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Not going to drop, but at best maybe increase a little more slowly. Regardless, I want IU getting as much sponsor money as possible. We need it to spend on all sorts of stuff across the athletic dept.

I don’t know about that. IU’s athletic dept doesn’t “make money,” they spend it all, and then some. Sometimes they spend wisely, like Cig and staff, who are very expensive, and the fans benefit. But, sometimes they don’t spend wisely as we know…

Lamar is a cool dude. Elite hair.

Will make the jerseys more ugly, but I guess I’ll take the sponsor $ vs shaking down the fans with higher ticket prices and donation asks (though those probably won’t really stop honestly).

The Wall St. Journal! The media coverage IU gets from being good at football is unprecedented for the school and program. Here is the link, it’s paywalled unfortunately, but here it is anyway: https://www.wsj.com/sports/football/fernando-mendoza-indiana-cal-2bd2445e

Yea, well put, it's definitely fluid to some extent. Cody Campbell is the latest frisky donor. Word is he's got to pay a premium to get top kids to Lubbock -- not surprising. And he is doing that. And it seems to be working. Just for the heck of it, I made a list of top roster spend programs. This is a total eyeball/finger in the wind list, and there is no way it's actually right, but the point is how easy it is to list 20 programs that definitely spend big money (how they exactly rank who knows). Top Tier (3): Texas, Oregon, OSU Also Top Tier or Close to It (9): Michigan, Georgia, Miami, Alabama, TAMU, LSU, ND, Tennessee, TTU Second Tier, Still Big Spenders (9): Auburn, Florida, PSU, FSU, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Nebraska, USC, Clemson There's 21. CFB is so competitive. Then there are a ton of schools in some sort of third tier that still spend some pretty serious money, some examples are: Washington, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Carolina, Mizzou, etc. This is the tier I think IU is trying and starting to break into going into 2026. Anyways, spend this and spend that, IU is somehow competing with the big boys at the moment!

Lol, it keeps getting worse. Looks like UNC is looking for a way (rules violation) to fire him for cause and avoid the $20M buyout. And more developments about Bill agreeing to leave for cheap: https://x.com/ollieconnolly/status/1976021814905332067?s=46

The Big Ten sold their media rights such that some games are on Peacock. They did this to maximize revenue to the conference. So really it's mostly on the B1G and the schools since they made the decision. It's annoying for fans, but in return, IU gets more revenue, which notably helps us compete vs. schools in other conferences. That's modern college sports for ya...

I know this isn't exactly want you want, but I've never seen a better source on where IUFB stands than this interview with Cig where he flat out says where we are going into this season. This is probably as good as talking to Scott Dolson. Cig is just a straight shooter. https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/the-race-to-keep-up-with-40-million-rosters-is-shaking-college-football/ Cig says the top teams are $40M NIL and rev share, which matches up with what a lot of other sources say (usually $40-45M is the high end quoted). He even lists examples of these top spending programs, "Right now I understand that is Oregon, Ohio State, Texas. ... Texas Tech because of their oil money. I think Notre Dame's up there pretty good right now, too. Miami, of course." And then Cig says about IU: "I think our little pot of gold is pretty nice, but we're not at $40 million. Or $30 million. Or even $25 million." To me it's pretty clear he is basically saying IUFB's player payroll is in the low $20M range. So, while we compete with the big programs for players here and there, we are not close to Oregon or any of the big programs on roster spend. We're an outlier among the top-10, all the other top-10 teams have player payroll 50-100% higher than us. And really most top-20 teams have quite a bit more resources than we do, especially when you consider their overall athletic dept revenue. I'd guess our player payroll spend would be ranked somewhere in the mid-20's right now. We'll never know for sure since solid roster spend info for all other schools is not available, but if you look at our roster and recruiting class rankings it points to our roster spend being ranked somewhere in the mid-20's range. While players may end up better or worse than their ranking, in general they're paid in line with their ranking. We've got mostly a 3* roster. Another way to look at it is list out the largest football programs and there are a lot that are bigger than us. Now, while our roster payroll isn't on the high end, we've still made huge progress in the last two years. Tom Allen had $2M of NIL when he left per the IndyStar. We've come a long way. And of course Cig and staff are so darn good they get the most from what they have through player selection, development/retention, scheme, and culture. Hopefully our on-field results allow IU to keep increasing spend on our roster, because this is our window to do special things in football and change IUFB for years to come.

It's hard to know until we see him play if should have paid up to get him, or did MSU overpay and we can use the money more wisely elsewhere? $1.5M does seem high for a freshman outside the top-10, but I don't know, maybe Izzo is right and he is worth it. It's a boring approach, but often times all we can do is wait and see how it plays out next season.

