Mean Green Collective Update

Harry · June 12

The Mean Green Collective (MGC) has a primary focus on UNT basketball (both men's and women's). That said, if a donor wants to direct resources to other sports, we 100% will make that happen.

Ernie Kuehne, Curtis Clinesmith and I are UNT alums who run the MGC and 100% of every dollar we receive goes to the players except for online banking transaction fees which allow our fans to donate simply and securely. We 100% self-fund the administration of this Collective and have 0% overhead.

The other collective is Light the Tower, which was originally started by RV and is now being run by a group called TheLinkU.

Light the Tower does primarily football but also other sports for UNT. I believe they are being run by University of Houston graduates and to my understanding they charge 20% of every dollar donated to their administration. Light the Tower or TheLinkU represents in some capacity the following schools: University of Houston, College of Charleston, Florida Atlantic, Texas State, UCLA, and South Alabama. TheLinkU appears to be an NIL aggregator and the more schools they can add to their group the more potential money they can make. I have not seen any aggregate numbers in terms of specific dollars raised for UNT players through this organization.

We started the MGC back in Oct of last year and we were able to raise $225K in both large and small donations which had not been done at UNT before. We have distributed $200K of those funds as of today. We are proud of that, and we appreciate every donor who has and continues to support the MGC. As Ross Hodge shared with us just a couple of weeks ago, we would not have landed the new class of players without the MGC funding that was provided.

That said, despite all the recent success UNT has had in basketball, it has still proven difficult to raise money in this NIL/Portal environment. The funny thing is, we run an NIL, and we really don't like the NIL system and what it is doing to college athletics. What was supposed to be a way to support the players and their families has become a pay-for-play scheme that the richest schools primarily benefit from.

Despite our fundraising efforts, we could not compete with players receiving 600K, 400K, 150K... I don't blame them for taking that kind of life-changing money and I wish them well. The program will move forward and continue. I think Ross Hodge is a good coach and I am excited to see the new team he is building. Jason Burton is a big-time coach for women's basketball, and we expect him to do some remarkable things very quickly.

Our efforts did, however, help us land an extremely competitive replacement group that some prognosticators believe could better position us in the coming season. So, the money we raised and provided for the players was not for naught.

The NIL landscape has changed quite a bit since we started this, and I expect it will continue to evolve. Thanks to everyone who has and continues to support us and GMG!

cogido · June 13

Harry, thank you for this explanation. Although a lifelong Mean Green fan , as well as college sports in general, the NIL and revolving door portal thoroughly confuses and frustrates me. Your brief explanation of the two “collectives” gives me a better understanding of the efforts being taken to support the programs. It appears to me that the Mean Green Collective (MGC) works best for someone like me who wants to see 100% of the investment go to achieving the goal as opposed to someone skimming 20% off the top for “ administrative cost.” Thanks for the explanation.

glick1980 · June 13

Happy to contribute to both collectives on a recurring basis! Our strength is our numbers! Just 10,000 recurring monthly contributions of $10 to each collective would generate $2.4 million per year! Let’s do it!