GameAbove wants to pay QB Caleb Williams $1M to play for EMU in 2022
Here's some free advice: You might as well get on the Eastern Michigan bandwagon now while it's early.
Charlie Batch tweeted Wednesday that GameAbove Capital is ready to give Caleb Williams, the most popular and talented quarterback in the transfer portal right now, $1 million to come play football for Eastern Michigan in 2022.
Yes, you read that right. A million bucks is on the table for him to come to Eastern Michigan right now and become an Eagle.
Batch is, of course, a former EMU football player himself. The quarterback played at Eastern from 1994-1997, and landed an NFL career with the Detroit Lions and Pittsburgh Steelers. Batch is one of the esteemed boosters at GameAbove. Not only is Batch a hall-of-famer at EMU, in the Mid-American Conference, Through GA, Batch is a senior vice president of strategic investments for CapStone Holdings, an EMU family office founded by tech entrepeneur Keith Stone.
If you were wondering what the futures of loosened transfer portal rules and name, image, and likeness laws would lead to, this is what the start of it looks like in 2022. If your jaw dropped, then congrats because maybe just maybe you’re probably sane enough to acknowledge three things right away.
One, that’s a lot of dough.
It’s a lot of dough from GameAbove, which just put its name and image (along with George Gervin’s name and silhouette) on EMU’s basketball arena. NIL laws vary by state, and the NCAA has no universal standard in place in how schools, athletes, brands, etc. should behave around the new money.
In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed off the state’s NIL bill (HB 5217) into law on Dec. 30, 2020 after the initial bill was introduced to the state House in Nov. 2019. The law will go into effect Dec. 31 this year, but many of the state schools already have guidelines set in place to try and manage this new era in college athletics. EMU, like many schools nationally, partnered with Jeremy Darlow’s group last summer for athletes to gain early knowledge and provide tools to help fill out their taxes.
In the end, as long as the school’s compliance office gives the thumbs up for an NIL opportunity, you’re golden.
There’s no rule in place to say Charlie Batch/GameAbove/CapStone Holdings can’t offer Williams, or any athlete in the transfer portal for any sport, a million bucks to come to EMU. If you’re asking “where does it say this is allowed?” I must counter with “where, anymore, does it say this isn’t?”
Two, and speaking objectively, this is an offer Williams can refuse. He’s just that damn good at football. If a group of alumni at Eastern Michigan can publicly announce that there’s a $1M check waiting for Williams to take to the bank, I’m certainly aware enough to know that there are more, bigger checks waiting for him at all sorts of elite football programs.
A legit 5-star quarterback to the MAC? Let alone EMU?
Believe me, I would be ABSOLUTELY SKY-HIGH, OVER THE MOON, SORRY BOSS CAN’T MAKE IT TO WORK THE NEXT MORNING if this happened. If I were in Williams’ shoes, would I take the money and move to Ypsilanti for a year? Probably not. I’d be too good at football to not go to/stay at one of the blue-blood programs of America.
And third, this is absolutely a publicity stunt. I don’t say “publicity stunt” as a negative, because when’s the last time Eastern Michigan had a publicity stunt to get people excited about college football? And I don’t say “excited about college football” as an event that 100% of college football fans should feel comfortable or happy or upset about co-signing to. One way or another, saying “Williams got offered $1M to play at EMU” is going to spark an emotion from college fans.
Williams has two options from here: take the money and play at EMU, or play the field. If Williams plays, then EMU get a QB1 of a lifetime for, objectively, a bargain, and if that doesn’t give the program more media exposure then I don’t know what will. If Williams walks away, then the thing that people will take away from this offer is that EMU’s people — which again, has zero MAC championships to show for — are getting very, very serious about paying for good football in Ypsilanti.
If EMU’s ever going to become better than what history has to tell for its football program, then it’s going to need publicity stunts that get people rooting for EMU when there aren’t any games going on.
If Williams comes to EMU? Uh, OKAY!!?!!!
If Williams inevitably doesn’t? Welp, at least you say you tried. And nobody can say EMU’s people holding out $1M for one of the best QBs in the country is half-assing the effort here either.
Williams to EMU is doubtful. So, what’s the takeaway here?
Let me add a fourth thing to the list of things that jumped out to me. And this is actually more encouraging than pretending or hoping that Caleb Williams, who would effectively be the most prized-recruit (or transfer) to ever play football in the MAC since Randy Moss. GameAbove’s offer to Williams is on the table, and it very may well be turned down to play in a better league.
But the way I read Batch’s proposal to Williams, GameAbove has $1M that it wants to spend on EMU’s roster in 2022. Whether that comes in the form of getting the best QB the transfer portal has to offer to play the 2022 season for EMU or figuring out a way of getting that bag of cash to the players that are actually on EMU’s roster right now.
I think both can be true. I think GameAbove wants to give the A-listers of the transfer portal an opportunity of a lifetime to get EMU to win its first MAC championship ever. I think GameAbove also wants us to know that it has money to give to the EMU roster, and that’s going to be a discussion the group will probably have to publicly address during the sport’s preseason.
