Nil Payments...did Cooper Flagg really make $20M this past year?

I don’t buy it but if it’s proven to be true it wouldn’t shock me

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Was listening to Fox news talking about the new NIL payout with someone close to the bill, and they were discussing Cooper Flagg from Duke. They said that he made $20M this past year, and took a pay cut to go to the NBA. Is that believable?

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Probably.

But that was because a large portion of his NIL was actually NIL vs. a sham pay to play payment. Duke (or more appropriately their donor/supporters) didn't pay the full $20M. He had endorsement deals with companies who knew he would (a) be one of the top players in NCAA basketball and (b) knew he would be the No. 1 pick in the draft. Those companies probably wanted to get in on him early in advance of his NBA career.

It's misleading to say he's taking a "pay cut" to go the NBA. His NBA salary will be less than $20M. But that's not counting his endorsement deals which I suspect, combined with this NBA salary, will have him earning OVER $20M this year.

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Does the new NIL limit all NIL?

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The deals have to go through "clearinghouse" now which, theoretically, means some may not be approved. However, I suspect that will face some legal challenges pretty quickly (if not already) and eventually be rendered moot. The players, nor the boosters really want "regulation". Hell, even multiple state legislatures don't want "regulation"

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Did they basically put in a salary cap?

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Nope.

The House settlement allows revenue sharing, i.e. the schools can directly pay the athletes some portion of the revenues earned by the school. But NIL isn't capped.

The $28M deal for Flagg has been widely reported, from various media sources, so safe to say it is true. Realizing that the NIL money did not come from the university itself, it's still crazy that its baseball head coach's salary was cut for the soon-to-be hired new head coach.

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Cooper Flagg

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took a pay cut

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He will probably make more in endorsements than salary his rookie season in the NBA.

I don’t buy the 28 million number because it’s all from sites regurgitating the same information, often via ChatGPT or more lazily copying and pasting something from a different website.

Also Alt26 is right about it being super disingenuous. Flagg doesn’t lose his endorsements after leaving college.

He will still have his endorsement money from New Balance, AT&T, and other national companies. This is what real NIL was imagined to be, I think.

Of course this only applies to a small number of huge name athletes like Flagg, Bryce Young doing those Dr. Pepper ads, Suni Lee and her deals aster winning the gold medal, and on a different plane, Livvy Dunne’s stuff with Vuori and other companies based on her social media following.

But Flagg’s largest deal was 5 million from New Balance. I think AT&T and some others only came later in the college basketball season when he became a truly household name among casual fans.

I also believe that NIL numbers are inflated across the board from agents and handlers making stuff up in a way that would make high school football coaches jealous back when they would list their players’ heights and weights. And almost all of the sports reporters covering this stuff regurgitate the BS from agents and handlers.

I think Flagg’s actual income is much more based on reality so I’m not sure where the 28 million came from.

The actual Duke number is way less than that, but likely he intentionally chose not to take a higher number because he had a really big New Balance deal.

His endorsements just to get in the door before he went pro dwarfed anyone else
Plus Duke has the best NIL in hoops, ESPN had an article about it around Final Four time, it was next level prior to revenue sharing plus they don't care enough about football for it to get in the way

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they were discussing Cooper Flagg from Duke. They said that he made $20M this past year

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He made $28M in endorsement deals, with the vast majority of that coming from his deals with New Balance and Fanatics. But the $28M is assumed to be the total value of multi-year endorsement deals, not that he made $28M in one year.

So since that $28M is spread out over multi-year endorsements and he's about to start making $15M in NBA salary plus his endorsement deals, he'll be making more in the NBA this year than he made at Duke last season.

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Does the new NIL limit all NIL?


Did they basically put in a salary cap?

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There isn't a cap or limit, but NIL deals starting July 1 have to go through a 3rd party that verifies that the NIL deal appears to have a valid business purpose (ie. player doing personal appearances, endorsements, appearance in ad campaigns, merchandise sales, etc) and isn't a sham NIL deal being used as recruiting enticement.

Major national shoe or apparel company offering the #1 high school recruit $1M endorsement deal = NIL deal would pass the vibe check and get approved by clearinghouse

Owner of a local oil & gas company that happens to be a major booster of a certain school and offers the same recruit a $1M NIL deal, even though his company doesn't do much advertising = NIL deal probably gets rejected by the clearinghouse because it looks like pay-for-pay

They should use that clearinghouse for political donations