Hummel: Boilermaker Alliance ‘closing the gap’
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe expansion of the NIL collective supporting Purdue University student-athletes helps “close the gap” when it comes to competing in the new world of college sports, says a former Purdue basketball star and current college hoops analyst.
The nonprofit Boilermaker Alliance announced last week that it is expanding its scope to include all 385 scholarship athletes and that former Boilermaker quarterback and Super Bowl champion Drew Brees has joined its executive committee.
“I think with the NIL landscape this is something that Purdue needed to do,” said Robbie Hummel, who serves as an analyst for the Big Ten Network and ESPN. “The Boilermaker Alliance has done a great job of closing the gap…this is what we need to compete in this era of college sports.”
Hummel talked about NIL and the current state of college sports on this weekend’s edition of Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick.
The Boilermaker Alliance is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that that was formed earlier this year and is not associated with the university.
The alliance works with student athletes who choose a charitable organization to support and helps them amplify those charities through special appearances, autograph signings, mentoring, managing camps and clinics, and appearing at charity events.
The nonprofit says it plans to raise $6 million annually for a fund, from which the student-athletes will be compensated under the NCAA’s new NIL rules.
Alliance President Jeff McKean says including student-athletes from all sports allows Purdue to stand out from other universities that only focus on revenue sports when it comes to NIL initiatives.
“This is something, to our knowledge, has not been done by any other group like us, but from the day we started, we recognized the importance of including all our athletes,” said McKean. “The athletes in the other sports bring so much to our university. We look at the Olympic athletes we’ve had…[they’re] great examples of what we want Purdue to be.”