People have a poor perspective on what, exactly, constitutes "a lot of money."
What I mean by this is that for most of us, after a certain dollar amount money becomes essentially fictional. In my brain there is no functional difference between a few million dollars and five hundred billion dollars, because I'm never going to have either amount and wouldn't know what to do with it even if I had it (with that said, if anyone out there would like to give me five hundred billion dollars, I would love to try and figure this thing out).
One cool example that illustrates the concept is this site from 2021, showing visually the difference between median household income, a million dollars, a billion dollars, and the ultra-wealthy. If you're an average person looking at this chart, anything above a million bucks might seem wildly inappropriate.
But what if you're a state university with a gigantic donor base? What if you're a state university with a gigantic donor base who's athletic department just brought in $280 million dollars in revenue in the last fiscal year? What if you're in charge of maintaining the relevancy of a particular sport, which supports the viability of dozens of others (because damn, men's basketball ain't pulling their weight these days)? What if you just like winning football games while operating within the current set of rules?
I'll tell you what you do: you find the freaking cash to bring in the players to win the games to maintain the viability of one of the largest athletic departments in the United States.
Reactions to Ohio State's transfer portal haul are funny to me, in large part because I think it reveals a lot about the culture of college football and how fans of it think. There's a decent amount cognitive dissonance required to retroactively cheer cheatin'-ass programs like the Miami Hurricanes of the 1980's or the Nebraska Cornhuskers of the 1990's while simultaneously bemoaning players getting paid above board in 2024.
But that's college football! It's not about what you do, but how cool you look doing it. Paying players via a complicated Ponzi scheme involving speedboats and Hummel figurines is cooler than a kid signing a contract with an NIL collective after a lawyer looks it over for an hour.
Anyway, the takes reacting to the Buckeyes using a lot of NIL money to retain most of their current roster and bring in several of the best players in the transfer portal have settled somewhere between "this is the worst thing to ever happen to college football" and "well, they'd better win a national championship."
Let's address the latter first. Here's a quote from the shambling husk of Deadspin:
When Bobby Axelrod said, “Hate is nature’s most perfect energy source. It’s endlessly renewable,” the Buckeyes took that to heart as they’ve collected players and coaches in the offseason like Thanos did with the Infinity Stones in 2018/2019. [...]
The Buckeyes have proven that they’re in it to win it, as the playoffs expand to 12 teams next season. But, if Ohio State still can’t beat Michigan or their season doesn’t end with a parade, they’ll be using all that money to hire a new head coach.
Ah, a Marvel movie reference. That's almost as bad as naming your long-running rival hate column after a single joke from a sitcom that went off the air over a decade ago.
Anyway, yes: the pressure is on Ohio State to win a national title in 2024. Also, the pressure was on Ohio State to win a national title in 2023. Also, the pressure was on Ohio State to win a national title in 2022. Also, the pressure was on Ohio State to win a national title in 2021. Et cetera, forever. The pressure is always on Ohio State to win a national title. That's the entire point of building the kind of program that the Buckeyes currently enjoy. Pointing this out isn't the burn that some might think it is.
Saying "no, but for real this time" fundamentally misunderstands the posture that Ohio State (and every other big name school) takes with literally everything, all the time. It also fundamentally misunderstands the posture that every other school that ever bent or broke the rules around paying players before NIL was a thing; they weren't doing it because it was cool to thumb their nose at the NCAA, they did it because they wanted to win football games.
Ohio State is well aware of what is required to field a national championship winning team in 2024. So that's what they've tried to do.
"It's the biggest shit show"
While I have no idea if the $13 million figure being tossed around is in any way accurate (although, for the record, my guess is that's probably close to the truth if not below the actual amount), the amount of salt (jealousy?) that number has generated in parts of the college football world frankly kind of rules.
"It's the biggest s--t show," a former SEC assistant told Jesse Simonton of On3 regarding the portal in the NIL age. "I see all these young guys here and think, 'Boys, you really want to do this?'"
"We've opened up Pandora's box," one SEC player personnel director added.
Yeah "boys," do you really want to be paid for your labor, which helps guarantee eye-popping media contracts? Are you sure you want to take on the horrible burden of having fat stacks of cash? Think of the paperwork you'll have to pay someone else to do! It'd be so much easier to continue to be infantilized by some dumbass assistant special teams coach and get paid a $750 monthly stipend.
I won't lie: I really, really, really love the irony of SEC guys whining about being beaten at their own game. If you think that it doesn't stick in their craw that Ohio State signed (and has signed) several of the south's best players right out from under their noses, and done it within the current rule structure, you are living in a fantasy world.
The other accusation is that this only increases the disparity between the haves and the have-nots of the college football world, but my counterargument is that it isn't like the Buckeyes found Caleb Downs sitting alone on a park bench in rural Idaho. Hell, Quinshon Judkins was playing for an 11-2 team that finished ahead of Ohio State in the polls last season. While yes, there is going to be some attrition from non-P5 teams to perennial contenders, that's not what people are generally upset about. The disparity has always been there, and NIL hasn't changed that.
Everyone is trying to claw their way to the mountaintop. There's no cute, bespoke way to do it in a sports entertainment industry worth tens of billions of dollars. Ohio State and its supporters have the money they need to try and accomplish their goals, so they're going to spend it. It's as simple as that.
Major college athletics is and always has been a cutthroat business. If getting other programs getting angry at Ohio State for finally giving up the kayfabe that surrounds the culture of college football is the true cost of the roster the Buckeyes have assembled for 2024, then I'm fairly certain they're willing to pay it.
