🏅Could Schools pay NIL out of their Endowment?

Hey there,

Very soon, schools will be paying millions in damages thanks to the House lawsuit. Some schools can stomach it, financially speaking, but no one’s exactly prepared to pony up millions per-year. Or are they? 

Enter, endowments. Endowments are massive piles of money held by educational institutions in order to… wait, what exactly do they do with that money? Could they, perhaps, dip into that fund to pay back damages – or even wilder, fund NIL rosters with that money?

That’s what we’re talking about today – how endowments play into the suddenly somewhat cash-poor college sports ecosystem. Oh, and how one school – the University of Houston – is considering how to use their endowment to pay for House. It’s all coming up right now.

— Cole, Justin and Collin

Endowments are… well, tricky. Their purpose is rarely understood, and even when it is, they exist in this plane just above the purview of the university itself. Chances are you only really hear about the endowment when you come across one of those articles about some massive Ivy League endowment, and you probably don’t even know the dollar amount of your own alma mater’s endowment. 

Nevertheless, it’s not uncommon for the topic to come up within college sports discussions – especially lately, with many schools facing down a multi-million-dollar bill due to the House Settlement. Many have asked why schools don’t simply dip into their multi-million, often billion-dollar endowment to help pay back damages.

Heck, why not also pay student athletes NIL money out of the endowment, too?

Today we’re going to talk about endowments – what they are, what purpose they serve, and whether or not they could be used for paying players or even House Settlement payments.

Become a paying subscriber of NIL Wire All-Access to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.

Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.