Could NIL deals end facilities arms race in college football? Alabama AD Greg Byrne weighs in | Goodbread

Greg Byrne can't say with certainty where two seemingly unstoppable forces - facilities upgrades in college athletics and donations funding NIL deals - will intersect, or what will happen when they inevitably do.

This much is certain: one year into the NIL era, in which donors can pay athletes for their name, image and likeness value, they've found it to be a highly attractive new way to support their favorite teams. And while it would be an oversimplification to say that every dollar funding NIL deals is a dollar less given to athletic departments for facilities, Byrne holds to one truth that's simple enough.

"As much as people think there is an endless supply of money, there's not," the University of Alabama Director of Athletics said.

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Every school is different and, as Byrne points out, so is every donor. NIL donations could heel facility upgrades on some campuses, perhaps not others. Some schools, in all likelihood, are feeling the friction between the two forces already. Some might not have to reckon with it for years.

Byrne is grateful that, for now, funding for Alabama's athletic department at large hasn't sprung an NIL leak.

"So far, we've continued to see our donors support our program, which we're very appreciative and thankful for, and it hasn't directly impacted that at this point," Byrne said. "But I certainly can't say that will be a guarantee down the road."

The facilities arms race in college football ran amok for years with no end in sight. A lot of the spending – tens of millions funding tens of thousands of square footage for new buildings on campuses everywhere – went into football-related upgrades: state-of-the-art weight rooms, training rooms, and the like.

But there was also an element of excess and opulence, designed to attract the best recruits possible.

Luxury amenities from barber shops to bowling alleys. Televisions built into every locker. Sound-proof sleep pods for every player. Miniature golf. You won't find all these features at every school, but it's all in place somewhere, and not just at the blueblood programs. There's a lazy river, called Recovery Cove, at UCF.

Alabama made its splash with a 30,000-square-foot facility completed in the summer of 2013.

But now, with NIL dollars going to both college athletes and recruits alike, boosters have a new stream that can support on-field success in a more direct way. Other streams, beware.

"I am concerned about, eventually, college athletics having to make decisions on how many sports we support. Having broad-based programs is a wonderful thing. You have 19 programs that lose a significant amount of money at Alabama, and you have one that barely turns a profit, and one that has a healthy profit," Byrne said. "That's the model we've chosen to be part of in college athletics, and it's not a perfect model. But there's a lot of good that takes place in that model that I'm very concerned could change."

Hopefully for the sake of non-revenue sports, that's not a harbinger for future downsizing. The end of the facilities arms race, by contrast, wouldn't be a bad thing.

In time, we'll know if NIL attacks both indiscriminately.

Reach Chase Goodbread at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread