A meeting of the elders - NIL

[gtowndawg]

Correct. Until this is all brought under the university umbrella you either have to give to the BDC or NIL. Right now, the choice needs to be NIL. If you don't have the resources to give to both, and a lot of people don't, then give the minimum seat donation to the BDC if you have tickets and give the rest to NIL. It sucks and I get that, but it's unfortunately the landscape college athletics are in. We can only hit up Richard Rula, Richard Adkerson, Heath Jenkins, Billy Howard, etc. for so much. This is where OM has us whipped right now. Everyone from Dickie Scruggs, David Nutt, and Jerry Hollingsworth on down to the young alumni that I know out here in Dallas are giving to The Grove Collective. They understand the importance of NIL. They are all in. We have to get to that point.

Dead on. Ole Miss made it "cool" to say you are part of the collective. We're called "idiots" for giving to it or asking others to give to it. They want to win and win big. I just don't think our average fan really cares that much. It sickens me to say that but I don't know what else to think based on the NIL discussion we have seen play out over the last 12 months.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Dead on. Ole Miss made it "cool" to say you are part of the collective. We're called "idiots" for giving to it or asking others to give to it. They want to win and win big. I just don't think our average fan really cares that much. It sickens me to say that but I don't know what else to think based on the NIL discussion we have seen play out over the last 12 months.

Our avg fans wants benefits with his $100 donation and theirs don't. That simple. They give and let Walker and his group do the work. Ours want info or they won't give. We also have folks that would rather bitch and complain about the problem than do something about it. And unfortunately that number in our fans is in the tens of thousands instead of the tens. I've said since day 1 that you can complain, but if you're not giving and you're complaining then you're part of the problem. And every time I'm met with how much they've given the university over the years and that has earned them the right to complain. What I can't get them to see is that ALL OF THAT went out the window July 1, 2021. Everything you did prior to that moment does not matter in this new landscape.

[phatdog]

I could care less about this shit

[Tbonewannabe]

MSU's marketing is always lightyears behind everyone else, especially Ole Miss. It is like our university looks at it as a necessary evil and others embrace it.

Its is almost like the mindset is that is bragging and we don't want to brag or "showboat". We need to get with the times or we will be left out.

[Todd4State]

I think the stuff like pickle ball and etc.- if you bring it to Charlie's attention he is good at listening to ideas and implementing them.

[Todd4State]

Our avg fans wants benefits with his $100 donation and theirs don't. That simple. They give and let Walker and his group do the work. Ours want info or they won't give. We also have folks that would rather bitch and complain about the problem than do something about it. And unfortunately that number in our fans is in the tens of thousands instead of the tens. I've said since day 1 that you can complain, but if you're not giving and you're complaining then you're part of the problem. And every time I'm met with how much they've given the university over the years and that has earned them the right to complain. What I can't get them to see is that ALL OF THAT went out the window July 1, 2021. Everything you did prior to that moment does not matter in this new landscape.

And then when it's under the University umbrella they're going to be fine paying the Bulldog Club the extra 500 dollars when the dues go up at that time.

[parabrave]

No. NIL in its current state, which is pay for play, should be the burden of the university. Unfortunately, that is not the case so the fans have to carry that burden or your team will SUCK. I get why people are frustrated, I do. But if we continually count on others to foot the bill then we are going to be left for dead in a matter of months, not years. We have to get serious and get rowing in the same direction on this. I get it sucks and it is not right for everything to be on the onus of the average fan, but that is the world we live in. You have to get busy livin or get busy dyin.

The NIL was begun as the players/lawyers getting their hands on the TV money and other "royalties" from shirts sales and other likenesses ie EA Sports. It was never meant as play for pay/ But NCAA and schools will never part with any of the golden goose so they allowed the fans to burden the costs. The more outrageous this gets the more the fans will say fuc it. By the way the Texas schools and Bama have always been pay for play and they have underachieved until they got great coaches. So yes coaching does matter.

[Maverick91]

I can agree with your sentiment and overall issue. But I do think it is way more of a branding/marketing issue than anything else. I have always been puzzled not at our branding or marketing, I think when we see it it's pretty good. My issue is at the lack of it, in a day and time when people get behind you purely off of what you put out there as a message of who you are we are grossly behind the curve as you pointed out. Long gone are the days of "just win" you still have to win but you also have to have the marketing down and people have to see it in a regular basis. I feel like this is way more of an athletic department using their funds correctly than anything else.

I don't know what our marketing budget is, how many people we have, anything but it needs to be ramped up.

[Cooterpoot]

NIL isn't on the list of top 3 problems with our recruiting. Location and history are the top two by a mile & then some poor recruiters on staff would be the top three.

[StarkVegasSteve]

The NIL was begun as the players/lawyers getting their hands on the TV money and other "royalties" from shirts sales and other likenesses ie EA Sports. It was never meant as play for pay/ But NCAA and schools will never part with any of the golden goose so they allowed the fans to burden the costs. The more outrageous this gets the more the fans will say fuc it. By the way the Texas schools and Bama have always been pay for play and they have underachieved until they got great coaches. So yes coaching does matter.

None of what you said is wrong. It is pay for play. There's no doubt. But the Pandora's box was opened and there's no going back. This is the new reality of college sports until the schools start paying for it, and that could be years. I mean can we really afford to just wait for the US GOVERNMENT to solve the problem? No. We have to change the way we think about this stuff. Like I said, we can't sit on our hands and wait for someone else to solve the problem. We have to do something so un-Mississippi State. We have to take initiative and solve the problem. And it starts at a grassroots level by trusting the people that run it. Maybe that is Charlie holding an annual BI summit, maybe it is giving those $100-$500 yearly donators more opportunities to see where their investments go or at least feel like their involved. I don't know because I'm not in charge of it. I don't know what they talk about behind closed doors. I can get cliffnotes of it, but until you're in those meetings you truly don't know what's being said.

