KFAB Husker Insider Sean Callahan

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, you heard some of theinteresting news about the collective, the NIL
Collective that has strengthened its relationship withthe Nebraska corn Huskers as an athletic department.
And I figure the guy that couldhelp us, could help explain to
us all the implications of this onwhat it's going to mean for the teams
moving forward, would be our Huskerinsider Sean Callahan, who happens to be

(00:23):
joining us on the phone line rightnow. Sean has always a pleasure.
Thanks for joining us today. Hey, it's great to be on. Thank
you. Okay, So can youexplain to us first and foremost what does
an NIL collective do and how doesit work? Well? NIL Collective,
I mean if you're not familiar,I mean they are the main arm that

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works with you know, finding thename, image and likeness deals for the
athletes. But it's really more fivetoa model where it's almost based on roster
value, you know. And theathletes in Nebraska for football, volleyball,
basketball primarily both in to women signeddeals with the collective and they get paid

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kind of a market value and thenthey have duties that they do for the
collective, whether their appearances, autographs, camps, they have to have some
sort of obviously proof of performance ofthings they do, charitable appearances or whatever
tie into the collective. They signa service contract agreement in most cases that
they have to do x amount eventsor duties for the collective each month in

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order, you know, to maintainwhat their service contract agreement is. You
know, those can vary from youknow, who knows, I mean two
three thousand dollars a month in somecases, you know, six figure type
payouts or five figure type payouts dependingon your overall roster value. You hear
these guys that transfer because we heardown the grapevine that they're getting big NIL

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money promised to them. Is thata factor for a school like Nebraska right
now? Obviously a coaching change isalways going to create a ripple effect,
and you're kind of seeing that withthe first full recruiting class for Matt Ruhle
making it to Lincoln here this year. From your perspective, Sean, how
important has the collective been to thispoint in the early stages of NIL.

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Well, the retention, especially inthe last year, has been outstanding.
It's been probably the best roster attentionthat we've seen at Nebraska since the championed
Portal era started in college football,and you know, you just look at
players like Ty Robinson, Nashot Mocker, Bryce ben Hart, Isaac Gifford,
John Bullock. They all decided tocome back. And I think the NIL

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structure that Nebraska has in place hasplayed played a really big factor, you
know, and the retention of theseplayers, because I'll use Garrett Nelson as
example. He chose to declare earlyand not come back for his final year
and he was he didn't make theNFL, and so by not coming back
and playing at Nebraska, he probablycost themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars of

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NIL. So that's one real positive. I think it does keep retention,
you know, and if you're kindof on the fence, I think the
opportunities of NIL for these athletes now, you know, make them want to
keep playing. College athletics, wejust saw in gymnastics Libby Dunn from LSU,
one of the highest valued in ILathletes right now in the college States.

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At on three, she's got anevaluation of nearly four million dollars a
year. Well, surprise, surprise, she's coming back for a fifth year
at LSU. I mean, whenyou can capitalize on those things. The
Cavender twins who I got to meetat our event, they're they're the identical
twin sisters that play at Miami.They left and then decided to come back
and keep playing because I think theopportunities now in the college game are just

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so great with the nil and thethings out there. And to answer your
question of what the announcement this weekweek meant for Nebraska, it just really
formalizes things. Trev Alberts. Forwhatever reason, the former ad he had
a really hard time getting behind eighteenninety as the primary collective. He attempted
to actually start another collective, almostcompeting, but it never really got off

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the ground. And so a yearago at this time, there was actually
a second collective that was really nonfunctional, but they were still being recognized
as one of the primary collectives witheighteen ninety, who was backed by the
program's largest boosters, the Peede familyin Lincoln. Here and Nebraska's collective is
so unique that the Peed family paysfor all of the operating costs for the

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collective, for salaries, accounting,legal, you name it, off of
space. So every dollar that youdonate as a fan to the Nebraska age
ninety collectives, one hundred percent ofthose dollars go directly to the athlete,
where in most cases there's going tobe some operating costs and collective and you

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might say ten or those dollars togo to your operator. Braska runs their
collective. But the big thing thisweek's announcement did with the official recognition as
the collective of the brask At eighteenninety is you can donate your money to
the collective and you'll receive booster prioritypoints. So like right now, when

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you donate for your tickets and theBras you might have to make a thousand
dollars annual donation for your tickets,you get priority booster points for those.
Well, now if you donate tothe collective, you'll also get priority booster
points, and booster points are reallybig and just like letting you take better
seats, giving a chance to gettickets up to road games, and just

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kind of how you know ticket hierarchyand decisions are made. So that was
a big thing. But the eighteenninety collective also operates a foundation of nonprofits
and you can choose to have yourdonation go to their nonprofit arm of the
collective and not take the priority pointsand in that case you get a tax

