So if you're curious about more of what I learned while reporting, I'd be happy to answer questions/break it down further/recount the very long drives from Chicago to Urbana and back. And if not, please just click the link and tell all your friends to, too.
The story is on an NIL merchandise company thriving with a crazy concept: Giving more money to athletes through a progressive revenue-sharing model. Licensing, I've learned, is convoluted but pretty critical to ... a lot of things in college sports. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/...
The night of the national championship game, I watched Michigan-Washington with people who could have made a lot of money if Washington won. They weren't gamblers. At least not in the traditional sense. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/...
Campus Ink is building its business with NIL merchandise, competing with legacy brands by giving athletes a bigger cut of their sales.
They're certainly not there in the public discourse, at least beyond Charlie Baker proposing that "football schools" - or at least ones that want to be or spend a certain amount on the sport - break off into this new subdivision, though not from the other sports entirely.
Some links ... A data analysis of the new super-duper elite subdivision the NCAA is proposing: www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/...www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/...
The Post analyzed rosters for every major athletics program to calculate the minimum cost for each school to enter the NCAA’s proposed subdivision.
Did a lot of NCAA governance/NIL on Capitol Hill things last week. Not sure if there's anyone here, following me, who has any questions or thoughts they want to share on that. But since I'd rather discuss here than on the old place, I figured it couldn't hurt to throw out.
Emma has some of the best story selection instincts of anyone I've ever read and I hope someone throws money at her and lets her cook.
A man walks into a bar and the bar's owner's name is Austin Travis Lane (and the first man, me, is covering the Sugar Bowl in about 72 hours). Good timing all around, especially since I was working on a story about ... good timing. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/...
