Michigan State football: What to make of canceled SD4L NIL deals

It’s been a nightmare of a two-plus-week stretch for Michigan State football.

The Spartans lost their head coach due to an off-field incident as Mel Tucker was officially fired on Wednesday after being suspended without pay for a week and a half. Then a couple of recruits decommitted. And now, NIL brand SD4L has canceled some deals with football players.

The news broke late on Friday night, according to Audrey Dahlgren. She first reported that all NIL deals with the football team from SD4L were canceled. David Harns of SpartansIllustrated.com then updated that report by saying that only “some” of the deals were canceled.

Basically, no one really knew what the reason for this was, but then SD4L released a statement that said that they were cutting the budget for the football team.

So what the heck could be going on?

Michigan State football getting the worst of this

My thinking about this whole cancelation is that Steve St. Andre is putting everything on pause while the football program figures out who’s leaving and who the next head coach will be.

If some players are leaving, it doesn’t make a ton of sense for him to pay them to sit out.

But then again, this could also just mean that SD4L isn’t making as much money as it expected which it kind of alluded to in its statement. But yet the entire basketball team is still sponsored by the brand so maybe it’s going by who brings in the most eyeballs?

This whole situation is confusing and probably has a lot more going on behind the scenes than we realize, but it’s not a great look.