quote:
And again, if you're offering the guy 10x that to come to your school, they can roll that into the package.
It's not like you're gonna say "come to LSU and we'll give you half a mil in spending cash, a new car of your choice, and a good condo in an upscale complex", and if he wants the best health insurance you say "nope, too rich for my blood".

Obviously you do not understand common sense or taxes or elite athletes. All items you mentioned in your NIL package are taxable income to the player who you are also asking to foot the bill for his education and related costs. He would not have half a million in spending cash because he would be paying taxes on:

$500,000 of NIL Income
$65,000 on a Dodge Challenger
$30,000 on Condo rent
$50,0000 for Insurance

$651,000 Total Taxable Income

$230,088 in Federal Income and Self-Employment Taxes
roughly $30,000 in Louisiana Taxes

500,000 - 260,088 (taxes) = 239,912 - 60,000 (school costs) = $179,912
spending cash.

School B offers

$500,000 NIL package and scholarship (which covers educational, insurance, living and meal costs among others)

$171,839 in Federal and Self-Employment Taxes
$22,500 roughly in State Taxes

500,000 - 194,339 = $305,661 in spending cash

No top tier athlete is going to accept option A (your hypothetical) over option B. Lower tier prospects/specialists would get full NIL offers (like Ole Miss offered Gaston's son) and no school in its right mind is offering your convoluted hypothetical to same.

Therefore, your "idea" screws the athlete from purely a tax standpoint.

***Note numbers were run on LaCerte Tax Software for Federal and estimated at 4.5% on Louisiana income taxes.