Also, please don't take this as any ill will towards you or even towards BRO. I think it's perfectly fine if people donate to MoW or any collective, and BRO's brand of journalism is helpful more often than not. And like I said, MoW is probably legitimate, but is making a ton of missteps that is hurting its ability to actually raise necessary funds to be competitive.
Also, please don't take this as any ill will towards you or even towards BRO. I think it's perfectly fine if people donate to MoW or any collective, and BRO's brand of journalism is helpful more often than not. And like I said, MoW is probably legitimate, but is making a ton of missteps that is hurting its ability to actually raise necessary funds to be competitive.
You never really addressed a lot of my questions such as “recent activity forced our hands”. What forced your hands to write this article in the first place? You say you don’t have any ill will, but your actions sort of say you do (not your words)
Again, you dodged my question about what forced your hands to write this article. That is the only thing I’m asking. I don’t care about BRO. I care about the success of UCLA basketball and football. And the reality is, we have to pay athletes now due to NIL.
If you’re a UCLA fan, you may be hurting the program with this article and all of your comments. You do realize that? I don’t know 100% who is right. I just would first make sure what you are saying is accurate before you harm a potentially positive thing for the program
I would think the better way to question MoW, is to propose an alternative way that we can raise money for athletes so our programs get better. Just criticising MoW for lack of transparency(which I think many donation programs have not much transparency)- this can be very damaging and I would hope as a fan you would suggest better ways then how to do NIL. Otherwise, we will lose recruits like we did with Marcus Adams Jr to Kansas because they were able to offer more NIL money. Again, I want to reiterate I truly don’t know if MoW is telling it how it is. You may be right , i just think you should get clarification and think about the damaging effects of this article before publishing it
See, this is how I know you don't actually care about the merits of what I've said, because I list out exactly what my problems are with this specific collective that is being pushed by a certain subset of UCLA fans, and instead of addressing these problems you are resorting to "do you want to hurt the program?"
Which is an insane argument to make! Because let's break this down: if this article ends up hurting the Men of Westwood and prevents them from raising the necessary funds, then that means that the problems brought up in the article resonated with a lot of people and the collective was unwilling to address them, meaning it wasn't a good collective in the first place. And if the collective is actually good, then this article either won't matter or will prompt it to make the necessary changes to bring more people on board. There is no downside to an article like this unless your viewpoint is that the MoW is good and any criticism of it is bad, which means you really aren't in any position to make a comment.
It's been two years since NIL became official policy around the country, and MoW are doing things differently than any other collective at a top college. This means they're either way smarter than everyone else which, looking at their results, seems doubtful, or they're doing things that are actively hurting their ability to be competitive. This isn't a hard concept to grasp.
Lastly, it is not my job to fix UCLA athletics. My job is actually to be a teacher. But I've laid out exactly what issues this collective has, and how either this collective or a future UCLA-aligned one can be successful in the future. If you're not going to bother addressing those facts as raised, then there is no more point in having this discussion.
Your first statement saying I don’t care? Then why am I on your site commenting on your post? Please don’t try to put words in people’s mouths. I’ve again asked what forced your hands now twice and you still have yet to answer the question. It’s hard to take you seriously when you can’t answer a simple question like that. I don’t use fancy words like you but I read every word you wrote in your article
I am a UCLA alum 2005. All I care about in terms of this article is that we are successful in UCLA basketball and UCLA football. I do believe that this article can be damaging to the overall success of the program. That’s my opinion. I never said you had to agree with it. Can you please for the third time asking , address what “forced your hands “ in writing this article or at least address it. It’s kind of hard to respect your article when you only answer the questions you choose to answer that make you look good
Lastly, you state this “ And if the collective is actually good, then this article either won't matter or will prompt it to make the necessary changes to bring more people on board.” how do you know this to be true? Is this a fact or your opinion?
"Forced my hand" is a turn of phrase, in this case it referred to the large push for MoW BRO initiated, and the conversation about the collective that sprouted from that. I read those conversations, started doing some basic investigation on the collective and comparing it to what I've seen from other collectives, and felt compelled to write about it. That's literally it. This isn't some grand conspiracy as to why I chose to write about it beyond I looked into it, had a lot of concerns that people want to handwave, and decided to write about it.
But since we're talking about answering simple questions, do you want to start responding to everything I've written now, or are you going to keep questioning my motives?
Okay fair enough! See, that’s all I asked was for a simple answer to that question I asked days ago. You now have answered it. I wasn’t sure why you were dodging it, that’s all. But saying “forced my hand” might not always be interpreted the way you intended your audience to interpret it. I truly didn’t know you were using it as a “turn of phrase” like you mentioned. But again, this is why I asked and I am glad you answered my question and appreciative of it. You didn’t hide from me so thank you.
