Dave Neff
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Vince: [00:00:00] You wanna get started? Well, I thought you were gonna throw something out there. 

Joe: No, no. I'm just, I'm sitting here. Uh, I, I had a long debate with myself on the drive up to the studio about whether I actually wanna show up or not. Um, and if I do start breaking out in hives, just tell me 'cause I might That's fair.

I feel like a all allergic reaction coming on. 

Vince: Okay, 

Joe: well, got an EpiPen around or, yeah. I don't have, I'm not allergic to any, no food allergies. Not really any seasonal allergies. No allergies to medication. Just allergies to Golden Black. 

Vince: Well, coincidentally, Dave has no problem accepting donations from anyone.

So Sure. If we wanna write a check to the Boilermaker Alliance, he'd happily accept it and cash it. Um, 

Dave: 24 7. Just say the word. I'll 

Vince: tell you this so you. Uh, on the Summits podcast side, we did a episode, um, with the women's basketball coach, and she's awesome. From 

Dave: Purdue. Katie. Gerald From Katie, yeah. Yep.

Vince: Katie's awesome. Very [00:01:00] personable. We chatted a little bit on the front end, had a little IU, Purdue banter. Yeah, it was, it was fun. Um, good episode. Chatted for a little while after the, after the episode filmed, um. Cool check. Very good. Yeah. 

Dave: Well, yeah, she was, uh, miss Indiana, I think my, my class, she was, yeah, so three from Beach Grove and then obviously had a great career at Purdue, and now it's back as the head coach.

Yeah, I think she's entering her fourth season. Okay. Getting, getting it going up there, so, 

Vince: yeah. Well, she certainly has. Had the talent herself and I think she's got the talent, um, building that talent around the, on the roster. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it goes. And with IU having a pretty strong program right now, if they can both continue to elevate, um, that'd be so nice.

Oh yeah. 

Dave: It's great for the state. Yeah, we've got, it's crazy seeing these. You know, she, Ryan Walters, our football coach, both under 40. Okay. You know, these young head coaches that are now kind of, I think that's there's a reason why the Saban and those types of people are getting out, getting out of college, uh, athletics at this time.

Just with, I'm sure we'll get into it here in a [00:02:00] bit, so, right. 

Joe: Yeah. Okay. Well someone has to finish. Second. 

Vince: True. Are we talking about basketball or football? All football. We might not wanna talk about, 'cause most schools. Haven. I don't understand how IU football has 

Dave: eight home games and only four road games.

Somebody has yet to explain that to me this season. So I don't know that I've really paid whatever it attention whatever it takes. I mean, we're, we're six and six, you know, like most respectable schools, but Purdue. But yeah. 

Joe: Hey, 

Vince: yeah, we, we need to all do advantages. We could get 

Joe: No man Coach Sig. He's got it.

77 points. Seven. I mean, even when I was at iu, Antoine Rand l, Mr. Magic Man was there. And we couldn't even put up 77 points. Now we'd put up like 50 some odd a game. The problem is we were giving up 77 points. What directional school was it though? I mean West, 

Dave: Western Illinois. I mean, 

Joe: yeah. Doesn't matter.

Okay. Doesn't matter. There's no style points. It's an online school. Just a 

Vince: scoreboard. 

Joe: Okay. Yeah, I, I give University 

Vince: of Phoenix. I give both arguments. Let's, this Saturday will be the test. So we're in the Rose [00:03:00] Bowl, which never thought I'd say about iu, but they're playing UCLA in the Rose Bowl, sort of like a legit team.

I know UCL is apparently having a down year, but now we'll see. What? 

Dave: First time we have what, 67? 60? Something like that. Yeah. The ones they were act actually in Rosewell. Yeah, right. I wasn't born yet. Vince may have been 

Vince: born, but I wasn't born yet. Right. Yeah. I think I was a teenager then. Probably. Yeah.

Hey guys. Welcome back to their episode of the Industrious Podcast. Thank all of you guys for joining us on this episode. We greatly appreciate from wherever we get [00:04:00] your podcast or if you're tuning in on Thea YouTube channel, thank you for doing so. Alright. This is gonna be a fun episode. Uh, you've got two Hoosiers on this side of the fence, as you guys know, and now a boilermaker.

Well, a cardinal slash boilermaker on the other side of the fence. We'll get into that. It's actually a table. There's no fence table. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I stand corrected. Um, anyway, our guest today is Mr. Dave Nft, the CEO of the Boilermaker Alliance. Dave, welcome to the Industrious Podcast. Hey, it's good to be 

Dave: on with you guys.

I'm just meeting Joe, but Vince, you and I have known each other now a couple years. Yeah. Appreciate being on. 

Vince: Well, we're glad to have you. Um, why don't you introduce yourself? Yeah. And kinda rule. Ultimately roll into what you're doing now. Yeah. 

Dave: Um, so yeah, I'm a, I'm a lifelong Hoosier, uh, in terms of where I, where I was born, uh, I grew up here in, in Indianapolis, um, heritage Christian grad, and then, uh, matriculated to fall state and, uh.

Believe it or not, had a great four years up in Muncie and, um, you know, ended up studying [00:05:00] Start Win as a tele telecommunications major. Thinking I wanted to work for ESPN. Um, ended up pivoting into sports administration and, uh, got my, got my first break, um, after college working for Pacer Sports Entertainment.

So, uh, that was nearly 20 years ago now, but, um. Working at the Pacers first four years outta school was a tremendous experience. I, I still tell people all roads sort of lead back to the Pacers in terms of, as I think about relationships and opportunities that have, that have come my way, you know, being able to kind of work for an organization that brings the community together and you got to meet so many different business and civic leaders, uh, was really special.

Um, I then. Left there and, uh, went to go work for ExactTarget, which, uh, was still privately held company at that time. Mm-hmm. 2011. And, uh, it was a, it was a short ride just under three years for me personally, but got to experience when we iPod and then when Salesforce bought us, and then I, I left about six months later.

Okay. Was our global sports marketing manager and, [00:06:00] uh. And then from there, um, had an opportunity to, to really co-found something with a mentor of mine, uh, an organization called Edge Mentoring, which we can certainly talk about later. But the, uh, CEO of Elanco, Jeff Simmons, uh, was somebody I met during my pacer days and.

Had opportunity at 29 to kind of, kind of take a bit of a leap of faith. I mean, I really believed in Jeff and believed in what the organization was about, but we really kinda had to go from zero to one in a lot of ways to, to build that thing. And so that was a great ride. Did that almost six years. And I guess on the personal front, uh, a lot was happening during this time.

I got married, um, my wife and I had our first two kids while I was at Edge. Now we have four. Uh, so we're 8, 6, 4 2, uh, currently. Uh, so busy household. Three, three sons and a daughter. My daughter's 6-year-old can do no wrong. Boys, boys do. Lots of wrong now they're just a lot, a lot of energy at these ages.

