BAC

Sorry for slow response. I appreciate your points. I disagree with much of it, for reasons I've given, but understand where you're coming from. Here's my final thoughts, and happy to give you the final word. I do think some of your criticisms of the one study are just factually wrong, and the "just media articles" I mentioned themselves refer to other studies, e.g. lower average return on IG posts, black folks having a disproportionate share relative to participation. There's also a Penn study in 2021 that also found a stark race disparity, a WVU (Sports Marketing Quarterly) in 2022 also finding whites earn "a disproportionate share of NIL deals," and others. I'd be more open-minded to a critique if there was some contrary data that you're citing, but there really isn't -- just your off-the-cuff, 15-minute anecdotal once-over of a list you saw online, compared against actual studies by people who have an actual responsibility to be scientifically accurate. (My own 15-minute once-over points to a different conclusion, albeit an unscientific one). You openly admit there's a racial disparity among women but not men, but again cite no data. All of that said, I'm not sure our disagreement is really all that stark. First, you say "will you at least acknowledge that your claim of 'people of color only get 16% of NIL dollars' is complete nonsense?" That isn't my claim. It's a claim from a study cited in an article, and it specifically says it was an analysis from 2021-22. I have no reason to say that it was untrue back then, so I suspect it is accurate. But is it true today? I don't know. but looking at anecdotal evidence, it seems unlikely. That was a very different landscape then. That leads to a second point. The landscape is changing *dramatically*. June 2025 compared to say, June 2023, would be an enormous difference, and going all the way back to 2021 is essentially the stone ages in the NIL world. Much of the o the research I've seen is from 2023-24 or earlier. So I will agree with you generally that research from back then is of limited relevance to today. Does that mean they've magically cleared up the racial disparity? No, it doesn't, but the world is so different now, I think it's just hard to extrapolate. (I think that is especially so as the prevalence of individual NIL donors started to give way to collectives that coordinate more closely with universities, causing pressures for equal treatment.) So if your core point is that the 16% figure of 2021-22 is likely higher today, I'd give that one to you on suspicion. Third, just because a racial disparity may have a non-racist explanation does not mean it exists. If you asked 100 10 year old black boys their biggest sports hero, do you think more will name a black athlete than if you asked the same question of 100 10 year old white boys? Does that mean either are racist? There's lots of studies on this too, but it's a social fact that people tend to relate more to people who look like themselves. I suspect that translates to NIL. It's ultimately marketplace driven, and the moneyed marketplace is still predominantly white. So if a given black and white athletes are of identical ability, I think you can expect to see the white athlete have a stronger social media following, which in turn translates to more NIL dollars, which has an objective basis. That's why you've got these white guys who aren't necessarily the best FB players getting the most money. It's the same rationale as gender disparities, e.g. how women in the WNBA or Women's MLS get way less. We say "the market doesn't support it." It's less pronounced in race, but it's always been there. In the professional sports context, there's a treasure trove of research that black athletes earn less in endorsements (relative to representation) than white athletes, ostensibly because white athletes are seen as "safer" and "appealing to a wider audience." None of this means NIL money isn't predominantly a meritocracy. Of course it is. Donors want their school to win. But even if there's a 5% racial disparity, it's still a disparity. How big is it in 2025? Dunno. Lastly, and some may disagree, but I think there's a racial element even to some of the explanations we are hearing. Saying "Well he's in the Manning family, of course he's getting a lot, that's not race," ignores the likely racial difference among those who are the biggest fans of the Manning family. Saying "Livvy's super hot, of course she's getting a lot, that's not race," ignores the fact that there's a racial disparity among who her biggest fans are. Even "they're highly paid because they're QBs not because they're white" is a fraught thing to say. Yes, black QBs command a NIL premium too, but is there a racial component to that? I recall reading a few years ago an article saying that black fans' favorite position is RB and white fans' favorite position is QB. Wish I could find that, but query whether there's a racial element to which positons are most valued, based on the race of the perceiver. Also, there may be a racially-grounded difference in perception of QB abilities too. There's evidence of racial bias inhibiting perceptions of who's the best QB (e.g. here). Even in the NFL, where black QBs have dramatically outperformed white QBs relative to draft position (see article here). Cheers.

Delete "feeding" and the "s" on trolls, and you'd be on point.

Agreed, especially if whatever Kasak said didn't give them any ammunition to charge Carter. Hard to see how you can prove a charge beyond a reasonable doubt here, where your only real evidence of charging Starocci over Kasak is motive. Beau would probably win a civil suit on these facts, but no one's doing that over 1K.

