By Scott Salomon
For those of you that frequent this site, you know that I have called out Deion Sanders, a/k/a Coach Prime when I believe he did something wrong. It’s nothing personal, I just have to point out what I see as being obvious and put Prime in his place, something that most members of the mainstream media are afraid to do.
Prime, to me, is no different from Mario Cristobal, Steve Sarkasian, or Lane Kiffin, other coaches that I have called to task during the 2023 season.
This time, I have to agree with Prime and reinforce something that he said on The Bret Boone Podcast, on Audacy, was true and accurate and that he should be saluted for it. He said something that many people think, but most don’t have the intestinal fortitude to say out loud, in public. Prime the Prophet appeared on the mountain top and shouted something that I have believed in for two years now.
Prime admitted that we hear about players getting paid for their name, image and likeness, but rhetorically asked, how often do we actually see the player’s name, image and likeness actually appearing in public media?
Players are being showered with money from collectives to appear in ads, but how often do we actually see them in print or on television? The answer is almost never. It is rare that you see a kid pitching a product, but you will see the fancy sports car that he is driving to practice every day.
“Good for the game,” Sanders said of the NIL. “I love that the kids are getting compensated for their name, image, and likeness. But then you got to ask the question, are they really getting compensated for their name, image, and likeness? We always hear about NIL but we don’t ever see NIL.”
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Deion appears in a KFC commercial with Shedeur Sanders and they are touting their new chicken wings. Shedeur also appears in a Google commercial with his brother Shilo Sanders as they pitch how to successfully shop on Google.
“We happen to have a couple of young men – three young men – on this team that you can see on commercials, that you could see doing certain things. You can see NIL, but it’s a difference between NIL and collectives.”
NIL is when a company pays a player a certain sum of money to appear in a commercial or other form of advertising media promoting and endorsing their company.
Louis Vuitton was in the news recently as the Brothers Sanders were invited to participate in the 2024 Louis Vuitton Men’s Fall-Winter show. The Show happened to be in Paris and the players were compensated for their attendance, which caused them to miss the team’s first meeting of the new year.
This is opposed to collectives, which are really a bunch of boosters getting together to pool their resources to throw money at a player to guarantee that he attends their school. The player usually has to show up somewhere and make a few personal appearances, or sign some useless merchandise, all in the name of NIL.
However, it is time to call it what it is. Pay for Play.
This whole collective premise is actually boosters, legally, giving a bag of money to a player to convince them to attend their school. This used to be frowned upon and was illegal in all NCAA circles, and now, thanks to a 2021 Supreme Court ruling, it is openly discussed and bragged about. Boosters get together and see how much money they can raise collectively to throw it at a certain player or players.
“NIL I don’t mind, but assembling the bag, I got a problem with that,” he said. “I want these kids to get a cut of whatever the NCAA is doing. I want that to happen. But I want to do it right where we have parameters and we have guidelines and we have rules that you must abide by. It’s open season right now. I understand, and some of our young men are benefitting and I’m happy and thankful, just give us some better guidelines because right now it ain’t no stopping what’s going on out there.”
The Florida Gators are being investigated by the NCAA right now for a $13.85 million package that the Gator Collective allegedly promised to former signee Jaden Rashada. The player was to be given $500,000.00, essentially as a signing bonus and to appear on campus. When he did not get his money, he left school, transferred to Arizona State and filed suit against the Collective, which has since gone out of business.
https://twitter.com/usatodaysports/status/1748515193049502089
That is not NIL, that is dropping a big bag on a player’s doorstep. It is pay-for-play. The Gator Collective attempted to buy Rashada’s services and lure him away from in-state rival, the University of Miami. Miami was allegedly going to pony up in excess of $9 million for Rashada, which is insane in its own right.
https://twitter.com/Outkick/status/1748525759017496847
Florida State was recently put on two-years probation and offensive line coach Alex Atkins was suspended for the first three games of next season as Atkins allegedly took a transfer portal recruit directly to a booster for the purpose of negotiating an NIL package directly from the booster.
That is illegal and the NCAA spanked the Seminoles for it. Do not pass go and do not collect $200.00. To make matters worse for FSU, the player decided to go back to his original school and never transferred.
https://twitter.com/pbpsports/status/1748768362232971629
Paying a player to make an appearance and giving him a modest fee is what the NIL program was designed to do. Give a player a percentage of his jersey sales, that is what the NIL program was designed to do. It was not to make a fifth-year senior to decide if he was going to make more money staying in college or entering the National Football League draft and being drafted on the third day.
It has been alleged that The Ohio State University was prepared to pay superstar wide receiver Marvin Harrison, Jr. upwards of $25 million to come back next season and play for the Buckeyes. He turned the money down and entered the NFL Draft, but can you imagine? $25 million to stay in school. They are being paid to play and paid to use up their final year of eligibility.
https://twitter.com/NFLRookieWatxh/status/1733665455145955822
The NCAA has to get this problem under control and disband collectives and force a cap as to how much money a school can spend, similar to that in the NFL. Players are making money for watching grass grow and that cannot happen. Players are being bought and sold to the highest bidder like NFL free agents and there is no room in intercollegiate athletics for that.
