College basketball’s NIL era has quickly become one of the most disruptive forces in the global basketball market.
In this Slappin’ Glass Deep Dive, Eric Fawcett sits down with Kevin Sweeney, college basketball and NBA Draft writer for Sports Illustrated, to unpack what NIL money really looks like inside the modern college game, how schools are building rosters, and why the American college system is now pulling players from Europe and other international markets at a level that is reshaping the sport.
Sweeney breaks down the current NIL spending ranges across college basketball, from Final Four contenders operating with payrolls that can reach $20 million-plus, to mid-major programs using targeted spending to compete for league titles and NCAA Tournament bids. He also explains why international recruiting has become such a major part of roster building, how college programs are evaluating European talent, and where the process still has major blind spots.
The conversation also gets into the uncertainty around NCAA eligibility rules for international players, the sustainability of NIL spending, and why roster evaluation now requires a deeper understanding of translatable skills, role fit, personality, learning style, and reliable intel.
For coaches, scouts, executives, and anyone trying to understand where the basketball talent market is headed, this episode offers a clear look inside one of the most important shifts happening in the game today.
What You’ll Learn
- What NIL spending looks like across different levels of college basketball, from Final Four contenders to mid-major programs.
- Why European and international players have become such a major target for NCAA programs.
- How NIL has changed the global basketball market and put college basketball in direct competition with professional leagues.
- Why international recruiting still has major evaluation gaps, especially around player intel, role fit, and translatable skills.
- What the NCAA’s recent eligibility guidance could mean for older international players entering college basketball.
- Why the best roster builders are looking beyond scoring and placing more value on players who can defend, connect, cut, space, and impact winning without needing the ball.
Transcript
Eric Fawcett 00:00
If you were a team going into the season that is really looking to compete for a Final Four championship, what range of NIL do you think that you need?
Kevin Sweeney 00:08
I would say the floor is probably in the $13 to $15 million range and the ceiling in that is probably closer to $25 million.
Generally speaking, you will not find a player that you are signing to be a starter at the high major level, making less than an NBA 2A conference.
Dan Krikorian 00:35
Welcome to Slapping Glass and this special edition deep dive. One of the biggest changes to the world basketball market is the implementation of name, image and likeness money, NIL, entering the American college basketball scene. On the high end, the NIL has made top American college conferences the highest paying leagues in the world outside of the NBA and even some of the smaller conferences well outpaced many quality professional leagues in Europe.
To get deeper insight into the market, we’re bringing on Kevin Sweeney, a college basketball and NBA draft writer for Sports Illustrated who recently won the U.S. Basketball Writers Association 2026 Rising Star Award, covering the transfer portal, international recruiting and high school recruiting among many other elements of the sport. Sweeney is as connected as it gets in this space and there’s no one better to explain the college basketball financial landscape and its effect on the greater basketball world. Today’s deep dive is led by Slapping Glass’s Eric Fawcett, so let’s dive in.
Eric Fawcett 01:40
Kevin, NIL hasn’t just changed basketball in America, it’s really changed the basketball market around the world, and we are really excited to have you on to help make sense of it. Thank you so much for being here.
Kevin Sweeney 01:51
Yeah, excited about it, Eric. Thanks for having me. All right, let’s-
Eric Fawcett 01:53
get right into it. When it comes to talking about player salaries, any time numbers are referenced, there’s always some skepticism.
How do you go about establishing numbers? And do you think that in the market, salaries are more readily known than what media and fans seem to think?
Kevin Sweeney 02:09
I think it’s funny because I would have said last year or the year before, there were a ton of numbers that essentially went completely unreported. No one talked about them.
And now I think it’s almost gotten worse because media and fans are talking about them more, and there’s more misinformation. There’s more stuff that’s coming from second and third hand sources. Yeah, it’s an incredibly unique landscape in the sense that there isn’t one database or one set of information that states 100 percent, here’s what a guy makes. And it’s also difficult because the devil is so much in the details, especially once you get to some of these higher dollar deals, the guys who are making four or five, six million dollars in college basketball. Some of those, you could say that guy makes five million and that guy makes six million, and both would be correct technically, because sometimes the contract will backstop a certain amount of third-party marketing dollars. That’s something that schools have done that essentially that the contract structure is not as standard as it would be in a professional basketball league, where, okay, if you make 20 million dollars, you make 20 million dollars. It’s not necessarily like that in college. And so there’s a lot of misinformation out there.
I would say for me, you know, collecting as much data as possible is incredibly important. I think it’s something that everyone in college basketball now, especially those who are in sort of GM type roles, have really started to pick up more aggressively, is trying to keep track of the market and keep pace of what’s going on on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis, especially as things come through in the portal.
