C.D. Davies of the 110 Society

C.D. Davies of the 110 Society joins The Dubcast for an extended conversation about the complicated, murky world of NIL in college football. Davies believes the common narratives about Dabo Swinney being against NIL do not comport with reality, and a chief piece of evidence is the coach's very decision to hire Davies to preside over the football program's NIL operations. Davies, a 1986 Clemson grad who went on to be highly successful executive in the banking and lending industry, believes his experience dealing with regulatory authorities makes him highly suited to dealing with the NCAA's ever-changing messaging and regulating of how players are compensated. Rules explicitly prohibit pay-for-play, yet the practice is so commonplace that television announcers discuss such arrangements about specific high-profile players during their broadcasts of games. "I see that and hear it," Davies said. "That's flat-out cheating. We haven't done that, and we're not going to do it. We're going to follow the rules." Davies takes us behind the NIL curtain and shares what it's really like as Clemson navigates the process of fundraising for NIL, and arranging deals with its athletes. He says "donor exhaustion" is very real, at Clemson and everywhere else. His model for the future is exploring and creating a commercial side of NIL funding that relieves a significant amount of pressure on fans to fund yet another expensive reality of major-college athletics competition.