FOOTBALL

USC Morning Buzz: Money For Nothing

Is there any limit to what USC will do for a buck? Of course not!

Caleb Williams has barely started classes but USC is selling his autograph on items at its team store. The prices range from $199.99 to $599.99.

But the real sign of the apocalypse is at the USC bookstore: A Swarovski Crystal USC football helmet for $10,000. That includes a certificate of authenticity and display case.

With the NIL rules, does Williams get a cut of every autograph sold or a flat fee?

60 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: Money For Nothing”

  1. This is just scratching the surface. Think monthly paid subscriptions to “SCTV” streaming service or the like where Carol Folt, USC faculty et al have daily shows where they discuss topical issues.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I’d pay any price to see Carol explain the dynamics of “The Path Of Righteousness” while wearing the crystal helmet …and her shortest mini….

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      6. I’m already having dreams about Carol — & they don’t make any sense. I’m a carrot and she’s a donut and we’re going for a walk in the park at midnight…..

        Liked by 1 person

      7. Caruts and donuts? smdh, we don’t have carruts at our house, just no room in the rfigurator, 2 cases of mountin doo takin up most of that room. But the missus does get those day-old donuts from that dunkin place with the hot cawfee. I asked for day old cawfee so we can saves some monees, but she popped me one, call me stoopid. smdh

        Liked by 1 person

      9. Michael, it is the product of years and years of bad USC football, Helton, AKA the village idiot, Scottie’s blog, you name it. Somehow, after all this, Ed G. makes a lot of sense to me.

        Liked by 1 person

      10. Yes, I completely understand. Whenever I get to this dark place I try to watch Biden’s State of The Union Speech….. it restores my sense of hope…
        #ExceptForThePartWhereHeForgetsDoctorJill’sName..
        #…AndTheNamesOfEachOfHisCabinetMembers

        Liked by 1 person

      11. You must’ve been a comedian in another life…
        Then again, no time like the present to take your show on the road [Comedy Clubs, Vegas, YouTube, Instagram, etc]

        Liked by 1 person

    2. That home shoppin netwerk has genooine repleecas of that cristal helmut for $69.99, or you kin pay $6 evry month for about4 years on there ez pay plan.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      4. Got the missus that dubble plasticized table cloth for annivursary. Spills wipe rite off! She popped me one, saying somethin’ about wantin a helmut. smdh. What she need a helmut for?

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Great article, Charles. Thanks for posting it.
      Coach Riley [it’s time we start calling him that] is adopting the Colonel Kurtz ‘zero-defects’ philosophy in Apocalypse Now : do what needs to be done ruthlessly –“or what people call ruthless — which is only seeing things clearly and acting like a soldier.”
      This is the antithesis of the all icing, no cake approach of Clay Helton. And Carol Folt.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. So…on top of everything else — SC Grad W/Honors’ GPA is less than a 3.5?
        #Wow..
        #YouCan’tTrustAnybodyTheseDays

        Like

  5. Since the big hook is that they are official team items, every single member and player on the team deserves a percentage of the money. After all, it’s not an individual sport. It’s the only fair thing to do. Share the pie, grow the pie, use the attraction to recruit the best players and coaches and be up front and honest about it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. The competitive marketplace…these guys are making their choices based on (i) the upfront NIL money (sure thing) and (ii) the prospect of NFL money, which (the guaranteed part) is relatively small if you arent a first rounder, particularly high first round.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    2. The schools can’t play the players nor will the NCAA part with any of their precious coin. That’s how they justify the NIL it’s a “work around.” Would love to see what the ROI on some of these NIL deals is.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  6. I am all for the players sharing in the enormous revenue they generate, but can’t say that I like the way NIL is evolving. Not that the big name players weren’t under pressure before, but brother, oh brother, are they under pressure now to deliver.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      5. To expand on that point, Coach Smiley (how is that for respect?) said that SC would be a player in the NIL market, and with well-heeled Trojan alumni anxious to “help out” you know the Trojans will be “buyers.”

        And this idea of guys like NIL-rich ‘Celeb’ sharing his dough with his lesser teammates is a thought one would come up with if smoking some good weed.

        The L.A. Times beat writer said that SC has become another pro team in Los Angeles, and being a pro means pressure to produce now or else. So the term ‘student-athlete’ is a phrase that will hit the garbage bins faster than the terms ‘gay’ or ‘fairy’ did last century.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. I’m headed to Michael’s or Hobby Lobby after work so I can pick up some self adhesive rubies and maybe even diamonds so I can make a few of those myself. I figure I only need to sell ten of those helmets to retire a year early. I just gotta grab a few helmets from the local high school trash bin and boom I’m good to go.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. I had not been paying attention to the staff that Lanning put together at Oregon. The DC is an amazing hire. He was a DC at Alabama and then the Cleveland Browns. And I see they beat us out for 2 recruits recently.

    Anyone that thinks we will easily beat Oregon on the recruiting trail or on the field of play isnt paying attention. Oregon is going to be better under Lanning than under Cristobal.

    The Pac-12 might actually start to get some respect in a few years from now. I really think the days of West Coast players leaving the area are going to be gone very soon.

    Defense wins championships and I think Oregon is going to have a better defense than SC.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Up until 2005, I thought the line about “defense wins championships” was horseshit. But –when our highest scoring offense got stopped by Texas’ defense—I changed my mind.
      #InTime,RileyWillHaveBoth

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. If only we kept Normie…if only Reggie’s ill-advised lateral was called down rather than a fumble…if only the refs would have called Young down when his knee touched the ground…
        Both teams gained 550 yards, both offenses were remarkable. Shame somebody had to lose that game. Not sure if there was any team in the country that would have held either team below 35 points on that day.

        #IfOnly

        Liked by 1 person

      2. You just outlined all the reasons why it was such a great game between two such great teams…. one in which our guys made more mistakes (coaches and players)….

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Michael, you have pointed out how Pete never really figured out what to do with the read-option. That game showcased that particular deficiency. You would have thought that the LB group of Cushing, Mauluga, Sartz, Rivers, along with Rucker and Lojack on the D line would have been up to it, but that was such an incredibly young team.

        Like

    2. They are losing their premier DE to the draft (prob top 3 pick), lost a couple more d guys to Auburn through the portal, lost two QBs, lost Travis Dye, they are going to need to work through that. Not to say they won’t be good, just that they are going to have to scramble in the portal just like all the other teams.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  9. Riley says he won’t just take anyone to fill a void. The biggest requirement is speed which we have not seen in years. As players become available and he has time to recruit I think the defense will be built. Till then I guess we just need to be patient and hope this staff can coach up what we have.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.