But, um, just wait. Yeah. It'll flip flop, right? Uh, that's what I hear. So, um, but then to, to kind of bring things up to current, current day, [00:07:00] um, 2019, right, right. Before Covid decided to get decided to transition out of edge, you know, it was a great six years, very fulfilling. You know, you don't, you don't go Co-found a nonprofit as, you know, Vince, just to, to make money or get get Rich, right?

But, uh, it was very fulfilling. Wanted to get a successor in place at Edge so that I could, you know, transition back into the private sector for, for a period with a growing family. And so worked for a consulting firm as our Chief Revenue Officer. It's called Prolific. It's in downtown Indy. We also had a mar, still have a marketing advertising agency, uh, JDA Worldwide, and then.

About a year ago, I got contacted by an executive recruiter in Indy who I happen to know about this opportunity. And I think the text was something like any interest in managing Purdue's NIL. And so, um, of course as a sports fan, I've been tracking. NIL Can't say I was, you know, chomping at the bit to go work in it, but I do think incredibly highly.

Of the Purdue brand, what happened, you know, under the, the Daniels decade and now, and now Mung and, um, you know, as a ball state grad, it [00:08:00] was, you know, it was a little bit like, well, there's a skillset that, that they're looking for, uh, as it relates to, you know, somebody that's entrepreneurial, that's worked in sports that can manage a, a pretty broad base of stakeholders at the end of the day, get money into the.

The collective, which is what I lead. Um, and so I decided to entertain it and through a series of interviews and conversations, ended up taking the role, uh, end of last year in December. And so about nine months in now. And, uh, a lot's evolved even in those nine months in terms of NIL and college athletics.

It's good timing in the sense that got to go to the final four. Uh, my wife joined me for that four days in Phoenix. Ultimately came up short, but it was a great, great experience being a part of that as a sort of an adopted boilermaker now. 

Vince: Sure. So let's go back to Pacers of Sports and Entertainment Days.

And the reason why I say that is because as we all kind of mature or at least get older, some of us may be mature, some may not. Um. You look at that first job out of school, and I assume you were in sales, maybe were you doing season ticket sales or 

Dave: ticket sales in general? Yeah. Ticket sales [00:09:00] and then suites 

Vince: and Yeah.

It's a tough job, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you might look back and say, yeah, how that just, that just wasn't for me. Um, but whether it was or wasn't, you probably learned, I mean, it shaped a lot of Oh, yeah. Skills for you that are now being used today. 

Dave: Yeah. I mean, and not only was, you know, is ticket sales hard to begin with wherever you go?

Yeah. Um, at that time. To put things in context, we were two years removed from the malice at the palace. 

Vince: Oh. Uh, 

Dave: Reggie had just retired a year earlier. Um, we, the Colts had just won a Super Bowl great for the city. Uh, but everybody loved the Colts and, you know, nobody was dropping their season tickets after you won a Super Bowl.

Sure. And then we had the oh 8 0 9 recession. Uh, there were rumors that the Simons might move the team. I mean, it was literally, and then we had, not to mention all the off court drama, you know, that was the era of, uh, Jamal Tinsley and, uh, some other characters that, you know, just made things difficult when, when the product on the court wasn't great.

And then you're reopening the paper and Right. Reading [00:10:00] about different incidents and so, but other, 

Vince: other than those issues, yeah, other than those, 

Dave: other than those issues, I, I think we had a ticket sales meeting. I know we had one, um, probably around that time of 2008, our vice president of ticket sales pulled us all together and said it was after one of these big, you know, nights out ended up front page of the star and somebody did something they shouldn't have.

And he's like, if we hit rock bottom, and, and I think the only thing we could come up with is that a player. Had not murdered someone that sadly that was what was left. So, you know, while while peers of mine in the NBA looked like geniuses at Cleveland because they had LeBron James, right. It's like that's a little bit of the reality of sports.

Like the smartest executives have the best players oftentimes versus like, what can you. What can you do when you're not dealt a great, you know, set of cards? Right. So, but I learned so much, um, in terms of Yeah. How to sell you, you run into a variety of personalities, right? We're in the Midwest. I think most people are relatively friendly, but you get some sure.

CEOs that are no nonsense. You gotta kind of mirror, be short and to the point. And then some that are super fans that love to [00:11:00] talk about, you know, every, every player and what they do and, and that sort of, yeah. So you, you did, uh. Get the chance to interact with a broad, broad array of people. Yeah. And you already had a love with sports.

Yeah. Because you played sports in high school and Yeah. And in college as well. Yeah. I played club soccer at Ball State. Nothing, nothing crazy. Uh, for two years and then basketball, soccer at, at Heritage and some club soccer growing up. So yeah, I had, I had had a bend towards sports. Um, but, uh. Yeah, it was, you know, some people that are, you know, going to 44 Pace their home games in a year.

That's a, that's a different level of dedication. I don't, I don't know if I could do that just with, especially four young kids. Making it to five games is a, is a lot right now. So Right. When you moved 

Vince: over to ExactTarget, what were you doing for 

Dave: them? So I got recruited over, I sold, I had sold a suite, uh, to ExactTarget, so they were one of my clients.

So I got to meet Scott Dorsey a little bit and a lot of his leadership team at that time. And so they were. They were growing. I mean, I was employee 1000, so it wasn't like I joined in the first a hundred or anything. But, um, you know, they were looking for somebody that had my background to kind of come into marketing [00:12:00] and serve as the subject matter expert for sports and entertainment.

How do they sell into that vertical? Now, if it was just that, I don't know if I would've had as much interest, but the really fun part of that job was, Hey, we also want you to manage our strategic partnerships in sports. So I was going from the team side at the Pacers to now a brand. Like et that saw sort of the strategic nature to be a sponsor of Andretti, IndyCar Colts Pacers, uh, when I went there in 11, you know, the Super Bowl was coming to Indy the next year in 2012.

I got to be pretty involved in that. Um, actually got to go to the game on, on behalf of ExactTarget. We had a bunch of clients and prospects in for that. So, you know, I think in 2012, Vince, I went to eight of the 16 IndyCar races. Uh, you know, we had just bought a email service provider and. Brazil. And so there, at the time, there was a, a street race in Sao Paulo.

Spent a week in Sao Paulo working, you know, bringing, uh, bringing, um, you know, customers and, and new employees from that firm. We'd bought out to the ra. I mean, it's just, it was [00:13:00] sort of a, I was still single, so that was a good time of life to, to sort of do that and travel on right company down. But we did Sonoma, which is, you know, about an hour north of the Bay Area.

We did. Long Beach, California, St. Pete, Florida, Fort Worth, Texas, Milwaukee, of course Indy, uh, we Toronto. It was, it was a pretty special window of time. So, so we would try to measure our ROI. So if we're spending, let's say, quarter of a million dollars with Andretti, how do we track that ROI, things like, okay, we brought these prospects, or these customers are up for renewal to this race, and did this influence it, did it not, because we could provide a pretty cool VIP.

