North Dakota State faces a new reality with NIL amid a move up to the FBS, but the Bison won’t follow suit with one new conference opponent.
Hawaii recently asked the state House Finance committee for $5 million for NIL funding, and NDSU insider Jeff Kolpack of the Fargo Forum wrote that sort of thing won’t happen in North Dakota. That’s despite the increased costs for NDSU moving to FBS with the $12.5 million Mountain West Conference entrance fee and the $5 million NCAA fee for the FBS move.
“The bill passed, although the amount that the Rainbow Warriors stand to receive is still to be determined,” Kolpack wrote about Hawaii’s request. “Call it like it is: the state of Hawaii is paying players to play football. There’s a better chance of the Ice Age returning to the Red River Valley than this happening in North Dakota.”
“The belief is NDSU’s NIL is around $1 million in distributions this season,” Kolpack continued. “Hawaii’s ask of $5 million is probably close to the entire NIL pot of all Missouri Valley Football Conference teams combined.”
NDSU played in the Missouri Valley Football Conference from 2008 to 2025 and dominated the FCS in the process with 10 national championships in that span. Speculation swirled for years that the Bison would move up to the FBS, but financing was one of the major obstacles at the time.
Now, NDSU will have to spend big to field a competitive FBS program, whether or not the administration asks state officials in Bismarck to help.
NDSU’s Progress Financially Amid FBS Move
Kolpack made it clear that the Bison are making headway financially in the high-priced move to the FBS, especially with Team Makers, a non-profit organization the has supported Bison athletics since the 1950s.
“NDSU is off to a good start, with Team Makers booster group saying around $25 million toward the FBS move was tentatively raised in a two- to four-week period preceding the Mountain West announcement,” Kolpack wrote.
Kolpack also reported that recent NDSU president David Cook was mum on if the university would ask for state funding. That said, Kolpack made it clear that NDSU wouldn’t stand much of a chance acquiring the type of state funding Hawaii just did.
“Imagine Bison head coach Tim Polasek going before a North Dakota finance committee asking for millions to pay football players,” Kolpack wrote. “That discussion would last about 11 seconds.”
Transfer Portal a Driver in NIL
NDSU moved up a level amid significant losses in the transfer portal before the FBS announcement.
Part of keeping players with a program in modern college football involves NIL, and over at Hawaii, Rainbow Warriors head coach Timmy Chang acknowledged that reality. Chang, who testified to the House, later expressed the importance of building NIL for a program in an interview with the Aloha State Daily.
“In some cases, when kids have value or are really good, there is a big monetary business side to it now, and that’s the world we live in,” Chang told the Aloha State Daily. “I think moving forward with asking the legislature for money, it’s because we want our program to be good. We are a state school. We represent the state. We need help.”
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