Scholarships vs NIL Collective

[RockyBearCat]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

[AFCAT]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

It’s certainly interesting to think about. I know some of those non-scholly guys are getting some NIL cash to help offset college expenses. I have no idea how much money the collective and school would need in NIL cash to fully fund all or some of the non-scholly guys though, with in state vs. out of state tuition costs and all. I only donate enough NIL money to cover books for one or two guys for a year or so.

[D-Wreck]

All I know is that when those lotto numbers hit for me, you'll all be seeing lots of NIL deals from the new East Side Grandstand Committee. My initial plan is to have the boys tell short tales ala Jack Handy and run those commercials state wide. Each will end with a note "this message was brought to you by the E.S.G. Co, reminding you to check the air pressure in your tires for optimal fuel economy and your practice facilities to prevent erection difficulty."

[onceacat]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

It’s certainly interesting to think about. I know some of those non-scholly guys are getting some NIL cash to help offset college expenses. I have no idea how much money the collective and school would need in NIL cash to fully fund all or some of the non-scholly guys though, with in state vs. out of state tuition costs and all. I only donate enough NIL money to cover books for one or two guys for a year or so.

I have 2 kids in college right now. College kids don't buy books anymore.

[MSU01]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

[AFCAT]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

It’s certainly interesting to think about. I know some of those non-scholly guys are getting some NIL cash to help offset college expenses. I have no idea how much money the collective and school would need in NIL cash to fully fund all or some of the non-scholly guys though, with in state vs. out of state tuition costs and all. I only donate enough NIL money to cover books for one or two guys for a year or so.

I have 2 kids in college right now. College kids don't buy books anymore.

My comment was more about how much money I donate to NIL, but okay.

[JoeCatsJoe]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

It’s certainly interesting to think about. I know some of those non-scholly guys are getting some NIL cash to help offset college expenses. I have no idea how much money the collective and school would need in NIL cash to fully fund all or some of the non-scholly guys though, with in state vs. out of state tuition costs and all. I only donate enough NIL money to cover books for one or two guys for a year or so.

I have 2 kids in college right now. College kids don't buy books anymore.

My comment was more about how much money I donate to NIL, but okay. I’m guessing someone buys the books.

ChatGPT is pretty darn good at extracting the main points/terminology from a book. And you don’t have to pay for a book.

[AFCAT]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority, if not all, the Cat players are signed up on the Bobcat collective. Maybe, Brandon can chime in.

[AFCAT]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

It’s certainly interesting to think about. I know some of those non-scholly guys are getting some NIL cash to help offset college expenses. I have no idea how much money the collective and school would need in NIL cash to fully fund all or some of the non-scholly guys though, with in state vs. out of state tuition costs and all. I only donate enough NIL money to cover books for one or two guys for a year or so.

I have 2 kids in college right now. College kids don't buy books anymore.

My comment was more about how much money I donate to NIL, but okay. I’m guessing someone buys the books.

ChatGPT is pretty darn good at extracting the main points/terminology from a book. And you don’t have to pay for a book.

So, nobody buys books then. I guess I donate enough NIL money to help a couple of guys to buy drinks at the R-Bar for themselves and/or some of their friends during the year.

[MSU01]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority, if not all, the Cat players are signed up on the Bobcat collective. Maybe, Brandon can chime in.

I believe you're right at least for football, but it sometimes seems as though there's still a misconception out there that NIL money can just be paid out directly to players with no strings attached. This is not the case, and a huge part of the role of the Collective as I understand it is to help facilitate NIL deals for the players who want them. It's not as simple as someone donating a million dollars to the Collective and them taking that money and paying it straight to the players like the original post seems to be suggesting.

[catatac]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority, if not all, the Cat players are signed up on the Bobcat collective. Maybe, Brandon can chime in.

I believe you're right at least for football, but it sometimes seems as though there's still a misconception out there that NIL money can just be paid out directly to players with no strings attached. This is not the case, and a huge part of the role of the Collective as I understand it is to help facilitate NIL deals for the players who want them. It's not as simple as someone donating a million dollars to the Collective and them taking that money and paying it straight to the players like the original post seems to be suggesting.

I thought I remembered a couple years ago one of the absolute stud OL players for NDSU got huge NIL offers to transfer up to a big program like some of our players have. Some rich booster\doner ponied up and gave him $1,000,000 to stay at NDSU. My memory might be fuzzy on how that played out. I just remember being ticked off about it at the time and feeling like it's not a fair playing field. Then I quickly remembered how stupid that mindset is... OF COURSE it's not fair, and life is not fair, and that's where we're at with college football these days. That's why NDSU will win the national championship again this year, and probably for a few more years - unless the other top FCS schools (like MSU) can come close to matching that kind of money.