Uh, experience through the andretti chalet and, and the different, you know, things that we had access to. So, right. So 

Joe: what's the real gain in those situations? Is it just, is it the time for relationship building and Totally. The face-to-face time, so, yeah. You know, we had 

Dave: field sales reps at ET all over the country, so I would generally partner up.

You know, as the marketing guy managing this partnership on behalf of, you know, executives i'd, I'd work with our field sales reps [00:14:00] out in the Bay Area to say, you guys, you guys have relationships out here. Who are you prospecting? Who, who's up for renewal? That's a, you know, million dollar plus type renewal and.

Let's try to give them this, you know, experience that you can't just go out and buy a ticket for. Right? Yeah. So Sonoma was cool. I did that race three years in a row. Uh, Mario Andretti actually owns a winery out there, and so they'd always, the Andretti race team would do a big dinner, I think the Friday night.

Uh, before, uh, race weekend, um, at mar, at Mario's, uh, winery. So just like, and then, and then race day, you're down in the pits and the garages, and you guys have probably been in some of that out at Indie, but just the, the experience, like I, I grew up here, but I wasn't really a gearhead. And then you kind of get that level of access.

You're like, okay, I see, I see why. Racing's pretty cool. Um, because growing up here, I, I wasn't a, I wasn't, I didn't grow up in a family where we were like at the race every year per se. So, 

Vince: yeah. Yeah. So then what, uh, I guess tell us a little bit about 

Dave: Edge mentoring. Yeah, so, um, I'll say this, you know, uh, actually later at night, I'm going up to West Lafayette to speak to a group of seniors, uh, [00:15:00] undergrad seniors.

And, you know, I'm, I'm a big believer in the power of, of mentors. And, uh, when I graduated and got my first job at the Pacers, I didn't, I, I didn't, I wasn't in the head space of like, I gotta find a mentor. That wasn't like my thinking. I think you just go through life and. You know, as I like to say, if you're out playing in traffic and, and meeting new people, um, generally you'll, you'll find some chemistry, right?

With someone that might be a few years ahead of you or maybe 20, 30 years ahead of you who not only do you find them interesting, they mutually kind of have taken an interest in you. Yeah. And so I think, you know, you're not gonna hit home run with everyone you meet, but, um, you know, one of those, one of those people for me, early in my career was, was who I mentioned earlier, Jeff Simmons at Elanco.

And so I think we met and. Oh eight or oh nine. And again, what started as I was trying to sell this guy suite, which did end up happening, Elanco ended up buying a suite. He had started this mentoring group, uh, with a group of five or six guys all kind of early, mid twenties. And Jeff on [00:16:00] his own time, you know, busy CEO, he actually is married with six kids of his own, but really believes in leadership development.

And so had asked if I would be interested in, uh, being a part of this group that twice a month we would have a. A Zoom call, Skype back then. Mm-Hmm. And we now call it whole life intergenerational mentoring. So it wasn't just career mentoring, it wasn't a Bible study. There was a, there was a faith element to it.

It was also a lot of the personal decisions, you know, you're making in your twenties and early thirties. And so, you know, I, I'm somebody who, who did grow up going to church and faith's very important central part of Tenet of my life. But it wasn't like another just Bible study, right. It was sort of like, okay, here's somebody that's like excelled in the real world.

Um. They're not perfect. None of us are, but they, they really kind of try to, um, make decisions through a similar lens and that sort of thing. So I, you know, when he invited me in, I said, man, if this guy's willing to take time, I, I'd probably be smart to say yes. And so just became a couple hours a month, both from Jeff and then the other mentees, the peers in the group that [00:17:00] really filled my cup.

I felt like after every call I was, I was leaving energized. The verse, uh, the name edge comes from iron. Iron sharpens iron. So one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27 17. And so. I'd been a part of the group for three or four years, and then we went to Kenya as a group. We went to Haiti in 2011 and 2013. So I had some pretty powerful like vision, mission, trip type experiences.

And then Jeff came to me in uh, late 13 and said, Hey, I think. This edge thing could have legs, but we need a leader. You know, like he, he didn't have time to try to spin this up. And so, um, yeah, it was sort of a, a, like I said, a startup nonprofit. And I knew the key would be to find other, a mentors. 'cause a mentors would attract a mentees.

If you were getting C mentors, you're probably not gonna get. Young, up and comers that are interested in this. And so we ended up launching about 200 groups during my five or six years there from I think 45 states, several countries. 'cause you could be anywhere, just you know, we were here. Sure. Then we had a annual leadership conference called EdgeX that we did every year.

16, 17, 18, 19. Had [00:18:00] folks like Mitch Daniels, Tony Dungy, Tamika Catchings, uh, some authors, Bob Goff, Greg McCune, different, different people come in and speak. And, um, yeah, it was a, it was a really rewarding time. We ended up getting a grant from the Lilly Endowment to sort of fund a strategic plan, which is as a young organization, a cool kind of credibility stamp.

Sure. You know, back then the endowment only had 14 billion, I think I saw recently there. You know, this is only. Six years ago now they're up to like 90 billion. So, you know, we've got, uh, zep bound and, and uh, MJA to thank for that. Right. But it's, it's awesome, obviously what Lilly Company is doing for the endowment and then what that intern is doing for the city and the, and the state, many other organizations outside the state.

Joe: Yeah, definitely. That's cool. And then, and the endowment you speak of has been very active lately with. What? Throwing out some, some worded cash. 

Dave: Yeah. Yeah. They, they have been, I mean, uh, this is obviously all publicly available, but uh, you know, they have to. Grant, I believe it's a rolling three year average of, of 5% of their a UM.

So, [00:19:00] you know, you do the math on 80, 90 billion, 5% of that is a lot of money that you gotta strategically, uh, you know, grant every year to important organizations. So, 

Vince: man, what a great problem that would be to have. Yeah. Right. 

Dave: Purdue. Purdue benefited, I think earlier this year, Purdue got a hundred million, so it was obviously a significant gift.

So, um. I don't know what they've done for IU lately, but, uh, I'm sure they're doing something. I would think. Yeah. Yeah. 

Vince: Um, all right, so then you, you rolled into prolific. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that as well. 

Dave: Yeah, that was an interesting opportunity after going pretty hard for six years, trying to.

I build this edge thing, you know, from scratch and, you know, I had a board and eventually had five or six employees, but, you know, it was a lot of blood, sweat and tears just trying to get this thing, you know, to lift off, um, was ready just for, quite frankly something that, you know, I think sometimes in our careers, you, you want everything to be like a, a home run.

Like, well then I gotta go do this, and then I gotta go do this. And honestly, I remember thinking at the time, you know, I'm all right if this next thing is like. [00:20:00] Maybe a, a double or a triple, you know, like it's, it doesn't need to be like, yeah, this, I think sometimes we get, you know, especially when we're young, we think our careers are just like up and into the right, like this, this hockey stick.

