SyraCRUZ Tailgate 2023 - Time to Step Up!

[Consigliere]

When we launched the concept of offering donated funds for the use of a player’s NIL in rebranding our tailgate, the thought was if we could ever raise $500 or so it might be a viable idea. Upon publishing to this forum to gauge interest it started to become clear that we had come up with something much larger than those modest aspirations. Your generosity blew away anything we could have hoped for, and we ended up with over $15,000 in direct donations. When we launched the SyraCRUZ Tailgate merchandise initiatives that shared profits with our sponsored athletes we supplemented that with nearly an additional $3000. We paid out close to $12,000 to seven different athletes and set a standard for crowd sourced NIL fund raising, not only at Syracuse but nationwide.

With that high bar established we are ready to launch Year 2 of the SyraCRUZ Tailgate. We have a good sized nest egg that gives us the confidence to start negotiating with Enrique Cruz and renew our partnership for the 2023 season. There is still a gap to be made up and we don’t currently have funding for a second football player or for weekly tailgate guest appearances, so I am reaching out again for pledges for the upcoming season. At this point I would ask that you message or email me (dfl.consiglieres@gmail.com) with your board name, real name, email address and pledge amount. I will provide payment details and start the collection process.

Our plan is to meet with and get Enrique’s input on some of the details shortly after the spring game, so if you plan to donate it would be helpful if you reach out in the next couple of weeks.

We have truly been overwhelmed by the support of this initiative and can’t wait to see how we can top it in 2023-24! Oh, and stay tuned. I have been told that a 44Films Documentary on the SyraCRUZ Tailgate is in the final editing process and should be publicly available shortly!

 

[Consigliere]

While this started as a football focused initiative, thanks to the generosity on this forum we were able to establish our guest appearance program and invited Olivia Owens and Dyasha Fair who joined us for two separate tailgates in exchange for each receiving a $500 appearance fee. Hope to be in a position to keep that program alive!

 

[CoopSwoop]

Speaking of NIL, what's missing here?

 

[Consigliere]

Speaking of NIL, what's missing here?
View attachment 227033

Is this from the NIL store? This just launched and it appears no womens' basketball players have registered for it yet.
When you make your pledge to the SyraCRUZ Tailgate please specify that you want to support a guest appearance by a women's basketball player. I gurantee we will get it done. Paid out $500 each to Olivia Owens and Dyaisha Fail last year and had two others apply that we couldn't fit in. The women's hoops team seemed very informed about NIL initiatives. I expect they will be popping up in the store soon!

 

[hoopsupstate]

Speaking of NIL, what's missing here?
View attachment 227033

Women’s basketball?

 

[Consigliere]

I entered the initial three transactions in the INFLCR app a little over two weeks ago. There are two for Enrique Cruz. One is for $2500 payable with the submission of his video the week of the Colgate game and the second for $2500 payable with his submission the week of the Wake Forest game. I also entered a $1000 transaction for Judah Mintz for a guest appearance at the Western Michigan tailgate. These are pending SU Compliance review and I emailed Mark Wheeler this morning to ask him to approve so the transactions can move to the student-athlete for acceptance.

We will offer 3-5 additional guest appearance transactions (soccer, lacrosse and basketball) and 2 - 6 transactions to additional football players who will appear in Enrique's videos and sign the 50-50 football that we use as a second prize in our weekly raffles. I can probably fund the lower numbers now and reach the upper numbers once we reach our fundraising goal of $11,000 - $5000 lower than last year's total. Currently we stand at pledges totalling $9067 with $7745 already paid. If you have made a pledge I ask that you submit payment by the end of this month. If you haven't pledged yet, now is the time. Just message me or email to dfl.consiglieres@gmail.com with your name, board name and amount pledged and I will provide payment info. Any amount helps. We would really like to maintain the level of support that we established last season.