True that NIL gets split evenly at PSU?

[Doublehalf]

While in Cleveland this past weekend I spoke to some that are close to the program at PSU that said Cael splits all funds allocated by the school evenly amongst all wrestlers on the team. He did say they are free to pursue other endorsements and contracts outside of that which would vary by wrestler but as far as the program itself, he keeps things even for the culture aspect of the room. 
 

He also said Bo called PSU and said he would sign there if they would just match half what the other schools were offering and Cael said he wouldn't do it.

[Jimmy Cinnabon]

That cheatin' Cael!

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

That sounds like revenue sharing, not NIL.  

[Nak21]

We gotta start getting our terminology right.
Revenue Sharing. The schools that opt in to the “program” HAVE TO share a certain percentage of their revenue with the athletes. Think it’s in the 20% give or take ball park or maybe it was a set amount - for some reason $20M +/- is rattling around in my head?? I have no idea how it works beyond that, ie how University X divides it among various sports AND how the said sports divvy up their share among their athletes. Not sure I ever read any guidelines or rules around that.

NIL. NIL is kids, on their own essentially contracting for their Name, Image, likeness etc. The schools aren’t involved in that, short of hopefully some guard rails and maybe some review/over sight. I think NIL deals now over a small sum like $400-600 have to go thru a clearinghouse?? And alot of it seems to be “collectives” now? 
 

It’s all the Wild West. It’s gross, buts it’s the world we live in now. But given the nature of this board let’s try to get things as accurate as possible with the facts THEN run wild with all the crap I expect that will be spewed on these pages.

Edited March 24 by Nak21

[CoachB]

Explains why so many choose to stay at Penn State as backups rather than go somewhere else and start.

[Mason]

11 minutes ago, CoachB said:

Explains why so many choose to stay at Penn State as backups rather than go somewhere else and start.

read this wrong at first, yeah great from them to get an even share in NIL as non starters

Edited March 24 by Mason

[ionel]

1 hour ago, Doublehalf said:

 said Cael splits all funds allocated by the school evenly amongst all wrestlers on the team.

... cookie revenue  

[mr.nonothingatall]

8 minutes ago, ionel said:

... cookie revenue  

Does Carl split his cookies in half with everyone. It makes since ceal would break bread for everyone 

 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

52 minutes ago, Nak21 said:

We gotta start getting our terminology right.
Revenue Sharing. The schools that opt in to the “program” HAVE TO share a certain percentage of their revenue with the athletes. Think it’s in the 20% give or take ball park or maybe it was a set amount - for some reason $20M +/- is rattling around in my head?? I have no idea how it works beyond that, ie how University X divides it among various sports AND how the said sports divvy up their share among their athletes. Not sure I ever read any guidelines or rules around that.

NIL. NIL is kids, on their own essentially contracting for their Name, Image, likeness etc. The schools aren’t involved in that, short of hopefully some guard rails and maybe some review/over sight. I think NIL deals now over a small sum like $400-600 have to go thru a clearinghouse?? And alot of it seems to be “collectives” now? 
 

It’s all the Wild West. It’s gross, buts it’s the world we live in now. But given the nature of this board let’s try to get things as accurate as possible with the facts THEN run wild with all the crap I expect that will be spewed on these pages.

I believe I saw a reputable source post rev sharing amounts for the various PSU sports last week.  It was total amount and did not break it down by individual.  I would be curious as to how much each team member received.

[ionel]

3 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

I believe I saw a reputable source post rev sharing amounts for the various PSU sports last week.  It was total amount and did not break it down by individual.  I would be curious as to how much each team member received.

@Kentuckymudflap is back?  

[Idaho]

48 minutes ago, Nak21 said:

We gotta start getting our terminology right.
Revenue Sharing. The schools that opt in to the “program” HAVE TO share a certain percentage of their revenue with the athletes. Think it’s in the 20% give or take ball park or maybe it was a set amount - for some reason $20M +/- is rattling around in my head?? I have no idea how it works beyond that, ie how University X divides it among various sports AND how the said sports divvy up their share among their athletes. Not sure I ever read any guidelines or rules around that.

NIL. NIL is kids, on their own essentially contracting for their Name, Image, likeness etc. The schools aren’t involved in that, short of hopefully some guard rails and maybe some review/over sight. I think NIL deals now over a small sum like $400-600 have to go thru a clearinghouse?? And alot of it seems to be “collectives” now? 
 

