Morgantown, West Virginia – According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, the Matador Club, a collective at Texas Tech, has agreed to pay every scholarship player (and 15 walk-ons) $25,000 as a Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deal.
The collective is organized by five Texas Tech graduates and receives donations from followers of the program. At $25,000 per player, they would have to receive approximately $2.5 million dollars a year to sign 85 scholarship players and 15 walk-ons.
West Virginia’s collective, Country Roads Trust, has been very active and helpful in providing financial opportunities to West Virginia University student-athletes. However, while many players have been aided, several lesser-known players go without deals.
My suggestion is for Country Roads Trust to come up with a way to pay all players on the team, like the Matador Club has done at Texas Tech, but to do even better than their conference foe.
Promising a $50,000 one-year “contract” to every player on the football team would not only attract top recruits to the program, it would also be the very best way to spend the donations given to Country Roads Trust.
Rather than paying 15 walk-ons, West Virginia could simply pay the 85 scholarship players on the roster, which would mean that Country Roads Trust would have to raise approximately $4,250,000 a year.
Although Country Roads Trust has not yet released how much they have received in donations this year, they charge memberships to West Virginia fans ranging from $18.67 to $1,000 a month, and it’s very likely that the collective has raised an enormous amount of money through memberships alone.
If fans and followers of the program knew precisely where the donations were going – straight to players’ “contracts” – the more likely they would be to donate.
West Virginia has a far more passionate fanbase than Texas Tech, and doubling what they did in Lubbock is certainly very possible.
We live in an entirely new era of college athletics and West Virginia should use and improve upon Texas Tech’s revolutionary idea to put the Mountaineers at the forefront, leading the way into the future of college sports.
