There is a difference between legitimate endorsement deals (for example, check out Dereck Lively's tweet today about Lids --
https://twitter.com/DereckLively/sta...91204097458179 ) and money given to players from boosters and collectives that is merely thinly veiled pay-for-play (like the Texas A&M football recruiting collective, the Hunt family in Arkansas, and John Ruiz for Miami). If you want details about the latter, google can provide many links.
It is my understanding that the vast majority of NIL stuff done by Duke players is legitimate endorsement opportunities, like Lively's tweet,
the stuff being sold by The Brotherhood, or the ads that Paolo did a year ago. That said, I do think there is at least a little bit of the -- well -- slightly more shady stuff also happening for Duke athletes, as it is at pretty much every school these days. I don't want to get into details -- and I, frankly, don't have a lot of details -- but there are groups that will pay players to make appearances at charitable events or hospitals and stuff like that. It happens and I really don't have a problem with it.
If I had to guess, I believe there are some schools and some players who are making really nice income from these shady NIL deals. We know for a fact that Nijel Pack is making $800k from John Ruiz to play at Miami this year and next. Rest assured, he is not alone in pulling down 6-figures to play at a certain school. I agree that $1.5 mil for Armando Bacot is probably a bit more than reality, but I would not be at all surprised to find out that he was making well over $500k this season and he could probably do the same if he choses to come back.
-Jason "finding hard numbers -- actual verifiable stuff -- on any of these deals is almost impossible" Evans