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Plenty of fans are less than thrilled with the impact NIL money has had on college sports, but schools still need to figure out a way to stay competitive on that front. That includes the University of Central Florida, which came up with a novel way to raise money that led to the elimination of a divisive gameday tradition.
Most college football programs have official fight songs, but plenty of stadiums supplement them with tunes that have become staples at home games; i.e. “Take Me Home Country Roads” at West Virginia University and “Enter Sandman” at Virginia Tech.
In 2021, the UCF Knights decided to get in on the action with the help of Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,” and for the past few years, fans at the Bounce House could be heard belting out “I LOVE YOU BABY” in the fourth quarter during home games.
However, that new tradition turned out to be a fairly controversial one among the UCF fanbase. While plenty of people embraced it, others objected to the use of a fairly overplayed tune that was first released in 1967, and the school recently decided to put its fate up to a fairly unique vote.
According to Fox35, UCF’s Kingdom NIL collective kicked off a fundraising drive in conjunction with the start of college football’s Early Signing Period, and fans who flocked to a landing page set up for the occasion were greeted with the following message:
“Tip the scales with your contributions to determine if the Bounce House actually loves ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You’ by Frankie Valli.
Don’t take your eyes off the leaderboard – someone could swoop in at the end of the day and decide the future of the song.”
When everything was said and done, the Anti-Valli crowd donated a grand total of $14,017 compared to the $12,900 pledged by the song’s proponents, which means “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” is no more after a battle that raised close to $27K for the NIL fund.