And I've found that at times like, you know, you might feel like you're plateauing or you're in third gear, but like after like six years of that, then there's this like stair step up right in, in terms of your career. And so, you know, I felt like the opportunity to go. Be Chief Revenue Officer at Prolific.

While it wasn't another startup, let's say, um, I was okay with that. You know, we, we had about across everything, about 150 employees. It was part of their executive team. It was a newly created role. Uh, somebody and Brad Benbo and, and his son Chance both got men that I really respect. I'd gotten to know during my Edge, edge journey, they were one of my larger corporate partners and, and they were just launching the prolific brand as kind of the parent company.

So I, I thought, hey, this is a chance where I can kind of help them. Build that market awareness and uh, kind of drive, uh, some new, new customer relationships. They [00:21:00] didn't have a ton of business yet in, in Indiana, and so I think we were able to do that over the four years I was there. We were headquartered downtown in the BMO tower and they're still, they're doing great today.

And I think, I think Brad was totally understanding when this opportunity came along a year ago, that, you know, he, he gets my background in sports and, and sort of saw the. How this was a pretty natural fit if you, if you know me at all. And so, um, I'm really grateful 'cause I joined right before Covid and then, you know, like all of us in 2020, I was kind of like the new guy.

I was like, man, am I gonna get, am I gonna get wheeled? But right. No, we ended up, um, you know, growing a little bit, even in 2020, which is a, you know, consulting firm, marketing agency, a lot of times those, those are the first things to, to get cut when the pandemic happened. But, um, no, it was a great ride.

They've got a great team over there. Uh, during that time I also got hooked up with Providence, crystal Ray, where our PA paths crossed, and so that's obviously more on the community front, but that's, that's been a huge blessing as well. 

Vince: Yeah. All right, so you kind of made the segue, gotta ask, when the [00:22:00] recruiter called you about this current opportunity, what.

I mean, I can, I can make my own assumptions here, but what really kind of excited you about the opportunity and made you decide to take the plunge? 

Dave: Yeah, I mean, um, I think first and foremost the strength of the, just the Purdue brand as a whole, you know, I think that to be associated with something like that, after what President Daniels built over his decade there and now, president Chang, uh, obviously I know a lot of great Purdue alums leading businesses across the state.

Just from different roles I've had. Um, so, so first and foremost, I think the Purdue brand was, was okay, this is the Big 10, which in college athletics, you know, you've got the Power five or Power four now, but really most of the power is in the two conferences, the SEC and the, and the Big 10 mm-Hmm. So to be, to be affiliated with the Big 10 school in a space, specifically NIL, that is really cutting edge and.

It's not going away. It's gonna continue to evolve. And so I, part of my calculus was to get into this, while it's still [00:23:00] relatively young and become an expert. Um, and a along along the way I'm gonna meet, you know, a lot of great alums that care a lot about Purdue Athletics. And that's kinda how my career's gone.

I don't really have like this, uh, brilliant 30 or 40 year plan mapped out ahead of time, but it's sort of, I kind of think about it in three year, probably windows a time and sometimes opportunities come along and. Somebody wants to tell me, to use a saline analogy, you just gotta take what the wind gives you.

And so I think, um, this was one where the opportunity to be associated with the Purdue brand to learn a space that's, that's brand new and evolving. And as I thought about just the, you know, I think there's 600,000 living alum from Purdue, so. That's a lot of people, not just here in Indiana, that I'd have the chance to kind of get to know, build relationships with, see how they might fit into what we're, what we're trying to do with the collective.

Vince: So if each of those 600,000 just donates a hundred bucks a year Yeah. To the poorly maker alliance, I mean, good to go. 

Joe: Don't give 'em any ideas, man. Like come. Easier said than 

Dave: done. I've, I've done, I've, uh. Definitely [00:24:00] talked about that in a few other settings and, um, yeah, that would, that would go a long way if we could just get Or even 20 bucks.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. 

Joe: Well, that's, that's a question I had, so you kind of mentioned it as, I'm jumping into something that's somewhat in its infancy that's, that's evolving. You know, there are a lot of people that can jump into an industry that's well established. Things may move really quickly, but because there's a strong foundation, it, it's, it doesn't seem that challenging in terms of keeping up.

I gotta imagine the NIL world is, it's just the, the evolution of it from a year ago to today. Yeah. It's probably seems like a decade. Yeah. 

Dave: Well, yeah. I mean it's how do you 

Joe: keep up with that and, and how are you just constantly trying to learn and, and 

Dave: yeah. And 

Joe: really kind of keep in line with regulations and Mm-Hmm.

And things like that, that are coming around. 

Dave: Yeah. So I mean, if you kinda start with my base, it's, it's, I've got a board 'cause I'm not a Purdue employee. Right. I'm, I'm separate from Purdue. The collective legally has to be separate in order to compensate the student athletes. [00:25:00] So I've got my own board, uh, which none of them knew what this was a couple years ago either.

They just sort of raised their hands and care a lot about Purdue. So they, they agreed to, uh, to get involved and help. Uh, and then I've obviously got my peers over in athletics, so our ad Mike Babinski and his team. So, um, you know, they've got insights I don't have where I've found kind of a lot of. Uh, insight is talking to people in my seat at other schools.

Mm-Hmm. You know, we mentioned IU earlier. Um, there's a few other Big 10, A-C-C-S-E-C type schools that I've gotten connected to, and we don't all do things exactly the same, right. But we're all kind of figuring this out on the fly. And, you know, one idea that I sort of stole from, from IU to give, to give you guys a little bit of love is, um, you guys came out with this Hoosiers Connect vodka, you know, earlier this year, I think with Starlight Distillery.

Okay. Um, Hubers Orchard down in southern Indiana. So Tyler. Harris who runs Hoosiers, Hoosiers for good. Hoosiers Connect was telling me about it and I said, well, I know the guys at West Fork Whiskey and bourbon's cooler than vodka. Right? So I was like, you [00:26:00] know, let me, let me hit up, uh, Blake Jones at West Fork and.

This was probably February of this year. And, you know, within 90 days we had created this, I should have brought a bottle, but this Alliance bourbon that, um, you know, we were gonna make kind of an Evergreen product. Same, same concept, 25% of proceeds go to the collective. Um, but we ended up kind of creating a pretty cool label that's more of a collector's item all around the Final Four.

Okay. So it kind of had the bracket and some cactus and we had to be careful not to, you know, trip any IP or anything with the NCA. Right. But, um, you know, that that's an idea of like everyone's kind of. Stealing good ideas if you have one. And um, so yeah, learning from peers and there's some great resources.

D one, ticker, NIL, newsstand, some, some like Daily Digest because like. Right now, I mean, there are new articles daily, um, not just like, oh yeah, I heard about that three weeks ago. It's like, oh no, somebody else came out with a statement from, you know, this school. So it's, you know, you are trying to kind of stay on the cutting edge.