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right off. Yeah, okay,so it's quite confusing, and you explained
it very well. There we're speakingwith Sean Callay and e'ser Husker Insider.
I'm on their website right now,eighteen ninety Nebraska dot com, which is
the collective, and you can bea member for as little as ten dollars
a month or up to one thousanddollars a month if you're just a single
person fan and you have different accesslevels and different gifts and stuff that you

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can get with each of these things. I suppose you know a lot of
people getting used to this NIL thing. Why And I could answer this question
probably, but I want you toexplain it from your perspective. Why is
it important that the school buddy upwith the collective because of how the NCAA
has done their rules and how NILworks with how the athletes actually get money,

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and how it's not actually coming fromthe school itself. Well, by
twenty twenty five, the structure ofANIL it's going to really change where schools
will be allowed to directly pay theathletes. So I think for that that's
a really big deal going forward becauseNebraska will have twenty two million dollars internally

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that they can pay the athletes throughtheir multi media rights deal, and that's
going to you know, they havethat money ready to go, but you
still want to have a collective.So Nebraska's positioned themselves that they're going to
be able to give the full twentytwo million to their athletes. You know,
what's the SEC and the Big Ten, that's the most right now you're
going to be able to allowed todo. But you're still going to have

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a collective because you can. Youcan have more than that, and I
think Nebraska's positioned themselves to do that. And you know, you want because
it is going to be really importantas this and if it's not going to
ever scale down, I mean,it's going to keep growing and growing.
And you know, the multimedia rightsmoney for Nebraska is going to be pushing
eighty million dollars annually here before toolong. And they're fine. They put

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it in perspective. In Nebraska's finalyear of the Big Twelve Conference, they
were receiving around fifteen million dollars ayear, So just in the span of
a little over ten to fifteen years, Nebraska has gone from fifteen million a
year to eighty million a year.And that's their and to the point where
the multimedia rights revenues far outpace theticket revenues, which you know, somebody

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would have told you that in twothousand and eight that was the case.
They would have Ticket revenue is alwaysyour biggest revenue. Now the multi media
rights is. But they've just said, hey, these players are a piece
of this and that's where that twentytwo million annually is going to come out
of. On top of them,what your collectives can do for other things
as well, that's pretty wild,Sean. Do you know about who the

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number one, number two type footballplayers are on that list and about how
much I know that might be alittle tough for us to know, like
specifically, but who have been thebiggest beneficiaries of NIL deals and how did
that affect maybe the recruiting class thatwe just saw. Yeah, you know,
there's no That's the thing about AIL. You're never going to get the
exact deal point value. But onthree our company I work for, they

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do INIL value eight speaks to theagents, they speak to the collectives.
They get really really good data andinformation and they set up value with players.
And Dylan Riola has the top rostervaluation on Nebraska. I believe he's
one point two million, and youknow that's really an outlier. I mean,
you're just not going to see thatmany players that command that. But

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Dylan Roola was the quarterback of choiceby Ohio State, USC, Georgia,
and he think Nebraska. So itkind of puts into respect of what his
value is. Sorry to jump in, Sean, do you know what they
were offering as far as an algoes, No, And we don't even
know if Nebraska's offered that. Butyou know, his valuation in the marketplace
is one point two million. Imean that's what he's you know, And

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then you can go down the line, you know. I'll put it like
David Sanders right now is the numberone high school offensive tackle on the country
out of Charlotte, North Carolina.He put in Nebraska in his final four.
His valuation is in the low fourhundred thousand. So the quarterback position
is a rare deal. Bryce Underwoodis the number one quarterback in the country.
He's going to be in that ofDylan Royal. There's a very very

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few players that command that. Ithink, you know, your range for
normal major Big ten type players isprobably in the forty to one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars range, you know, and it could be more than that.
But if I just had a guess, I mean, that's what these
guys are getting. And they're alreadyyou know, getting their school paid for,
and they're they're living stipends that they'vealways gotten, and then you add

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this nil payment as well to that. I mean, these guys are they've
got a really really nice setup here, and some of them get car deals,
some of them get apartment deals.I mean, there's just a lot
of things now that these guys getthat they've never got before. It's definitely
interesting and it's a brave new worldin the college athletics scene. Sean Callahan
explaining it to us like we needto if we're going to ever understand it.

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Sean, appreciate the time today.We'll chat again. I'm sure very
soon. Okay, Hey, thanksa lotting Mary, I appreciate it.
Yeah, absolutely, how about thatin Il. Yeah, those guys are
making a little bit of dough forwhat they do playing for the Huskers. There