By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Being a fan of a major college sports team is now sort of like going shopping in that you have to pick and choose what to purchase within a budget.

In a perfect world, every fan would have enough money, time and motivation to purchase season tickets for multiple sports, donate to facility upgrades and help to fund NIL collectives.

In reality, though, most fans don’t have deep enough pockets to spread their wealth, so they pick where to spend their money.

And that’s where it gets tricky, especially now with NIL having such a huge impact on roster building.

Fans are now being asked to donate to NIL collectives, which wasn’t the case just five years ago.

In 2021, the Supreme Court in a unanimous 9-0 decision upheld the lower court’s decision that NCAA restrictions on “education-related benefits” for college athletes violated antitrust law.

That decision would allow student-athletes to start earning income from their name, image and likeness.

And little did fans know at the time, but there world was about to change, too, because fans now have the burden and responsibility of supporting NIL collectives.

Fans certainly have a choice about whether they want to support NIL collectives.

There is no right or wrong in this case.

But there is also a risk in not supporting NIL, which is the risk of losing recruiting battles from not having enough resources to close deals and the risk of losing on the playing field from not having enough talent.

Like it or not, that’s what it has come down to at this stage.

The teams with more NIL resources are more likely to have success simply from having better talent.

Iowa baseball coach Rick Heller made some interesting comments on Saturday following his team’s third straight loss to Oregon, which kept Iowa from winning the Big Ten title for the first time since 1990.

Heller was understandably frustrated after watching his team lose the three games by a combined score of 32-10 at home, and with the Big Ten title on the line.

The fans certainly did their part by packing Duane Banks Field for all three games.

But the deep and talented Ducks weren’t to be denied as they executed in all phases of the game against an Iowa team that was picked to finish no higher than ninth coming into the season.

“To find a way to be playing for a conference championship on the last day of the regular season with what we have in (financial) aid and nobody raising money for us for NIL, and playing teams that have a whole lot of money,” Heller said. “So, there’s a couple disappointing things to this season; one is that the guys kind of pulled off the miracle, but then they didn’t finish it. We didn’t get it done.”

Heller wasn’t making excuses. He was just stating a fact.

Oregon’s dominance over Iowa starts with NIL and then stretches to the field.

The fact that Heller made a point of mentioning to the media that Iowa doesn’t have anyone raising NIL money specifically for baseball is very telling.

Fran McCaffery pleaded for more NIL money during his latter years as the Iowa men’s basketball coach, but the most he reportedly ever had was $1.4 million, which is chump change.

Fran McCaffery was fired the day after the season ended in mid-March and replaced by Ben McCollum just a few days later.

Iowa’s NIL collective for men’s basketball has reportedly increased significantly since the coaching change, though, it’s hard to know for sure how the money is being raised.

It might come to a point where some fans have to make difficult decisions about how to spend their money.

If fans keep being told that NIL is now the driving force behind success or failure, then perhaps some will choose to donate to NIL instead of purchasing season tickets or donating to facility upgrades.

The problem facing college athletic departments is that while the cost of being a fan continues to rise due to factors such as NIL and rising ticket prices, the cost from purchasing a flat-screen television continues to fall, making the home viewing experience even more appealing moving forward.

Some also might have assumed that Iowa’s NIL collective would benefit from having had so many current and former NFL players that played for Iowa now in a position to make donations.

However, according to Brad Heinrichs, CEO of the Iowa Swarm Collective, that hasn’t been the case.

In fact, Heinrichs said in a previous interview that Iowa hasn’t received any financial support from former Hawkeye football players that are now playing in the NFL, or recently retired from the NFL.

Iowa’s situation is hardly unique, though.

A person that runs an NIL collective for another Big Ten school said they also hadn’t received any financial support from their alumni who are now playing in the NFL.

The person explained it by saying that the current NFL players feel they already have donated to the NIL cause with their blood, sweat and tears from their college playing days.

And fair enough.

NIL hasn’t been around long enough for the players who have benefitted from NIL while in college to make donations as professional athletes.

Never is it easy to tell someone how to spend their money, even those with a lot of money because it’s a personal decision.

But as NIL continues to change the college landscape, fans will continue to feel the burden, fair or not, from having to pay for it.