Ohio State NIL collective, The Foundation, unveils plans to launch Florida chapter
Plans are in place for a Florida chapter of the collective, with the hope of having an annual fundraiser in the Miami area. Some of the top talent in the country resides in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, a place where Ohio State fans also love to flock to in the wintertime. That should be a win-win for The Foundation.
"We're always adapting, we have to," Schottenstein told On3 on Thursday afternoon. "We already have the biggest brand of any collective in Ohio, have raised the most money and have partnered with the most student-athletes. This just continues to build our brand even bigger."
The Diamond and Deshe families will head up the new branch of The Foundation. Each have ties to Columbus and are notable Ohio State supporters. Schottenstein said The Foundation has already secured an endowment in the hundreds of thousands committed to the Florida venture.
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Conversations have already started about even having Ohio State wide receiver coach and former Miami Dolphins wideout Brian Hartline come down for an event. For Deshe and Schottenstein, making sure the Buckeyes have a presence in the recruiting hotbed is the real factor.
The current 2023 class has 56 recruits from Florida ranked in the On300. And in the last five years, 144 athletes from the Sunshine State have heard their names called in the NFL Draft. It's the second highest, only trailing Texas.
"Once we have this in place, it will be an even better pitch for when Ohio State is talking to a Florida high school student," Schottenstein said. "That we're really focusing on Florida athletes and the Buckeyes that are from there."
This is the kind of thing that boosters can put their money towards when the university gets enough money from its TV deal that they don't need the fundraising to pay the bills. The longer we stay in the ACC, the further behind we fall.
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Dang. I get the money was always changing hands but this is crazy. National networks of boosters? Like. Where does it end? Does it need to be regulated? How would you even do that? More and more questions keep coming out of this whole NIL thing...
Yeappp... I've long been a believer that NIL will increase parity (when benchwarmers at Bama leave to start and make more money at VT-level-program), but if TV money makes donations unnecessary and obsolete, and the majority of booster money goes to NIL... well that's a problem for us. Lots of stuff to be concerned about
Yeah I never thought NIL would level the field. It was always going to be a vehicle to accelerate what's already happening- the rich getting richer.
I'm absolutely stunned this was not set up in South Carolina. For every native to SC there are three idiots yelling O-H
Na, that's VT territory, if you haven't heard we are outrecruiting Clemson in their own state!
"K-I-E-S Hokies!"
Or, alternatively
"K-I-E-S Ohkies? Hey, yours was backwards."
They leave that nice long pause just hanging out there, waiting for a superior defensive school to jump in front of the route.
I'm sure none of this money is going to somehow find its way to youth coaches to get early access to the best players before everyone else.
Youth FB coaches in this area of FL essentially run the show and direct their players to certain high school teams based on their relationships with them.
This is rife for abuse.
NIL just keeps getting better and better.
I think that's all of Florida. There are (or at least used to be) so many "out of zone" kids in Collier county it's crazy. All the good football players would go to Naples High or Lely. Baseball to Gulf Coast or Barron Collier, etc. Naples high was pretty much the pipeline to college for football players. Not all D1, but a bunch of them. They used to always make a big deal of it on the news. Pretty sure Kramer, the coach, was getting some..... encouragement..... from some programs...
Lee county wasn't as bad, but there's less team talent in Lee to be honest. More individual talent (See Sammy Watkins, Noel Devine, Curt Benkert or whatever his name at LOLUVa was, etc), but they never aggregated because Lee county is MASSIVE and getting from house to school could be ridiculous.
Yes, how could it have been possible to see this coming?
/s
Ohio State collective and programs of similar stature completely taking over.
welp here we go
Total bullshit! I'm all for players making money but schools buying players just seems wrong.
It's nothing new tho 🤷♂️