You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson.
Cast, folks. Galen Clavio.
Joining you solo on the 5th of April of 2024.
It's good to have you folks back with us.
Again and looking. Forward to chatting a little bit
this morning. Relatively short podcast, Couple
of things. Not a whole.
Lot of IU content, although we're going to start off with
something very important. In the IU universe.
First of all, couple. Of business items.
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Being. Part of the community.
Also an. Interesting programming note for
those of you I don't know where. You get your podcast.
I know from looking at the numbers, most of you are getting
your podcasts from Apple. Which is fine, no problems, but.
If you haven't been on. Spotify podcasts yet?
I would. Recommend checking it out.
Because they've actually enabled.
Video on a lot of their podcasts, which I think is.
Fascinating. And it's.
Something that I. Honestly believe could help.
Spotify get a little bit further ahead in the.
Podcast Game for. For those of you who don't know.
The background of. Of how this all?
Works. Spotify has been trying to do
podcast. They've really tried to become
the. Podcast place they've.
Had some controversy over that at times.
But you know, they have their own.
App A. Lot of people have the app, one
of the things that they've started.
Doing is. Actually showcasing video.
When a podcast is. Uploaded directly to Spotify.
And I think. That's really fascinating
because. It it opens up some interesting.
Vistas in terms of. You know the.
Visual aspects of podcast I think are becoming more and more
popular. I actually found this out.
Because I've been watching and listening to a podcast from a
former student of mine, Carly. Well, I.
Know her as Carly Mirada, but she's an anchor in Wisconsin.
A sports anchor in. Wisconsin.
Also play by play. Broadcaster up.
There, she and her family started a podcast called The
Dinner Table. And I Was.
I called it up the other day and boom is video on Spotify.
It's like this is. Awesome.
And so this. Episode right Now if you go to
Spotify and check it out, you might see the video that we
recorded. I've also got this up on YouTube
so you don't have to go over to Spotify, but check it out if
you're on Spotify if you're thinking about Spotify as a
podcast venue. It might be interesting.
Anyway, wanted to start off two things I want to talk about
today. The first A big congratulations
to Sarah Scalia. Again, ESPN, that's.
Sarah Scalia They really. Seem to struggle.
With her name at times. For winning the women's 3 point
shooting. Contest yesterday.
I'm going to try something here that I haven't.
Done in a while. Which is actually, since we're
trying to do video, I'm going to try to play her her final round
here and get this rolling over here in the.
Background just great. Shooting performance by by.
Sarah as she. Ends up.
Winning on the last rack on the women's.
Side and had a, you know, 16 threes dropped in the.
Overall Championship KC. Tamanaga ends up winning.
With a couple of balls to spare, but just a.
Tremendous performance by Sarah. And we're just, we're proud of
her without question, for what she was able to accomplish there
and you know, watching her throughout the course of the
year. Has been just.
A real joy for IU basketball. Fans and and seeing.
Her. You know, come.
In as a transfer and just kind of sink right in.
To the overall culture of IU. Women's basketball and.
Just a great accomplishment for her.
I don't know. Everybody was really excited
about that. Watching last night?
So congratulations to her. And I got to say, ESPN got to do
a bit better, not. Just the name pronunciation
issues, but the broadcast of the the final rounds.
Of that. 3 point shooting contest.
It kind of felt like the broadcasters were like
broadcasting. The 3rd hole of.
Some random golf tournament as opposed to something that was
that exciting. So would like to see that pick
up a little bit, but what are you going to do anyway?
Also, Congrats to Casey. Tomanaga, a great performance by
him obviously and he was a great.
Competitor throughout the course of.
Not just the season. But that as well.
Also, tough luck. For the Indiana State.
Sycamores last night as. They had a 7.
Point lead and then blew it at the very end.
Seton Hall ends up. Winning the NIT championship,
Just a crusher. I feel so.
Bad for all the Indiana State fans that were hoping for.
You know a post season title of some sort and after the.
Season that that team had. You really feel like they they.
Earned something more than they ended up getting.
But still I mean. For a for a program that's been
down as much as that program has.
It's great to watch. Them have this type of season
and you know, obviously everything's going.
To change. It looks like Josh Schertz is.
Going to head to Saint Louis after this.