[MSU01]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority, if not all, the Cat players are signed up on the Bobcat collective. Maybe, Brandon can chime in.

I believe you're right at least for football, but it sometimes seems as though there's still a misconception out there that NIL money can just be paid out directly to players with no strings attached. This is not the case, and a huge part of the role of the Collective as I understand it is to help facilitate NIL deals for the players who want them. It's not as simple as someone donating a million dollars to the Collective and them taking that money and paying it straight to the players like the original post seems to be suggesting.

I thought I remembered a couple years ago one of the absolute stud OL players for NDSU got huge NIL offers to transfer up to a big program like some of our players have. Some rich booster\doner ponied up and gave him $1,000,000 to stay at NDSU. My memory might be fuzzy on how that played out. I just remember being ticked off about it at the time and feeling like it's not a fair playing field. Then I quickly remembered how stupid that mindset is... OF COURSE it's not fair, and life is not fair, and that's where we're at with college football these days. That's why NDSU will win the national championship again this year, and probably for a few more years - unless the other top FCS schools (like MSU) can come close to matching that kind of money.

Agreed, MSU has made a ton of progress in the last five years to catch up to NDSU in terms of its facilities. But look at all those eventual NFL offensive linemen that NDSU has kept for their entire careers while it seems like all of MSU's best OL guys aside from maybe Marcus Wehr have transferred out. There's the gap that MSU still needs to be able to bridge if it wants to reach NDSU's level of success.

[BelligerentBobcat]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority, if not all, the Cat players are signed up on the Bobcat collective. Maybe, Brandon can chime in.

I believe you're right at least for football, but it sometimes seems as though there's still a misconception out there that NIL money can just be paid out directly to players with no strings attached. This is not the case, and a huge part of the role of the Collective as I understand it is to help facilitate NIL deals for the players who want them. It's not as simple as someone donating a million dollars to the Collective and them taking that money and paying it straight to the players like the original post seems to be suggesting.

I thought I remembered a couple years ago one of the absolute stud OL players for NDSU got huge NIL offers to transfer up to a big program like some of our players have. Some rich booster\doner ponied up and gave him $1,000,000 to stay at NDSU. My memory might be fuzzy on how that played out. I just remember being ticked off about it at the time and feeling like it's not a fair playing field. Then I quickly remembered how stupid that mindset is... OF COURSE it's not fair, and life is not fair, and that's where we're at with college football these days. That's why NDSU will win the national championship again this year, and probably for a few more years - unless the other top FCS schools (like MSU) can come close to matching that kind of money.

You’re talking about Gray Zabel. Now that he’s in the NFL he said he got like $7-8k in NIL money. The vast majority of these reported NIL numbers are false/exaggerated.

[technoCat]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority, if not all, the Cat players are signed up on the Bobcat collective. Maybe, Brandon can chime in.

I believe you're right at least for football, but it sometimes seems as though there's still a misconception out there that NIL money can just be paid out directly to players with no strings attached. This is not the case, and a huge part of the role of the Collective as I understand it is to help facilitate NIL deals for the players who want them. It's not as simple as someone donating a million dollars to the Collective and them taking that money and paying it straight to the players like the original post seems to be suggesting.

I thought I remembered a couple years ago one of the absolute stud OL players for NDSU got huge NIL offers to transfer up to a big program like some of our players have. Some rich booster\doner ponied up and gave him $1,000,000 to stay at NDSU. My memory might be fuzzy on how that played out. I just remember being ticked off about it at the time and feeling like it's not a fair playing field. Then I quickly remembered how stupid that mindset is... OF COURSE it's not fair, and life is not fair, and that's where we're at with college football these days. That's why NDSU will win the national championship again this year, and probably for a few more years - unless the other top FCS schools (like MSU) can come close to matching that kind of money.

You’re talking about Gray Zabel. Now that he’s in the NFL he said he got like $7-8k in NIL money. The vast majority of these reported NIL numbers are false/exaggerated.

I thought it was the safety that then got injured and never played again before transferring out that they paid like 1m?

[BelligerentBobcat]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority, if not all, the Cat players are signed up on the Bobcat collective. Maybe, Brandon can chime in.

I believe you're right at least for football, but it sometimes seems as though there's still a misconception out there that NIL money can just be paid out directly to players with no strings attached. This is not the case, and a huge part of the role of the Collective as I understand it is to help facilitate NIL deals for the players who want them. It's not as simple as someone donating a million dollars to the Collective and them taking that money and paying it straight to the players like the original post seems to be suggesting.

