quote:
What schools comprise the true SEC "blue bloods"?
quote:
LSU - baseball

No. College baseball (hockey, track, gymnastics, tennis, etc..)isn't relavent to that discussion as it's increasingly a niche sport. Only football and basketball need apply in this contex.

Putting the "blueblood" discussion aside about what sports fit into the context of that discussion, here is something more about the big picture of sports and where perhaps college baseball will be in 10 years.

ESPN article here is I think relevant. First thing that pops up is Youth Baseball/softball etc participation is up 3 million just over the 5 year period 2013 to 2018. Football (Soccer surprisingly as well) declined. The decrease in football participation is a trend that has been going on for 10 to 15 years.

One thing that I think is going on is more and more kids that use to play football or even soccer are going back to youth baseball. Those are large numbers, even if 1 million of that is softball (and some youth girl leagues), 2 million more young youth baseball players is a big, big, number.

Those kids move from Little League, to next league, then get into these 13-14 year old Travel leagues (which are exploding) and all of a sudden you have a huge pool of 18 year old kids with exceptional baseball skills.

LINK

So what if hypothetically, NIL $$$$ for baseball players is such that a top notch HS baseball prospect is more often to sign with an elite baseball program (LSU, Texas, Vandy, Florida, Miss. State, Virginia) or any SEC, ACC, team, etc.

Tre Morgan, LSU's Freshman 1st basemen is using NIL and running a camp and is going to make an estimated 25K to 45K running a 3 day baseball camp in New Orleans. He has his own webpage designed for it. TR has a link to it.

Those kids play in college and after 3 years go to the MLB draft. Of the 36 1st round MLB picks from the most recent draft, 17 of them were from the college ranks.

If NIL can allow baseball players to start making money, more and more of them may start going to the college route. Heck, LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne signed an NIL deal worth > $1million. I can see a top notch HS baseball recruit (say go in top 3 to 5 rounds) having the opportunity to make maybe Millions of $$$ on NIL in college and rather than hang out in the Minors, go to a college campus, play ball and enjoy all the extracurricular opportunities that you have (like hanging out with lovely coeds).

This post was edited on 7/25/21 at 11:49 am