And I think as best you can, you try to lean on the relationships that you have to get as good at information as possible. I try to bounce numbers off multiple sources. You know, I’m not usually in the business of publishing numbers that guys make individually, but I still need to know. And so, you know, ideally it’s someone from the staff that’s making the offer. Maybe there’s someone from the agent side that negotiated the deal. And then you obviously hear numbers that are often inflated from the schools that lost out on the kid. That is definitely a very real fact in this. And so trying to understand that, yeah, like there’s lots of reasons why people don’t want the real number out there or have been told a fake number and are then passing it along. Yeah, that’s definitely challenging. And it’s a big reason why I think the market is difficult to wrap your head around, even for schools that are in it every day, because there’s just a lack of real vetted information and you’re working off of the stuff you’re able to gather kind of through second and third hand information.
Eric Fawcett 04:38
That does remind me a lot about the European market, where a lot of professional leagues don’t have published established salaries, and that probably is a good transition to talking about European recruiting. I think that that’s going to be something we talk about a lot today, also while talking about NIL.
The NCAA going to these markets, looking for players, has really upended a lot of the way that basketball development and basketball markets have looked in Europe. So why do you think coaches are looking to Europe and other regions of the world for talent right now?
Kevin Sweeney 05:05
I think the simplest answer is that it’s the only way to expand the pool. If you only recruit American high school players and American transfers, you are competing with the entirety of division one. There is no hidden gem that is playing on the EYBL circuit. And maybe you just win the evaluation, but like every coach has seen this guy play, every staff should have heard of the player if they’re playing EYBL, or if you’re at a high major school, if you’re recruiting like a mid major up transfer, this guy averaged 15 points a game in, I don’t know, the Missouri Valley. Everyone knows about this guy.
Whereas I think in Europe and throughout the world, not just Europe, you know, I think we’ve seen some expansion in South America and Asia and Australia. Certainly that’s been a very tapped market over the years. I think it just gives you an opportunity to recruit a player that everybody else isn’t looking at. And that has gotten caught up to because of the agents and how aggressively they’re now marketing their players to colleges. But to me, like that’s the core of it. There’s a lot of other factors. I think schools appreciate that they’re getting a guy that’s played professionally. In many cases, you know, I talked to a school that had recruited a player from Europe who had played at a very high level. And he basically said that the player was sort of demoralized when he got to America and experienced the fact that like his teammates didn’t attack each day with sort of the mindset and professionalism that he was used to playing in Europe. And so I think schools value that.
I think they value the European style of player now that’s very obviously general. But like teams want size, they want skill, they want guys who’ve been coached. Like the Europe in particular has become a very real market for that. And then I think at the end of the day, like the big man market in particular has become very global and part of that, I think that you see that in the NBA, you see that in every league in the world, but I think college is no different. There’s just not enough good six foot 10 and above players to go around.
So that becomes the clearest market where, Hey, like we just need more names to consider, but I think you see it across positions. And at the end of the day, I think a lot of it just does come down to, there aren’t enough really excellent players for all the spots that are available. And so schools want to have any avenue possible to find more talent and Europe and really global recruiting has become a big part of that.
Eric Fawcett 07:24
You just touched on this briefly, but I am curious. There’s always a lot of discussion about the difference in American basketball development versus European basketball development. And many people have very strong opinions on that.
I know I’m asking you to make quite a generalization here between a lot of the coaches that you talk to and a lot of the players you encounter. But are they saying that there is some difference in skill or basketball IQ or coachability? I know you just mentioned a particular instance with kind of professionalism, but are there differences that coaches are talking about between these typical American players and some of these international talent they’re bringing in?
Kevin Sweeney 08:01
Yeah, I think it’s hard to make too many generalizations there. I do think that in many cases, guys appreciate the brand of basketball that guys have played overseas, like guys who really know how to cut, guys who have higher IQ. I think you feel that, but that does sometimes get neutralized by the fact that college basketball is a very different game.
And you’re making so many other adjustments kind of lifewise, being around kind of exclusively English speakers moving to a different country, you know, being in a college environment versus a professional one. In many cases, that has neutralized maybe some of the edges that quote unquote pros coming over to college have had. So I don’t know that it’s necessarily a night and day shift. But I think it’s probably more so like the style of play and guys understanding, spacing, cutting, that they aren’t forced to learn in the American high school or American AAU system in some cases.
Eric Fawcett 08:53
So you mentioned that when it comes to recruiting international players, it’s about expanding the pool of talent that’s available.
So what effect has international recruiting had on traditional high school recruiting in America?
Kevin Sweeney 09:05
Yeah, I think it’s one of the many blows, right? I don’t know that it’s a one-for-one of, oh, well, every 22-year-old guy in the ACB that gets recruited to college basketball is taking one spot away from an 18-year-old that’s playing in, you know, Iowa high school basketball, right? I don’t know that it’s a one-to-one in that regard, but I think it’s one of the many hits, right? I think at the end of the day, number one, schools don’t have the patience to be on a two, three, four-year development plan with a player anymore because they often don’t feel like the fruits of that labor will be rewarded with them, right?