I'm not going to argue with anyone that sees us as a "blueblood." I don't think we are anymore after 35 years of doing very little on the court. That's a long time and we have not been in the national CBB conscious in decades. In my view we need to win a title or make several F4's to get back up to "blueblood." But, on the bright side, aside from the winning aspect, we have all the characteristics of a blueblood program, which has always given me some hope.

I think what’s happened is other schools have jumped up more than IU has changed: - BYU has obviously made a push with the Jazz owner - St John’s has a NIL sugar daddy plus rev share pop - All bball only schools (mostly the Big East) that don’t have to materially fund football have benefitted significantly from rev share. - UK is allocating more rev share to bball and hanging their FB program out to dry. Arkansas is similar. - UL is quasi-blue blood who has had a resurgence. Dusty has UM donors excited. - Etc. All the above happens, we stay mostly the same, and we go from top-5 last season to #10-15 now. But I think that’s enough for a good coach. Our big donors have limits — is what it is. And I don’t know the impact of this, but Cig has earned the right to eat first. I still feel 90% of our fate lies on how good CDD is. If he does a very good job this year and we make the tourney no problem and win some big games, our donors will be energized and the NIL will increase.

I tend to doubt our MBB rev share/NIL has changed from whatever it was planned to be when CDD signed. I’m quite sure Scott made $ commitments to CDD and CDD required those to take the job. I doubt Scott has reneged on those commitments seven months into CDD’s tenure. It’s not his style. We know Scott exceeded the promises to Cig, notably before Cig had coached a game. So far this is mostly coming from Rabby saying our NIL is down and we aren’t among the top schools. Maybe he is right, maybe not, I haven’t found anyone to corroborate this yet. And what does this mean? I agree we aren’t top-5, that’s fairly obvious. Are we #8? #12? #15? Don’t know. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions yet — there isn’t enough evidence either way that I am aware of. This is just my viewpoint, I could be wrong.

Two interesting developments: 1) Line opened at +10.5, it's currently +7 to +7.5. Hopefully the smart $ bettors moving this line are correct. 2) Current forecast is cloudy, cool (upper 50's at kick-off), 7-8 mph wind, and a chance of showers all day. Probably doesn't make a big difference, but if anything might help us a little?

The Old Brass Spittoon game time has been set. Good news: Game time is 3:30PM. Bad news: We’re back on the ‘cock for the second time this year! Terrible.

Frickin’ Niziolek opening up with a question about Oregon’s unlimited program resources. Cig swatted that bulletin board/excuse material into the 10th row. C’mon Niz! ;-)

Yea. The standard some people apply of we need to beat a #1 or #2 team on the road to “prove” ourselves is indeed annoying and ridiculous. Almost no teams do this. Per an AI search a #1 or #2 losing at home has only happened four times since 2010. Agree 10-2 is probably enough assuming we are competitive in the losses. The 53% betting odds suggests that is the case. Personally, I just want to see us play closer to our potential on the road and trade blows with Oregon. It’s the next step for us, and it’s really a pretty typical next step for a program looking to level up. Anyways, at the end of the day this is all good stuff.

Not sure, it's probably just because it's early and all the smaller risks over the next seven games sort of add up. Just a guess. Here is the the broader conference playoff odds picture right now (Fan Duel): OSU -3500 / 97% Oregon -1800 / 95% IU -115 / 53% UM +245 / 29% PSU +470 / 17% USC +680 / 13% UW +790 / 11% Regardless, I really like how the above looks after six weeks of games. We started the season at 14%.

Yesterday was a net positive for us, probably mostly driven by the PSU loss. Our playoff odds went from +132 (43%) going into week six to -115 (53%) today. Sweet.

This is an internet discussion board.

Chill out. I just said I had some worries because if they want they could offer a lot more than us. That’s the reality. And I could see him succeeding there (more than somewhere outside of his wheelhouse like Florida). I couldn’t be more excited or positive about IUFB. I actually care enough to talk to people around the program I think Cig moving is pretty unlikely. I’m not losing sleep over this, but there is some risk out there like it or not.

Just as a total aside… I can’t think of a person who would be more excited to get a coaches survey in their inbox than Tom Crean.

$55M buyout. Not sure they fire him midseason with that much at stake, plus they are spending a ton on their stadium. As for our game vs them… not sure if it’s good or bad. Honestly it’s the one job that worries me when it comes to our guy… if they want him. I want PSU to win this game for a few reasons.

That was me. And I got it thrown in my face. Watching Bill and UNC made a total @$$ of themselves is fun though!

Yea. Another example that comes to mind is he took the OL to St. Elmo’s earlier this year. Plus I’m sure the team appreciates some of those hits he took at Iowa standing in the pocket and scrambling. Good stuff.