...is doing great. Cornell just got 2 top 25 commits for '26, & has 6 top 40 & 8 top
100 commits for '25. The rankings are by Flowresting.
Flowrestling ranks Cornell's '25 class as #1 in the country.
One of our top recruits, Sergio Vega, has switched his commitment to Oklahoma State. Real bummer and a sign of the times in a post-NIL world. Oklahoma State already made a big splash by hiring Penn State standout and Olympic gold medalist David Taylor to replace a retiring legend and you can already see the balance of power tilting even harder to a handful of elite programs.
Quote from: ugarteOne of our top recruits, Sergio Vega, has switched his commitment to Oklahoma State. Real bummer and a sign of the times in a post-NIL world. Oklahoma State already made a big splash by hiring Penn State standout and Olympic gold medalist David Taylor to replace a retiring legend and you can already see the balance of power tilting even harder to a handful of elite programs.
A bit dispiriting to see this occur outside the "big 2" sports of football and basketball, and it leaves me uneasy that we'll be seeing more of this in our other "showcase" sports of hockey and lacrosse
Do we know if NIL had anything to do with it? Are Oklahoma State wrestlers really receiving hefty NIL? I have no idea, but it seems kind of strange...?
Oklahoma State is definitely giving its wrestlers NIL funding, (https://okstate.com/news/2024/3/28/cowboy-wrestling-grows-nil-opportunities-with-personalized-trading-cards) although it's hard to say how much.
Here's another example (https://nilportal.org/oklahoma-state-wrestler-a-j-ferrari-gets-custom-shoe-line/), from two years ago.
The NCAA did, though, refuse to allow the Oklahoma State football team to display QR codes on their helmets with a link for fans to donate to that team's NIL fund.
Quote from: BearLoverDo we know if NIL had anything to do with it? Are Oklahoma State wrestlers really receiving hefty NIL? I have no idea, but it seems kind of strange...?
i would imagine that penn state, iowa and oklahoma state are generating significant NIL money. ohio state, arizona state and missouri probably in the next tier.
Quote from: ugarteQuote from: BearLoverDo we know if NIL had anything to do with it? Are Oklahoma State wrestlers really receiving hefty NIL? I have no idea, but it seems kind of strange...?
i would imagine that penn state, iowa and oklahoma state are generating significant NIL money. ohio state, arizona state and missouri probably in the next tier.
What does "generating NIL money" mean, though? The above links about trading cards and whatnot don't appear to show anything more than a modest amount of being funneled to the players. Brown University has an NIL marketplace, but that doesn't really mean anything. It may well be true that NIL is becoming a big deal outside of football/basketball, but there still isn't any evidence of that as far as I can tell...
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: ugarteQuote from: BearLoverDo we know if NIL had anything to do with it? Are Oklahoma State wrestlers really receiving hefty NIL? I have no idea, but it seems kind of strange...?
i would imagine that penn state, iowa and oklahoma state are generating significant NIL money. ohio state, arizona state and missouri probably in the next tier.
What does "generating NIL money" mean, though? The above links about trading cards and whatnot don't appear to show anything more than a modest amount of being funneled to the players. Brown University has an NIL marketplace, but that doesn't really mean anything. It may well be true that NIL is becoming a big deal outside of football/basketball, but there still isn't any evidence of that as far as I can tell...
The Washington Post just published (https://wapo.st/48efZ5p) a snapshot of NIL at big public universities -- the detailed data they were able to get is limited to a relative handful of schools, but it shows that NIL money is overwhelmingly going to football and men's basketball with the exception of some hugely popular women athletes who for the most part have huge social media followings or are Olympians. A significant percentage of the reported NIL money for all athletes is less than $100.
There's only a passing mention of wrestling -- from the data they got access to, they found that the entire Illinois wrestling team had less than $2,000 in NIL money. The big caveats are that this is far from a complete analysis and there is probably a ton of unreported NIL money floating around out there, so we won't ever get a real picture, but this is an interesting look.
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: ugarteQuote from: BearLoverDo we know if NIL had anything to do with it? Are Oklahoma State wrestlers really receiving hefty NIL? I have no idea, but it seems kind of strange...?
i would imagine that penn state, iowa and oklahoma state are generating significant NIL money. ohio state, arizona state and missouri probably in the next tier.
What does "generating NIL money" mean, though? The above links about trading cards and whatnot don't appear to show anything more than a modest amount of being funneled to the players. Brown University has an NIL marketplace, but that doesn't really mean anything. It may well be true that NIL is becoming a big deal outside of football/basketball, but there still isn't any evidence of that as far as I can tell...
beyond the also obvious truism that many of the wrestlers going to big 10 schools will get at least partial scholarships (and a recruit like vega is more likely than most to be a full scholly) NIL is in its infancy and i think you can extrapolate from the size of the crowds and the gravitational pull where the NIL growth is going to be.
Additionally, a lot of the benefits come through the affiliated Olympic Regional Training Centers that many schools (including Cornell (https://www.instagram.com/fingerlakeswc/?hl=en)) have links to.
NIL fatigue is already being seen. Sure we can raise money for this, but doing it 3-4-5 yrs in a row becomes a battle when results start to waiver
Quote from: upprdeckNIL fatigue is already being seen. Sure we can raise money for this, but doing it 3-4-5 yrs in a row becomes a battle when results start to waiver
Good. The QB at Alabama is basically a professional athlete and the NCAA and University makes millions off of him, so he deserves a piece. Most of these anonymous athletes playing random sports and random schools should be happy with their current situation.
Quote from: CU2007Quote from: upprdeckNIL fatigue is already being seen. Sure we can raise money for this, but doing it 3-4-5 yrs in a row becomes a battle when results start to waiver
Good.
Good for a few hundred football/basketball players. Bad for pretty much every other college athlete/fan. NIL ruins whatever remaining competitive balance exists. It will cause schools to cut less popular sports or go D-3. Schools are also increasing ticket prices to pay for revenue sharing.
NIL payments fall off quickly after the top 250 or so players across all sports especially the not basketball and football sports.