Wisdom. ^^ But I also add that pure market forces may not govern NIL. For instance, if you had enough money that you really are unconstrained in what you choose to do in your life...what's another $50k, or whatever amount, to help your favorite team?
In other words, the source of NIL money is not limited to businesses making logical, investment decisions.
Agreed. NIL "buyers" are not really "buyers" in the sense of traditional consumers. They are "buyers" who receive services, but are looking to get their ego stroked in a very strange way.
Interestingly though, I do wonder whether there is a practical "cap" to the size of the market. For all of the talk of gazillionaires writing ginormous checks, I can't help but think that there is only so much NIL value to be funded. What will be very interesting in the long run is whether state, federal, or NCAA standards eventually put some some burden, on someone, to defend the fair market value of payments - even the fair market value of what is really an intangible. In other words, I'm leaning toward the idea that this is an arms-race that most large/BiG schools will in fact be able to play in with relative ease.
Also, I am reminded of when our government decided to create national cell phone service on an expedited basis by essentially giving away market licenses for free, by lottery. (No, literally, they did that, and the only way your lottery ticket would be invalidated was if it had a typo, the pages were out of order, or upside down. No, really.) My current senior senator (Mark Warner) made his money by being smart enough to know that all of the little fractional ownership interests in these licenses were eventually going to be gobbled up by big telecom, and taking on the role of "market maker/broker" for such transactions. I do think it's going to be very interesting to see who eventually emerges as a sort of NIL "clearinghouse" -- whether that will be traditional sports agents, advertising agencies, tech, or someone else. That is, frankly, where I think the true genius of the recent initiative by the PSU sports alumni lies. They may well stake out a really strong claim in the space. If anybody out there has a strong entrepeneurial streak and some expertise, this wouldn't be a bad place to invest your time, and then eventually flip it to private equity since they like unregulated investments.