NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates
BATON ROUGE, La. — Days before Thanksgiving, perhaps hours after quarterback recruit Bryce Underwood’s stunning decision to shift his commitment from LSU to Michigan, a 50-year-old private equity executive in San Francisco worth billions fielded a phone call from someone in South Louisiana.
“Holden,” the voice on the other side said, “Can you help?”
Every fundraising effort has to start somewhere.
This one, in particular, began with Holden Spaht, a Harvard Business School graduate, Baton Rouge native and a mostly unknown figure who has worked in the shadows for years, with a small handful of others, to fund LSU football’s name, image and likeness (NIL) efforts.
In late November, the Tigers saddled with a third straight season of at least three losses, their five-star quarterback commitment jettisoned for more cash and their football NIL fund below many SEC peers, coach Brian Kelly and administrators orchestrated a fundraising effort intended to aggressively pursue transfers and retain top players.
In less than two weeks last December, they needed to raise at least half of their springtime NIL goal of $13 million, which, in itself, was an already lofty objective given a startling fact: Despite its reputation as an NIL juggernaut — featuring stars of authentic endorsement deals like gymnast Livvy Dunne and women’s basketball player Angel Reese — the football program’s booster-backed NIL collective budget trailed many within its own conference.
LSU’s collective spent roughly $12 million on its football roster over the last three seasons — combined. For comparison’s sake, the Ole Miss collective spent about $13 million on its roster — last season.
Even athletic director Scott Woodward acknowledges that the program wasn’t “at the top of the heap early on.”
But this winter, a sea change…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football/article/its-a-money-game-now–how-lsu-is-using-nil-to-keep-up-in-ever-evolving-college-football-world-003005034.html
Author : Ross Dellenger
Publish date : 2025-03-14 12:30:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