And there's been a couple different injunctions from the courts since I took this role, like [00:27:00] where boosters or collectives could be involved or not be involved. Now we're, we're pretty conservative, Purdue. We're not gonna, we do everything, you know, with a high degree of, uh, integrity and, and, and excellence.

So I'm not out. Meeting with recruits. In theory, collectives could be right now. Mm-Hmm. Last thing I need to get is, is entangled and be blamed that we lost a recruit. Right. So I'll leave, I'll leave that to the coaches to handle. Yeah. Um, but yeah, there really are, there really is no, you know, enforcement, the NCAA's come out publicly and said, right now there's no enforcement happening around NIL as they kind of get this sorted out through the courts.

Vince: What did, so I'm, I, I consider myself a novice, NIL knowledge base or have a novice knowledge base of NIL. I don't know how, uh, knowledgeable our viewers and listeners are. Yeah. But if you would, just in a basic form, what is NIL? Yeah. And then what is the Boilermaker Alliance for 

Dave: sure. So NIL is short for name, image, and likeness.

Uh, that is how you say it. NIL Some people will be like, how's nil going? And that's what I know. They don't [00:28:00] know what they're talking about, but it's okay. Um, so it is NIL And so if you go back, obviously the NCA is um. It's really endorsed amateurism, right. For decades now for college athletics, keep, keep part of our society, our fabric.

Um, but there was a court case going back about 10 years at O'Bannon, uh, from NCA. He was a basketball player that Mm-Hmm. You know, was sort of like, Hey, these schools are using my, or in his case U UCLA's, using my likeness for video games and to sell jerseys and all, you know, and I don't see any of that money.

I got my scholarship. It's great. But, and I think as, as. You know, coaches salaries, were starting to become, you know, high seven figure, even eight figure right type type dollar figures that people have this realization. I think student athletes too began to feel a little bit more empowered to say, wow, this is a, this is an economic machine.

A lot of other people are, are making money. I get my degree, which is great, but maybe I should get a, some, some slice of the pie, right? So, um, what ended up happening [00:29:00] was in, uh, July of 20 July 1st, 2021. I won't give you all the background in terms of the courts, but an NIL legislation was, was passed by the NA to say that players can now monetize their name, image, and likeness, essentially make money off of their personal brand.

Okay. That was about three years ago. Um, you know, from that point to where we are today, um, I, I think a few things have happened. I don't think NIL and the transfer portal were ever meant to be attached at the hip, but now that, you know, student athletes can transfer. Um, really every semester, um, you can, you can more or less transfer now, which even when I took the job in December, guys, um, the rules back then were, you could transfer once as an undergrad, once as a grad student.

Now the, you know, there's no restrictions on how many times a And you had to sit out potentially. Yeah, yeah, 

Joe: yeah. 

Dave: So, uh, so now you have this sort of Yeah. Wawa West transfer portal and then. What again, I think at, at times, you know, people would call true NIL, [00:30:00] where hey, um, you know, make this up. But Zach, Edie, uh, cafe Chu reaches out to Zach, Edie and says, we'll pay you, you know, 200 bucks if you wanna come by and sign autographs for an hour.

And Zach may say, well, I'll do it for 400 bucks. And it's like, okay, we'll do that. Um, you know, that was kind of, and that still exists, right? There's a lot of that happening. With college student athletes where it's more of just a marketplace and, you know, student athlete gets contacted and you, you see this a lot.

I think the, the women, uh, female student athletes are really good at this. We've got some volleyball players that have done a fantastic job leveraging their true NILI think a, a moderated panel with sophomore volleyball player, Chloe Chaco. She was the top performing, uh, female student athlete on what's called the NIL store.

So the Aisle L store is a, is an actual store where you can, you know, buy jerseys and shirts with, you know, players' last names or their faces or, you know, Zach had a, Zach Edie had a big maple shirt. He is from Canada, right? And so they get a cut of everything that's sold. None of that goes into the collective, but they get a [00:31:00] cut of everything sold.

And so she's done deals, you know, with a nail salon or, you know, just giving an example where, you know, they're gonna post on their social media, their Instagram about this salon and maybe get. In kind, Hey, come get your nails done whenever you want. Or it's a thousand bucks if you do three posts. You know that, that sort of stuff where collectives sort of entered the picture.

What I lead now, you know, this probably wasn't immediate, uh, three years ago, but within, I'd say six months, schools started to, to to figure out, and alumni started to figure out, you know, how do we compete in this new era to attract and retain talent, right? Mm-Hmm. Athletes to our, to our institution. And so collectives, um.

I don't know what the first collective was, but you know, the Boilermaker Alliance got launched by a group of, uh, business leaders primarily from central Indiana outta the Boiler Business exchange. And I think it was May of 22. So, you know, long before I was involved and they had just met with the athletic director, Mike Bobinski say, you know, how, how can we help?

Right, right. Um, and you know, I think a lot of [00:32:00] colleges were figuring out, do we even wanna have a collective, you know, like this is new, but it feels like. If we're, if we're gonna be competitive, we we're gonna have to go out as other 

Vince: schools do, but we don't. Yeah, we can't just 

Dave: rely on, on true NIL, you know, which is, which is obviously great for the student athletes.

And so collectives started to merge, which really is just a group of, of boosters or alumni for a particular school that have gotten together. Uh, many of the collectives were able to kind of come with this creative way to become a 5 0 1 C3, uh, where. It's not, it's not pay to play, but the student athletes that, that do receive NIL money from the collective have to be out in the community XX amount of times a month, which we do at Purdue.

And then they also have to promote certain charities x amount of times per month as part of their contract. And so, um, many collectives, uh, became 5 0 1 c threes were, were granted that, you know, designation from the IRS and then. You know, some collectives also launched a for-profit arm. So we also have a Okay, A for-profit.

We actually have two entities. Um, I think most people probably just think of us as a, as [00:33:00] a C3, but, uh, we also have a for-profit entity for any like corporate deals that, that we may engage in. But a lot of it out of the gate has been donor driven. Um, so they get a tax write off for it. Um, much like, you know, we're separate again from Purdue, but much like.

You give to the John Purdue Club, which is the internal, you know, athletics, fundraising, which with that you actually get points, which I'm sure you guys know, points matter a lot. And these, uh, college athletic fundraising models where your ticket, you know, your seating location, your, where you park. Uh, your access to Final Four tickets when that happens, hopefully that happens for, you know, IU sometime soon.

We'll see maybe, but um, but yeah, so it's, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's evolved. Now, collectives, you guys probably saw how state's ADSD basically came out and said in July that they have 20 million and they're collective just for football, just for football, which is sort of mind boggling. I mean, you know, there is no publicly available database, so a lot of the numbers you do hear in the media are exaggerated or you hear about somebody's evaluation.

