I always thought baseball could be like volleyball because of some of the things you say. State cares about it (evidenced by attendance ranking) and we have good local talent just like volleyball does. But we've struggled, and the only two conclusions I can come up with is:
1) The B1G rules/regulations or whatever else keep us from keeping up. But I haven't kept up with those things since Erstad left, so maybe we are more on par with SEC/ACC now?
2) NIL compared to our volleyball and then the SEC/ACC schools. I feel pretty confident our volleyball girls get more per player than baseball. But unsure of some of the other details.
It'll never happen unless an Athletic Director significantly increases the baseball budget. It's bad, ghetto bad.
1) You'd have to elaborate so we know exactly what you're talking about. (We're not on par with the SEC or ACC in anything baseball related).
2) Baseball has a
budget of $0 for NIL. The staff has to ask for money, but nothing is set like the other sports. So yes, volleyball - rightfully so - has more NIL available than baseball. I'll take it a step further, 3 of our current volleyball girls receive more money than the entire baseball team combined since NIL became legal. Let that sink in.
The last national data released publicly of all D1 baseball programs had Nebraska between 55-65 in overall baseball budget (NIL not involved in this). This data was from a few years ago (not what's shared below) & it was posted somewhere on this tPB. IIRC, we were #5 or #6 in the B1G - and this was before Oregon, UCLA, USC & Washington joined the conference. With them, we instantly drop 4 spots as everyone can see below.
Husker fans expect to host regionals, or replicate what DVH did 98-02,
on a Dollar Store budget. FFS, Rutgers baseball has a bigger budget than us, based on the public data report referenced in the previous paragraph...
