There has never been more money flowing into college basketball rosters than there is right now, and the people funding a good chunk of the sport’s best rosters are doing so knowing there will be no direct monetary return on their investment.
That is the strange economy underneath NIL. Donors are spending real money to help programs retain players, land transfers, and stay competitive in a market that gets more expensive every offseason. Some receive business value through appearances, advertising, relationships, or association with the program, but for most, the return is not clean enough to fit into a normal marketing spreadsheet.
That makes the ROI and rationale behind the decision to donate much more complicated.
The return might be winning or increased access to a program. It might be relevance, pride, trust, or the satisfaction of knowing the program has enough support to stay in the fight. What almost everyone involved seems to understand is that while most donors do not expect the money to come back directly, they do expect it to matter.
A Wake Forest donor, who asked for anonymity, put it bluntly.
“We know we’re not seeing a monetary return,” the donor said, “but we do want to see success and wins. I’m not giving just because I’m a nice guy and love the school, though I do. I want to win.”
That is the cleanest starting point for the NIL donor question. The issue is not whether donors want to win. Of course they want to win. The more interesting question is what they believe winning is worth, and what else they expect from a system where the financial return is usually indirect at best.
In conversations with coaches and donors, the answer kept coming back to a few themes. Donors want to feel like their program is serious and that the people spending their money have a plan. They want to know their school is not falling behind simply because other programs organized faster, raised more, or found donors willing to be more aggressive.
That is different from saying every donor is trying to buy a championship. Some are. Some programs are clearly trying to overwhelm the market, and there are donors who enjoy the flex that comes with changing a roster through sheer financial force. But for a lot of donors, the motivation is more defensive than that. They are not only paying for what they hope will happen — they are paying to avoid what they fear will happen if they sit out.
An NC State donor framed it that way when explaining why NIL giving feels necessary to him.
“You know it’s the cost of doing business,” the donor explained. “NC State has been behind Duke and UNC for so long and I don’t want us to be an afterthought anymore. It’s a fight against irrelevancy as much as it is a fight for success.”
That line gets at something important. Relevance has become part of the return.
For some donor bases, NIL is not just about landing the most expensive player on the board. It is about making sure a coach can enter a portal recruitment and be taken seriously — and also about keeping a valuable player on the roster.
That fear is powerful because college basketball rosters can turn so quickly. A program does not need to whiff on an entire class to feel the consequences of being underfunded; sometimes it only takes losing one retention battle or watching one portal target go elsewhere because another school was operating in a different financial tier.
That happened this offseason to one mid-major coach, who wished to remain anonymous. He managed to scrape together a seven-figure offer for a star underclassman, hoping to keep him for just one more year. The staff laid out a plan for that player’s development and all parties seemed to agree it was the best path forward.
Next thing he knew, that player’s agent informed him there were other schools willing to double or triple that offer, and the player entered the portal.
That is why some donors describe the NIL world with a mix of resignation and competitiveness. They may dislike the market and still believe they have no choice but to participate in it.
“You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place,” a Virginia Tech donor described. “The money keeps going up and you have guys like Cody Campbell (Texas Tech mega donor) bankrolling teams where that really isn’t an issue. They’re funding the whole operation. It’s hard to rally a donor base to go up against that when it’s basically pay-to-win. At the same time, without some of us donating, I know we have no chance of winning. It’s an arms race you have to accept.”
That is not an especially romantic version of college basketball, but it is the logic shaping a lot of donor behavior. Opting out does not make the market more reasonable. It only leaves a program with fewer answers. A donor can believe the system is unsustainable and dislike the escalation, yet still write the check because the alternative feels like surrender.
This is where the donor fatigue conversation becomes more nuanced than simply saying people are tired of giving. They are tired, in many cases. But fatigue does not erase competitiveness.
“I definitely think there is a lot of donor fatigue with this stuff,” Appalachian State head coach Dustin Kerns said. “One thing I have learned, though, is that donors never get tired of competition.”
That distinction matters. Donors may resent the process while still caring deeply about the outcome. They can question the sustainability of NIL and still want their program positioned to win. The emotional pull of competition keeps many of them engaged even when the asks become more frequent and for more.
The challenge for programs is converting that competitive instinct into sustained confidence. Donors will tolerate an expensive system more easily if they trust the people managing it. Without that trust, repeated asks start to feel less like the cost of competing and more like paying into an operation that may not know what it is doing.
The Wake Forest donor, who was direct about wanting wins, also pointed to trust as the dividing line.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had the success basketball-wise we did in the 2000’s, and it has made some wary. The thought is ‘why donate if I don’t trust this coach or this program to make the most of my dollar?’ Relationships are important, but trust is, too.”
That is where donor ROI becomes less about the final record and more about belief in the process. The donor may understand that wins are not guaranteed, but they still want to see evidence that the program has a plan. They want to know their money is being spent with discipline, not thrown at whatever problem became urgent that week. They want to believe the coach, collective, and athletic department are aligned enough that their contribution is not disappearing into organizational confusion.
That type of trust can be difficult to build because NIL money is often raised under pressure. Roster needs move quickly because portal recruiting, which many coaches have described as a form of speed dating, moves at such a fast pace. Retention conversations are often urgent before a season is even over. But urgency without confidence wears people down, especially when the people being asked to help understand there will likely be another ask soon.
That is why donor management has become part of roster management. The pitch cannot just be that NIL matters. The more important task is explaining why this request matters, why this process can be trusted, and how the program defines value beyond simply saying it needs more.
San Francisco head coach Chris Gerlufsen described that return as both competitive and relational.