And if you have questions for me, it’s only fair for me to answer you. So feel free to ask away, my email is even on my profile if you so like to ask me questions (either publicly or privately). However, I think I gave you my thoughts and opinions.
Yes, I am a BRO subscriber but I want to understand this NIL thing from all angles especially if I’m going to donate. I do believe Tracy Pierson isn’t lying to his subscribers. He’s been a credible resource for many years now. I also think MoW is legit (despite the transparency issues) and that you’re reaching a bit here with your article. Because the main difference I’m gathering here is that MoW’s website is not as complete with terms and policies like other collectives. At the same time UCLA is quite new to this whole endeavor so I am giving them the benefit of doubt. Could I be wrong? Yes, 100% Are there concerns? Yes as well (and more than just the transparency issues as you so outlined in your article), but at least this isn’t the “old bag man process” as you linked to in your article. I’d rather it be known that this is happening as opposed to being completely underground. I think over time MoW will become more transparent. I also think having UCLA’s AD’ Martin Jarmond even attaching his name for the briefest of moments means a lot more than you are giving credit. It’s also on the UCLA affiliated radio as you mentioned. There are a lot of reasons to point that this is legit too, just as there are concerns. Overall, I am said NIL or paying athletes is even part of college athletics, but that’s a whole other side to this topic.
At the end of the day I am a big fan (not that big of a donor though - maybe $2k a year max) and all I want to see is UCLA basketball, football (and all of UCLA’s sports programs) do well. What can we do to achieve this? The only collective even out there is MoW. The WAF doesn’t give money to players. It uses it on all aspects of athletics. I give to it too btw.
Lastly, I do appreciate that you cover ALL angles of UCLA athletic news (not just positive) such as the Gymnastics incident last year that BRO did not cover. I think that is eye opening to me and does make me question BRO’s legitimacy (a little bit). But please, don’t assume you know everything about a comment or poster. I was only getting frustrated because it seemed you were answering only some of my questions. I am happy to talk more about this with you but I am sure you are busy vs dealing with one person on your site. This is my honest feedback of what I’ve read so far from you. If I came across, harsh or stern , I apologize, but I did and do appreciate your content. Thanks, Brian
And to respond to this: “But since we're talking about answering simple questions, do you want to start responding to everything I've written now, or are you going to keep questioning my motives?”
What do you want me to respond to specifically? I’m happy to respond with my thoughts if I haven’t done so for certain parts of your article. And no I’m not going to question any more of your motives now that I understand your motive
Also, please don't take this as any ill will towards you or even towards BRO. I think it's perfectly fine if people donate to MoW or any collective, and BRO's brand of journalism is helpful more often than not. And like I said, MoW is probably legitimate, but is making a ton of missteps that is hurting its ability to actually raise necessary funds to be competitive.
You never really addressed a lot of my questions such as “recent activity forced our hands”. What forced your hands to write this article in the first place? You say you don’t have any ill will, but your actions sort of say you do (not your words)
Is your big problem here that I was mean to BRO? Because that's the only thing I talked about that you really seem to care about.
Again, you dodged my question about what forced your hands to write this article. That is the only thing I’m asking. I don’t care about BRO. I care about the success of UCLA basketball and football. And the reality is, we have to pay athletes now due to NIL.
If you’re a UCLA fan, you may be hurting the program with this article and all of your comments. You do realize that? I don’t know 100% who is right. I just would first make sure what you are saying is accurate before you harm a potentially positive thing for the program
I would think the better way to question MoW, is to propose an alternative way that we can raise money for athletes so our programs get better. Just criticising MoW for lack of transparency(which I think many donation programs have not much transparency)- this can be very damaging and I would hope as a fan you would suggest better ways then how to do NIL. Otherwise, we will lose recruits like we did with Marcus Adams Jr to Kansas because they were able to offer more NIL money. Again, I want to reiterate I truly don’t know if MoW is telling it how it is. You may be right , i just think you should get clarification and think about the damaging effects of this article before publishing it
See, this is how I know you don't actually care about the merits of what I've said, because I list out exactly what my problems are with this specific collective that is being pushed by a certain subset of UCLA fans, and instead of addressing these problems you are resorting to "do you want to hurt the program?"
Which is an insane argument to make! Because let's break this down: if this article ends up hurting the Men of Westwood and prevents them from raising the necessary funds, then that means that the problems brought up in the article resonated with a lot of people and the collective was unwilling to address them, meaning it wasn't a good collective in the first place. And if the collective is actually good, then this article either won't matter or will prompt it to make the necessary changes to bring more people on board. There is no downside to an article like this unless your viewpoint is that the MoW is good and any criticism of it is bad, which means you really aren't in any position to make a comment.
