Reading about the need for NIL for rowers is just comical to me … how many Olympic swimmers are notable "NIL athletes" with any kind of material known endorsement deal to the general public?
Endowing the scholarships seems like a good direction and should work well with the elitist world of rowing (sorry Yellow Piss … I'm talking about the supporters not the rowers themselves)
When you hear Texas driving a shit ton of scholarships it isn't because they give a shit about rowing per se but it's because their athletic department has so much money they have to spend it somewhere
NIL outside of athletes who have actual star power on which business would have REAL ROI- e.g., Caitlin Clark, Caleb Williams, etc. - is comical. Almost all of it is pay for play.
The issue right now is that the endowment only pays about 20% of the cost of running the Men's program including scholarships. The endowment needs to be like $70 million for men's rowing to not require any AD funding.
Better start reaching out to Olympic Federations to support
UW Rowing is basically a training camp for the national teams of the UK, NZ, Australia, and Canada. It's sad, but true. We sold our soul to the devil to not lose to CAL.
I've always been conflicted about this aspect of the sport and all the rah, rah, Boys in the Boat stuff.
