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Brian Kelly and the LSU Tigers are coming off of a disappointing 8-4 season in which they had College Football Playoff aspirations. But if we’ve learned anything in modern college football, it’s that if you keep throwing money at a problem, eventually it tends to disappear.
So that’s exactly what Kelly is going to do in the form of NIL fundraising. But because head coaches cannot legally contribute to NIL collectives, he and his wife Paqui have developed a clear (albeit sketchy) workaround.
Brian Kelly and his wife, Paqui, are kicking off the Kelly Family Million Dollar Match Challenge!
They will match donations to LSU’s Football NIL efforts – up to $1 million – with a gift to the Tiger Athletic Foundation’s AD’s Excellence Fund. pic.twitter.com/eqTGi6MBTO
— LSU Football (@LSUfootball) December 13, 2024
Kelly and his wife created the Kelly Family Million Dollar Match Challenge. The couple will match donations up to $1 million to LSU’s Football NIL efforts. However, they’ll do so via a gift to the Tiger Athletic Foundation’s AD’s Excellence Fund.
Acclaimed NIL attorney Mit Winter explained that “coaches currently aren’t allowed to give to NIL collectives. But they can give to a school’s athletics foundation, and that money will soon be able to be used (or already can be used in some states) to pay athletes. More shifting of $ from coaches to players.”
So, more or less, Kelly is laundering money through the school in order to directly give it back to NIL. And there’s no real way to stop him from doing so.
The NIL landscape is ever-changing and the second someone finds a new idea, everybody else tends to follow. So you can expect more situations like this at schools across the country in the near future.
Meanwhile, Kelly very recently denounced NIL after a trio five-star recruits spurned LSU for more lucrative offers. You know what they say, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.