“Winning and providing a return on investment is definitely important,” Gerlufsen said. “Having the ability to retain players early in the season would be another sell.
“Having access to practices, pre-game and post-game locker room sessions, as well as access to travel with the team are all things that help us [with donors]. Our goal is to make our donors feel like part of the team and staff. Facilitating and fostering the relationship is as important as anything.”
That answer gets at one of the clearest non-financial returns donors receive: proximity. They want to feel closer to the program than they would if they were simply buying season tickets or making a traditional athletic department gift. That does not have to mean interference. It can mean information, appreciation, access, and the sense that they are part of something being built.
The distinction between connection and control is where programs have to be careful. Donors who feel included can become a major asset. Donors who feel entitled to personnel influence can create problems that extend well beyond the money they provide.
DePaul head coach Chris Holtmann described the donor world as a spectrum rather than a single type.
“There are donors that have no expectation regarding program access and they understand this is part of doing business in today’s climate if you want to win. They have some discretionary income and like giving it to something they care about,” he explained. “There are also donors that feel like they are doing you a massive favor by giving and they see themselves as de facto GMs or owners. They have big egos. Now, if they are giving a lot, you can deal with them. It’s part of it.
“Other donors don’t fall into either of those categories and just want to feel like a part of it. They want to be a part of changing the trajectory of a program. In other cases, they’ve built a personal relationship with the AD or coaching staff and this gives them more skin in the game.”
The third group is probably where the most interesting donor psychology lives. The public conversation tends to make room for two simple versions of NIL donors: the generous donor supporting athletes and the meddling booster trying to run the program. The reality in the middle is more complicated. Many donors are not trying to pick the starting lineup or negotiate the portal board, but they also are not giving with detached generosity. They want some emotional ownership of the direction without being actual owners.
That is why “skin in the game” is such a useful phrase. It explains why NIL giving can feel different from traditional giving even when the donor has long supported the school. A facility gift may matter to the program for years, but NIL feels closer to the part of the operation donors talk about with their friends, watch every night, and judge in real time. If the team wins, the donor can feel connected to the success. If the team disappoints, the donor may feel more personally attached to the frustration.
A South Carolina donor described that connection as the reason NIL appealed more than his previous giving.
“There’s a pride factor,” he explained. “They decide how to spend [my contribution] but I feel like part of the team. I used to give to the general athletics fund but I changed once this became an option. Then I can see what my money is going towards and be invested. It’s better than gambling on us to win because I have something of a hand in this.”
That phrase — “something of a hand in this” — captures something essential about the psychology of those that donate to NIL. The donor feels a more direct connection between his money and the product he cares about, turning passive fandom into something slightly more active.
That connection can be powerful when things go well. It can also sharpen the questions when they do not.
If an expensive roster underachieves, the usual complaints are still there. Fans will argue about coaching decisions, shot selection, player development, injuries, matchups, chemistry, and late-game execution. NIL adds another layer because donor money creates a more visible relationship between resources and expectations. People will ask whether the staff evaluated correctly, whether the collective overpaid, whether the donor base was asked to cover mistakes or whether the program had a coherent plan in the first place.
Those questions do not disappear just because the return is emotional. In some ways, the emotional nature of the money makes the scrutiny stronger. A donor who gives because he cares deeply about the school may be more frustrated, not less, if he believes the money was wasted.
That is part of what makes corporate money attractive, especially for programs trying to reduce the pressure on individual donors. A broader base can make the model feel less dependent on a small group of wealthy supporters who are constantly asked to solve the next problem.
Gerlufsen said San Francisco is trying to build that side of the operation.
“We want to make sure we continue to grow our individual donor base, but in San Francisco specifically, we are trying to lean into the corporate money. Having the ability to advertise directly on uniforms now gives us another avenue to stay competitive in the market.”
NC State is working this path aggressively, too, with a goal of finding new corporate partners in the Raleigh area. Both schools are far from alone.
That is the more traditional business side of NIL, and it has value. Corporate partners may evaluate the relationship through visibility, brand alignment, local engagement, or advertising inventory rather than pure emotional attachment. Still, even that value is shaped by how much people care about the program. A brand partnership is easier to sell when the team is relevant, the fan base is engaged and the program feels like it is building toward something.
The conversation keeps circling back to competitiveness because that is the foundation for almost every version of return. Access feels more meaningful around a program that matters. Pride is easier to feel when the team is moving in the right direction. Corporate value grows when there is energy around the product. Even trust is easier to maintain when donors can see progress.
LSU head coach Will Wade summed up the motivation as a mix of school loyalty and the benefits that come from winning.
“It can be any number of things,” Wade said. “Mostly, it’s about helping the school they love win with some residual value on the other factors.”
That is probably the most useful way to understand the whole donor ROI question. The secondary factors matter, and in some cases they may be what keeps a donor emotionally connected through the inevitable ups and downs of a season. But most of those benefits are stronger when the program looks serious and competitive.
The best version of this arrangement requires honesty from both sides. That balance will determine how sustainable this becomes. The money is not going to keep flowing simply because the sport needs it. Donors will continue giving when they believe the return is worth it, and ‘worth’ will not mean the same thing to everyone.
For some, it will be wins. For others, it will be proximity, pride, or the belief that their school is not being left behind. Most will probably measure it through some combination of all of those things, even if they would not describe it that way publicly.
The NIL donor economy uses the language of business, but much of the money is driven by loyalty, fear, pride and belief. The return is real, just not always measurable. Donors want wins, but they also want evidence that their money mattered.
Maybe that is the cleanest definition of NIL ROI.
Most donors are not asking for their money back. They are asking for proof that the program used it to stay in the fight.