It's been two years since NIL became official policy around the country, and MoW are doing things differently than any other collective at a top college. This means they're either way smarter than everyone else which, looking at their results, seems doubtful, or they're doing things that are actively hurting their ability to be competitive. This isn't a hard concept to grasp.
Lastly, it is not my job to fix UCLA athletics. My job is actually to be a teacher. But I've laid out exactly what issues this collective has, and how either this collective or a future UCLA-aligned one can be successful in the future. If you're not going to bother addressing those facts as raised, then there is no more point in having this discussion.
Your first statement saying I don’t care? Then why am I on your site commenting on your post? Please don’t try to put words in people’s mouths. I’ve again asked what forced your hands now twice and you still have yet to answer the question. It’s hard to take you seriously when you can’t answer a simple question like that. I don’t use fancy words like you but I read every word you wrote in your article
I am a UCLA alum 2005. All I care about in terms of this article is that we are successful in UCLA basketball and UCLA football. I do believe that this article can be damaging to the overall success of the program. That’s my opinion. I never said you had to agree with it. Can you please for the third time asking , address what “forced your hands “ in writing this article or at least address it. It’s kind of hard to respect your article when you only answer the questions you choose to answer that make you look good
Lastly, you state this “ And if the collective is actually good, then this article either won't matter or will prompt it to make the necessary changes to bring more people on board.” how do you know this to be true? Is this a fact or your opinion?
"Forced my hand" is a turn of phrase, in this case it referred to the large push for MoW BRO initiated, and the conversation about the collective that sprouted from that. I read those conversations, started doing some basic investigation on the collective and comparing it to what I've seen from other collectives, and felt compelled to write about it. That's literally it. This isn't some grand conspiracy as to why I chose to write about it beyond I looked into it, had a lot of concerns that people want to handwave, and decided to write about it.
But since we're talking about answering simple questions, do you want to start responding to everything I've written now, or are you going to keep questioning my motives?
Okay fair enough! See, that’s all I asked was for a simple answer to that question I asked days ago. You now have answered it. I wasn’t sure why you were dodging it, that’s all. But saying “forced my hand” might not always be interpreted the way you intended your audience to interpret it. I truly didn’t know you were using it as a “turn of phrase” like you mentioned. But again, this is why I asked and I am glad you answered my question and appreciative of it. You didn’t hide from me so thank you.
And if you have questions for me, it’s only fair for me to answer you. So feel free to ask away, my email is even on my profile if you so like to ask me questions (either publicly or privately). However, I think I gave you my thoughts and opinions.
Yes, I am a BRO subscriber but I want to understand this NIL thing from all angles especially if I’m going to donate. I do believe Tracy Pierson isn’t lying to his subscribers. He’s been a credible resource for many years now. I also think MoW is legit (despite the transparency issues) and that you’re reaching a bit here with your article. Because the main difference I’m gathering here is that MoW’s website is not as complete with terms and policies like other collectives. At the same time UCLA is quite new to this whole endeavor so I am giving them the benefit of doubt. Could I be wrong? Yes, 100% Are there concerns? Yes as well (and more than just the transparency issues as you so outlined in your article), but at least this isn’t the “old bag man process” as you linked to in your article. I’d rather it be known that this is happening as opposed to being completely underground. I think over time MoW will become more transparent. I also think having UCLA’s AD’ Martin Jarmond even attaching his name for the briefest of moments means a lot more than you are giving credit. It’s also on the UCLA affiliated radio as you mentioned. There are a lot of reasons to point that this is legit too, just as there are concerns. Overall, I am said NIL or paying athletes is even part of college athletics, but that’s a whole other side to this topic.
At the end of the day I am a big fan (not that big of a donor though - maybe $2k a year max) and all I want to see is UCLA basketball, football (and all of UCLA’s sports programs) do well. What can we do to achieve this? The only collective even out there is MoW. The WAF doesn’t give money to players. It uses it on all aspects of athletics. I give to it too btw.
Lastly, I do appreciate that you cover ALL angles of UCLA athletic news (not just positive) such as the Gymnastics incident last year that BRO did not cover. I think that is eye opening to me and does make me question BRO’s legitimacy (a little bit). But please, don’t assume you know everything about a comment or poster. I was only getting frustrated because it seemed you were answering only some of my questions. I am happy to talk more about this with you but I am sure you are busy vs dealing with one person on your site. This is my honest feedback of what I’ve read so far from you. If I came across, harsh or stern , I apologize, but I did and do appreciate your content. Thanks, Brian
And to respond to this: “But since we're talking about answering simple questions, do you want to start responding to everything I've written now, or are you going to keep questioning my motives?”
What do you want me to respond to specifically? I’m happy to respond with my thoughts if I haven’t done so for certain parts of your article. And no I’m not going to question any more of your motives now that I understand your motive
I cannot believe you had to answer this question