Like why am I going to invest two years of developing a player that we think has long-term upside if he’s going to get impatient after two years in transfer? Or we’re going to get impatient and not see it right away and then we’re going to run them off, right? And then there’s certainly, that certainly cuts both ways. So I think the European market, particularly with the rise of some of the older pros that are coming over to college right now, which I think is somewhat transient, right? Like I think at the end of the day, as college basketball establishes itself as the highest paying league for young talent in the world outside of the NBA, there will not be, you know, troves of 22 and 23-year-olds in Europe wanting to come over for one or two years of college, right? Those guys will have come to college basketball earlier or they will be completely off the college books for good. Like they’ll make that decision at 19 or 20 and then, you know, have their three and four years of money-making potential in college basketball. So I don’t know that that’s necessarily going to be a huge thing long-term, but right now I do think that’s probably hurt high school kids more than anything is just, you know, you added a few extra essentially grad transfers into the market. You know, these guys have a year or two of eligibility, they’re older, they’re game ready. I think when you’re comparing a, you know, long-term when it’s 19-year-old Spanish kid versus 19-year-old Florida kid, that will just be like, who’s the better player who wins out? And, you know, the only difference from that five years ago versus now is that the money makes it more attractive for the best of the best 19-year-olds in Spain and France and Australia, et cetera, to come to college versus try to grow in a professional system in Europe.
Eric Fawcett 11:18
So, speaking about payments, I did want to discuss this, particularly for some of our international listeners who might have heard the term name, image, and likeness, the money that is being paid to players referred to as name, image, and likeness, or NIL for short. What does NIL mean and what does NIL mean functionally when it comes to paying players?
Kevin Sweeney 11:38
Okay, so the 30,000 foot view is that college basketball programs cannot enter into a contract with a basketball player for their basketball playing services, because that would make them employees of the college, and that would essentially blow up a, you know, several, you know, decade-long system that impacts so many things. And it impacts, to be clear, it doesn’t just impact, oh, what would it mean for the basketball team? What would happen to the, you know, volleyball team? It impacts, like, graduate students who, like, TA a class that might impact, like, essentially, the university system is not really built to have basketball players be employees.
And so because of that, we have built this workaround through NIL that allows schools to pay gobs of money to athletes without them being classified as employees, and without directly saying, we are paying this player to be here and score 20 points a game, right? So there’s two categories to that. There’s revenue sharing, which started this past year in 2025 as a result of a legal settlement. That is direct school funding to the player. That is the player gets a check from the institution or from an intermediary of the institution. And that is a somewhat capped number based on a limit set in a courtroom, the limit’s like $20 million, but that’s for all the sports at a school. So at football schools, schools that spend, you know, think about, like, the big national college football brands, the Alabama’s, the Texas’s, Ohio State, et cetera, they’re spending close to the $20 million, if not well over the $20 million, just on their football team. So they have to get creative and get over the cap. And I would say the vast majority of schools at the high major level in college basketball, the power conferences, they are spending over the cap. And that’s where the second wave of it is, that, quote unquote, true NIL. And there have been many forms of this that has changed by the year. But essentially that is schools and or their intermediaries creating marketing opportunities for the players that allow them to make, again, in many cases, six, seven figures of additional income. And just to be clear on that, none of these players have seven figures of marketing value to the university beyond the fact that they are playing basketball for the university. They don’t have seven figures of marketing value for, like, the local pizza place or the car dealership in 99 percent of cases, if not higher. But the NCAA has very difficult times enforcing these rules and trying to put a cap on spending. And so essentially the situation we’ve ended up in is a world where schools largely without restriction can write these contracts that are essentially booster backed. So the people that have been donating the money for decades to, like, build a new arena or fund the coaches contract extension. Now those people are also writing a check to say, hey, we really want to power forward this year, right? We really need to go get this big name player and paying seven figures potentially to do that for the highest end of college basketball.
Dan Krikorian 14:42
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Eric Fawcett 15:51
I think it’s a great transition into some real conversation here about what the market is going into the 2026, 2027 season. This is one of the reasons I wanted to have you on.
So I’m going to ask you for a couple of ranges for different kind of styles of teams. These can be quick hitters, or you can put in as much detail as you want. So let’s just go through a couple of different kind of levels of the sport and give people an idea of what the market is in terms of total NIL or total salary pool, whatever you want to say. So if you were a team going into the season that is really looking to compete for a Final Four championship, what range of NIL do you think that you need?
Kevin Sweeney 16:31
I would say the floor is probably in the $13 million to $15 million range, and the ceiling in that is probably closer to $25 million. Twenty is probably about the midpoint or slightly above midpoint of the top 15-ish teams in college basketball right now.
Is it what I would ballpark it? I know there was a remark from Sean Miller, who’s the head coach at Texas for those unacquainted. Sean Miller said that there was 20 teams with a $20 million payroll. My sources would say it’s probably closer to 10, but that is the range we’re talking in. There are double-digit schools in college basketball committing $20 million just to their men’s basketball payroll.