X. So-and-so quarterbacks valued at three, $3 million. [00:34:00] Well, that doesn't mean they're actually getting paid 3 million. They may be making half of that or a quarter of that. That's just their. Valuation. So, um, you know, unless you're in my seat where I actually sign the contracts and, and know what we're paying, you know, the student athletes at Purdue or you're, or you're in that, a similar seat at another school, there is no database out there that, you know, we, we don't have collective bargaining Right.

In co in college athletics. So, um, but it's, it's, um, it's, it's moving quickly, you know, and there's this house versus the NCA settlement. Out there that's still moving its way through. And there's a lot that's up in the air about what this looks like a year from now with the potential of revenue sharing.

But, you know, in the short term, we've, we've gotta continue to raise and make sure we've got obligations, certainly through at least the next, you know, 24, 25 school year with the various sports that we support. But I'm having a ton of fun. I mean, it's, it's a lot of work. Uh, there are a lot of bases to cover, uh, not just like my board and donors, but you know, these universities are pretty matrixed organizations.

So I. You've gotta work with a, with a number of [00:35:00] different groups. Yeah. So very, 

Vince: very intriguing to me, but just real quick. Yeah. I remember thinking back when I, my days in, in college, you know, as an 18 to 22-year-old not getting paid anything. Mm-Hmm. And what some of these kids, I mean, well, mean, what sport did you play?

None. I, I get it. Intermurals, kickball. I was, I was, I was good on lot ball field. King of lot ball. Right, right. But man, can you imagine getting, making like 50 K 

Joe: as a college student? I mean, I was a waiter in my fraternity house and I made $160 a month. Yeah. And thought I was rich. I mean, granted when you went to Roy is like a Miller Light was like a dollar a bottle.

I mean power. So you go a long way, but power, yeah. 

Dave: Well, it's something that we've been, um, this is sort of a, a, a more recent development, but to that point. You know, Purdue obviously prides itself on being a elite academic institution. And so, um, there's a young man I got to know a few months ago, former, uh, produced, uh, football, actually student athlete.

He's now getting his master's. So he's done playing, but he actually got together with two of his Daniel school [00:36:00] or business school, uh, professors to, to create a, a financial acumen, uh, course. And so this is, okay, you're answering one of my other questions. Yeah. So this is, uh, actually. I think brilliant and much needed because, uh, it's gonna be everything from personal finance to, you know, taxes.

Like these guys are men and women, or 10 99 employees of the collective. So we're not withholding taxes. Right. Um, investing, I. Saving, you know, it's, it's nine different courses that they've created and they actually have created this curriculum to where we are starting to roll it out. Uh, I think last week they met with our women's basketball team and we're gonna start to roll it out to, to, you know, the plan is eventually all varsity sports.

And we think this should be really, uh, a great tool when we're recruiting student athletes. When your coaches are talking to parents, be like, Hey, we have this program in place fits with the Purdue brand. It's about much more than just. Winning on the field, it's, you know, how are we preparing them for life?

The reality is 99% of these, even, even guys, guys and gals that are getting [00:37:00] money from the collective will not go on to the next level. Right? Right. Yeah. They're gonna go get a job. And so some of the, depending on, you know, the sport they're playing, I mean, it, it could be a meaningful amount that if they're smart with it.

With the power of compound interest and time that it could really set them up right. And so, um, we also, we also feel like not only could it be a great recruiting tool, but I feel like it should instill a lot of confidence with our donors that hey, we're, we're trying to educate and equip. And so that's been a bit of a partnership.

We've been involved in those conversations as well as the athletic department to say, how do we kind of best support, you know, right now the foot, the, the student athletes who are getting NIL money, but we want to really roll it out to any student athlete, whether you're getting NIL or not. Sure. Yeah.

Makes sense. 

Joe: So I have a sort of a technical question. If, so, the NIL Purdue Alliance is a 5 0 1 c. If you allocate money to a student athlete, is their obligation in the community to to represent other 5 0 1 c threes or is it just based on a per [00:38:00] uh, you know, sort of individual circumstance of who their.

Brokered to represent? 

Dave: Yeah, so we, we, um, I'd say predominantly, you know, they're in the community when they're on contract with, with ba with Boilermaker Alliance, they're going to, for example, the Boys and Girls Club, right? And, and in Lafayette and serving there for an hour or two hours. And there's always like a specific role, right?

Interacting with the kids or they're going to Miami Elementary and reading books to students there. There could be though examples where there. Doing that for a business, right? Mm-Hmm. And that, that would be through our other entity, boiler Up, which is not a public facing entity, but that's why we have that set aside to say, if we were to go out and get, making this up, you know, a hundred thousand from Salesforce, uh, that would go into Boiler Up.

And that would be more of like a true commercial type endorsement. Yeah, they can, obviously, Salesforce could also go direct, right? They don't need to necessarily go through us, but that's something that we're kind of actively exploring is what's the appetite for? You [00:39:00] know, corporate engagement with the collective because, um, obviously you have like your Learfield, right?

Learfield at a ton of college campuses. They do the traditional, we have Learfield at Purdue. Um, they do the traditional, um, sponsorship sales, right, for Ross Aid and Mackey and all the different, you know, venues there. And so we have a bit of a partnership now with, with, uh, Learfield as well. So there's a lot of, you know, parties involved in terms of how we think about not just.

You know, the donor side of where revenue is, but what could we, we'd be doing on the corporate side, and then we have our membership model, which to your point, you, you joked, but you know, the, the beginning level is $25 a month and then we have a couple higher levels and you get some exclusive content and some other perks through that.

Some invitation to a few events here and there. But you know, that's something that if we could just get that distributed and again, continue to demystify how this works. Uh. What educate people on what NIL is, you know, if we could get 1% of our alums to give right, 25 bucks a month or a hundred [00:40:00] bucks a month like that, that obviously would become a significant revenue stream, recurring revenue stream for sure.

Now, 

Joe: are any of the funds that are given to the collective restricted, or does the collective have a hundred percent discretion of how to allocate those? 

Dave: Yeah, so the way I would answer that is, you know, last week I did an event with our football coach over at uh, country Club here in town, and. That was our football coach and the room was, you know, 130 people that was there for football.

Right. That's what we were talking about. So any funds collected that night or as a result of that event? We would earmark, you know, for football, right? There are folks that if it's not tied to an event or whatever, that we're just out, you know, getting introduced to or cultivating with, where they may say, Hey, use it where you need it most.

Obviously we have a little bit of opex, some, I mean, I just have, it's myself and two other staff and some, some hard costs, but we're, we run pretty lean, right? So, um, most of the lion's share of what we're raising is going back out, you know, to, to compensate student athletes. 

Joe: So then. Uh, part B of that question is, you kind of touched on this briefly earlier [00:41:00] about, uh, you know, not wanting to go out and see recruits and, and get involved in that.