It’s all the Wild West. It’s gross, buts it’s the world we live in now. But given the nature of this board let’s try to get things as accurate as possible with the facts THEN run wild with all the crap I expect that will be spewed on these pages.

I will add a little to this:

1.  Schools that opted in can pay up to 20.5 million total to all athletes (Revenue Sharing)

2. Schools determine what percentage of the 20.5 million goes to each sport. This is typically based on revenue that sport brings in - Obviously football and basketball receive the largest chunk. Another factor in this is the roster size. Football has 105, wrestling 30, etc. This can factor into the decision on what sport gets how much. 

3. Individual sports can decide how they allocate their piece of the revenue sharing. Factors include the role of that player on the team (starter vs backup), the NIL value, the status/accomplishments, etc. This is where prospective athletes should ask questions about how this is distributed. 

4. Third party NIL deals for individual athletes are still a thing. However, anything over $600 is submitted for review through the College Sports Commission and NIL Go Clearinghouse process. 

For example, you have probably all seen the graphic of how PSU divided 18.68 million.  The school determined how that was split up and wrestling got the 3rd most amount at 1.45 million (approx). The wrestling program now gets to decide how that is split up on the roster. Equally distributed between all 30 on a roster that would be a little less than 50k per wrestler. However, they probably don't do it that way because the value of each wrestler is different - Messenbrink vs a backup for example. 

PSU wrestling got a really good chunk from their department, because of the revenue they bring in. It won't look the same at every school. If you have a powerhouse volleyball team or a baseball team that brings in a lot of revenue, wrestling will get pushed down the ladder at those schools. This has been your Ted Talk. 

 

 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

2 minutes ago, Idaho said:

 

For example, you have probably all seen the graphic of how PSU divided 18.68 million.  The school determined how that was split up and wrestling got the 3rd most amount at 1.45 million (approx). The wrestling program now gets to decide how that is split up on the roster. Equally distributed between all 30 on a roster that would be a little less than 50k per wrestler. However, they probably don't do it that way because the value of each wrestler is different - Messenbrink vs a backup for example. 

PSU wrestling got a really good chunk from their department, because of the revenue they bring in. It won't look the same at every school. If you have a powerhouse volleyball team or a baseball team that brings in a lot of revenue, wrestling will get pushed down the ladder at those schools. This has been your Ted Talk. 

 

 

That is the graphic I was talking about!

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

3 minutes ago, Idaho said:

I will add a little to this:

1.  Schools that opted in can pay up to 20.5 million total to all athletes (Revenue Sharing)

2. Schools determine what percentage of the 20.5 million goes to each sport. This is typically based on revenue that sport brings in - Obviously football and basketball receive the largest chunk. Another factor in this is the roster size. Football has 105, wrestling 30, etc. This can factor into the decision on what sport gets how much. 

3. Individual sports can decide how they allocate their piece of the revenue sharing. Factors include the role of that player on the team (starter vs backup), the NIL value, the status/accomplishments, etc. This is where prospective athletes should ask questions about how this is distributed. 

4. Third party NIL deals for individual athletes are still a thing. However, anything over $600 is submitted for review through the College Sports Commission and NIL Go Clearinghouse process. 

For example, you have probably all seen the graphic of how PSU divided 18.68 million.  The school determined how that was split up and wrestling got the 3rd most amount at 1.45 million (approx). The wrestling program now gets to decide how that is split up on the roster. Equally distributed between all 30 on a roster that would be a little less than 50k per wrestler. However, they probably don't do it that way because the value of each wrestler is different - Messenbrink vs a backup for example. 

PSU wrestling got a really good chunk from their department, because of the revenue they bring in. It won't look the same at every school. If you have a powerhouse volleyball team or a baseball team that brings in a lot of revenue, wrestling will get pushed down the ladder at those schools. This has been your Ted Talk. 

 

 

My understanding is that no college wrestling team brings in more revenue than it spends.  People on "The Wrestling Room" were trying to say that PSU does, but people who have seen the numbers say they do not.  I guess they just lose less $.

[Caveira]

12 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

I believe I saw a reputable source post rev sharing amounts for the various PSU sports last week.  It was total amount and did not break it down by individual.  I would be curious as to how much each team member received.

It was ~1.4m / 31 peeps on the roster I think 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

3 minutes ago, Caveira said:

It was ~1.4m / 31 peeps on the roster I think 

I heard at one point, Cael was seriously considering opting out so that he could have a larger roster.