Eric Fawcett 17:14
Just while we give people a chance to soak that in, let’s talk about what if you were a middle of the pack high major team, maybe a team that is hopeful to make the NCAA tournament, but it’s not a sure thing. What kind of range would you be looking at for those types of teams?
Kevin Sweeney 17:28
I think the target number for those has settled in around $10 million. And to give everyone an idea of where that’s grown from, $10 million was probably around the mark where you would have said that team’s super committed to making a final four this past season.
And now this coming season, $10 million was sort of the, if you’re serious about making the tournament, you got to get to 10 or close to it.
Eric Fawcett 17:52
So it’s not just the high major teams that are putting in big money. There’s a lot of mid-major teams that are plucking some very good players from Europe, paying them a lot and looking to win their league.
So if you were a really good mid-major in a one-bid league, maybe one that could be an 11 or 12 or maybe 13 seed in the NCAA tournament, what are some of the ranges for those teams?
Kevin Sweeney 18:12
So I’m going to give you some tiers if that helps. So there’s probably, there’s like three to four leagues that I would describe as like mid plus or high minus, and those are leagues that have often gotten multiple bids to the NCAA tournament, but it’s hard. I think you hear somewhere in the three to $5 million roster range for those teams, a couple of them, you know, sprinkle above, you know, really strong basketball of tradition brands, you know, whether that’s like a Gonzaga of VCU, a St. Louis under Josh Hertz, they’ve gotten over that threshold as well. But I would say in general, a lot of those schools are hoping to get to like that three to $5 million range.
And then some of the best teams in leagues that are very likely to only get one bid, those budgets, I think you hear a significant range, but anywhere from, you know, high six figures, so let’s say 750 up to at most probably 2 million, but you hear a lot in like, Oh, we had 1.2 or 1.5 to spend for the year. And that’s good enough to potentially build, I would say like a top 100 type of team, again, a team that has no chance to get in that large bid in the NCAA tournament, but could potentially win a game in the tournament if they can get in by winning their conference tournament.
Eric Fawcett 19:25
This is going to be kind of the widest range. You can answer it however you like, but I think a lot of European coaches, when they lose a player to a high major league, high major team, I think that they kind of understand what the money is there and the opportunity that is there. But I think a lot of European coaches are a little bit more surprised where they maybe lose a young guy to a team that’s in that 150 to 250 range in college basketball. That’s been the kind of surprise to a lot of coaches.
So what would a team that’s, again, in one of these mid-major leagues that’s still a one-bid league, not in that upper range, you’re talking about, but still some team that’s hoping to finish between 150th and 250th. I’ll remind people there’s 365 Division I teams, I believe, going into this year. So even these teams that are right in the middle of the pack might be a school that a lot of people in Europe haven’t heard of, but that are pulling some players. What kind of range would they be dealing with in terms of salary?
Kevin Sweeney 20:23
I think the thing that’s important to note with teams as you get lower in the spectrum of Division I is that you’re probably not necessarily operating with a true roster budget where every player is making some money and you’re going to spread around your resources. Those schools, especially, again, as you get towards the mid to low majors in college basketball, those teams, they’re going to probably really heavily invest resources in two to three guys, and then the rest of their roster may only get a cost of attendance check, which is $5,000 a semester, something like that. Those budgets could be anywhere from that $750 range we were talking about all the way down to $300,000 to $400,000 probably would be that kind of sweet spot. I’d say below that, you’re talking about teams that don’t have a ton of hope of being particularly good, but yeah, somewhere in that mid to high six-figure range is not unrealistic for those schools. And again, it’s not necessarily as simple as, oh, well, if they have 10 players and they have a $500,000 budget, well, everybody makes $50,000. I think in most cases, you’d be hoping you may have two guys that make $150,000 and two guys that make $60,000, and then the rest are just kind of making a couple of scraps. That’s important for people to understand.
And then also just the reality that there’s an opportunity that’s sold at a lot of those schools of coming and then using your multiple years in college. And so using that as a jumping off point, the hope I think, in many cases, is that your market value is stronger and you have a more wide range of options going to high major basketball or even the Atlantic tennis or something like that. If you have proven production in a lower division one league versus a European league that may well be even better competition, then that’s mostly a statement of how NCAA coaches can recruit at times. And just, I think when you’re making these types of investments, you want a level of certainty. You want something you’ve seen before. And so because some of these pipelines are so new, I do think that there’s been some skepticism from the biggest coaches who’d like to see a guy prove it at a lower level of division one before bouncing up to the highest ranks.
Eric Fawcett 22:28
So you said something earlier, you referenced players that might be making five or six million dollars and some coaches may have heard that and just thought you might have been exaggerating. But when it comes to range for individual players, can you maybe mention what a returning all-American like top of the sport player might be looking to make?
