And NIL is a new thing. The point is the athletics donations per year gap between a school like ISU and Iowa is much smaller than the media dollar gap. If ISU fell into an extra $30-40 M in media dollars tomorrow, it could realign donor funds to NIL and be in great shape. In other words, acting like ISU is falling behind because all these fans from Other schools are ramping up and giving big for NIL while ISU fans aren’t is probably not the big story. The big story is media dollars enabling realignment of donor dollars.
Not that we can do anything about it, but I think it’s fine to acknowledge the fact that the most important thing Iowa has going for it is Ohio State and Michigan, and the rest is details. It’s way less about Iowa or Mississippi having more generous or richer fans than it is about these ADs being able (and willing) to say that a donor’s money is best served in NIL due to the big jump in media dollars.