Which I don't blame him. You know six years, $12 million
contract and and a. Higher caliber of league.
And so she had. To do as a head coach, if is
move up, so we'll see what happens.
With Indiana State, hopefully they can hire somebody up and
coming who can really help to make a difference and and keep
that program. Up in the upper reaches of the
Missouri Valley, 'cause it Really.
Belongs there. As far as I'm.
Concerned like that's. It's one of those.
Programs and. Ball State's kind.
Of in the same. Boat it's like.
You'd really just. You feel like they should be
better, you know, at that. Level at that mid major level
and. Whether it's budgetary issues.
Or whether it's administrative. Issues.
Both have had trouble. You know, Indiana states had
less trouble, I'd argue, than Ball State.
In terms of. Keeping themselves afloat.
But it means so much to fans. And it really does help, but
this is one of the. Things I talk about all the time
in sports. This idea that you are
ultimately. Looking at a circumstance.
Where sports? Are not a distraction.
Sports help to galvanized your community.
Both the university community and the broader community sports
help to bring your alumni back. They increase alumni donations.
They get people fired up about being.
Associated with the school. This is something that,
honestly, I feel Indiana at times has not been.
It's not been a lesson Indiana has necessarily learned.
You know we've had. Administrations that felt like.
Sports took. Away from the academic mission,
I've always felt that was an unfortunate interpretation of
how sports can operate in these spaces.
You know. Yes.
Are sports different? From what happens in the
classroom, of course, I say that as a person who teaches at
Indiana and you know, has been a professor here for 15 years.
But. That doesn't mean that they're.
Bad and there's a. Lot of things that.
That sports do that. Tie into the overall community
mission of a university and it is important.
You may not, you know some people don't want it to be
important to fans. They don't want it to be
important to alums. But it's important that your
sports teams are competitive, that they embody a certain.
You know set of characteristics that the culture that surrounds.
Your team can can get a hold. Of and and be proud of.
And when that doesn't happen, you get a lot of people that are
discontented and that ends up negatively affecting donations.
It ends up negatively affecting your public perception and and
the way that. People think about your school.
And for a place like Indiana State, I think it's vitally
important because as higher education becomes more of a
questionable proposition in the minds.
Of certain people as. Fewer.
People are going to. College as fewer people are
looking as like. Where am I putting my money?
Why would I want to donate it to that university?
Having. Successful sports teams
provides. Pride.
And it provides an incentive for people to continue to get.
Involved at times when? Perhaps they would question.
Why they were getting involved and so.
I think it's opened a lot of people.
'S eyes in Terre Haute I know from talking with with both
friends of mine. Who who work?
At the university, work in the community.
I think it's helped. To kind of open people's eyes
to. The idea that.
You know, between what Indiana State's done with basketball and
what they've done. With baseball last year.
These are things that can help you.
They don't have to be things that are viewed as distractions
or or. You know, contrary to the
overall. Mission of the University.
So, so again, hopefully. In the end, state can build on
this and and even with the. Departure of the coach.
They can find a way to maintain, you know, competitiveness and
relevance over the course of the next 5 to 10 years.
Let's switch. Gears I wanted to talk a little
bit about. A story that came out a.
Couple of days ago. And it was this story by.
Andrew Marchand and Stuart Mandel from The Athletic
regarding. This Super League idea.
In college football. And I got a lot of emails.
I got a lot of texts about this. People are like.
You know, Galen, what is going on here?
Is this is this the end of the collegiate?
Model as we know it and. Certainly the way the.
Story is framed. You would think, oh, this is
going to happen and it, you know, this is going to be a real
problem, but I think there's some.
Key. Issues with the way.
That this has been. Presented that that probably.
Are going to keep. It from ever being something
that we. Have to worry about, so let's.
Start off by talking. About, you know.
What this Super League? Looks like, yeah, I think I've
got. It up here on screen for those
of you. Who are?
Watching the video. But I'm going to just read a
couple of. Paragraphs here the current.
CST, which is the The CST is the is what they're.
Calling college sports tomorrow. Which that you want to talk?
About a dumb. Name for something.
I don't know that I that somebody put like serial.
There hadn't been 3. Or 4.
Focus groups that put college. Sports tomorrow together as the
name of this project. Just come on, we can do better
than that. Anyway, the current CST outline
would create a system that would have.