What may be a high major starter in one of those kind of range that is hoping to make the NCAA tournament and maybe a starter at one of those mid-major plus kind of levels to just talk about these ranges. Now, just as you think about that, Kevin, I’ll remind people as well that often when we’re talking about salaries in Europe, the numbers are going to be net after taxes. And you can correct me if I’m wrong, but these numbers referenced will not be net. This will be before taxes.
Kevin Sweeney 23:13
they will not be net. Although, and again, this, this tells you like the crazy world we’re operating in. There are some states that have tried to make NIL earnings tax exempt to make their schools, you know, to make state, you have a better chance of recruiting. One of those things you could have never predicted hearing five years ago, but, but here we are all American, all conference level players. I think you hear sort of anywhere from at the floor, probably $3 million again, a proven high major, you know, all American type is floor would be three, you know, ceiling is probably like six to seven. There may be one or two guys that end up a little bit above that. Again, in those cases, they’re players that have real marketing value beyond just their basketball ability. And so sometimes the numbers you hear are a weird meld of serious NIL versus, um, sort of fake NIL to make sure that the player gets paid. Right. And so, you know, you think about someone like a Thomas Houk, uh, who’s the superstar of Florida who’s coming back. He was going to be a potential lottery pick. He could end up earning, you know, maybe closer to 10 million, but you know, in terms of what is the school paying to get his signature to come back, that would be a little bit lower than that. Probably more in like that seven range. So that’s the general feel for those guys.
High major starters, I would say, yeah, somewhere in like the 750 to 2 million range. I know it’s a very wide range, so I apologize. The price safe bet would be in the ones. I would say, generally speaking, you will not find a player that you are signing to be a starter in college basketball right now at the high major level. You know, some guys might emerge and have better season than you expect. Guys, you are signing with the direct, like we have you as our starting center or our starting small forward. You will not find guys at the high major level making less than an NBA to a contract. Like it just, it’d be very, it’s very rare to think of even like a fifth starter type. You’re going to hear, you know, seven, eight, 900, maybe 1.1 million, something like that. Yeah. And then the upper level starters, yeah, could be in the twos, could be up to like maybe low threes. If it’s a position of need, you know, the center position in particular, the numbers just got out of control this cycle. Like there’s no way of putting it other than like guys who had poor disappointing seasons, doubled their salaries from a year ago at the center spot. There just wasn’t enough good centers to go around. Again, there’s still some pretty significant earning opportunities at some of the mid majors, mid plus type programs. Again, like the Atlantic 10, the Mountain West, not at all rare to hear a guy in like that three to 600,000 range to be a starter there. And again, a proven returning guy in that league that maybe would have a high major opportunity. There’ll be a few guys at that level that make an into the seven figures and make a million.
Eric Fawcett 25:58
So I think for a lot of people from Europe or internationally hearing all these numbers for team salaries, what players are making, they’re gonna see it and say like, wow, this is EuroLeague and beyond. This is a lot of teams in America that are spending EuroLeague level money or well beyond that.
So the next thing I kind of think about is the fact that many of the top paying clubs in Europe operated a deficit. What kind of revenue are these college programs generating relative to the NIL expenditure and the cost of running these programs? And how do these programs and the private donors that help out, how do they justify this spend?
Kevin Sweeney 26:32
Yeah, it’s sort of the million dollar question, right? Because I do think every year we go through these cycles of man, so much money was just spent in the market. And then the next several months, all you hear from coaches and athletic directors, people involved this, man, this is an unsustainable rate that we’re spending. We can’t afford to do this.
And then they turn around and spend more the next year. And in many cases, significantly more, 50% more than they did a year ago. So I tweeted an article, I can share it, for those that are interested. There was an article that was essentially the revenue for high major schools. I think only 10 high major teams as of two years ago were making $30 plus million in revenue directly to their men’s basketball program. So when you’re talking about a team potentially spending $20 million on a payroll, that the math doesn’t work, right? Like no basketball team anywhere in the world is spending 65% of their income on payroll. Now, one thing to importantly note there, oftentimes the TV deals that the schools have, those don’t directly get attributed to revenue because that’s like an athletic department wide pot. So we can’t say if a school makes $50 million from TV, it’s hard to separate and say, well, 40 million of that was football and eight was men’s basketball and two is women. So saying exactly what these programs are making is kind of a hard thing to totally define. But I would say generally speaking, there is a real need to tap into donors and hope that people quite frankly, who are willing to lose money every year on throwing money at the basketball team to make it win without a clear return on investment, right? That the guy who’s cutting these checks isn’t getting a cut of the ticket revenue, they’re doing it because they love their school. And so how sustainable is that? I don’t know, but that’s definitely a huge part of how these dollar figures have continued to go up.
But yeah, you hear, I mean, even at the biggest schools, I know there was an article recently that did pretty big traction that Louisville, which is getting a blue blood, like a top 20 program in college basketball, their athletic department’s $30 million in debt. Well, they’re turning around and spending, they’re one of those teams that’s in that like $20 million roster range, right? So they’re spending at the top of the sport, even if their department is in the red, that’s the reality. No one is slowing down their spending to accommodate for the fact that, yeah, like they could be losing money right now, they’re just revving up and hoping to win more and climb out of that with donations.
