BYU and NIL

[Anfernee]

I was raised in Provo and raised in the predominate faith. So when I first saw the NIL idea being floated around I thought this could be a massive advantage for BYU. There’s no shortage of passionate and wealthy LDS fans of the school. Some of my family and close friends are included in that group. I also then thought about the direct tie to the church aspect. Athletics being successful at BYU can be a positive spotlight for the church but when it’s tied to millions of dollars, boosters etc it gets murky. I recently read “AJ Dybansta NIL package expected to soar between $4 million and $4.5 million, according to On3’s Peter Nakos, and up to 10 million per Jeff Goodman.” He’s the #1 basketball recruit in the country and he’s currently 100% crystal balled to BYU. I also recently saw in the Deseret News that Commissioner of Education for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Clark Gilbert said “The church isn’t going to weigh in on dollar amounts or recruits, that’s the job of the university. But we will lay out some principles. We can never become a place where the culture is pay to play. We would undermine everything at BYU if that wins out. It’s tempting (but) if they don’t fit the mission, we’d unravel everything.” It will be very interesting to see how this is all navigated. As a Utah fan I wish we had a Ryan Smith type for athletics. Maybe it’ll happen one day. Anyway, just my thoughts and ramblings.

[Rick Walker]

I personally don’t think BYU is doing anything wrong, just people that don’t like byu athletics or who don’t like the LDS faith want them to be doing something wrong.

It could be interesting to see how it plays out because if BYU’s president decided it was too much of distraction they could axe athletics the same way university of Chicago did years ago.

I also think it would be interesting if/when athletes are official employees, BYU’s athletic department could possibly have to break off from the university to some capacity so they could operate under new college sports rules without breaking the university’s rules.

But all of this is hypothetical and a lot of ifs, I’m just getting ahead of myself.

[Anfernee]

Yeah there’s nothing wrong happening. I’m always just curious to see how stuff plays out. Especially when it’s millions of dollars, a church owned school, boosters etc. 🍿

[TruckStopTerrors]

There is nothing wrong in context to the rules that have been laid out. Certainly. Is it morally a good look for them or fans that support them to be going out spending millions of dollars to essentially buy players, etc, when they’re a religious institution? This is where you can kind of understand the negativity surrounding it. 4.5 million could be spent on worthier causes than to bring in a basketball player. Now, people will argue that if BYU is good athletically, it sort of advertises for the LDS religion in general. Won’t there be some negativity in that advertisement though too with the kind of money being spent on things that in the grand scheme of everything boils down to just being a silly game?

I don’t have the right answer, but it’s not as simple as they’re playing by the rules, so who cares?

[BD]

Spot on. Yes, I can’t help but believe that BYU’s NIL really is pay to play, and that people (not just Utes fans) will resent this and it creates negativity surrounding it.

Yes, BYU the institution isn’t paying NIL – the donors are. But people who will resent this and see it as a negative really don’t care. To them, it doesn’t matter, given that Byu controls the thing. The perception is the important thing – not the details of NIL money that most people don’t care to understand.

There certainly is a lot of negativity towards Oregon’s Phil Knight advantage – I would think that the negativity will be worse with Byu for obvious reasons – the religious factor.

[BD]

I was going to post something similar. Glad you did.

It seems clear to me and you: BYU should NOT be a pay to play place. AND they should not buy players that don’t fit the mission.

Some BYU fans have interpreted this to mean:
“We should not use pay to play for a player that does not fit the mission.”

In other words, to them, pay to play is perfectly fine as long as the player fits the mission.

He may have indeed meant that – I can’t read his mind. But – and this is the point – he didn’t say that. He said what clearly appears to me to be TWO things that they don’t want at BYU:
1) pay to play
2) players that don’t fit the mission of BYU

So, here is the quote that he actually said, not what is quoted in the Deseret News (you have to play the video of him talking to get his actual words):

“We can never become a place where the culture is pay to play. We would undermine everything at BYU if that wins out. AND it’s tempting to buy one player – one person at a time – and if they don’t fit the mission, we’d unravel everything.”

He didn’t say “but” – he said “and”, along with a whole sentence that adds a lot of context, that the Deseret News left out:
AND it’s tempting to buy one player – one person at a time – and

That says to me he is talking about TWO things here:
1) pay to play AND

2) players that don’t fit the mission of BYU

Granted, I may be nit-picking the words he said, but I am doing that to re-emphasize that, at least to me, he really does not want BYU to be a pay to play culture, because that can “unravel everything” and lead to players that don’t fit the mission.

None of this says BYU can’t have NIL – they need it to be competitive – in fact he makes that point. But, pay to play seems to be against what the Church wants according to a General Authority, and paying players well above market value to win the #1 recuit and a few others seems to me that it is hard to justify how this isn’t pay to play… and it seems hard to justify that Elder Gilbert didn’t really say what he really said.

[Anfernee]

Yes. Articulated much better than I did. Thank you.

[Author]

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