Are Kentucky fans ready to ante up and follow the lead of the Vols?

College Athletics are still working their way through the wild west of paying players and not every university has the same approach. The University of Washington this week launched a "GO B1G!" campaign in which their own head football coach donated 1 million dollars to the fund. The primary purpose is to compensate players and thus compete in recruiting which ultimately leads to competing on the field.

The University of Tennessee is taking a different approach as they are simply going to raise ticket prices and take that money to compensate players. The average fan will donate to the NIL regardless of whether they want to or not.

According to the article in the tweet above, the ticket holders have already been alerted of the move. This shouldn't come as a massive surprise, as leaders at the top of any organization never likes taking money out of their own pockets. They would rather continue to make massive amounts of money and take the money out of the person towards the bottom of the chain. This is why inflation tends to happen, in a fear that CEOs and corporations may lose money, they jack up prices to keep it coming.

The Tennessee Volunteers may be the first to make this move, but they won't be the last and now that the glass ceiling has broken we will see many more institutions stepping into this world. We may have already seen it happen, but it wasn't publicized like this.

In many ways this sends ripples to the University of Kentucky at the base level of fans traveling to Tennessee games and having to pay more than they used to. But it will also impact the Wildcats because Kentucky is also working to stay competitive in NIL money, looking for ways to lure in the biggest recruits in both football and basketball. It is something to keep an eye on.