More sweat, more hustle, more wins.
American culture pounds the “more is better” maxim into our very beings, making it easy to assume it applies across the board. When news broke earlier this week that college basketball coaches deem Arkansas as by far and away the No. 1 program in terms of NIL largesse, you could practically feel the whooping and hollering ring down through the Boston Mountains.
How could that not be a good thing in today’s college sports climate where openly admitting money buys talent has become the standard?
It’s easy to think what’s good for the basketball program would of course be good for the Arkansas football program. The university itself loves to cross-market the two:
But on Wednesday, Sam Pittman, the Hogs’ head coach, somewhat upended the premise that handing out NIL funds willy-nilly on the football front would actually produce the wins that so many assume they would.
At a Hawgs Illustrated Sports Club luncheon, he illustrated an issue he’s apparently seen play out among his players with a table of eight attendees. He pointed to each person at the table and said he would pay them differing amounts ranging from $50 up to $150,000, as Whole Hog Sports’ Tom Murphy wrote.
Then, in the middle of a humid August day, he let loose with some of his trademark dry humor: “Then I’m going to let y’all get in the same room for eight hours a day and you all just have a great time.”
Cue the crowd laughter.
“Now, multiply that by 15 and that’s what I’ve got. … That’s the biggest fear is handling (NIL disparities).”
Cue the vinyl record screeching.
Bigger NIL = Bigger Headaches?
So, on one hand, we are to assume the Arkansas basketball program reportedly destroying the competition in NIL is a wholly good thing, but on the other hand we see the head football Hog insinuating that jealousy among players regarding income disparity are made worse when the pie gets bigger for everybody.
Think about it. Joe Football may be happy with his $30,000 a year when he knows the quarterback’s making just three times more than him. But if he later learns the quarterback is actually making six times more than him, then bang-bang, jealousy’s knocking on the door. A lot of this is Human Nature 101. Even if Joe Football’s bumped up to $40,000 or $50,000, the disparity’s still much more severe despite all boats rising.
Of course, the inclination to in-fight changes from team to team. And any latent issues tend to come boiling out when the losses start mounting. Get the right mix of guys, even if some of the leaders are transfers staying for only one year, and they may better navigate these hazards.
As Pittman said at the luncheon, NIL issues “can go downhill pretty fast, but it’s our job to try to get it back the other direction. But if it never starts going downhill because of the kids on the team, you’re probably going to have a pretty good ball club.”
Arkansas Football in SEC Pecking Order for NIL
Another common narrative often trotted out by Arkansas football fans is the notion that their program lags most other SEC teams in NIL pecking order. The thinking is that it may be closer to the bottom than the top, which is reasonable logic considering how often the team finishes closer to the bottom of SEC teams in overall record and recruiting rankings.
However, such a narrative presumes that the powers that be aren’t aggressively trying to better the situation by paying top dollar for transfers, recruits and to retain current stars from jumping into the portal or leaving early for the NFL Draft. It appears that was the case coming off the 2021 and 2022 seasons, which saw Arkansas finish with a combined record of 16-10 with stars KJ Jefferson and Rocket Sanders appearing in Heisman Trophy odds early on during both campaigns, according to Vulkan Bet login.
During the 2023 season, for which Arkansas had been able to retain Jefferson and Sanders from the previous years, the Hogs actually finished somewhere in the upper third of the SEC in terms of NIL budget for its roster, sports agent J.R. Carroll told Best of Arkansas Sports.
To be clear, there’s no centralized database to see these NIL budgets since that information isn’t publicly available, unlike state employees’ salaries. So the best route is to go off more anecdotal evidence from people who would know. The fact CBS’ Garry Parrish and Matt Norlander got his estimate of Arkansas basketball as No. 1 in NIL from so many college coaches gives it credibility:
Norlander speculates that Arkansas basketball’s budget is in the $8-9.5 million range, he told Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft of ESPN Arkansas’ “The Morning Rush.” He added “we hear in football that it’s $15-20 million now to really be a highly funded NIL program.”
J.R. Carroll, an NFL agent for decades before also representing college players, would know better than most how competitive the Arkansas football program is. He’s representing former Hogs like Treyon Burks, Frank Ragnow, Chris Paul Jr. and KJ Jefferson.
He represents a handful of current Razorbacks including Andrew Armstrong, Isaiah Sategna, Landon Jackson, Luke Hasz and Jaylon Braxton. On top of that, over the last few years, he drafted the actual NIL contracts to be signed by his clients while swapping intel with plenty of other agents.
So the Arkansas-based lawyer has seen the kinds of offers out there, and of course the amounts to which Arkansas football players end up agreeing. The Hogs’ high NIL budget in 2023, which also would have placed it among the top in the nation, is partly due to the intense fan support and more good vibes coming off back-to-back winning seasons.
But one of the reasons isn’t so hot: Arkansas simply doesn’t have the same kind of leverage with top-tier players some of the blue-blood SEC programs have. A program that has a line of high four- and five-star players waiting in the wings to get on the field can often make an offer and, if the player balks, essentially say, “Okay, next man up.”
Such an elite program can also show how many first-round NFL draft picks it has produced and make the point that the development, training and competition that player will get will ultimately pay off in millions of more dollars down the line in the NFL. So, essentially, the selling point of an elite program could be “Sure, you can get $75,000 or $100,000 elsewhere for a year, but here you can be better positioned to make millions down the line.”
It’s not as if Arkansas is bereft of NFL talent. Indeed, Landon Jackson and Fernando Carmona Jr. are both projected as possible first-round picks in the 2025 draft in some mock projections.
The issue is whether the talent it has will play nice with each other, unlike what happened last season.
A perverse silver lining here may be that compared to other SEC schools, in 2024 Arkansas is more in the middle of the pack range, Carroll estimates.
At first blush that may seem depressing. But, hey, that also means there are less severe disparities between what these Razorbacks are making in NIL this time around.
Based on the ramifications of what Sam Pittman said, that ultimately may be a good thing.
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Finebaum Goes Off Script with His Sideswipe of Pittman
Almost every time Nate Olson has ingested a a Paul Finebaum take, he’s cringed.
“Overrated” and “annoying” are the best ways he can describe the longtime scribe/talks show host. Calling him “The Voice of the SEC” is a reach at best, in Olson’s opinion. His reach barely crosses the Alabama borders, and don’t get me started about when ESPN asks his opinion about national college matters.
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