I thought I remembered a couple years ago one of the absolute stud OL players for NDSU got huge NIL offers to transfer up to a big program like some of our players have. Some rich booster\doner ponied up and gave him $1,000,000 to stay at NDSU. My memory might be fuzzy on how that played out. I just remember being ticked off about it at the time and feeling like it's not a fair playing field. Then I quickly remembered how stupid that mindset is... OF COURSE it's not fair, and life is not fair, and that's where we're at with college football these days. That's why NDSU will win the national championship again this year, and probably for a few more years - unless the other top FCS schools (like MSU) can come close to matching that kind of money.

You’re talking about Gray Zabel. Now that he’s in the NFL he said he got like $7-8k in NIL money. The vast majority of these reported NIL numbers are false/exaggerated.

I thought it was the safety that then got injured and never played again before transferring out that they paid like 1m?

Perhaps, but I still wouldn’t believe any of the numbers that get floated around.

[AFCAT]

A post in another topic caused me to ponder this. If someone (not me at this point) came into a large sum of money and wanted to help the team with say a couple million dollars, where should it go. I think it makes more sense now to give that to the NIL Collective with a designation to pay XX number of players a year enough to pay for school/housing. Since the Big Sky caps scholarships at 63, the Bobcat Club/school can handle that number already. If the NIL has significant cash to dole out, they could logically get the fully paid up to 75 or more on the roster with no school cost. Thoughts?

Schools like NDSU offer their players "full cost of attendance" scholarships that cover costs of attending college beyond the tuition, fees, and books that most scholarships pay for. As far as I know MSU has not been able to do this yet. So I would say your hypothetical couple million bucks might be better off going to the Bobcat Club than the NIL Collective so that MSU can increase the scholarship amounts it can give its players. We can't just hand out NIL money to players to pay for their expenses, there need to be individual deals with each one to compensate them for use of their name/image/likeness in some way.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority, if not all, the Cat players are signed up on the Bobcat collective. Maybe, Brandon can chime in.

I believe you're right at least for football, but it sometimes seems as though there's still a misconception out there that NIL money can just be paid out directly to players with no strings attached. This is not the case, and a huge part of the role of the Collective as I understand it is to help facilitate NIL deals for the players who want them. It's not as simple as someone donating a million dollars to the Collective and them taking that money and paying it straight to the players like the original post seems to be suggesting.

Sure, Collective NIL money can't be just paid out, wink, wink, the players have to do some work, such was school visits, charity stuff, etc. I'm sure the FBS guys getting multi-million dollar NIL deals aren't really doing that much to earn that kind of cash, but there has to be some sort of hours put in, eventually, to get it.

[bvancleeve]

Great Topic!

From the Collective’s standpoint, the answer to “where should you give?” has definitely evolved over the last year with the introduction of Revenue Share and the University now being able to directly compensate players.

The Bobcat Collective was built from day one as a volunteer-led organization with one simple goal — to help Montana State student-athletes and support our programs. Every effort we make is rooted in doing what’s best for the players, the coaches, and the community that supports them.

We recently put out some messaging to our donors and members about where we’re headed. In short:

• We’re continuing to grow our membership — that’s the foundation of what we do.

• We’re working with local and national businesses who want to run NIL deals directly with the players.

• And we’re focused on raising the value of membership — more access, more events, and full transparency that your dollars are going directly to the players.

I really want to reiterate that point — funds raised through the Collective go straight to the players. Our ultimate goal is to improve student-athlete well-being, keep them engaged with the community, and ultimately help our coaches compete for conference and national championships.

With the new Revenue Share model, we’re now able to direct non-charitable funds raised through the Collective into the coaches’ Excellence Fund (their Rev Share bucket) — which the University then distributes to players through official contracts and compliance.

At the same time, we’re encouraging our larger donors to consider giving directly to the Excellence Fund, which allows them to make those same contributions in a charitable, tax-deductible way. Both routes support the same mission — helping Bobcat student-athletes thrive.

Our partnership with MSU and the Athletics Foundation grows every week. They’re taking the foundation we’ve built and scaling it to new levels, which is awesome to see.

And hey, if anyone on here does hit those lotto numbers, give me or the Foundation a call. We’ll get everyone at the table (coaches, Leon, and the Collective) to make sure those dollars make the biggest impact possible.

We’re also working together on a joint messaging campaign with MSU and the Foundation to clear up the confusion about where to give and how your support directly helps our players and programs.

At the end of the day, whether it’s memberships, NIL partnerships, or direct Rev Share giving — it’s all about supporting our student-athletes and giving them the best chance to succeed on and off the field.