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How can anybody really KNOW anything about the NIL market?

Author

Matt Brown
May 24, 2022

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

I realize this may come as a shock to all of you, but Jimbo Fisher is reportedly still mad at Nick Saban.

ESPN reported Fisher gave additional comments at an alumni function, denying that Texas A&M's recent football recruiting success was because of large NIL deals.

Okay, fine, Fisher can say what he wants. This was the actually interesting thing to me:

"I just researched this," Fisher said in the interview. "Of the 11 guys we have in place that came early? One guy has an NIL deal. So all these stories you're hearing are complete lies."

He reiterated that he had already been on the defense since signing day in February when he questioned social media posts that claimed the Aggies had a $30 million fund for NIL deals.

"It was written on social media," Fisher said to reporter Greg Simmons. "You got news channels [that] believed it. And you believed it."

Fisher then began questioning Simmons.

"I'm asking you," Fisher said. "Did you do your research? No, so you just assumed. And that's the way this world goes now. As soon as it's written on social media and someone says it, you believe it. So where does that put you guys as reporters?

"Nobody wants the truth. You want a story and a click and a hit."

Let's walk this out here for a second.

As best as I understand, the initial catalyst for the A&M NIL rumors came from this post from, uh, BroBible, which cribbed from a message board user named Sliced Bread. Our friend Mr.Bread here claims that A&M, or agents acting on behalf of A&M, spent over $25 million on recruit deals.

I know Jimbo Fisher has adamantly denied this. I've been in the room when Texas A&M AD Ross Bjork has denied this. I've talked to industry analysts familiar with A&M's recruiting who have told me that number is way too high. Honestly, I believe all of them.

But the $25 million figure stuck. It was amplified by sports radio hosts, message boards, and quite frankly, folks in the media who should have known better. And each time that figure fed into the college football content mill, it was laundered to be a teensy bit more believable. Nick Saban isn't the only football coach who believed those rumors.

I noticed a similar trend happen with the Jordan Addison transfer rumors.

I feel like this number grew by 10% every time another large Twitter account amplified it. When Addision first entered the transfer portal, the numbers we saw on Twitter were in the 1.5M range, then 2, growing more and more. Industry sources I trust tell me that any NIL package Addison ends up getting is far less than $3.5, and may not even be one million.

Stories like this are actually why we created our NIL rumor generator.

But here's the thing. Let's say I wanted to do what Jimbo recommends here, and "do my research."

In practice, this is way harder than you'd think:

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