Originally Posted by
the_real_MSU_is_us
Literally everyone has SOME rich Alumni. Hell, USM has one worth $4.9B- more than every State alum you mentioned combined. Do you think USM can compete for NCs in football and basketball? Why not if having rich alumni is all it takes? The answer is obvious; USM can't compete because said rich booster hasn't actually dropped crap tons of money on coaching salaries and NIL. If he set up a trust that sustainably allocated $40m a year to the athletic department and another $30m to FB and MBB NIL, that would change things for them.
Yes, if we could get our rich alumni to donate a significantly larger % of their net worth to our NIL than the boosters of UGA or OSU do, we'd be able to compete with them. This is also what fans of South Carolina, USF, VT, ASU, ISU, Arkansas and others say to give themselves hope. It is also the wet dream of every AD, and what they try hard to make happen every time they shake hands with one of those potentially gamechanging boosters.
At the end of the day, for all that potential and effort, there are next to no examples of a "nobody" actually pulling it off. Clemson I guess? They ain't exactly been too hot since NIL got cranked up. Indiana? Mark Cuban decided to boost them. But both those programs also nailed the HC hire preceding their rise, so we're short in that regard too. But that's another matter.
So yeah if you can convince any 1 booster to donate $100+ million we can compete, but without that? We're being drastically out funded by a lot of programs. That is our current reality. Cutting off baseball won't change that