I thought something was up. I couldn't find them listed with the Spring Game stuff and their site was unreachable last week when I was looking for some new Tech Gear.
Thank you Hokie Nation and to all of our subscribers for all that you have done to build a successful NIL program at VT. We look forward to the future success of the collective and Hokie Athletics! #CNIL pic.twitter.com/8f6ZwkiFur— CommonwealthNIL (@CommonwealthNIL) April 28, 2023
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It makes sense to have 1 University "approved" NIL rather than 2-3.
yes absolutely. total alignment and all pulling in the same direction rather than "competing" with each other. bigger pie for the athletes
I like the various visions the 3 have, but there's no reason why one collective can't have 3+ arms with different focuses/goals for the athletes.
Edit: I also don't think it was a bad idea to have a few different collectives when NIL started to compete with each other and figure out what works for VT. I think triumph has some really good ideas, but I've enjoyed commonwealth's social media and apparel better.
i hope it's Triumph fwiw
I mean it's got to be, right? The vagueness of the tweet seems kinda strange.
All I can think of when I see being acquired by another collective.
Rumore is thehokieway.org was the acquiring collective. All in all, this is good. Less confusing for everyone.Edit: rumors are wrong
I thought their niche was not to do any direct NIL but contract through the other collectives out there?
maybe it's a Harry's situation where it made the most financial sense to buy their own german blade factory
that would make it seemingly more confusing for me... Nonprofits can acquire for-profit entities, but the profits have to be diverted to the non-profit goals. And the part that would confuse me is how they would solicit money via the commonwealth NIL or not. Or what they plan to do with the assets of the commonwealth NIL.
But I guess, for instance, one can now buy a Liz Kitley autographed poster (a for profit transaction) via commonwealth NIL and the proceeds of that transaction then go to a non-profit goal (e.g., paying for overhead and helping a local charity). But, buying that Liz Kitley autograph would not be a deductible donation. Only donations to the hokieway would be deductible.
My understanding (which could be incorrect) is that The Hokie Way is just a middleman between players and non-profit. Players can get paid to market charitable causes.
Huge disclaimer - I'm not an expert on these things. I just read stuff here, and from VT, and other places, and try my best to contextualize it. I could be misunderstanding how THW works.
Exactly. The Hokie way itself is still a nonprofit and accepts charitable donations that the donor can deduct.
Which is why acquiring a for-profit company that sells subscriptions to fans to get access to players and merchandise makes it more confusing for me. Any contribution to the commonwealth NIL arm has been nondeductible and surely would continue to be. Any contribution to the Hokieway.org should continue to be a deductible donation. But, now if they end up under the same umbrella, it is confusing.
And there it is.
Rumors are they are going to acquire The Hokie Way as well and rebrand as the Triumvirate. /s
Edit: ☝️that was not a slight at bar, just a dumb joke.
Lol slight was much deserved
I really hate the middleman nature of NIL. I haven't given any money to Triumph or Commonwealth but if I had, I'd love to have some more transparency around the cost of this acquisition.
the NIL is ripe for exploitation by conmen, for sure. With no transparency, it's definitely, trust us with your money, we'll do what is right.
Steve Bannon endorses this business model.
I was thinking more along the line of the government of NJ.
Stupid question about NIL....
When you donate through a collective like this, does 100% of your money go to the players, or is it "after expenses"? If its the former, who is paying the overhead/administration? if its the later, is there transparency about operating costs, etc?
From a piece by CBS (below quote is about Florida's Collective - which is not exactly the best run collective out there):
Worth noting that this piece is ~15 months old, and a lot has changed since then. BUT, I thought this comment was pretty fascinating:
I have a feeling this quote was made purely to make the collective sound more legitimate, but ignoring that presumption, trying to figure out profitability for a collective is just wild to me. They're basically a talent agency that focuses on a very specific market with no competition. If a collective is successful, it feels like the athletic department (which has to spend money to keep non-profit status) will make the most money.
It also begs the question: Do collectives even have the (honest) goal of being profitable? Feels much more like a hobby for boosters/fans that is okay with breaking even (or operating at a small loss) as long as the owners/stakeholders are happy (aka the team wins).
Just seems like a lot of hoops to jump through to keep amateurism alive.
As a private company with no fiduciary duties, there is no knowing this information without the collective volunteering this information. And there is no guarantee that when a collective releases this information is accurate (or at least not skewed).
I would imagine that larger donations from sponsors would earmark the money and potentially have rights to various forms of audits within their contracts, but as individual donors, this information has not been provided as far as I can tell.
Triumph NIL has this to say about donations:
https://www.triumphnil.com/contact-copy