'cause I, I can only imagine the, the mess that could create, but to the extent that you can speak on it, where does the collective come in to the recruiting process? Yeah. And how does that work between what you guys do and the coaches of a res of a, you know, a respective program saying, here's our.

Recruit we're targeting. Yeah. Here's what we think we need and, and the back and forth there. 

Dave: Yeah. So yeah, we really don't get involved till after the student athletes committed to, to, to Purdue. Um, and really the, what the coaches could say when I first got the role, it's changed a bit. You know, they used to be able to speak in generalities, right?

Or, or potential earnings. Like, Hey, if you come here, we've got, uh, let's use football. We've got another wide receiver. Who this is what his NIL package looks like, and we would imagine you in a similar package. Right. It it'd be sort of, you know that, that sort of language now with this [00:42:00] Injun injunction that.

I think it was February or March with Virginia and Tenant Virginia and, um, Tennessee. Um, you can be specific when you're out recruiting a student athlete to say, Hey, we wanna offer you a full ride. We also wanna offer you $5,000 a month. Again, this is, this is on the coaches side. They couldn't do that in the past.

And so, you know, what we try to do is we try to have a number that, depending on the sport, hey, manage to this. Right now you're kind of giving '

Joe: em a budget to play with in sense. Yeah. More or 

Dave: less. Right. And then it's, and then it's sort of a collaboration from there. Uh, especially like when there's a transfer portal and there's, you know, potentially somebody that might wanna hop in for whatever reason, you know, we might have some dialogue back and forth on, you know, is there any wiggle room here or is there not?

But yes, we're, we're involved kind of on the back end. We're not out. I mean, I do get calls from agents sometimes and, and even parents at times that might have questions on language in our contract. You know, we don't really deviate from that. It's a pretty straightforward contract, like, you're gonna get paid this money regardless of whether.

You get [00:43:00] injured or your playing time diminishes. Really the only time we'd revoke it is if you get expelled from school or you get a DUI, you know, something, something of that nature. Yeah. So, 

Joe: so there's, you know, on speaking of the transfer portal, which right, wrong, or indifferent can somewhat be compared to free agency.

Um, how, how do you answer the critics that have said, okay, between transfer portal, which is not your world, but it's just essentially aligned with it in a sense. And NIL, you know, I, I don't like what college sports has become. How do you address that? 

Dave: Yeah, I mean, I think something I try to just, again, part of the education process is, you know, not, not all of these, I try to call 'em students or student athletes, not just kids.

Um, they, you know, our, our football coach likes to joke, like, they look like grown men, but they're really just kids and like grown men bodies, right? These are 18 to 22 year olds, but. You know, and a lot of our, you know, obviously many of our student athletes don't come from affluence. Right. Or, or [00:44:00] families that are well off or even super well off.

And so I think what a lot of people forget is that yes, a full ride is great, right? That that's changed, you know, probably hundreds of thousands of lives, right? Over, over however many years we've, we've had scholarships in place, but many of our student athletes who, who maybe don't come from a lot of economic means are taking.

Some or all of their NIL money sending it home so that their parents can come, you know, buy a plane ticket, get a hotel room, pay for parking, all these things add up that prior, you know, that would've been very restrictive for them to do. And so, you know, I get it that there's some purists out there that, uh, had a meeting this morning with one that, you know, just doesn't like it.

Right. And, um, and that's fine. I think, uh, our board chair at Purdue said it well. He said, you know, we can have world class facilities at Purdue coaches, support staff scholarships. If we don't have a robust collective, we are gonna struggle to be competitive. [00:45:00] And our approach is, we're probably never at Purdue gonna be the top spender, you know, in any sport.

But if we can get in the conversation, I think we have a lot to sell on. It's a, it's a premier academic institution. Um, relationships and culture still matter for the respective coaches and their teams and their staff. Uh, you're gonna get a great education, you're gonna be set up. West Lafayette, you know, sort of sells itself.

So, I mean, there's a lot of other things beyond just what am I gonna get paid to c to come here? And I think people forget that that does still still matter. Um, it's not just, uh, you know, whatever the dollar figure might be. So, 

Joe: yeah. Well, I mean, any peers can say they don't like what something has become, but they can't deny that.

Athletics, college level, obviously into the pros. It's a revenue machine. Yeah. If it weren't, you wouldn't have the Big 10 with, you know, 35 members now and so on. But in all of this, um, uh, conference realignment and the, the TV money that comes along [00:46:00] with that, have you been able to draw any sort of, or been able to quantify the correlation between if we can use collective dollars.

To help the revenue producing sports be more successful and therefore grow the revenue of the school, of the athletic department of Purdue or whatever school, how that can trickle down to the non-revenue producing sports. Yeah. 'cause there's gotta be a, a positive impact there. Yeah. 

Dave: There, there absolutely is.

I, I, I can't say that I've got. You know, specific data, but you're right in that the only two profitable sports, and this is the case at most, uh, you know, power four schools, there's some that there might be a third sport that's profitable, but most of the time it's football and men's basketball and football's, the lion's share, right?

Football's 75. Well, not at Purdue and iu. 

Joe: We unfortunately are the inverse. 

Dave: Well, you, you, you would think so based on the brand of the sport, but believe it or not, the the revenue, I, I can't speak for IU 'cause I don't know, but I know at Purdue football is, um, is, is. Uh, every bit. I, I believe of three quarters or more.

Um, and I have those figures exactly [00:47:00] correct. But it's, a lot of it has to do with the TV deal, right? Mm-Hmm. And the Big 10. Um, not just, not just the sponsorships and the ticket sales, and so. Um, you know, without those two sports, every other sport operates at a loss. Right. And so, um, you're right in terms of your logic of, of, of, hey, like if we can continue to grow these sports and the TV deals, which seem to be, you know, if you think about it, sports are one of the few things that seem to be recession proof.

Um, there's a high barrier to entry. We're not launching new. Schools or, you know, major sports programs. So these, you know, it's hard to get into. And so it seems like there's just this increasing, you know, TV rights money that that happens every, you know, five, seven years. However often those deals are getting kind of re-upped.

And so, um, even just looking on the, I know the pro level's different, but I think I saw the latest NBA deals like 76 billion over however many years. And you know, there was the whole kerfuffle about TNT getting squeezed out by Amazon and. There's like three different, you know, TV rights players in the mix.

But yeah, [00:48:00] it's, um, it, uh, those two sports I think raise the tide for, you know, every other sport, uh, at Purdue. And, you know, we're, we're, I guess you could say somewhat fortunate in that we have 18 varsity sports, which for a Big 10 school. Certainly isn't at the top. I think Ohio State has 35. And so, you know, I think we're well positioned.

Uh, I say we at Purdue's well positioned, um, in this new era of, we, we don't have to figure out how to, they don't have to figure out how to fund 35, you know, varsity sports in, you know, this sort of new potential era of revenue sharing, that sort of thing. Like, so it'll be, it'll be interesting to watch how it all unfolds, but 

Vince: I mean, it's change.

