate (2-year average for 2017-2018 and 2018-2019):

1. Princeton: 55%
2. Williams College: 50%
3. Bowdoin: 47%
4. Alice Lloyd College: 46%
5. Amherst: 45%
6. Carleton: 45%
7. Thomas Aquinas: 45%
8. Holy Cross: 44%
9. Dartmouth: 44%
10. Wellesley: 44%

Those are some pretty heavy giving rates when you consider that giving rate averages for National Universities and National Liberal Arts, and Regional Universities and Regional Colleges are 3% for each group.

Using that as a test average, if 3% of Penn State's 673,845 donates, and let's assume they donated an average $1,000 *(pulled out of posterior orifice), that would be donations totaling $20,215,350. Not a negligible number, but there is no way of telling how much of that makes it to the Athletics Department.

I think more schools hope that the very wealthiest of alumni will donate. Folks like these (I've left off donors to non-US universities or where the donation was for a specific purpose):

1. Michael Bloomberg's donation of $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University.
T-3. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty, donated $600 million over 10 years to the California Institute of Technology in 2001.
T-7**. Philip Knight donated $500 million to Oregon University in 2016, the largest donation to a public flagship university in US history.T-7. Helen Diller, wife of real estate billionaire Sanford Diller, donated $500 million to the University of California-San Francisco last year.T-13. Holocaust survivors Howard and Lottie Marcus donated $400 million to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel in 2016.
T-13. Television mogul John W. Kluge donated $400 million to Columbia University in 2007.
T-13. Hedge-fund manager John A. Paulson donated $400 million to Harvard University in 2015.
T-13. The Hewlett Foundation donated $400 million to Stanford University in 2001, at the time the single largest gift to an American college or university.
T-13**. Nike co-founder and billionaire Philip Knight donated $400 million to Stanford University in 2016.
14. An anonymous donor gave $360 million to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2001.
15. Chuck Feeney, who helped pioneer duty-free shopping, donated $350 million to Cornell University in 2011.

**In addition to these donations, Knight donated $500 million to Oregon Health & Science University to fund cancer research, bringing his total donations to $1.4 billion, just shy of Bloomberg's eye-popping $1.8B. Alas, Johns Hopkins is competitive only win men's lacrosse, as far as I know, although they have been VERY good at it for a long time...winning the second most national championships (9 to Syracuse's 10).

Having grown up in Brunswick (home of Bowdoin) with a dad who was the radio announcer for Hopkins lacrosse in the 60s, this hits close to home. I thought Druckenmiller's donation to Bowdoin might make the list-it was the 3rd largest to a liberal arts school at the time- but it was only $30 million (albeit in 1997) and has been dwarfed many times in more recent years.

Hopkins often tops the list of biggest recipients of research funding (over $3 billion in 2020; #2 Michigan sat just shy of $1.7 billion- surprisingly, more research money at Hopkins went to physics than medicine), but that's a somewhat different kettle of fish. At least there's an argument that those funds are related to what people think of as a university's core mandate, though obviously the details are often fraught.

https://universitybusiness.com/the-top-100-colleges-and-universities-that-spent-on-rd-in-2020/#:~:text=Far and away the biggest,Physics Lab ($1.9 billion).

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

View: https://youtu.be/d6DMS2wEPvw

 

[SoxJox]

Hopkins often tops the list of biggest recipients of research funding (over $3 billion in 2020; #2 Michigan sat just shy of $1.7 billion- surprisingly, more research money at Hopkins went to physics than medicine), but that's a somewhat different kettle of fish. At least there's an argument that those funds are related to what people think of as a university's core mandate, though obviously the details are often fraught.

https://universitybusiness.com/the-top-100-colleges-and-universities-that-spent-on-rd-in-2020/#:~:text=Far and away the biggest,Physics Lab ($1.9 billion).

When I was in the Pentagon heading up the Surface Warfare Division's Antisubmarine Sensors and Weapons Department, I made quite a few trips to J. Hopkins' science and engineering departments. After all, they were spending several 10s of millions in dollars that my office had directed to them.

 

[Philip Jeff Frye]

My understanding of how this NIL thing works is that having lots of alums giving small amounts of money isn't going to matter. You need wealthy alums with some sort of business who sign the advertising deals with the players that the school wants to buy. The colleges can't do this directly, although presumably they can coordinate with the boosters to make sure they're targeting the players the coach wants.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

My understanding of how this NIL thing works is that having lots of alums giving small amounts of money isn't going to matter. You need wealthy alums with some sort of business who sign the advertising deals with the players that the school wants to buy. The colleges can't do this directly, although presumably they can coordinate with the boosters to make sure they're targeting the players the coach wants.

