Big thank you to Joe Pano's for inviting me to the Union Club of Philly for the NIL event. Joe's a great guy, class act. It wasn't a fund raiser but more of an NIL presentation to educate Philly Penn Staters on NIL.
Dann Kabbala, Rashad Elby, and Brett Arnold were the main speakers. They are the player relations and NIL guys for PSU.
They told us PSUs NIL was under $10 mil for the 2024 season and still under $10 mil going into the '25 season. That's HORRIBLE. In contrast they showed an overhead of OSUs NIL being $20.5 mil, Tennessee $30.5 mil, Oregon unlimited NIL, and since LSU lost Underwood to Michigan, LSU raised $13mil since January. Now think about that. On top of the NIL LSU already has they raised $13 mil in two months and PSU can't even reach $10 mil for the entire year!
And people wonder why we lose recruiting battles...lol.
During Q&A, Elby stated Drew is getting 7 figures and incoming freshman on avg get $50-70k a year and it goes up each year they are there. Obviously, the better player you are and more you produce the more NIL you will get.
They went on to say how the Hoover family and HVU stepped up to raise a lot of money after the season to keep Drew, Nick, Dani, Zane, and Kaytron at PSU one more year. The Hoover family I believe are the ones that own West Shore.
They said when Rev Sharing starts football will get $16-17 mil, about 75% of the $20.5 mil.
I asked, "When rev sharing comes will they offer more to top recruits so we don't lose recruiting battles like we did with Brandon Finney." I was told by one of them Finney wanted $500k from Penn ST and he would have definitely come to PSU. But PSU wouldn't give him that much.
Elby went onto say if they give an incoming freshman hundreds of thousands of dollars then that will upset 3rd or 4th year guys making way less and they will come asking for bigger NIL deals. I'm going to be honest I am beyond sick of hearing about upsetting the locker-room. Every other top programs pays top dollar for recruits and doesn't worry about upsetting the locker-room. I told Elby you have to break that trend at some point.
Dan Kabbala eventually stepped in and said, we're looking at offering more and breaking the trend a little bit. But in all honesty it just sounded like he was Bull shitting me to just move on to another question. Interestingly enough after he event when mingling with the crowd I spoke with Kabbala again and brought up Finney. He said they didn't lose Finney because of NIL. I said, then whey earlier did your partner say Finney would have come to Penn ST if they gave him $500k?? He didn't have an answer and just repeated it wasn't about NIL. At that point, it showed me how bad things were and they are just trying to mask it.
I voiced to him I have genuine concerns that we are fading in recruiting because of refusing to pay top dollar for recruits. I brought up the Guilford decommitment and Kabbala said, yeah we let him go....lol. I said, yeah because he most likely wanted NIL and PSU wasn't going to pay whatever other schools might offer him. Kabbala said Guilford decommitting had nothing to do with NIL.
It got to the point where they tried to make it sound like it was their choice to let these guys leave or not pursue them, when in reality clearly they just didn't want to pay them. But then at the same time he's telling me PSU will be more competitive with NIL in recruiting in the future and I'm supposed to believe that...lol???
Then when any other guy asked a question it usually started with, "I'm old school and, bla, bla, bla." Not saying none of them will donate but you can sense they don't like todays NIL CFB.
For the record Kabbala, Elby, and Arnold are all good dudes and doing whatever they can but my confidence in NIL is shot.
Sorry to be so blunt, but having under $10 mil nil, while other schools are operating with at least 3 times that amount, I don't feel good.
Dann Kabbala, Rashad Elby, and Brett Arnold were the main speakers. They are the player relations and NIL guys for PSU.
They told us PSUs NIL was under $10 mil for the 2024 season and still under $10 mil going into the '25 season. That's HORRIBLE. In contrast they showed an overhead of OSUs NIL being $20.5 mil, Tennessee $30.5 mil, Oregon unlimited NIL, and since LSU lost Underwood to Michigan, LSU raised $13mil since January. Now think about that. On top of the NIL LSU already has they raised $13 mil in two months and PSU can't even reach $10 mil for the entire year!
And people wonder why we lose recruiting battles...lol.
During Q&A, Elby stated Drew is getting 7 figures and incoming freshman on avg get $50-70k a year and it goes up each year they are there. Obviously, the better player you are and more you produce the more NIL you will get.
They went on to say how the Hoover family and HVU stepped up to raise a lot of money after the season to keep Drew, Nick, Dani, Zane, and Kaytron at PSU one more year. The Hoover family I believe are the ones that own West Shore.
They said when Rev Sharing starts football will get $16-17 mil, about 75% of the $20.5 mil.
I asked, "When rev sharing comes will they offer more to top recruits so we don't lose recruiting battles like we did with Brandon Finney." I was told by one of them Finney wanted $500k from Penn ST and he would have definitely come to PSU. But PSU wouldn't give him that much.
Elby went onto say if they give an incoming freshman hundreds of thousands of dollars then that will upset 3rd or 4th year guys making way less and they will come asking for bigger NIL deals. I'm going to be honest I am beyond sick of hearing about upsetting the locker-room. Every other top programs pays top dollar for recruits and doesn't worry about upsetting the locker-room. I told Elby you have to break that trend at some point.
Dan Kabbala eventually stepped in and said, we're looking at offering more and breaking the trend a little bit. But in all honesty it just sounded like he was Bull shitting me to just move on to another question. Interestingly enough after he event when mingling with the crowd I spoke with Kabbala again and brought up Finney. He said they didn't lose Finney because of NIL. I said, then whey earlier did your partner say Finney would have come to Penn ST if they gave him $500k?? He didn't have an answer and just repeated it wasn't about NIL. At that point, it showed me how bad things were and they are just trying to mask it.
I voiced to him I have genuine concerns that we are fading in recruiting because of refusing to pay top dollar for recruits. I brought up the Guilford decommitment and Kabbala said, yeah we let him go....lol. I said, yeah because he most likely wanted NIL and PSU wasn't going to pay whatever other schools might offer him. Kabbala said Guilford decommitting had nothing to do with NIL.
It got to the point where they tried to make it sound like it was their choice to let these guys leave or not pursue them, when in reality clearly they just didn't want to pay them. But then at the same time he's telling me PSU will be more competitive with NIL in recruiting in the future and I'm supposed to believe that...lol???
Then when any other guy asked a question it usually started with, "I'm old school and, bla, bla, bla." Not saying none of them will donate but you can sense they don't like todays NIL CFB.
For the record Kabbala, Elby, and Arnold are all good dudes and doing whatever they can but my confidence in NIL is shot.
Sorry to be so blunt, but having under $10 mil nil, while other schools are operating with at least 3 times that amount, I don't feel good.
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