Sure. But is that what the coaches learned? What they have is a student telling them stuff they had in their locker isn't their anymore. Even assuming that means it was stolen (and not lost/misplaced, which the coach won't know), what they don't have is any credible evidence that it was stolen by one of their athletes, as opposed to someone else. (Remember, this is before police looked at camera footage.)

This is a part of the article that I'd bet large amounts of money is inaccurate. If it's really true that the cops were so bumblingly incompetent that they were "unable to contact" Starocci for six freaking months, then everyone in that chain of command should be fired. But I think it's exponentially more likely that they contacted Starocci, and he either said nothing or said he did not want to talk about it. It's conventional wisdom that if you're being investigated for a crime, you don't talk to the cops. If he asked a lawyer for advice, that's what the lawyer would say. Most people know that. That seems far more likely what happened here.

I'm saying it's hard to know the difference as a coach. If one kid complains and the other denies it or says it was accidental, that's a pretty thin basis to discipline a kid. Yes, sometimes it's obviously intentional, but sometimes it isn't so obvious, and coaches know that. If there's multiple reports, yes. But in a one-off situation, I think most coaches would just say, "I don't know what happened but just try to make sure you don't do that." Here there is no indication it was reported at all. And just because a coach was nearby, doesn't mean he's watching for ball-grabs. To be clear, if 2 or 3 of the complaining wrestlers in the article showed up in Cael's office with essentially the same complaint, and Cael did nothing, I'd find that utterly inexcusable -- even if Starocci denied it. But that's hypothetical based on the limited facts given.

Jimmy my man, I'm not here to tell you who to root for, but you're making an awful lot of assumptions based on a very small amount of evidence. Not every miscreant is a Jerry Sandusky, and not every coach/admint response that doesn't rectify it a Curley/Paterno. It looks bad for Starocci, as I see no reason for Beau to lie. But remember, a lot of these other allegations are anonymous, and most have never been reported to police (or PSU). In any case, one bad apple does not mean the whole tree is rotten. As I wrote earlier, there's a lot of open questions about what the coaches knew and what was reported to them. There's no indication that anyone complained about his behavior toward women or, importantly, his in-practice conduct. If they were, those are game changers, but no one is saying that. As to the theft, I'm not sure what a coach can do besides point Beau to the police, as they aren't detectives. Once reported to police, it is not appropriate for coaches to intervene. The photo of Beau while naked is the most serious of the allegations that are said to have been reported to coaches. But even there, there's much we don't know. Beau was naked, but did the photo itself show his privates? If it did, was it immediately deleted? If not, was it among those posted to a group chat? When reported, did the coaches (a) ignore it, (b) discipline Starocci, but short of booting him, (c) report it up the chain, and they did nothing? Even if an AD dropped the ball, were the coaches willfully ignorant about what they knew to be serious (as they were aware of other perverted conduct), or did they understand this to be low-grade misconduct? I can see scenarios where there is culpability on the part of the coach it was reported to, but I also can see scenarios where it was handled properly. If you want to take the position that "if a student-athlete ever takes a locker photo of a naked teammate, they should be immediately kicked off the team, no questions asked," you can. In the aftermath of this, I suspect some will take exactly that position. But it strikes me as extreme, as misconduct like this is highly fact-specific. Taking a picture as a gag and promptly deleting it after a laugh is far less culpable than posting a pic of his wang on a group chat, there's the related question whether it's a joke gone awry or more vindictive (as Beau sees it). From our vantage point, it's the other reports of misconduct that makes the photo so problematic, but it isn't clear the coaches had the benefit of that lens. To be clear, I'm not trying to make excuses. I'll be at the front of the line calling for resignations/firings if there's facts showing real culpability. But I loathe snap judgments based on one-sided ambiguity-laden reporting. Let the facts come out before making judgments based on facts you don't have. I'd join you in calling for an investigation, but not for calling for anyone's head at this juncture.

