In the early weeks after the NCAA began allowing college athletes to monetize their name, image and likeness, IU basketball players Miller Kopp and Tamar Bates drove 35 miles east to Columbus, Ind. to do a meet and greet with fans at a carpet store.
It was one of the first NIL events that generated buzz involving Indiana players. Hardly a $30 million shoe deal, but this whole brave new world had to start somewhere.
Weeks earlier in 2021, a pair of podcasters known as Eric Pankowski and Ward Roberts decided to pounce on an opportunity to help IU athletes while raising their profiles by entering an at the time cottage industry known as NIL collectives.
By all accounts several IU athletes received money from the “Hoosier Hysterics” NIL collective that shared the same name as their podcast. The order or magnitude has never been clear, but we aren’t talking about pennies here either.
Fans sent in cash, and multiple IU players were named “Hoosier Hysterics Ambassadors,” a title that ostensibly didn’t entail much beyond a couple social media posts, and perhaps a podcast appearance. All good.
But the combination of the founders and their podcast made this collective unlike any of the others in college athletics.
There were a lot of questions, and let’s be clear, concerns, behind the scenes about this duo.
That’s the whole point here. Pankowski and Roberts are no doubt well intended, fine individuals. But it is their judgment as influencers — optically from the inside of IU Athletics — that has been called into question time and again. And when you blur the lines between podcasters and the inner-circle, it is reasonable to start asking questions.
You’re probably aware of some of those lapses in judgment, they are well documented. And they include the podcast, which was often used to criticize the very coaches and programs the hosts say the collective was formed to support.
So why exactly was Indiana allowing these two such close access to their programs?
One person I spoke to from within the IU Athletics department a couple years ago made a comment that went something like this.
“We’re being very cautious about doing anything to come between players getting NIL deals right now as long as they follow the rules.”
That made sense. In the early days of NIL, when players were still driving to carpet stores, every penny counted.
So IU didn’t get in the way of the Hysterics.
But they didn’t sit back and watch either.
By the spring of 2022, a new collective was formed called Hoosiers for Good. Their initial deals involved 14 IU athletes and half a million dollars. Subsequent classes and payouts would be much larger.
Soon thereafter, a second NIL related organization called Hoosiers Connect was formed. Both organizations had boards with recognizable names, full-time staff, and reported regularly on their activities. In addition to several million dollars in contributions, they’ve been part of events and promotions that also raised more funds well into the seven figures.
And then IU began to roll-out impossible to ignore branding. If you’ve been to an IU Athletics event in the last two years, you’ve probably encountered signs, videos and announcements introducing you to Hoosiers for Good and Hoosiers Connect, the official collectives of Indiana Athletics.
That’s when it become very clear where IU wanted NIL contributions to go, and Hoosiers for Good and Hoosiers Connect soon seemed to dwarf the Hysterics collective operation into what now seems reasonable to conclude is relative insignificance. More on that in a minute.
But Pankowski and Roberts didn’t stop at just running the collective and their podcast.
The pair also helped to create an entire weekend of events aimed at raising NIL funds. Each August for the last few years they’ve played a primary role in operating a fan festival, fantasy camp and golf outing. That weekend, at least as a concept, made sense. It’s a good idea.
But last week it also became clear that weekend of events, at least as formerly constructed, was no longer on the right side of IU Athletics’ cost/benefit analysis. On their podcast, Pankowski and Roberts announced that Mike Woodson had canceled the weekend. Their side of the story is that Woodson was unhappy with criticisms of him voiced on the podcast during a disappointing 19-14 season.
But much like the collective space, it doesn’t seem like IU has canceled the weekend without a plan.
The events are fungible. That is, they could be operated by anyone. And there’s really no reason to allow people at times critical of IU with a history of questionable judgment to be involved.
IU basketball is the main attraction after all, not the event organizers. That might be the most important point here. And IU Athletics can and should ensure that when it comes to NIL, they are being represented in a positive light. IU canceled an NIL collective, after all, not a media outlet.
As NIL activities trend in-house, it seems that’s where IU is headed with fan events as well. On Friday, Hoosiers Connect announced they’ll have upcoming events and podcast episodes featuring interaction with the current Indiana players. There’s probably a better way to do a live fan event beyond what we’ve seen the last few years anyway — a production that seemed like a second Hoosier Hysteria. A road show where the players meet and greet fans in cities like Evansville, Indianapolis and Fort Wayne would likely be much better received.
And there is even more coming that will allow Indiana to be selective about who they choose to associate with in the NIL space. Coming next year are expected payments directly from schools as part of a revenue sharing arrangement with the NCAA. This is going to meaningfully lift the floor of what every Indiana basketball player receives financially.
Already this spring, Indiana basketball demonstrated loud and clear they have access to a significant NIL war chest when they signed one of the top transfer portal classes in the nation.
And now the message seems obvious. Indiana has robust NIL operations, and the Hysterics’ NIL efforts are not a meaningful part of the formula. That’s the only logical conclusion to draw from last week’s events. In the NIL era, IU simply would not be able to afford to cancel the Hysterics if they played a significant role in the financial equation going forward.
And the Hysterics decision last week to put Mike Woodson on blast, and make him look like a fool for more than an hour on a podcast only served to amplify that the fourth-year IU head coach made the right decision to move on from them.
Podcast hosts criticizing a basketball coach is perfectly fine. And Woodson has done plenty to justify much of it.
But when those hosts also try to play a role in the NIL space, and gain all the access that entails, the expectations change. That was the fatal flaw here.
Pankowski and Roberts might be hysterical IU fans, but with privileges and responsibilities that go beyond their microphones, they put themselves above the IU basketball program one too many times.
And Woodson’s actions make it abundantly clear — the cost of associating with them far exceeded the benefits.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- Find us on Facebook: thedailyhoosier
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
