When all-league center Oumar Ballo left Arizona for Indiana and an NIL deal worth well over $1 million last spring, the reality of modern college basketball hit home for the Wildcats once again.
These days, recruits and their agents sign agreements not just with a school but also with its NIL collective, ensuring the best players collect compensation that often extends into six figures. And, every spring, everyone can be a free agent, able to transfer or threaten to transfer anywhere, with extra leverage given to those who enter the transfer portal.
Boundaries are changing everywhere. NIL payments are increasing rapidly every year, expected up 72% in menβs basketball for 2024-25 compared with a year ago, according to Opendorse, a NIL marketplace/technology firm that works with collectives.
Meanwhile, legal wrangling continues over a landmark case that opened the door in May for a revenue-sharing agreement in which schools of major programs could directly pay athletes up to $20 million a year starting as early as next season.
None of this fazes Matt King. Heβs diving straight into it, leaving his job running a Phoenix sports marketing operation and the Arizona Assist NIL collective to become UAβs new president of basketball operations last month.
βI love the game of basketball, I love all the things around it, but I want to be part of the business of basketball,β King said. βIβm not trying to be a Division I head coach. Thatβs not my trajectory. I think itβs a relatively good fit because of that.β
A former walk-on player at New Mexico, King actually was a coach, for 13 years at high schools in New Mexico and Arizona before turning to sports business. He became president of a holding company that ran Position Sports, which produces and publicizes sports events, such as the upcoming UA-UCLA series that will be played at neutral sites over the next three seasons.
King also served as executive director of the Arizona Basketball Coaches Association. In that role, he organized the massive Section 7 recruiting event, in which high school teams from the western half of the country that have Division I prospects are invited to compete at Glendaleβs State Farm Stadium every June.
For King, as well as the players and coaches involved, it was a networking event on steroids.
βSection 7 just became such a beast that thereβs no high school coach in the western United States that I donβt have a significant relationship with,β King says.
Kingβs experience in organizing high school and college events, working with Nike and ESPN, and also running the Arizona Assist collective gave him a skillset that appealed to UA coach Tommy Lloyd. While moving special assistant TJ Benson to a full assistant coach role last month, Lloyd hired King to become UAβs de facto general manager, in charge of everything outside of coaching.
βThe addition of Matt to our staff will enhance every aspect of our program, both internally and externally,β Lloyd said in a statement.
The hire was the sort of move that is becoming more common in college basketball. Opendorse co-founder Blake Lawrence told the Associated Press that βproperly managing payrollβ is a key function of a collective β and a skill that will be needed at every school.
King said he will also oversee any future direct school payments to players and described his current duties in five parts: Leading the business strategy of the basketball program, often in concert with Arizona AD Desiree Reed-Francois; overseeing player compensation; scheduling nonconference games; handling external relations with donors and managing all non-coaching staffers within the UA menβs basketball programs.
βAnything that you would imagine that a president of a company would do from a business standpoint, Iβll do that for Arizona menβs basketball,β King says.
All of his duties were part of the old-school college game, except the one about compensation, which is changing rapidly. The Arizona Assist sprung out of the 2021 legalization of NIL, its original directors aiming to collect about $1 million annually so as to pay each UA scholarship player about $80,000 each.
But that was so 2021. Now, the top 25 players at each position in college basketball can expect to earn $349,492 this season, according to Opendorseβs 2024-25 NIL report, an amount that is up 72% from a year ago.
King declined to say what the Arizona Assistβs NIL budget is, and UA declined to release NIL-related contracts in response to a public records request from the Star, citing student-privacy law. But King said the collectiveβs budget is β100 percent on parβ with those around other elite programs.
Actions back that up. Fifth-year forward Keshad Johnson reportedly spoke of receiving more than $400,000 in NIL compensation while playing for the Wildcats last season, while returning guard Caleb Love passed up a potential two-way contract that might have paid him more than $500,000 by returning to Arizona this season. (On3 estimates returning Love has an NIL value of $812,000.)
Itβs clear a $1 million budget doesnβt cut it anymore for NIL collectives around elite menβs basketball programs. Maybe not even three times that. In fact, Opendorse said the collectives around power conference schools in 2024-25 average $13.9 million, with 22.6% of that allocated for menβs basketball, implying an average budget of $3.1 million for the sport.
βThe one thing that I would tell you is if youβre to take a major college Division I player, the amount of money that they are securing in NIL this year as opposed to two or three years ago is significantly more,β King says.
King says Lloyd has been clear that NIL βis not going to be the first conversationβ he has with recruits but that the Wildcat players can be offered competitive NIL packages thanks to Arizona Assist members.
βThereβs a group of hidden heroes in Tucson, Phoenix, LA, those areas, that are out thereβ contributing to Arizona Assist, King said. βThey never went to social media. They never tried to sing their praises.β
When King ran the Arizona Assist, part of his job was to find and expand that group of donors. The collective now features a βWildcat Villageβ membership for $3,000 a year that includes events with UA players and two tickets to the Arizona-UCLA game in Phoenix this season, among other benefits.
Since schools arenβt allowed to directly run NIL collectives, King canβt manage the Arizona Assist anymore, so longtime fan and Tucson businessman Paul Volpe has taken over leadership. Instead, Kingβs charge is to educate and make sure players are compliant in their NIL dealings, and working as a liaison with Arizona Assist.
βRight now, obviously we canβt be a part of doing those deals,β King said, βbut we are very attuned to the reality that is to come and making sure that we are preparing ourselves to be a next generation college basketball program within a really innovative athletic department.β
King says he wonβt get involved in scheduling until 2025-26 since Benson already set this seasonβs schedule. It includes home games with Duke and five mid- to low-major teams, along with three games in the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas, a game in Phoenix against UCLA in Phoenix and another at Wisconsin.
Kingβs other ongoing duties include external relations and managing the non-coaching staff, reflecting a new organizational structure in which Lloyd does not directly oversee the non-coaching staffers. King says Evan Manning, the operations director who worked under Benson last season, will serve more as a traditional operations director, handling issues such as travel and dining arrangements.
King will also work with player relations director Jason Gardner, communications director Nate Weichers, creative media director Chris Richards, and internal operations director Marissa Elias-Castaneda.
Basically, King is overseeing the business that is Arizona basketball. And what that business will keep evolving into.
βI think if we were to sum up where weβre headed as the Arizona menβs basketball program, itβs that Tommy has a vision of building a next generation menβs basketball program that that lives within a modern day athletic department and is rooted within a historic university,β King said. βIβll oversee all of all of the elements of the new world of college athletics.β