Disappointing, to say the least. In the short term, this obviously is going to be the end of Starocci's association with NLWC, and may will be the end of is amateur career. The bigger question is what the blowback will be on the PSU coaches. Was any of this buried? It's hard to tell. To break it down by allegations, in order of seriousness: --Starocci's behavior with women. This is where the allegations are most serious (there's a rape allegation in the article), though there's no indication any of this was relayed to the coaches. If it were, it likely would have been in the form of second-hand rumors, which probably isn't enough to trigger any sort of obligation to report it, though you'd hope the coaches would talk to him. A reporting obligation would arise if a first-hand account were reported of something that's a crime, but that does not seem to be the case here. --Starocci's on-the-mat behavior (finger in butt, genital grabbing). There's Beau plus two others alleging this, but the article makes no mention of it being reported to the coaches or the coaches being aware of it. Were they? Beau mentions what he reported, and doesn't include this. If someone said it *was* reported, and the coaches did nothing, that's serious, but also a very VERY grey area. It's also one which has the broadest repercussions in the sport, in terms of triggering a broader conversation. In a physically proximate sport, where the ol' "5 on 2" and "oil check" have been around for decades but are often inadvertent, what's a coach to do when someone says "he grabbed my balls"? Even if it's intentional, given that it's usually done for competitive advantage rather than for perversion, do you treat it as a penalty-justifying foul, or as sexual assault? --Starocci posting naked photos and posting them on chat. This, based on the article, is where the coaches are at greatest risk, as Beau says this was reported to them. The details on this one are going to be important. Do the photos posed on public chat (even if it's just team members) include genitalia? Was the posting of photos reported, and what did the coaches do? Was the naked photo of Beau shared? Deleted? If it's on the more serious end (e.g. genital-exposing photos shared on chat and reported to coaches), then any coach that did nothing is cooked -- Cael included. But if it was just the one photo reported, I can see a coach dismissing it as stupid locker room antics, thinking it sufficient to verbally counsel Starocci and ensure the photo was deleted. But such judgment calls, even if defensible in isolation, take a new life when this becomes a PR issue and investigators look at this with 20-20 hindsight. I can see someone saying, "even if all that was reported is a single naked photo, that's a criminal act and must be reported up the chain, and is a fireable offense if it isn't." That one's a problem and, by itself, could result in loss of a job. --Starocci's theft. Against all the other issues, this is the tail wagging the dog. This was reported to the coaches, and the coaches said they're fine if they report it to the police. It isn't the coaches job to figure out who's stealing from who, only to assist if they want to report it to police. Beau seemed unconvinced in the coaches' sincerity in wanting to get to the bottom of it, but again, that's not really their job, it's the police's job. Bottom line: Whether the coaches were aware of Starocci's misconduct in wrestling practice, and what they did, is a huge open question. So too is what exactly was reported to the coaches about Carter's photo of Beau, and what they did -- but based on what's reported, the coaches are going to be scrutinized. The allegations are serious enough on their merit, but the PR folks are now going to get involved and they skew toward overcorrection, so if any coach didn't properly report up the chain, they'll be put on leave.

Um, OK, not sure what you're asking, but sure, do linemen.

It sounds like you've decided what you want the facts to be, and have your heels dug in. I've cited several studies and articles, you've cited none, and refuse to. Just saying "gee that sounds wrong" isn't persuasive. Yes, there's a lot more research out there. If you're genuinely curious, I suggest jstor.org, though an AI engine can help too. If you find anything saying there's no racial disparity in NIL, I'll gladly eat my shorts. As for the current NIL "money leaders", you're just throwing it out there without analyzing it for racial disparity. So what's your point? Are we to take your word for it that it reflects no racial disparity, without any cite or analysis at all? I don't see how it helps you anyway. Your SI list has the 4 top earners all being white. Disparity? In the On3 list, out of the top 10, nine are football players -- and of those 9, 6 are white and 3 are black, despite black players being over 50% of top NCAA football programs. Disparity? And did those 6 white players "earn" it on merit -- that is, are they among the 9 best football players overall? Not according to an On3 video which has 8 of 9 of the top players being black (here). (Where are the other guys in the NIL list? Waaaaay down.) Or compare the racial composition of SI's "top 20" list (here) with the top 20 NIL earners from On3. See the racial difference? I don't doubt that the white QBs have more social media follows which helps explain the racial disparity, but it's still a racial disparity. White athletes, on average, get more follows. Does anyone seriously think Livvy Dunne would have as many follows as she does, and $4M+/year in NIL, if she had the same skill set and personality but were LaTanya Dunne (i.e. black)? You know the answer. It's a racial disparity. I don't know why you're fighting me on this. It seems like you're trying really hard to resist facts that you must know to be true.

