It doesn't help as much as one might think that there are 2000+ players still in portal when Beverly is/was ranked 150-ish. Are we really looking for someone considered inferior to Bev? We may well have donors/supporters with big(ger) wallets besides Ruiz, but when ESPN embarrassed Miami into giving sports $ome attention, it seems they were funding the Mario's and staff and buyouts and other stuff, while Ruiz was the NIL-pay-for-play (as you can get away with) go-to-guy. That was fine when he was thriving and that was a plu$. Now you have a prospect in portal and he or agent has to contact someone abt Miami-play and pay. Even with the new-ish reinvigorated UM collectives, their NIL-front-man seems to be Ruiz still. You can't call Rad and say hey will you give my boy Cleveland $250,000 or more? (rules.) You can't call Carol Soffer either; they will tell you see Ruiz. (Who probably has the contractual and incentive for performance stuff down pat, but no funds to back it like before.) Now whether Ruiz says "hey Carol, Wong wants $250,000 to stay - will you take care of it?" or not, is a good question. I'm not convinced they (or many people) want to chow down with Ruiz right now. Sure we can bash the reporters and third parties (or posters) that suggest our portal - roster management -NIL is dysfunctional and needs improvement, but they may be on to something. Carol, where are you?
