UCLA Football: Bruins NIL Donors Could Land Special Opportunities With Star Athletes

The NIL collective Men of Westwood is an organization aimed at helping UCLA athletics programs essentially stay relevant with the times.

We've seen how the NIL world has quickly changed the landscape of college sports (for better or worse, depending on your perspective). For any major sports program, it has to 'get with the times' from a financial standpoint. If not, you seriously run the risk of falling into relative obscurity.

The UCLA NIL Collective, Men of Westwood, has now created special access events available to UCLA NIL donors, like a private tour of Wasserman or Pauley Pavilion, or a round of golf or dinner with a UCLA coach or player -- and much more: https://t.co/lPvCiP8ba2
— Bruin Report Online (@BruinReport) September 7, 2023

On Thursday, Men of Westwood came out with a tasty menu of sorts, where donors, booters, and fans can gain further access to both the football and basketball programs.

UCLA has been considered to be 'just okay' in the NIL universe. There's certainly room for improvement, and the goal is for the university to be lock-in-step with various collectives (such as this one). If that eventually comes to fruition, the university could then facilitate the relationship between said collectives and the 'big fish' donors.

There's also the matter of Big Ten money UCLA is slated to receive. There's a large amount of preexisting debt that should be wiped away based on the new conference affiliation windfall. However, the allocation of excess funds will be something to watch. If it's pumped back into both programs, you would see UCLA become even more of a major player from a national standpoint -- especially when it comes to football. However, much of that is conjecture, and there still seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the school and NIL ventures.

However, this NIL menu provides the die-hards with some really intriguing access to both football and basketball. In particular, here are some of the options offered through the football program (per MOW):

Golf With Talent; Private Speaking Event; Personalized coaching session for child: $10,000
Use of Wasserman Auditorium for NFL Sunday Viewing party: $7,500
Dinner with talent at a restaurant; Have talent visit your event; QA with talent: $5,000
Social media endorsement of you/your company by a talent: $3,500
Personalized video message from talent; Autograph from talent; Private Tour of Wasserman Center: $1,000

The basketball program has an even larger amount of 'special events' offered -- including the ability to use Mo Oston court for personal basketball use (for a cool $20,000).

Assuming UCLA can make continued strides in effectively compensating its athletes -- including being able to land some big fish in both high school recruiting and via the transfer portal -- the Bruins should be competitive enough to survive this ever-changing world.