Given that it's a majority black sport, the top earners will skew black, obviously. The question is whether there's a racial disparity in NIL money in relative terms. You're talking about a specific sport and specific gender, and I don't particularly feel like combing the academic journals to find a study specific to your request. If you'd like to, feel free, and share the data. Would be interesting to see. Or if you want to do it yourself, my suggestion is you take a respected publication's objective ranking of the top 100 men's NCAA basketball players based on merit, then take a ranking of the top 100 NCAA men's basketball players based on NIL money (e.g. from on3), and then run a regression of the data sets where you isolate race. See if white players earn more on average relative to their merit than black players. Tell us what you find. Skimming the on3 list of the mediocre white male BBallers making huge dollars, I'm guessing you might be surprised what your research yields. But I hope you do it and share it with us.

I think you are right that racial disparities are more pronounced among women than men. That seems an implicit findings of studies from U Mich and Louisville. It aligns with common sense too (as sex appeal is a driver of NIL money among women, and that has a stark racial component). But I'm aware of no studies that have found no racial disparity even after controlling for other variables, including gender. I think it's easy to misperceive the data since black athletes are overrepresented in college athletics. Lots of black athletes make lots of NIL money, per your list. But the data shows more money going to white athletes relative to NIL participation, and that among similarly situated athletes, blacks earn less than whites. Don't shoot the messenger. I'm not trying to make some political point, nor even making grand allegations of racism. It's just data. It's all really just a corollary to my earlier point that there's no check on NIL donors acting in a discriminatory or otherwise obnoxious manner.

I express no opinion about what sports or positions impact NIL dollars. My only point is that there are stark racial disparities at play, where black NIL recipients receive on average far less than white NIL recipients. Restated, I'm not disputing there's other variables at play. No doubt NIL dollars vary by sport, by gender, by position, by merit. What I'm disputing is the assertion that race plays no role. Obviously it does.

Huh? Are you sure you're responding to the right person? What I said, with numerous citations (and I can provide dozens more), is there is a clear racial disparity in the distribution of NIL benefits in college athletics, in that black people receive a disproportionately low share of NIL dollars relative to their participation. Reread my comments. If you'd like to dispute that with actual credible evidence rather than just your say-so, and without changing the subject, feel free.

The trends identified by that study are backed up by later analysis and I'm aware of no studies that cut the other way. Neither are you. I don't even agree with your critiques about this study, as you're still cherry picking the findings, and there's nothing wrong with using predictive methodologies. It reminds me of climate change denier and anti-vaxxers, plucking a single early study and saying "well that has insufficient data so I'm not gonna look at anything later, it must all be BS." And yet you are making factual assertions about what the "real determinant" of NIL dollars is, and asserting that those "real determinants" are race neutral. So much for insisting on reliable data.

These are strange critiques. Of course the study doesn't give raw numbers: it isn't measuring "what they receive" but rather the variation among groups. Besides, it's one early study. You mention none of the others and cite none of your own, or any article or evidence that race is a non-factor. Your football-specific assertion that the "real determinant" of NIL dollars is which "positions are most valued" and "on-field production," while race is irrelevant, is entirely unsupported and, candidly, astonishingly naive.

Shoot, there's several in this thread alone! They all say he's taking shots at Iowa. Or just look at the comment section to Chael's video, and witness all the Iowa fans opening fire on a high school junior. Look at the Iowa Rivals forum, and how it's open season on this kid. To quote one Iowa fan from this thread, "Everybody but you seems to acknowledge it." So let 'em have it, Bo. Details. Tell it to all the up and coming recruits who follow your every word. Don't feel bad: You tried to take the high road, but Iowa turned on you. They drew first blood.

It seems unlike you to cherry-pick the way that you are here. This basic issue is that, while black folks are (and long have been) disproportionately represented in college athletics, and therefore NIL participation, they receive a disproportionately low share of the dollars. Why are you mentioning only the first part of that equation, and not the second? Regarding the first study, yes, "BIPOC athletes are involved with NIL deals at higher rates than white athletes." But oddly, you omit that BIPOC athletes are "less likely to be involved with more than one deal as opposed to white athletes," which evidences "disparity conditional on race." Later data bears this out. Per one of the other articles linked above: "According to data from Opendorse, a leading NIL technology company, while 52% of Division I athletes are people of color, they only received 16% of the total NIL compensation between July 2021 and June 2022." Another examination (here) shows white athletes averaged ~$1,332 per Instagram post, while Black athletes averaged only ~$276 per post. The differences persist even when you control for social media following. Reasonable people can debate what other factors contribute to this disparity and whether anything ought to be done about it, but I've never heard anyone dispute there is a clear racial disparity in the distribution of NIL benefits in college athletics. But if you're disputing that, I'd be curious to hear what you're relying on.

Are you really sure your "peak at the football spreadsheet" of a single collective told the full story? Some info here, here, here, here. While 52% of Division I athletes are people of color, they only received 16% of the total NIL compensation as of a couple years ago.