And so where this lands in a few years, I think is very much an open question. If you told me that budgets are higher next year, I won’t be surprised at this point, I probably would expect that, but I don’t know where that money’s coming from, but I didn’t know where this year’s money was coming from. So it’s a unique situation, that’s for sure.
Eric Fawcett 29:09
Yeah, seeing how much money there is in the game, it’s not a surprise that a lot of these players from international markets are flocking to college basketball, but that flocking of players has confused a lot of coaches. There’s guys in Europe that have lost players that were never kind of called to talk about, well, what is this player’s learning style? What are they like? Are they good enough? So there’s a lot of questions from coaches in Europe that are centered around how does this international recruiting work?
How do they functionally go about identifying and recruiting a player outside of America? And how much homework do they do? Are they talking to coaches? How much do they rely on agents? What does international recruiting look like right now for a lot of NCAA teams?
Kevin Sweeney 29:49
I would say there’s basically two buckets of international recruiting. There are the schools that have invested real resources into evaluating and recruiting Europe fairly comprehensively. And those are the schools that are sending coaches over at nothing else to watch. Maybe the U18 or the U20 euros, you’re making multiple trips a year to Europe. They’re spending time in person with the players that they’re potentially recruiting. They’re watching them in a number of settings. They have a good pulse of the broader landscape of who could be good enough to play for their school, etc. I would say that’s still very much the minority, but it’s something that’s increasing pretty rapidly across college basketball because teams are making these investments.
So that’s one category. I think the larger category right now are the teams that are recruiting Europe very much on a case-by-case basis. They’re relying heavily on an agent that is essentially shopping players to them. And quite frankly, they’re usually not doing a ton of legwork or homework. These are guys who are recruiting Europe as a last resort. They’re the teams that struck out in the transfer portal. They didn’t get the center they wanted or the point guard they wanted, or they need to fill in a couple bodies at the end of their bench. And an agent calls them with a player, quite frankly, with a deal that sometimes is too good to be true. Here’s this guy. He’s playing at such a high level. He’s doing this X, Y, and Z. He’s putting up these numbers. You really should recruit them. And these agents have done a great job of pitching their clients. There’s a lot of talk domestically in America here. And I think anyone who’s waded into the college ecosystem has seen this, of, oh, man, these agents are taking a huge chunk of the player’s money. They’re taking 10, 15, 20 percent of what the player makes. It’s too much. It’s theft. I will tell you, there are some agents that are earning their 20 percent because they are jacking up the price on these schools that essentially have not done the homework and have not done the work. They’re getting sold a bill of goods, in many cases, in my opinion. So, yeah, I think there’s two categories of that. I do think there is a level of awkwardness that, you know, college coaches deal with. It’s not customary for college teams to openly talk about recruiting another team’s players when you’re competing against each other, right? There’s a ton of, quote unquote, tampering where schools are in contact with players before they transfer. But in spite of that, you would never, in, I don’t know, February, during the season, if you’re at Illinois, you’re not going to call the head coach at Bradley and say, hey, you know, I really see your point guards having a great year. I would be interested. Can you give me a sense before the portal opens? What he’s like as a player, et cetera. That conversation would never happen until the player has announced he’s going in the portal, announced he’s leaving.
Kevin Sweeney 32:27
And I think because in Europe, like, there isn’t like a, a player may have made his intent somewhat clear that he’s coming over, but it’s, you know, they’re usually still within their season. We don’t need announcements of like where they’re going or even that they’re exploring their college options until the season ends.
So I think because of that, coaches, especially since they don’t have the relationship existing with the European coach or the European trainers, things like that, they don’t have the same willingness to make those calls. And so, again, a lot of things do end up flowing through just kind of what the agent tells them. I do know that international scouts for NBA teams have become a very big resource that NCAA teams tap into, people that they have relationships with, that spend a lot of time over there, that give their kind of quick hit thoughts on a guy. College coaches do really tap into their network of former players. That’s something you hear about a lot is a school calling someone that played for them or someone that played for a friend and say, hey, you know, I know you played against this guy. You play with this guy. Can you give me some background? So they’re not going in completely blind, but I do think there is a pretty significant gap as you sort of alluded to, Eric, of schools not getting the full picture and not talking to all the people that really spend the most time with the player because they’re worried about the perception of kind of stealing away a promising talent or that by telling them that the club is going to move into a position of trying to block the player from coming to the States.
Eric Fawcett 33:46
So I think something that really surprised a lot of people about the influx of international players to college basketball is the eligibility piece. A lot of players that entered the U.S. market that probably a couple of years ago, people wouldn’t have even thought that this 21, 22, 23 year old player that has a number of years of experience in a good European league, they probably just didn’t think that guy would be able to get eligible in the NCAA.
