You might have seen a few hours ago that another NIL approach has launched for Wake Forest student-athletes -- this one is just supporting football players, link to the site can be found here.
I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money -- I'm not a businessman or a business, man. I'm just a reporter trying to scrape by. This does seem like a cool approach and appears to be completely player-driven, which is different than the alumni who's trying to get a Wake Forest NIL collective off the ground (Top Hat Collective) and different from the school's deal with Opendorse (Deactown Marketplace). I don't think I'm missing anybody but let me know if I am.
I've got one overriding thought on Wake Forest and NIL, though.
It's starting to feel like things are getting thrown against the wall with the hope that something sticks. Top Hat Collective has seemed dormant other than the rare, random "get excited we've got things coming" tweet and you know, in the first month or two, that's great. When a website launched in March still has "COMING SOON" in the "PLAYERS" section of your website, I can't imagine people are happy with their investment. And if Deactown Marketplace was thriving, would the football players be launching their own venture?
If you need a reminder on how prevalent NIL has become in basketball recruiting, Part II of the state of the program series with Steve Forbes should suffice.
Wake Forest isn't the only school scuffling. But given its stature as the smallest Power 5 school in the country, and with the size of the fan bases in the Triangle and throughout the state, I can't help but feel like the last 4-5 months has been a botched opportunity to get in front of the game.
I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money -- I'm not a businessman or a business, man. I'm just a reporter trying to scrape by. This does seem like a cool approach and appears to be completely player-driven, which is different than the alumni who's trying to get a Wake Forest NIL collective off the ground (Top Hat Collective) and different from the school's deal with Opendorse (Deactown Marketplace). I don't think I'm missing anybody but let me know if I am.
I've got one overriding thought on Wake Forest and NIL, though.
It's starting to feel like things are getting thrown against the wall with the hope that something sticks. Top Hat Collective has seemed dormant other than the rare, random "get excited we've got things coming" tweet and you know, in the first month or two, that's great. When a website launched in March still has "COMING SOON" in the "PLAYERS" section of your website, I can't imagine people are happy with their investment. And if Deactown Marketplace was thriving, would the football players be launching their own venture?
If you need a reminder on how prevalent NIL has become in basketball recruiting, Part II of the state of the program series with Steve Forbes should suffice.
Wake Forest isn't the only school scuffling. But given its stature as the smallest Power 5 school in the country, and with the size of the fan bases in the Triangle and throughout the state, I can't help but feel like the last 4-5 months has been a botched opportunity to get in front of the game.
