Patricia seems at home; OSU’s toughest games; NIL interpretations

StJohns45: We have watched top talent go to other teams, with both Womack and Hiter still on the board what will it take for OSU to land these top players as far as NIL goes? Do you have any idea what either of these players are asking?

Helwagen: Nobody discusses money figures with us. I assume some schools are interpreting the change with the NIL Go clearinghouse reviews to mean it is back to World’s Fair and you can spend whatever you want to get top players. But Ohio State is preferring to invest in the veteran players who will play and will find 3-5 transfers every year to plug holes. Hard to argue with that plan given last year’s result.

They don’t want to upset the salary structure by overpaying for freshmen who have a 50/50 chance of even helping you as freshmen. Jeremiah Smith? Yes. Bralan Womack is ranked 13th nationally and Savion Hiter is ranked 17th overall. They can command big bucks … and probably bigger bucks elsewhere than they can at Ohio State. Good luck to them.

I know for fans who follow recruiting it is very distressing to be in position to sign great players and not sign them.

foxr2001: For as much as NIL and the portal have impacted CFB, it seems to have impacted CBB even more. Presumably thats because a CBB team has far fewer players and a team can be dramatically impacted by just one top player. Do you see other reasons why CBB is been more impacted? Are CBB players more in the market for a big payday than CFB players? Any idea how much the top CBB players are making in NIL when compared to the top CFB players?

We all know the 20.5M that OSU will pay players is being split between CFB, CBB, WBB and WVB. Any idea how much each is getting this year? Do you know if that amount will be revisited each year? (that is, will Bjork modify the percentage each team gets each year based on how they are doing?)

Thanks Steve. I might be back later with more questions.

Helwagen: Well, schools scrambled to lock in bigger money deals with players before the House judgement was ratified by the judge and the new standards were implemented. So the 2025-26 school year has guys making big money in all the sports … that will not be there in the 2026-27 school year. The hope is the $20.5 million would put limits on spending and the stringent NIL GO enforcement would mean very few funny money (i.e. pay to play) deals would get through.

They wanted to control payroll costs and also get the donors back to donating to the school for staffing, building and overhead costs.

That backfired though when they loosened the NIL GO requirements. It seems like it is going back to Wild West and pay whatever you can by how much your collectives raise. Ross Bjork said The Foundation is now part of OSU’s in-house NIL mechanism and is ready to plug and play if Wild West rules truly prevail. I get the sense Ohio State is dipping a toe into the pool on this potential Wild West situation and letting others do the heavy lifting by proving, truly, that anything will go in the years to come.

They honestly can’t do much to restrict athletes’ earnings without inviting a lawsuit they likely cannot win. Somebody is “worth” whatever somebody is willing to pay them. So we will see how it all shakes out over the next 18 months. I hope that explains my view of what is going on with NIL.

And regards to basketball, yes, it is easier to reshape a team and its fortunes with 1-2 impact transfers. OSU tried to make a splash with high potential guys Aaron Bradshaw and Sean Stewart last year and it backfired in their face.

This year, the strategy was to go for proven producers and some good role players. I think this strategy will pay off with a return to the NCAA Tournament. It looks like Michigan also did really well in the portal and is predicted top 10 this year. We’ll see how it all works out.