Tulane’s Cotton Bowl victory leads to a massive surge in NIL donations.

The Tulane Green Wave’s victory over the USC Trojans in the Cotton Bowl wasn’t just another bowl victory.

Instead, this win has the potential to help reshape Tulane athletics for years to come. According to Kelly Comarda, co-founder of the “Fear The Wave,” NIL collective, the 2022 football season “fueled a major increase in donations,” to the collective.

Comarda expressed a desire to keep New Orleans-area talent interested in Tulane, which will be much easier with a prospering NIL collective.

Heading into the 2022 football season, the “Fear The Wave” collective had only received around $100,000 in NIL donations. After the Cotton Bowl, however, funds had “more than quadrupled,” suggesting a number close to $500,000.00. In November and December alone, the collective received over 70 donations.

The collective has been in action for a year now and has offered deals to every football and basketball player, as well as several baseball players and 1 women’s tennis player.

Tulane’s 2022 success led to Head Coach Willie Fritz receiving interest from other programs. Fritz was reportedly approached by Georgia Tech before opting to stay at Tulane. This event was the catalyst for boosters and supporters of Tulane to recognize a need to step it up on the NIL front.

While coaches cannot receive NIL deals via collectives, a healthy NIL scene is attractive to coaches because it incentivizes players to remain at their school.

“Seeing how Power 5 schools are raiding Group of 5 rosters, it became that much more important for us to build up our collective,” said Comarda.