Editorial: Let NIL and Pokes with a Purpose Go Stagnant then Prepare to Suffer
The other day I had Oklahoma State associate athletic director and director of NIL Barry Hinson on my radio porgram out of Triple Play Sports Radio in Stillwater. Understand that as a member of the Oklahoma State Cowboys Radio Network and an insider to the football program that has been a friend with Cowboys football head coach Mike Gundy since he was in high school that I’ve been a marked man. Oklahoma State fans are spoiled. The younger ones, ages 12-to-30 something, are extremely spoiled as they have never known anything other than winning seasons and bowl games at the end of each season. Six of those have been New Year’s Six games since 2000. Older fans seem to have forgot the depressing seasons of the late 80s and 90s. Even older fans should remember that the program was only occasionally strong leading up to Pat Jones as head coach in 1984 and the advent of Thurman Thomas, Barry Sanders, Mike Gundy (as quarterback), Leslie O’Neal, Mark Moore, and Hart Lee Dykes.
Many of Oklahoma State’s successful football seasons before the Les Miles and Mike Gundy eras beginning in the 2000s were because of cheating and were followed by NCAA probations. It’s a fact. Waht is interesting now is that all of those probations and what Oklahoma State did to earn the punishment from the NCAA is now legal.
“NIL, name, image, and likeness is what I’m involved with,” Hinson told me. “We had a gathering last night (Sept. 26) of about 125 of our athletes and representatives of businesses. It was kind of like a speed dating where athletes and business people could get to know each other and find out if they could help each other out.”
Hinson explained further that the Cowgirls softball team is working to help the local cable company. That same team has a deal with the Seth Wadley car dealerships in Perry and has done big work promoting that business. The women’s basketball team has a deal with Aspen Coffee that has been profitable. A multitude of athletes in all sports, especially football and basketball, have deals with business people. I’m paying quarterback Alan Bowman for an exclusive NIL Journal each week. I can tell you that he gets a salary and a 10 percent of all new subscriptions. He is doing well. NIL works and it is athletes being paid for name-image-and-likeness.
Hinson has helped put together, along with the OSU NIL Brand Squad, the shirjeys, a t-shirt replica jersey for every Oklahoma State athlete. Soon, every Oklahoma State athlete will have their own trading card. Those have been done professionally with Panini, the leading trading car company in the United States.
“Then we have Pokes wth a Purpose, the collective,” Hinson said. “We have to support Pokes with a Purpose and I tell our booster and supporter that we have to keep them going.”
Hinson is so right. Pokes with a Purpose falls under NIL with the NCAA, but it’s different.
Pokes with a Purpose is a collective, similar to what every school has like the 12th Man at Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Kansas State, Kansas, West Virginia, you name a school and they have a collective or what back in the old days was called a slush fund. These collectives are out of the darkness and into the wide open. Many, like Oklahoma State’s Pokes with a Purpose are tied to businesses and/or charitable entities. Athletes do appearances, but not all and these collectives are responsible for payments made across the board on teams. Did you know every Cowboy basketball player drives a new vehicle? Every Oklahoma State football player gets a stipend, a check?
If you have any extra money and want to use it to support Oklahoma State athletics, all teams, but certainly football then give to Pokes with a Purpose. There will be a QR code on the Boone Pickens Stadium jumbo tron at the Kansas State game on Oct. 6 and all remaining home football games. I will be aiming my phone at that code for a $100 gift. If 50,000 people would do the same over the rest of the football season that adds up to $5 million and that would fund Pokes with a Purpose for this next school year and beyond.
When you hear stories like the one about current Arizona State quarterback Jaden Rashada being offered a $13.85 million NIL deal at Florida, I call BS to that. Now, a million? maybe. Honestly, I think most schools have around $3-5 million as total budgets in their collectives. There maybe some like Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, LSU that go beyond that number. Stay in the $3-5 million range and I believe you can compete favorably.
Now, for those of you that bitch and moan about not getting enough four and five-star recruits in football or in any sport, here is your chance to step up. As the saying goes, money talks and BS walks.
I can’t give millions, but I can give along with my season tickets in two different sports and my personal NIL deal with this website. It’s time to sit down and decide what you can do. Because for the immediate future if enough people join you and me in this age where what was once illegal is now not only legal, but necessary for success; then Oklahoma State will have that success. If not, when you are all of a sudden frustrated with on the field and on the court results, then look in the mirror.