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One of the unintended consequences of NIL is the end of an old joke: (Insert random Kentucky player’s name here) thought about going pro but it’d mean a pay cut.
NIL is having a huge impact in a very short time and people are trying to figure it out in any number of ways.
Kentucky did something that seems pretty smart.
The team is doing two events as a group and donating 10 percent of the proceeds to charity. That’s really good and smart too. It won't be surprising if a lot of places emulate that.
And second, according to Dick “Hoops” Weiss, “Kentucky [will] split revenue from NIL activities between entire team, including walk ons. Cal one step ahead again“
We say this with the greatest respect for Weiss, who is a legendary and superb basketball writer. but as we put these two stories together, it occurs to us that he may have misread the first story, or maybe the abrupt nature of Twitter defeated what he was trying to say. Maybe he meant to say “ from some NIL activities.“
We can see a collective effort, perhaps as a chance to specifically include guys who won’t make a ton under NIL, but we can’t see elite players sharing their income with walk-ons indefinitely. And we also haven’t seen that anywhere else either.