A week after announcing a $200 million facilities project, the Texas Tech football team got another boost when the Matador Club said it would sign 100 players to one-year, $25,000 NIL contracts.
All 85 scholarship players and 15 of Texas Tech's walk-ons will be part of the deal, according to a member of the Matador Club.
Campbell said that players will be expected to do community service and charitable work in the Lubbock area, and that payments will begin in the first week of August.
Campbell told the newspaper that the collectives have done many different things. Some of them pay a lot of money to players. People are doing different things. We would like to support the entire program. It's a base salary for the men. They will be able to do any other NIL stuff with anyone. We will encourage and help them to do that.
At the Texas High School Coaches' Association convention on Sunday, first-year Red Raiders coach Joey McGuire told reporters that NIL has the potential to disrupt locker rooms as incoming freshmen or prized recruits may land bigger deals than current players.
It's not at Texas Tech. I don't think that's true. I don't think you can have someone come in and take a snap in red and black. I can't comprehend that. We aren't going to be that. We are going to create some equality in our locker room at Texas Tech. That is important to me.
Texas law states that schools cannot be involved in NIL deals. Campbell said the club hired an NCAA attorney when setting up the collective and that it will adhere to NCAA rules that don't allow NIL deals to be used as recruiting inducements.
A lot of people are violating that rule. We aren't going to do it. We won't be playing that game. I am certain that when every player on our roster gets $25,000, it will be known that Texas Tech has a good NIL program that will be appealing to recruits, but we are not going to make any promises on the front end. We won't break any rules.
It's going to be interesting to see if the impact of NIL will cause problems in the locker room.
Many coaches are going to have to deal with that. Some recruits will not have played. This recruit has this if your left tackle has been starting. I won't have to go to Texas Tech. It's not going to happen.
Monthly payments will be made by the club. Campbell said that football is just the beginning.
Private funders have funded the Matador Club. We are ready to sign the contracts with the football team because we have done well. Men's basketball and baseball will be moving forward in the next few months.