Duke’s Big Portal Score Didn’t Come Cheap
Far from it.
As you guys probably noticed, after Duke lost Maalik Murphy to the portal, they possibly upgraded - time will tell of course - when they plucked Tulane’s Darian Mensah out of the portal.
So the portal taketh away, but it also giveth?
Well, sort of.
Turns out that Duke may have made its biggest NIL investment yet.
How big?
That apparently makes him the highest paid college football player, and that changes things. Who ever dreamed that that would happen at Duke?
Of course it’s all tentative. First, there’s never a guarantee that anyone will continue to excel, let alone not get injured. And second, in this Brave New World, there’s no guarantee that someone won’t come along next spring and offer Mensah $10 million.
Nothing in this environment is certain, but nothing has ever been certain in football or anything else.
This, however, is worth remembering: with this revelation, it’s clear that Manny Diaz and Duke intend to compete in football at the highest level possible. We have no real insights on how much NIL money Duke Football can invest in players, but like anything else, money only goes so far. It’s going to be hard to outspend SEC teams, for one.
So being smart is going to be just as important as spending freely (are you listening, Jerome Tang?)
Still, it’s pretty amazing that Duke pulled this off. The future is certainly interesting.