Tulane AD Troy Dannen , fresh off his school’s victory in the American Athletic Conference’s football championship game (and a ticket to a New Year’s Six bowl in Arlington), had some strong comments from his seat on the IAF panel.
- On companies coming into the college space to be part of NIL: “I don’t trust anyone outside the enterprise. And when I say I don’t trust, I’m not sure anybody understands what the enterprise really is from the outside until you get on the inside of it. And there may be some warts and some ills, but ... I worry about the people that we’re allowing to provide direction to the enterprise, don’t understand the core of what we’re trying to accomplish and what our mission and goals are.”
- On NIL: “I hope, and I’m not convinced we will, but I hope we’ve learned a lesson from what happened with NIL. There was a lot of work done, and I think some good plans done, and we as an enterprise did not follow through and get that done. And instead, we basically let state legislatures create an infrastructure for us. And we ended up with how many different infrastructures?”
- On Congressional action on NIL: “I worry to death about a strategy of waiting for the government to bail us out. It may be the only solution, but I don’t know when that’s ever been a solution for any enterprise, for any business, for anyone. I word to death what’s going to happen with state legislatures. They just got a taste of empowerment through NIL. What’s next? My fear is we’ve lost control and now how do we get it back? (I hope) we learn the lessons from NIL, and what happens when you lose control and you give it to someone outside of the enterprise. .. I hope we learn from that and address the next issue with a little more forward thinking.”