[CHROMEBIRD]

Dunno about that, but prior to House, PSU definitely did not split their scholarships evenly (as much as 9.9 can be nicely split, anyway) among starters. Zain I think it was had a story about how Cael offered him a partial when he was being recruited. Rutherford said something along the lines of, "what if I wait and see if I get better offers from other schools?" and Cael was like, "you can wait, but you may have not have any offer from us later. We have our own math to deal with". He verbaled then and there.

I don't know if PSU still has the leverage to negotiate like that under pay-for-play.

[BarSeries]

1 hour ago, mr.nonothingatall said:

Does Carl split his cookies in half with everyone. It makes since ceal would break bread for everyone 

 

Yes

 

[Idaho]

42 minutes ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

Dunno about that, but prior to House, PSU definitely did not split their scholarships evenly (as much as 9.9 can be nicely split, anyway) among starters. Zain I think it was had a story about how Cael offered him a partial when he was being recruited. Rutherford said something along the lines of, "what if I wait and see if I get better offers from other schools?" and Cael was like, "you can wait, but you may have not have any offer from us later. We have our own math to deal with". He verbaled then and there.

I don't know if PSU still has the leverage to negotiate like that under pay-for-play.

Yeah the 9.9 definitely required some creative math. It was really important to get kids that were both good wrestlers and good students in order to save on the wrestling scholarship piece. Not all teams were even on the same level during htat time. Some teams had 3 or 5 scholarships and did not have the full 9.9. Things have certainly changed a lot. 

[Idaho]

59 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

My understanding is that no college wrestling team brings in more revenue than it spends.  People on "The Wrestling Room" were trying to say that PSU does, but people who have seen the numbers say they do not.  I guess they just lose less $.

Below is the graphic you have seen floating around. There is another graphic below showing money spent. PSU shows to be at almost 8 million. I don't have any info on the total of what they brought in. However, they did have 63k home fans in 2025. They also sell a lot of merchandise. I don't know what the deals are they have as far as donations to the program expenses, the school budget and any sponsorships they have. With all of that said, it would not surprise me that they bring in more than 8 million. 

 

[Gene Mills Fan]

2 hours ago, Doublehalf said:

 Cael splits all funds allocated by the school evenly amongst all wrestlers on the team.

No wonder Mesenbrink said he was as sad as he's ever been, until he trained himself to think about the objective of the goal.

[1032004]

1 hour ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

My understanding is that no college wrestling team brings in more revenue than it spends.  People on "The Wrestling Room" were trying to say that PSU does, but people who have seen the numbers say they do not.  I guess they just lose less $.

This may be technically true for PSU, but it doesn’t count NLWC.  I’d be shocked if they’re actually losing money if you factor in NLWC which probably gets a lot of the donations.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

8 minutes ago, 1032004 said:

This may be technically true for PSU, but it doesn’t count NLWC.  I’d be shocked if they’re actually losing money if you factor in NLWC which probably gets a lot of the donations.

Well, I was going to respond earlier, but I didn't know enough about the specifics.  I think what Felters would say would be something like: 'No university makes money off of it's wrestling program.  They all lose the university money. This includes PSU.'

I assume he is talking about money that goes to the athletic dept., university general fund , etc.  This would not count sponsorships and donations going directly to the wrestling program or athletes.  He was looking at it strictly from the perspective of the school.  It is certainly possible that with donations PSU/NLWC makes a net profit-but the larger athletic program/university does not see this money.

[Nak21]

37 minutes ago, 1032004 said:

This may be technically true for PSU, but it doesn’t count NLWC.  I’d be shocked if they’re actually losing money if you factor in NLWC which probably gets a lot of the donations.

The NLWC is its own entity and doesn’t factor into the University financials at all. 

[Nak21]

2 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

My understanding is that no college wrestling team brings in more revenue than it spends.  People on "The Wrestling Room" were trying to say that PSU does, but people who have seen the numbers say they do not.  I guess they just lose less $.

You would be correct. Wrestling is and always has been a non-revenue sport. They all lose money. Now, PSU, Iowa, Ok St, Ohio St might lose less because they bring in more but as a general rule with college athletics if it’s not Mens D1 football or basketball, it’s a money loser for your AD. Back in the day before the huge TV/Media contracts, a solid percentage of football and basketball were money losers too. Colleges aren’t fielding athletic depts to make money or atleast not much money…spending $200M to generate $210M doesn’t give you much of a profit margin.

[Nak21]

2 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

I heard at one point, Cael was seriously considering opting out so that he could have a larger roster.

Can individual sports opt out? I thought it was all in or all out??