{"id":107871,"date":"2025-07-31T15:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T15:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/107871\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T15:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T15:31:10","slug":"syracuse-orange-athletics-the-lingering-booster-drama-doesnt-help-anyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/107871\/","title":{"rendered":"Syracuse Orange athletics: the lingering booster drama doesn\u2019t help anyone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last few years, one of the most polarizing things around the Syracuse Orange<\/a> has been Adam Weitsman. <\/p>\n

The billionaire best friend of Jim Boeheim brought a lot of attention with his celebrity guests on the Dome\u2019s sideline, but according to this week\u2019s Syracuse.com<\/a> story, the donations he brought weren\u2019t what many claimed – as Boeheim himself told everyone back <\/a>in his final season.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis is an awful place we\u2019re in in college basketball,\u201d he said. \u201cPittsburgh bought a team. OK, fine. My [big donor] talks about it, but he doesn\u2019t give anyone any money. Nothing. Not one guy. Our guys make like $20,000. Wake Forest<\/a> bought a team. Miami bought a team. … It\u2019s like, \u2018Really, this is where we are?\u2019 That\u2019s really where we are, and it\u2019s only going to get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Weitsman himself showed that he had nine NIL deals worth $153,000, with the largest deals ($30k each) to Alijah Clark and Dyaisha Fair. The deal with Fair is significant because her fifth year pushed the Orange women to the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament, and certainly Clark played an important role in football\u2019s 2024 success.<\/p>\n

For the last couple of years, a group of fans have clamored for Syracuse to mend the relationship with Weitsman as NIL exploded across the country. The receipts he provided show that he was a contributor, but not at the level a lot of fans want to believe. The bulk of his University donations were related to the courtside seats and suite at the Dome – again significant, but not at the level of others. <\/p>\n

Weitsman claimed that the University pushed him out, and this week\u2019s story by Chris Carlson and Mike Waters presents more he said\/they said and adds in some drama between Weitsman and the Lally\u2019s with Orange alum Etan Thomas thrown in between.<\/p>\n

At this point, none of this does any good for the Orange. I\u2019m not here to pick sides but it\u2019s clear Syracuse will side with the people who put up $25 million, and in the process re-energized a lot of boosters on the football side. <\/p>\n

Dragging it back out in public doesn\u2019t seem to benefit any of the parties involved. It showed Weitsman wasn\u2019t dishing out the money like others. It showed that Syracuse wasn\u2019t eager to keep him around as a booster, even as the basketball program floundered. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s great that Weitsman does a lot of philanthropic work and that he brought some fun to the Dome with his guests, but if he wasn\u2019t willing to meet his promise of a five-star recruit in Boeheim\u2019s final season, why would people think he\u2019d do it now? It\u2019s time to close the chapter and we can bring back the courtside celebrity tracker<\/a> for the guests of the Anthony Family. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the last few years, one of the most polarizing things around the Syracuse Orange has been Adam…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[16499,1637,68965,3955,1339,68964,44844,2882,204,2198,1622,68963,16500,1317,1337,1338,16498,16494,62,4695,16501,469,448,11547,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-107871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-absolute","9":"tag-an","10":"tag-anyone","11":"tag-athletics","12":"tag-basketball","13":"tag-booster","14":"tag-doesn","15":"tag-drama","16":"tag-front-page","17":"tag-help","18":"tag-is","19":"tag-lingering","20":"tag-magician","21":"tag-ncaa","22":"tag-ncaa-basketball","23":"tag-ncaabasketball","24":"tag-nunes","25":"tag-orange","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-syracuse","28":"tag-syracuse-basketball-mens-orange-boeheim","29":"tag-t","30":"tag-the","31":"tag-troy","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114948570462178416","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}