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Les Habitants Prospects Thread

For perspective: College football is the second most watched sport in America, multiple colleges are able to finances their whole sports department thanks to only the money generated by college football. The top programs (Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan, etc.) have their games televised every week and they attract a metric ton of eyes. If both teams are good, like they were last year, the annual Ohio State - Michigan game is usually the most watched game in college with +/- 10 million people watching.

Compared to college hockey: Super regional, not a ton of sell outs even when tickets are cheap, virtually no tv viewership, etc. A lot of the marketing college hockey gets is "Watch Habs Prospect Michael Hage and the Michigan Wolverins face off against (...)" which attracts only a very, very small amount of people. Another small factor: Besides Michigan in the last 5 or so years, there's no real competition for players. The universities are usually filled with local players. Check Boston College, half the roster's from NY/NJ/MA. Same with Boston University. The Minny universities are even moreso filled with local players.

One of the reasons the NIL changed the game in football was, there are more top programs, and players are much more open to the idea of moving around. In hockey, though, players mostly go to the university from their neck of the woods.

There's no real incentive to pay college hockey players. The return on investment would be nil, there's minimal movement of players, and frankly there aren't enough good programs. That's why I was hoping that Ohio State could start bolstering their program in the next few years, there needs to be more American programs available for Junior players who are done in the CHL.
 
The whole segment (Wednesdays) are great.

Doesn't look like it is on YouTube yet (so I could find the specific portion) but here is the entire convo


View: https://shows.acast.com/the-jason-gregor-show/episodes/the-jason-gregor-show-january-8th-2025-hour-3-ritch-winter

Just listened to the podcast, and the agent talking about NILs starts off correctly. "We haven't had much exposure to it yet." But that's about the end of where I agreed with anything he hypothesized.

Everything he elaborated after that is pie in the sky, and frankly, bordering on being a bad financial advisor. He mentions that a program like Ohio Miami has $100M to spend on NIL. Just because they have money to spend doesn't mean they will spend it. The NCAA programs are under no obligation to spend a single dime if they don't want to. Then he uses the example of, what happens if a top prospect doesn't want to sign in Calgary/Buffalo and instead stays in college if they're getting $2M / year and then becomes a UFA after his full college ride?

Good example, let's analyze it. Let's say it applied to Lane Hutson.

Current trajectory, assuming he received the most NIL money in college hockey and we'll use the $2M they used.

Draft +1 NCAA $2M
Draft +2 NCAA $2M + 2 ELC gamechecks
Draft +3 ELC $900k
Draft +4 ELC $900k
Draft +5 $8M+ annually

If he had stayed in NCAA for a full 4 years, before then going to UFA:

Draft +1 NCAA $2M
Draft +2 NCAA $2M
Draft +3 NCAA $2M
Draft +4 NCAA $2M
Draft +5 ELC $900k

Their example wouldn't have been good for a player like Lane Hutson, staying in college just delays his timeline before receiving real money. Same thing for Macklin Celebrini and other top prospects. The NIL might be kinda interesting for good college players that are longshot to making it to the NHL, but I remain extremely skeptical that there will ever be any kind of real money available for hockey players in college.

(Unrelated, but I do think ELC contracts are going to increase in $$ with the next CBA signature.)
 
Just listened to the podcast, and the agent talking about NILs starts off correctly. "We haven't had much exposure to it yet." But that's about the end of where I agreed with anything he hypothesized.

Everything he elaborated after that is pie in the sky, and frankly, bordering on being a bad financial advisor. He mentions that a program like Ohio Miami has $100M to spend on NIL. Just because they have money to spend doesn't mean they will spend it. The NCAA programs are under no obligation to spend a single dime if they don't want to. Then he uses the example of, what happens if a top prospect doesn't want to sign in Calgary/Buffalo and instead stays in college if they're getting $2M / year and then becomes a UFA after his full college ride?

Good example, let's analyze it. Let's say it applied to Lane Hutson.

Current trajectory, assuming he received the most NIL money in college hockey and we'll use the $2M they used.

Draft +1 NCAA $2M
Draft +2 NCAA $2M + 2 ELC gamechecks
Draft +3 ELC $900k
Draft +4 ELC $900k
Draft +5 $8M+ annually

If he had stayed in NCAA for a full 4 years, before then going to UFA:

Draft +1 NCAA $2M
Draft +2 NCAA $2M
Draft +3 NCAA $2M
Draft +4 NCAA $2M
Draft +5 ELC $900k

Their example wouldn't have been good for a player like Lane Hutson, staying in college just delays his timeline before receiving real money. Same thing for Macklin Celebrini and other top prospects. The NIL might be kinda interesting for good college players that are longshot to making it to the NHL, but I remain extremely skeptical that there will ever be any kind of real money available for hockey players in college.

(Unrelated, but I do think ELC contracts are going to increase in $$ with the next CBA signature.)
I dont follow how NIL funds work

I thought sponsors like Gatorade paid for this but you mentioned schools pay for this ?
 
Just listened to the podcast, and the agent talking about NILs starts off correctly. "We haven't had much exposure to it yet." But that's about the end of where I agreed with anything he hypothesized.

Everything he elaborated after that is pie in the sky, and frankly, bordering on being a bad financial advisor. He mentions that a program like Ohio Miami has $100M to spend on NIL. Just because they have money to spend doesn't mean they will spend it. The NCAA programs are under no obligation to spend a single dime if they don't want to. Then he uses the example of, what happens if a top prospect doesn't want to sign in Calgary/Buffalo and instead stays in college if they're getting $2M / year and then becomes a UFA after his full college ride?

Good example, let's analyze it. Let's say it applied to Lane Hutson.

Current trajectory, assuming he received the most NIL money in college hockey and we'll use the $2M they used.

Draft +1 NCAA $2M
Draft +2 NCAA $2M + 2 ELC gamechecks
Draft +3 ELC $900k
Draft +4 ELC $900k
Draft +5 $8M+ annually

If he had stayed in NCAA for a full 4 years, before then going to UFA:

Draft +1 NCAA $2M
Draft +2 NCAA $2M
Draft +3 NCAA $2M
Draft +4 NCAA $2M
Draft +5 ELC $900k

Their example wouldn't have been good for a player like Lane Hutson, staying in college just delays his timeline before receiving real money. Same thing for Macklin Celebrini and other top prospects. The NIL might be kinda interesting for good college players that are longshot to making it to the NHL, but I remain extremely skeptical that there will ever be any kind of real money available for hockey players in college.

(Unrelated, but I do think ELC contracts are going to increase in $$ with the next CBA signature.)

How many ELC years with that?

And could they burn one like hutson did?
 
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