And how do you adapt that change? For me, I look at the coaches and think, oh my God, your, your job is pretty hard as it is to coach the team to recruit kids outta high school. But now you're basically re-recruiting your team Yeah. Every year. Yeah. And that, I don't know, maybe I'm just speak, speak for myself.

That would get old. Yeah. Really fast, I think. 

Dave: Yeah. I mean, you, you've got a month, I think the, the transfer portal for football, for example, [00:49:00] opens December 9th and closes January 7th this year. And so, I mean, I, I took this role right in the middle of the transfer portal last December. And yeah, I don't, I don't know how Ryan Walters and sort of our football staff like sleeps at night because a kid can give you his word that he's coming back and then he goes home for Christmas break.

He gets around his buddies and high school friends and family, and it's like, oh, you need to, you know, they're not paying you enough, you know, whatever it is. And, um, so yeah, it, it can be incredibly anxiety inducing when you're just trying to like, yeah. Retain right folks. Right. And so I think, um, you know, it's, uh.

They'll, they'll continue to be some evolution. You know, they're already talking about potentially eliminating the spring transfer portal window, and that's only a two week window for football. But it'll be interesting to see if that happens. Um, you know, men's basketball really has one at the end of the season, so kind of mid-March or whenever your season's up to beginning of May.

But, uh, yeah, it's interesting times. 

Vince: So there's a very entrepreneurial role, which I think [00:50:00] probably also attracted you to it. Yeah. Um, things are constantly changing, but it gives you a lot of flexibility to some extent, and creativity on how you can, uh, make this thing work. What would you say your biggest challenges are right now?

Dave: Yeah. I think part of it is just how we get the word out, right? Like, we're, we're building this thing on the fly. We don't have a. We didn't, we weren't gifted a, a database of a hundred thousand Purdue emails. Right. And so, you know, I work very closely. We are the exclusive collective of Purdue Athletics. So, you know, weekly I'm in the John Purdue Club, uh, major gift meetings up in West Lafayette.

And so, you know, trying to build trust even with just the staff of JPC to say, Hey, you know, we're not. Let's not have a scarcity mindset here. Let's have an abundance mindset to say sometimes you, well, maybe early on, I've, I've certainly taken more from them because they know the Purdue athletic donor base than, than I do.

I think there's been some instances where we've been able to identify some, some capacity from potential donors who don't live in, you know, Indiana, so they're not. Maybe they're not active [00:51:00] JPC members, but they care a ton about Purdue. And so if they're in Atlanta or California, they, they're like, you know, this is one way I can give back and feel like my dollars are making a difference.

Mm-Hmm. But they don't necessarily care as much about the points. 'cause you know, they don't live nearby. They're not going to, they don't have season tickets or that sort of thing. 

Joe: How many other call it non well, non officially affiliated collectives are out there. And do you find that you. How do you, how do you avoid competing with them?

Yeah, it, 

Dave: um, at Purdue, I don't, there might be one other that we had to have some conversations with 'cause they were, they, they sort of sprung up to, um, support a particular sport and then, you know, but it gets complicated 'cause like, we're a sponsor. Of Learfield and so we get rights to the motion P and you know, some of the marks that come with.

And so if you don't have that, there's not a lot you can do, you know, in terms of marketing on behalf, you know, or in [00:52:00] partnership with Purdue Athletics. And so, you know, we've done a good job at Purdue of, like I said, there might be one, I don't even know if it's still active, whereas I know some other schools in Michigan at one point had.

Five collectives. And so you generally, they would start up like, Hey, this one's the football one, this one's the basketball one, this one's the women's basketball one. But what ends up happening is there's donor turf wars and you know, ultimately, I mean, a lot of this comes down to trust and alignment. And so if the athletic department can't trust you, or you're saying, oh, we raised a million bucks, when really you raised 500,000 and the other 500,000 didn't come through, but yet they're out making commitments, you know, we're.

That's happened at other schools. Right. It's a mess. Um, fortunately, you know, that's not how we're operating at, at Purdue, so 

Vince: That's wild. Um, so I know this is an impossible question to answer, but like, how do you see NIL evolving or what's in your, in your crystal ball? What's the future of NIL possibly look like?

Yeah. Um, 

Dave: yeah, they've gotta get this [00:53:00] house for CIA settlement figured out. Right? We're kind of in the middle of it right now. Um. We should know more in the next couple weeks on whether there's potentially approval or not. Um, I do think at some point, you know, revenue sharing should happen, which means the, the school could start directly paying, uh, student athletes, you know, the role of collectives in that, in that future kind of remains to be seen.

You know, there's people out there that think that, you know. Football and basketball could spin off and become their own, their own things essentially. Right. I don't, I don't know if that's necessarily gonna happen or not. Or are certain conferences gonna just kind of break away and say we're gonna do our own league separate from the NCA?

Um, but I, I would just say I don't, I don't think we're, I don't know where we're at in the process. I don't, I mean, I don't think we're in the beginning, but I definitely don't think we're at the end. So we're probably somewhere in the middle in terms of like, you know, this is, uh, I doubt this is all resolved in.

You know, a year, uh, I think it will continue to evolve [00:54:00] probably over the next three to five years, which, uh, I know probably is not what some people want to hear, but that's just, again, that's my personal take of where all this is headed. Um, I think Charlie Baker at the NCA is doing the best job he can, but, you know, he inherited a pretty, pretty tough situation.

And, and who knows, right? I mean, there's, there's obviously a presidential election here in a couple months. I think once we get past that, maybe, maybe Congress will wanna. Get involved. They, they really haven't yet in a meaningful way. And so, um, I don't know. There's a lot of different paths that, that this thing could take.

So I by no means have, have a strong crystal ball in terms of what it's gonna look like three years from now. So, yeah. That's fair. 

Vince: Yeah. All right. Well, best of luck. Thank you. Other than the times when Purdue and IU meet up 

Dave: Yeah. Open bucket here in a couple months. Yeah. 

Joe: We'll 

Dave: see 

Joe: how that goes. I just hope it's like.

A meaningful game. Yeah. Not like who's gonna finish 16th in the Big 10. Yeah. Right. 

Dave: Yeah. We're at right now this year, so we are, yeah. 

Vince: Well, you're, [00:55:00] you're welcome to our tailgate anytime. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. All right. Thanks for coming in. We appreciate dropping some NIL knowledge on us Yeah.

And learning about your past and, and, uh, the various, uh, sports minded entrepreneurial ways that, uh, that you've, that you've gone. And, and best of luck with Boilermaker Alliance. Thank you. Thanks for having me on, guys. You're welcome. Thank all you guys too for joining us on this episode of the Industrious Podcast.

We appreciate you guys tuning in. Hope you learned something new today. If not, um, you have any more questions, drop it in the comments. We'll be happy to pass those along and, and see what we can find out for you. Um, until then, don't forget, guys, be industrious.