Alums and other donors are grouping together in collectives, so that addresses the need to have a specific sort of business, but yes, as with all aspects of life it does help to be wealthy. From https://www.on3.com/nil/news/nil-collectives-a-big-deal-now-are-they-sustainable/

Over the past few months, more than 30 school-specific collectives have launched nationwide. Founded by alums, boosters and/or former school administrators, they pool funds from donors to help create NIL deals for a school’s athletes, typically through autograph signings, meet-and-greets or endorsement deals. All Power 5 schools are expected to be associated with at least one collective, which operate independently of the school, by the end of the year.

But Cavale is among those who believe this new dynamic has created and exacerbated a sense of “FOMO” (fear of missing out) among some athletic directors.

Industry sources say a Power 5 school’s affiliated collective will need to amass a minimum of $5 million annually if it hopes to keep pace with rivals. And the most ambitious collectives, those seeking seek to carve out more substantial recruiting advantages, are aiming to raise annual totals upward of $25 million. That’s big money. And if this model succeeds in attracting top recruits in this “Show Me the Money” NIL recruiting age, the onus will be on the well-heeled boosters to not only maintain that level of support but at times increase it. Is that level of financial support sustainable?

I just don't see why this should necessarily precipitate any shift towards Stanford or USC against Clemson or Oklahoma. Oklahoma has plenty of car dealership owners and other top 0.1% earners in society who would be willing to donate to a collective in return for some token advertising deal (the player shows up at the opening of a new dealership, does a local TV ad, that sort of thing), plus Oklahoma - like many state schools that are football brand names - likely has a whole group of rich Oklahomans who didn't even go to the university but donate to the team because they love the team as an expression of state/geographical identity. My suspicion is that a place like Oklahoma or Texas or Clemson will have more alums and others willing to donate to a collective for the sake of making the football team great, much more so than a place like Stanford.

 

[SoxJox]

But the question is, and I don't know how donation distribution decisions are made, how do those donations make their way into the athletic departments? I mean, I'm sure some donors specify the intended or target department, but I would think most do not.

 

[AlNipper49]

Plus private universities like Stanford are making orders of magnitude more on endowments than any of the athletic stuff. They’d be fiscally silly to divert their resources elsewhere.

 

[steveluck7]

But the question is, and I don't know how donation distribution decisions are made, how do those donations make their way into the athletic departments? I mean, I'm sure some donors specify the intended or target department, but I would think most do not.

Most actually do. Many schools who rely on fundraising are struggling in some areas because of the decrease in unrestricted donations (aka The Annual Fund, aaka “where it’s needed most”)
While overall giving numbers are up for many institutions, most is being very specifically designated, especially towards athletics.

 

[cgori]

But the question is, and I don't know how donation distribution decisions are made, how do those donations make their way into the athletic departments? I mean, I'm sure some donors specify the intended or target department, but I would think most do not.

From https://giving.stanford.edu/endowment/ (because Nip's post made me curious so I was looking at some other stats on it):

Nearly 80 percent of the Stanford endowment is restricted or designated for specific uses.
The endowment actually includes more than 7,300 different funds established by donors. Most of these are designated for specific purposes, such as supporting first-generation college students or advancing a particular field of study. Stanford has a legal and fiduciary obligation to use these funds as intended.

I think this is different than one-time/annual-pledge-drive donations - the letters you get for those are typically for the "general fund" / have no restrictions.

 

[wibi]

NIL is the whole reason Drew Timme returned to Gonzaga for one more year. His draft stock was dropping and he is a legend in Spokane. He has upwards of $1M in NIL deals for next year already

 

[Bergs]

When I was in the Pentagon heading up the Surface Warfare Division's Antisubmarine Sensors and Weapons Department, I made quite a few trips to J. Hopkins' science and engineering departments. After all, they were spending several 10s of millions in dollars that my office had directed to them.

This is one of the better humblebrags in SoSH history.

 

[Ale Xander]

Entire Razorbacks basketball team signed to NIL deal for Children's Safety Center (Washington County, where Fayetteville is). Very cool

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/arkansas-football/arkansas-basketball-team-signs-nil-deal-partnering-with-childrens-safety-center/