Arizona State has been ravaged by the transfer portal since the 2021 season ended. There appears to be a perfect storm hitting Tempe at the worst time—Arizona State’s direction as a program appears to be on shaky ground with an NCAA investigation ongoing; the team’s offensive coordinator and starting quarterback have both left, casting doubt on the viability of the passing game next fall; and an exploding NIL market has left the Sun Devils behind.

Help could be on the way, though.

According to Sun Devil Source’s Chris Karpman, a group of “affluent Arizona State boosters” is preparing to launch a new NIL collective with an expected bankroll of seven figures designed to help keep the top Arizona State talent at Arizona State.

From Karpman’s report:

It has already received commitments totaling several hundred thousand dollars, with a goal of at least a million dollars pledged by launch and multiple millions of dollars derived from benefactors on an annual basis, two people working on the endeavor told Sun Devil Source.

The money will primarily be earmarked for the most prominent ASU football and men’s basketball players as part of marketing deals designed to help the programs keep their best players in Tempe.

Similar NIL collectives are becoming common practice around college athletics. While deals that induce commits are prohibited, groups are finding workarounds across the country to ensure players are taken care of and, shockingly, not everything is going as the NCAA planned when NIL opportunities were granted to student-athletes last year.

On Thursday, Miami basketball’s Isaiah Wong, through his agent to ESPN, issued a threat that he’d transfer from Miami if his NIL earnings weren’t upped. That demand came after it was revealed that Kansas State transfer Nijel Pack had reportedly earned a two-year, $800,000 deal from LifeWallet, a company owned by local Miamian John Ruiz, after transferring to Miami.

An Oklahoma-based non-profit has been created to pay every OU football player upwards of $50,000 a year for NIL-related activities.

While not every transfer around the country is tied to NIL earning opportunities, schools are quickly being sorted into the haves and the have-nots. Arizona State is seeing what it’s like to be a have-not, and it appears people with an interest in changing that are stepping to the plate to do what they can.