The passion fans bring to college football, at USC and anywhere else, runs very deep. Accordingly, when fans insist on the need for a better NIL program or more donations to a school’s collective, it becomes very easy to think that the fans themselves should be powering a school’s NIL efforts. A “put your money where your mouth is” mentality very naturally becomes part of the conversation. It can become the way we frame these situations and try to find solutions to them.
Yet, it’s not healthy when working-class fans of a college football team think they have to reach into their savings and give $100 to their NIL program, as though they are on the front lines of this battle and that if they don’t give, they’re somehow falling short. Fans might think they are failing their program and the coaches and players.
Let’s be realistic: People who do not have a lot of disposable income and can’t make too many discretionary spending decisions should not be expected to help their school’s NIL program. Only people with a lot of extra cash — and who feel strongly about USC football — should be chipping in. More precisely, any affluent USC fan who is really mad about losing players and will publicly say how awful this situation is fits the profile of someone who should be expected to give. Working-class fans or fans who won’t roast other people in public for failing to do their all should not be expected to have to pony up. It’s important to remember this. We should not promote a mentality in which every USC family — even the poorest of the poor — has to pay into the NIL program to be viewed as a “good fan.” It should never get that far.
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