Why stop there? Since Iowa fans ALREADY think Bo's "not the right fit" explanation was "nasty," a "shot" against the Hawks, and "an unethical attack" against the most ethical program since the beginning of time, let's hope Bo now feels liberated to say EXACTLY why, in detail, Iowa not the right fit for what he wants in wrestling, what he wants as a person, and how they are not compatible with his faith journey. Details, Bo, details! They already think you're a liar and a traitor, so no reason to hold back now, right? Your 200K followers want to know! Explain in detail to all the up-and-coming recruits who idolize you, and don't leave out a single description of how Iowa fell short of your expectations. They burned the bridge, so what do you have to lose?

Not a good place? Where did he say Iowa is "not a good place"? I must have missed that. Can you quote that for me? All I saw was him saying it wasn't a good fit, which of course is entirely different since it isn't a qualitative judgment as "not a good place" is. If he said Iowa isn't a good place, then I'll agree he badmouthed them. I also missed where he said it wasn't a good place for him "as . . . a Christian". I'd agree it was harsh if he said Iowa isn't a good place for Christians. But all I saw is him saying it wasn't a good fit for his own faith journey, which is of course personal to Bo. The fact that Bo doesn't think Iowa is a good fit in more ways than one doesn't mean he's taking shots at Iowa. It just means there's a lack of fit on multiple levels. None of it judges Iowa in any way. No more than he previously found (implicitly) that every other program besides Iowa wasn't the right fit, since Iowa was. Come on Vak. If you find it necessary to twist the words of an 18 year old kid to make the case that he's badmouthing Iowa, then that should tell you his actual words don't get you there. Maybe that should be the point where you pause to say, hmmm, maybe this is just grapes at the kid's expense. You want to complain about his pop, I'll give you some sympathy, but you can't possibly think that Bo himself is out there taking shots at Iowa.

Why do you say only Nichols? Lots of independent wealthy boosters out there. But no, not Lubert. Lubert's a trustee, so PSU retains some control over him.

Wouldn't surprise me if some version of those words came right out of Ma and Pa Bassett's mouth just before/after Brands yelled at them to not tell him how to run his program.

OMG This is hilarious. One of the worst takes of all time. He must've called Bo a "traitor" telling a "lie" about a dozen times. Easy there, fella! Not the first kid to change his mind, and won't be the last. But his biggest gripe is Bo "took a shot at the Hawks," and "it was nasty. It was a very nasty thing." Bo "took a shot at men!" he says. Bo's actual words? “This wasn’t easy, but I believe it’s not the right fit for me as a wrestler, a person, or for my faith journey. I’m grateful for the opportunity, and I’ll never speak a bad word about their program." Um... saying a program isn't the "right fit" is a nasty shot? That's about the most common word choice I've seen for when a kid wants to explain why he didn't choose a program. But Chael saved the best for his closing. After saying we should give Bo the "grace" to change his mind," he takes it all back: "But when ya took a shot -- ya fired a shot at the ethics of the most ethical program in wrestling's history, excuse me, you do not stand on the moral high ground. Not on this one!" LOL

Agreed. Which is, I suspect, Ma and Pa Bassett's point. It's also why it's hard for me to have a whole lot of sympathy for Iowa here, even if they were in the right. Everyone knows if there's someone Tom wants (or, or that matter, someone Nicolls wants), and money's an object, then Tom/Nicolls will have a little chat, and Nicolls will make it happen. The Bassetts know that too. It isn't always something that goes through Iowa's compliance department, because Iowa can't stop Nicolls from doing what Nicolls wants to do. If Iowa had a squeaky-clean image, then I doubt this would have happened. But once you're known for your willingness to bend the rules, then you attract recruits who like that you're morally flexible. And then when you suddenly won't bend the rules for them, it's a slap in the face. To be clear, I'm not going to defend the Bassetts insisting on getting their kids' flights to Iowa paid for, if that's what happened. Nor am I going to criticize Brands for holding the line there, if that's what happened. But I can't help but think this is the kind of blowback that foreseeable when you have a history of suspect recruiting practices and financial shenanigans. I also wonder if papa Bassett missed the memo on how this works, and the need for the HC to be able to claim ignorance. Had he waited another couple days for Tom/Nicolls to confer after Tom said "no can do, don't tell me how to run my program," he might've gotten a call from an unknown number on Nicolls' burner phone, saying "Don't tell Tom, but I hear you need some plane fare..."