There was recent news from the NCAA who issued guidance to schools regarding international players and eligibility. You wrote about this at length at Sports Illustrated. So can you explain the NCAA statement and what that could mean for some of these international players moving forward?
Kevin Sweeney 34:24
Yeah, traditionally, the rule had been that players can’t make above necessary expenses on a professional team and then come to college basketball. So the guidance states in part that if you put on a team in a league that has a minimum salary above necessary expenses, so that could potentially rule out the Euro League, lowest level salary in the Euro League is, I think, 50,000 euros, that would eliminate you from being able to play college basketball. Now, that causes all sorts of problems, most notably because schools have already made these investments in players based on the way the rules were enforced, guys who were playing in Euro League could come over. There’s also guys that were probably making below that 50,000 euro threshold that were largely part of the youth team that got a call up or two that played a handful of minutes on the senior team. Those guys now, all of a sudden, could be ineligible.
We don’t really know how the NCAA is going to handle all of this, but my understanding and from reading the statements of some of the people that were involved in some of this rulemaking, the real pushback was against some of these guys that are coming over at 22, 23, 24 years of age, trying to play one or two years of college. They’re spinning the clock backwards. They’re going from pro to college. The NCAA does not like that. They’re trying to put that in reverse. My feeling, again, as I sort of mentioned before, this is a pretty transient situation. Guys get caught in the middle of rule changes. Let’s just give it a couple of years, and we’ll have a more traditional system where guys don’t wait until they’re 22 or 23 to come over. That is the possibility hanging over everyone’s head that a significant portion of the players, certainly the high profile ones that are committing to colleges that have signed these million dollar or high six figure deals with colleges, that they could be ruled ineligible, not make it through the NCAA Clearinghouse. That has caused quite a bit of concern around the college landscape because, again, teams made significant decisions. I know Jonathan Gavoni, who spends a ton of time scouting Europe with Draft Express, he tweeted that I think half of the top 25, at least one starter, is a guy that theoretically could be in jeopardy. I don’t think that’s an inaccurate framing. Yes, certainly more to come there. My general feeling remains that guys will be able to play. My general philosophy would be, how dumb would it be that a player couldn’t make, let’s say, 40,000 euros in Probie, France, but they can make 400,000 euros the next year in college basketball with no problem. The logic of that makes no sense, and I think the NCAA will eventually have to reckon with that, but they’re attempting to sort of tighten the rules and how that will impact the European game is pretty unknown.
Eric Fawcett 37:02
OK, Kevin, that was a lot of nuts and bolts business talk. I really enjoyed it, but we’re going to lighten it up here.
OK, we’re going to move to a segment that we call start sub or sit. I’m going to give you three options around a topic, and I’m going to ask you to start one, sub one and sit one. And we’re going to call this one bad gets when recruiting goes wrong. So we’re talking about this through kind of a college lens, but I think it really translates to any pro league where you are recruiting players. So when a team recruits a player, whether internationally from the transfer portal or high school and that player fails to perform, what are the most common contributing factors that lead to this failed marriage and what should coaches look out for? So that’s the topic. I’m going to give you three different options. You’re going to start one, sub one or sit. So the first one is translatable skills that player could perform really well at one level, but when he goes to a different league, probably a better one, the skills don’t translate up. The second one is bad fit. A player doesn’t fit the coach’s style of play. Maybe he doesn’t fit the roster construction. He doesn’t meet the role that’s required. And the third one is bad Intel, whether it’s the players personality or learning style, maybe he’s got off the court issues, but a team didn’t do their homework and didn’t get Intel that would inform them whether that player would be a good match culturally.
Kevin Sweeney 38:21
It’s an interesting question there’s strings to all of them that all kind of tie together I would say I would start translatable skills and I’m gonna be a little bit more broad in that and say I think The biggest area that guys fail evaluating talent for their you know colleges or pro teams is is not talent It’s guys who have a path to providing value without scoring the basketball, right? I think there’s so many examples of teams and yeah This is college where I spend most of my time But I think it’s true across the board of like it’s easy to collect guys that can score that have added value that way Traditionally in their career.
I think finding guys that have proven Utility beyond I have the basketball in my hands or the shot is going through the net I think that is probably the number one reason guys fail much more in my opinion than talent. I’ll do Sub bad Intel and again, I think the Intel piece is often less So oh this guy is a horrible kid or horrible person to deal with as much as it is like a stylistic match You know, there’s been a lot of investment particularly in college basketball about ways to evaluate that You know personality testing who are the right mental fit for their coach I think is huge if you aren’t positioned to be the best version of yourself You’re never gonna perform at the level that you expect and then yeah I would say fit is probably the lowest level the sit if only because I think at the end of the day the best coaches have found ways to Mold and adapt their systems to their best and most talented players And so if a guy doesn’t fit to me it more so ends up in the category oftentimes of translatable skills, right? Like if you’re one of the best players It’s the coach’s fault if they can’t find a way to use you if you’re not one of the best players Then it’s on you to have the translatable skills to fit in
Eric Fawcett 40:06
So you mentioned when talking about translatable skills, the role of what do you do without the basketball? What do you do when you’re not scoring it?