[gtowndawg]

I think the stuff like pickle ball and etc.- if you bring it to Charlie's attention he is good at listening to ideas and implementing them.

It's hard I know, the man has a law practice. There's only so much time in the day. But we treat NIL like the high school band booster club. Ole Miss treats it like a Fortune 500 company.

[StarkVegasSteve]

NIL isn't on the list of top 3 problems with our recruiting. Location and history are the top two by a mile & then some poor recruiters on staff would be the top three.

THANK YOU. Starkville is a problem that a lot of people do not want to admit. And not the town itself. It's location and marketing of the town. Oxford is surrounded by the exact same thing Starkville.....NOTHING. However, they market Oxford 1000x better than we market Starkville.

It also hurts that we don't have the best recruiters on staff. David Turner is a recruiting anchor at the moment. Offensively I think we have really good recruiters. Defensively.....not so much.

[gtowndawg]

NIL isn't on the list of top 3 problems with our recruiting. Location and history are the top two by a mile & then some poor recruiters on staff would be the top three.

Respectfully, we have fought it out over the years for some huge recruits and won. Same location and same history (but agreed, probably some better recruiters at that time). Obviously coaching churn plays a role into some problems. But part of "crootin" now is how much money you have to play. Naturally having a good staff to coach them is equally important.

[gtowndawg]

THANK YOU. Starkville is a problem that a lot of people do not want to admit. And not the town itself. It's location and marketing of the town. Oxford is surrounded by the exact same thing Starkville.....NOTHING. However, they market Oxford 1000x better than we market Starkville.

It also hurts that we don't have the best recruiters on staff. David Turner is a recruiting anchor at the moment. Offensively I think we have really good recruiters. Defensively.....not so much.

We know so many people from Memphis with kids at State. Tons. Most of them had no connection to the school but it's pretty close and they work hard to waive out of state tuition so it attracts many from Memphis. All of the families go on and on about how great Starkville is (because they have never been). It's a great place to many outsiders but as you say, we don't do much to build that reputation like Ole Miss and Oxford have done over the past 20 years.

edited: I think the school has made some steps in that direction, just a bit slow.

[Cooterpoot]

Respectfully, we have fought it out over the years for some huge recruits and won. Same location and same history (but agreed, probably some better recruiters at that time). Obviously coaching churn plays a role into some problems. But part of "crootin" now is how much money you have to play. Naturally having a good staff to coach them is equally important.

This ain't 2010 anymore and we've never signed a bunch of 4/5 star players anyway. We got a couple here and there but that's it. Money is only a part of the process, it's not a be all, end all situation like some think. That's not to say we don't need to grow NIL, but it's still just a part.

[StarkVegasSteve]

We know so many people from Memphis with kids at State. Tons. Most of them had no connection to the school but it's pretty close and they work hard to waive out of state tuition so it attracts many from Memphis. All of the families go on and on about how great Starkville is (because they have never been). It's a great place to many outsiders but as you say, we don't do much to build that reputation like Ole Miss and Oxford have done over the past 20 years.

edited: I think the school has made some steps in that direction, just a bit slow.

I've said it multiple times over the last few years, especially since I moved to the DFW area, we do a shit job going after out of state students. And you tell this to folks who work in the administration and they thumb their nose at you and try to prove you wrong by saying we get lots of kids from Tennessee and Alabama. The reason I bring that up is because Ole Miss does embrace out of state and that increases their message about Oxford and the brand all through the South and the country. That is one of the big reasons that Oxford is decades ahead of Starkville. They saw the need for gameday condos 20 years before Mississippi State. They started building and these out of state people started buying. This brought their friends to Oxford and it left an impact. They went back and started talking up Oxford and it gets in people's minds. There will probably be 500-1000 kids from the DFW area alone that will attend OM next fall. There may be 50-100 that attend Mississippi State. Add in to that there will probably another 500-1000 from Georgia that will attend OM.

PERCEPTION MATTERS.

[DEDawg]

Why do people keep complaining about NIL? Go listen to Hadad and Faulks show today. They said the one recruit turned down astronomically more money from us and went to Oregon state. Our NIL is fine for being the poorest state in the union. Our brand and image is the thing holding us back

taking one cherry picked outlier doesn't mean anything

[Cooterpoot]

Mississippi State and Starkville suck at marketing! Starkville is a cool town. The town itself isn't a huge problem except it costs a small fortune to live there. Being in BFE MS is a huge problem.
It's a drive no matter where you live. But damnit! Winning cures a lot of problems and we need to rebuild this program the last three staffs killed.

[Brobi-wan]

Correct. Until this is all brought under the university umbrella you either have to give to the BDC or NIL. Right now, the choice needs to be NIL. If you don't have the resources to give to both, and a lot of people don't, then give the minimum seat donation to the BDC if you have tickets and give the rest to NIL. It sucks and I get that, but it's unfortunately the landscape college athletics are in. We can only hit up Richard Rula, Richard Adkerson, Heath Jenkins, Billy Howard, etc. for so much. This is where OM has us whipped right now. Everyone from Dickie Scruggs, David Nutt, and Jerry Hollingsworth on down to the young alumni that I know out here in Dallas are giving to The Grove Collective. They understand the importance of NIL. They are all in. We have to get to that point.

This is how OM already operated there stuff. Making it legal was the cherry on top. Not saying we didn?t cheat too before NIL?we just weren?t nearly as good at it.

[Coach34]

NIL isn't on the list of top 3 problems with our recruiting. Location and history are the top two by a mile & then some poor recruiters on staff would be the top three.

Location is a killer for us and always has been. But now seeing people take less money to go to other schools really puts it in perspective