It has never been far from the public consciousness, but NIL was once again thrust into mainstream conversation in Arkansas this week.
The renewed discussion stems from athletics director Hunter Yurachek’s appearance at the Little Rock Touchdown Club on Monday, when he was asked about the issue.
While the Razorbacks have made some strides in that department, especially in sports like men’s basketball, they still have work to do in football when it comes to their peers.
“We’ve finally gotten our footing at the University of Arkansas in the NIL world, but we’re not where we need to be,” Yurachek said. “I will tell you, the upper echelon of the SEC in football is probably spending double of what we’re spending on our football program right now in the NIL space. That’s reality.”
One reason the UA has gained its “footing,” as Yurachek put it, was the launch of Arkansas Edge as the school’s official NIL collective, replacing OneArkansas, last November.
It’s been a slow climb, though. Arkansas Edge announced a “Drive for Five” initiative in March, when it had about 380 members, in an effort to grow that number to 5,000. As of mid-June, membership was just 793.
Arkansas Edge has since removed the membership tracker from its website. However, Yurachek told the Little Rock Touchdown Club crowd that they were up to “about” 1,000, which he said was roughly 20% the size of Ole Miss’ collective. (The Rebels, by the way, are ranked No. 5 in this week’s AP Poll.)
After revealing that jarring difference, the seventh-year AD pitched the crowd on what he deemed a “simple” solution.
“Ole Miss has about 5,000 members in their football collective,” Yurachek said. “We have about 1,000 in our football collective right now. They have 5,000 members, we have 1,000. If we’re going to catch up, I’m going to make it so easy for you. If we could get 10,000 households across the state of Arkansas to give $100 a month — 10,000 households to give $100 a month all year long — we would be in the NIL game. From a football perspective, it’s that simple.”
That would give Arkansas a whopping $1 million per month for NIL.
Matt Jones’ Solution for Arkansas Football
As we’ve seen with the “Drive for Five,” that is much easier said than done.
It doesn’t help that the Razorbacks are trying to make this push off a 4-8 season and with a head coach believed to be on one of the hottest seats in the country.
Of course, this boils down to a classic “chicken or the egg” debate: Fans want a better product before choosing to donate, but the football program needs more money to improve its overall talent.
The optics of Yurachek asking average fans to donate aren’t great, especially given the economic demographics of the state, but it’s not totally his fault — the well-off asking the not-as-well-off to pitch in smaller donations is just what college football has become these days. To compete in the NIL era, you need money to obtain and retain good players.
There doesn’t appear to be an obvious “get-rich-quick” solution, but former Arkansas quarterback Matt Jones proposed a more subtle idea Tuesday during Halftime, the midday sports talk radio show he co-hosts alongside Phil Elson on ESPN Radio.
“Recruit your in-state products and you’ll get more money,” Jones said. “You want money from the people from the state? Well, recruit the kids from the state. You’ve got to recruit the state better.”
Jones, who went to Fort Smith Northside before starring for the Razorbacks from 2001-04, repeated his idea multiple times during that particular segment of the show.
“You can’t continue to lose your top 3-4 recruits in the state each year, especially to other SEC schools,” Jones said. “You gotta keep your in-state talent in state.”
The argument is that most in-state kids grow up wanting to be Razorbacks, so they’ll foster a “good locker room” and “good vibe,” Jones said, while also making more areas across the state feel closer to the program through that particular hometown player.
Closer Look at Matt Jones’ Idea
There is no denying that Sam Pittman has struggled in this department – just look at the data. At the same time, though, the UA must also recruit elsewhere because the Natural State doesn’t produce enough SEC-quality players to sustain the program.
Still, the number of Arkansas natives playing for the Hogs has dropped off since Jones’ playing days – which, granted, were for a head coach in Houston Nutt who’s from Little Rock and placed a huge emphasis on in-state recruiting.
Two decades ago, which was Jones’ senior year of 2004, more than half of the Razorbacks’ total players – 67 of 129 (51.9%) – were from Arkansas. This year, that number dropped to just 31.1%.
It should be noted that the drop can’t all be pinned on Pittman. In fact, that percentage is only slightly lower than it was 10 years ago, when 33.0% of the 2014 Arkansas football roster hailed from the Natural State.
What Jones’ argument boils down to is he believes fans would be more invested in the program if they felt close to the players. Something else that would help in that department is players sticking around for a while.
That is where things have changed drastically in the past decade. Back in 2014, even though it was Bret Bielema’s second season, there were 52 players entering at least their third season with the program. This year’s roster currently has just 26 such players.
Again, it’s hard to place blame on any one person for that happening at Arkansas because college football is in the age of the transfer portal – which, by the way, is a two-way street. Players, homegrown or not, can easily leave if they’re not getting playing time and the coaches can go get new players if their recruits don’t pan out.
While Matt Jones’ sentiment is pure and makes a lot of sense in theory, his solution probably wouldn’t make the dent in NIL he expects in today’s game. After all, the transfer portal exists even for native Arkansans, like Jackson Woodard, James Jointer Jr. and Jacolby Criswell, to name a few.
Tennessee’s Idea to Address NIL, Revenue Sharing
Arkansas will instead need to come up with other ways to raise money, especially when revenue sharing enters the equation as early as next year.
It won’t have to look far for inspiration, as Tennessee made headlines this week by introducing a 10% “talent fee” for its tickets beginning in 2025.
In a segment on ESPN’s College Football Live, reporter Pete Thamel credited Tennessee athletics director Danny White for what he called “creative marketing.”
“Really, this is a ticket hike disguised as a talent fee,” Thamel said. “You know when it’s easy to do that? It’s easy to do that when you’re No. 6 in the country, when you’re selling out your 100,000-seat stadium and when you have Nico Iamaleava, and you can call it a talent tax, basically. If you want to retain Nico, you pay this money.”
Tom Luginbill, another college football reporter, followed Thamel and added that it will likely be copied by other schools as they strive to increase revenue for the looming changes in college athletics.
“This is what we all signed on for,” Luginbill said. “The moment we started paying players, what did you think was going to happen? The price of doing business has gone up. Winning cures all woes and people will gladly pay it, but this isn’t just coming to Tennessee. This will be nationwide before we know it because you’ve got to come up with a way to combat the $20 million settlement.”
Whether it’s through a grassroots movement to support the collective like Hunter Yurachek is pushing or additional ticket fees like at Tennessee, it seems as though the common fan will end up shouldering at least some of the increased financial burden caused by NIL and revenue sharing.
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