I have a theory going on and I’ll be interested to see how active Nebraska is in throwing money around this year.
Nebraska has a large wealth gap in the fan base, higher than most mostly due to small instate population and fan base. Nebraska’s lucky in the sense everyone in the state for the most part gravitates and roots for Nebraska.
The bigger boosters care more about vanity than actually having Nebraska be a winning program.
1890, ABM, etc were originally 501c3’s but since the IRS made the statement collectives arent tax deductible 1890 has put on the website all donations aren’t tax deductible the donations have dropped. It’s why Nebraska went from getting wins of people like Mathis and Toure over big schools to not much.
If you care about vanity over winning why donate money when you get nothing out of it. It’s why the stadium donations for expansion were easier to get than usual.
TLDR the disproportional distribution of wealth in the fan base is killing the program. And it’s why 1890 tweeted out the panhandling tweet. Top boosters want tax deductions and a place to flash nice things over on field product.