And one of the kind of themes throughout our entire discussion here has been markets. Do you feel like the market has adequately identified and rewarded players who contribute the game in other ways than scoring? Or do you think that that is still a little bit untapped and college teams could do a little bit better at finding some of those players who fill those roles and rewarding them accordingly?
Kevin Sweeney 40:35
Yeah, I think there’s still a lot of adjustment there that colleges need to do a better job of. I think part of that is understanding what archetypes are like hardest to find, right? And quite frankly, there are a ton of guys that can like put the ball in the hoop at six foot one, six foot two that aren’t true point guards. Like you’re finding the guys that elevate their teammates, finding guys again that don’t need the ball, that guard multiple positions that are low ego. I think that’s huge.
That’s definitely still an untapped area. For teams really across the world, probably it’s not unique to college, but I think because in many cases, this is one of the first times that a player, particularly if they’re coming through the traditional kind of American system, that a player has to find ways to add value without scoring the basketball. I think it becomes a lot harder to evaluate and then finding those role players or finding guys that maybe you could add 80% of the value of a guy that’s a multi-million dollar player for 20% of the price.
Eric Fawcett 41:31
And with the bad Intel piece that you subbed, I do like that you kind of touched on something that I like to think about, and it’s almost like the internal versus external evaluation. If you’re trying to figure out if this player’s a good fit, what are the things that you do?
I’ll say internally, like you’re talking to a kid, maybe it’s over Zoom because it’s an international player, or maybe they came on a visit, like what can you glean in those situations? You mentioned personality tests, which a couple of teams have used, and then also kind of the external pieces going through your network and finding people that might be kind of closer to them. Do you feel like teams over index one of those things, like they have a conversation with someone, they feel it went well, and therefore they think they have a good gauge, or do people over index? Well, I know this guy who’s connected with him, and he says it’s a great kid, and I’m just curious what are maybe some best practices you would recommend to a coach in terms of going through this piece of finding out whether a player’s a good fit.
Kevin Sweeney 42:28
I think the biggest thing I would advise is, number one, having a more rigorous process of how you’re evaluating and gathering Intel. I think college teams in particular are so far behind the eight ball in that regard, right? It’s very much a word of mouth game and it’s often very much like, oh, tell this assistant to go make this call and he’ll report back what he says. There’s so much to me that can be done in terms of databases and organization and operational stuff that college teams aren’t doing right now in the recruiting process, they probably should be.
And then I think as much as you can, you know, getting to see the player and the people around the player in as many different settings as possible, ideally less scripted settings, right? You can’t just evaluate the time that it was an official visit and everything should have been great. It can’t just be the Zoom call where he has every reason to be positive and optimistic about the outlook, like he’s trying to get you to pay him $500,000, right? Like finding ways to be around them where they’re more comfortable, where they let their guard down a little bit.
Eric Fawcett 43:25
All of this has been extremely insightful. Thank you so much for your time and your expertise.
To get you out of here, we’ll end on a question we ask all of our guests. What is the best investment that you’ve made in your career?
Kevin Sweeney 43:36
It’s a great question. I’ve been thinking about this since you mentioned it to me. I think the biggest thing, and it’s important probably, and explain like my background. I started doing anything college basketball related just by like tweeting about college basketball. I was a kid in high school that loved it. I wanted to be a part of it in some form or fashion. I had no background in the game. I had no relationships that were going to like buoy me. I had nothing that was like pushing me to people in college basketball. No reason to have met anyone really other than just the fact that like I was tweeting and I was passionate about it.
And I think the biggest investment that I’ve made and I did make over the early part of my career and I still do now is like, you need to do everything that you can to elevate out of being like a circle on someone’s timeline and into like a real person that they can connect with. And for me, that was really investing in going out and being on the road and seeing people in every possible way I could go into practices, going to AAU events and seeing coaches there, making sure people put a face to the name. I’ve found that that investment, especially early on, and I was nervous and out of my comfort zone at times to do it. I remember like chasing college coaches around a gym and like seeing a guy that I had texted before and texting him like, hey, are you at this event? Like knowing that I had seen them already but hoping that they would stop and I could have a real conversation with them. I look back on those and how important those investments of time were. I’d say one of those rewarding things has been some of those relationships that started five, six, seven, eight years ago when I was just getting started doing this and didn’t have a full-time job covering college basketball was just a guy with a blog watching those people rise from low-level assistants to head coaches or low-level head coaches to national champions, things like that. I think that’s been incredible, but there’s nothing that I have done in my career that has been as impactful as just being around and showing face in public and giving myself an opportunity to connect with people on a more personal level than, oh wow, I enjoy what this guy tweets about on a day-to-day basis.