Flying Dutchmen Fans

Regarding our friend Jean Aranguren, mentioned in another thread, I asked ChatGPT "How much does GWU pay its men's basketball players?" This is what it said. Take it for what it's worth:

CHATGPT ANSWER

Estimated earnings for GW men’s basketball players

There are no public salary numbers, but based on typical NIL levels for mid-major programs:

Bench/role players: roughly $1k–$10k per year

Solid starters: roughly $10k–$50k

Star players or transfers: sometimes $50k–$100k+ (rare at schools like GW)

Top programs (Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, etc.) can pay hundreds of thousands or even millions, but GW’s NIL pool is far smaller.

*****

ChatGPT also said this:

Most compensation comes from NIL deals with brands, donors, or fan collectives.

GW has an NIL collective called “Friends of George (FOG)” that raises money from alumni and fans to create paid opportunities for athletes.

Examples of how money flows:

Fans donate monthly (e.g., $50–$100 memberships).

Collectives pool the funds and arrange sponsorships or appearances for players.

Players can also sell things like:

social media promotions

basketball camps or lessons

autographs and appearances

*****

I assume all this NIL money is taxable to the recipient. Like other salaries earned by professional athletes, it should be made public (including agents' fees).

BTW, did you see where St. John's just hired a new "general manager" to negotiate NIL deals with players' agents? It appears there were some "issues," let's call them, with the team's previous GM. Pitino says he has nothing to do with this part of his program.

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/st-jo ... 16287.html

BTW, one of SJU's big donors is Mike Repole, a.k.a. Mr. Vitamin Water:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/nyre ... =url-share

Repole guaranteed St John's NIL $10 million per year if they hired Pitino. They're horse racing buddies from way back.

For all the NIL talk here and in college basketball see how both UNCW and Charleston faired but maybe Towson with all their acquisitions could see them pay off.

Thanks Jojo - yep, all NIL is taxable, as is any of the freebies they get that are over a threshold (few hundred bucks or whatever the IRS says). However, what's actually reported, well now that's another story it's not made public (yet), so there's certainly some finagling going on.

That sounds about right for GW - probably not 100% accurate, but those numbers sound fair to me for a mid major. Top mid talent will make six figures. Top P2 talent will make 7. The rest will make a few bucks.

As for Jean, that's not really the kind of money that's worth bouncing. 100 or 200 or whatever then after taxes for a year isn't changing lives. He should've stayed. Unless there were other factors involved behind the scenes for the move to make sense, which there very well may have been.

And yes, NIL absolutely matters. It's not a guarantee at all, neither is landing all 5 stars automatically mean you're a national champion, but it absolutely raises the odds of winning. The better your NIL, the better your talent, the better your odds of winning over time. We need to keep raising ours - if we can land the dance and some much needed national attention, it will help both raising funds and peaking interest of higher talent. It's a wonderful circle if we can get ourselves there.

Guys, if Hofstra gets dancing this year we will see an influx of money coming in. Don’t worry. But, let’s start with dancing. One step at a time. As I’ve said previously, Hofstra is spending money on our bball program. We will get plenty more too, but we need to dance and need to start dancing for more to come in

We better get our bread up after that Edmead shot.

I just don't see any world where we're able to keep Cruz and/or Edmead fellas... they are giving us an incredibly special season that I pray continues past tonight, but the big boys will be waiting on the other side with Aaron Estrada/DStone Dubar money...

It’ll be alright and it’ll work out. Don’t worry, our NIL is going to increase along with the spending we already have. If we don’t keep them we will get other stars.

These guys are special players, even better people, that come from great families, that seem to love playing here and playing for speedy.
Maybe the school can find the money to pay them, and then lean on their fundraising staff to make that up, to go out and get more donors and more from people like us. Sure, that's a risk, but they are putting together a really great staff to handle fundraising, they're coming off this tournament appearance, and now you're bringing back the stars of the team, one of which is a local player? everything is in place to make even Polito happy it's a bigger risk to think the tournament win is all they need, go status quo, return to being a p5 feeder team, and start over with essentially a whole new roster next year.

Normally I would say nah, but IMO this is one time where we need to pull out all the stops and do WHATEVER it takes to give our best effort to retain them. This is close to a once in a lifetime opportunity for a program like this. It has to at least be considered and given a true try.

IF HU can figure this out and make it happen, I believe strongly this program could not only go back to back, which would be an insane boost to this university that would EASILY pay for the investment, but I think they could be a ranked team at some point next year and vie to be one of the best ever in program history.

And it's only a one year investment in my mind - we can send Edmead on his way for his last 2 years to go become a millionaire and extend our name as the star maker sending kids to the P2 for FF appearances - any business person knows it's absolutely worth every cent for 1 year rental. The wins, NCAAT, maybe a deep run, the $, the marketing, national attention, recognition, the boost in enrollment, it's a no-brainer for that kind of ROI.

They can start by canning that money burn ST and use his salary to help reward the kids and program that actually deserve it.

They can and should also run a major one time fundraising blitz off this historic season - time it right around the selection show, and I GUARANTEE they will raise extra dough, including from many here. All I've ever wanted is tangible success - I will GLADLY give to help fuel the continuation of greatness for this program - and so will many others who can write bigger checks than me.

These kids and families LOVE Speedy and they will play continue to play for him if we can make it fair. The time to strike is right NOW.

Very well put Polito and this would make for some excellent reading material for our president athletic director and the rest of the Hofstra administration please forward immediately as this type of opportunity will not come along too often at Hofstra. Thank you !!!!!!

Don't think and I've posted this before in other threads that some of the powers that be aren't reading these posts. They have accounts on this board. I get the feeling from what Preston has said and I know right now emotions are running high now but certainly seems that Preston is very willing/wanting to return here next year. We surely can make that happen but can we also bring back Cruz that's and will be the difficult task. Like has been said if we can bring back the nucleus of this team along with what we have returning including Lopez who hopefully will finally get his chance we have a team that could repeat. We also will be bringing in some highly regarded recruits more so now that we punched our ticket. Things look very bright for this program right now!

I think you're right, Triple C. I believe Preston will return next year and even stay for four years.

With such a strong freshman year already in the books, he has the chance to become one of our all-time greatest players. Maybe even lead us to another NCAAT or two. As Speedy likes to say, "Dream Big"!

Gotta love everything that has been happening over the last 48 hours and we are just getting started...with a few additional positive things happening [strong showing in March Madness, people from the

Great to hear tc, they should be reading things here - the fans here are THE diehards for this university - this is the HEART of the HU fanbase, and it should be heard, celebrated, and encouraged. Most of us are the ones investing in attending, traveling, talking about, bringing in others, and supporting HU programs - that's something that should be leaned into hard by HU, not dismissed or ignored like in the past.

Also, let me just make note here, we don't necessarily need HU to fund these returns. What we need is HU to work their business connections and get corporate sponsorship of these key guys in NIL deals. This should be 100% doable for Preston at a minimum - he's a local LI product, and the kid is a budding superstar. He may very well become a national name in homes across the nation in the coming weeks. That is worth GOLD.

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we can find a LI based organization to get this kid paid with some direct promotional ads and marketing. The most obvious should be Northwell. That should be almost automatic. But then there's Broadridge which we must know some biz folks there, there's Canon (when you need that clutch shot, Hofstra trusts Preston, you can trust Canon!), there's Estee Lauder, Henry Schein, theres even PSEG (NJ based but obviously covers here) ... have Preston say something like his electricity is powered by PSEG, how about yours?!? and mix in cool quick clips of his clutch plays or something much more clever by people who actually do this kind of stuff.

I'm just spitballing lol, there are MUCH smarter and more creative people than me that do this for a living, but make no mistake there is a way to make this happen and it would be criminal for HU not to give it all the help they can to do so.

Great marketing ideas Polito and hopefully someone will pick up the ball in the corporate sponsors admin here. Grace Cergol and Jess Kalbfleisch are you listening ladies!! LOL No better time then now when interest about this program is peaking!!

How about we get Friendly's involved?
You know have a super gigantic ice cream dish
We call it the Silas Sunday!

How about we get Friendly's involved?
You know have a super gigantic ice cream dish
We call it the Silas Sunday!

This would be the time to do all they can to try to retain Cruz and Preston, and anyone else they can keep.

With a program legend making his first NCAAT as a head coach, two stars in the back court, one from 20 miles east of campus, this would be the time to REALLY market all of that and to make as strong a push as possible to come back with the same backcourt and try to win the CAA tourney again next year. Nothing would create more buzz and fill The Mack more than to start making multiple NCAAT trips. In the uncertain NIL era, they may not have an opportunity to do so better than what they have right now for a long time.

stuball888 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 2:55 pm How about we get Friendly's involved?
You know have a super gigantic ice cream dish
We call it the Silas Sunday!

Or get Irish band U2 - to modify their anthem "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to Silas Bloody Sunday as his walk up (or out) song