The top seventy programs, of which Indiana is 1.
All members of the five. Former major conferences, plus
Notre Dame and new ACC member SMU as permanent members.
But would encompass all 130 plus.
FBS Universities, The Perpetual Members would be in 710 team
divisions within an eighth division of teams.
That would be promoted from the 2nd.
Tier and that second tier would essentially.
Comprise the 50 teams. That are.
Leftover, essentially that. Are in the group.
Of five. And there would be a promotion
and relegation system where you could come out of that and then
if. You if you don't do well while
you're. Up in that top ten division.
Probably two or three. Teams get dropped back down into
the. Pool and two or.
Three new teams. Come up.
So the idea is. Well, let's give that lower
division. Of teams An opportunity to
compete against the upper division of teams while not
threatening the. Place of the upper.
Division teams. So you know.
Very, very European. Style approach, it also says
like the playoffs will not. Require a selection committee.
Because there'll be 8. Divisions.
So you have 8 division winners. And eight wild.
Cards, which essentially means that in a A16 team playoff, 14
of the 16 teams would come out. Of the permanent FBS.
Members and then everybody else would fall in below.
So there's a couple of different things that I think I need.
To talk about with this so first.
Of all the idea itself. Structurally is not that bad and
you know. I think a lot of people they
they look at. Conference realignment and
they've. Said, Well, why do we?
Need 16 team or 18 team? Conferences like what?
On Earth is going on there. The big. 10 used to have 10
teams. The PAC 10 used to have 10
teams. The ACC used to have nine teams,
believe it or not. You know, why are we going
bigger and bigger? So this does bring a little bit
more of a sense of normalcy and maybe geographical.
You know. Consistency to these different
divisions. I think that's the.
Idea. That's not bad.
And you know, certainly, I think if you were going to take this
from like a hey, we got to. Blow the whole thing up and
start over, which is kind. Of the premise.
Of this thing. That's not a bad premise to
start. From it's like.
All right. Let's take all these programs
that through one. Means or another.
Have brought themselves up to this high level.
Of college football. Let's split them back down based
upon the. The the geography that exists of
those teams. Let's not.
Worry about the original. Associations with the
conferences. And let's just set it up like.
That. That's not that bad.
And even the idea. Of no selection committee and
just have like an automatic bid and then a wild.
Card out of each of those. Divisions.
That's also not bad. And then there's some fairness
there. It's like.
You. You should win your division,
but if you don't, well, you still got a chance to get into
the playoff. And in the playoff anything can
happen. So I don't hate all of that and
I like the 16 team playoff idea in general.
I think that makes sense. That's what they've used at the.
The FCS level for a while. The problem with this proposal
is. No one's going to support it in
college. Athletics because the.
Power in college athletics. Is really with the?
Conferences. And this is something that I
think if you read the article, one of the things that gets
noted. In the.
Article is that there's a lot of problems with the.
Way that the. CST has decided to approach this
because you know the ultimately the CST seems to be trying to.
Approach it from the. Standpoint that this is.
About to go bankrupt and it needs saving.
And as a result, we got to blow up the current.
Power structure and we got to. Reconsolidate a power.
Structure around something different.
Which of course is run by the people that are proposing CST.
Very convenient. But it's not a whole lot.
Different from what happened in the 1990s.
When, you know college football used to just be this kind of
disassociated. Group of conferences.
There was no formal national championship and it was the
conferences in the 1990s that got.
Together and said. We can do better than this.
We can make more money. We can consolidate power.
That's where the bowl. Alliance and then the Bowl.
Coalition and then ultimately. The BCS.
And then ultimately ultimately. The College Football Playoff.
Came from that. That is the entire conceit of
that. And as I've talked about on
this. Show before.
It's important to remember the NCAA doesn't make.
Money directly. Off of college football
television the. Conferences and Notre Dame do.
And then that. Gets distributed down.
To individual teams and programs.
And So what you're. Looking at is a group of people
who's trying to argue that the system is.
Broken and is going to go bankrupt.
That's not. Really the case?
That's where the the rhetoric. Around.
College sports, like everybody. 'S going to go.
Broke is is dumb because. When you go and actually look.
At the money, that's. Being used in college sports and
being made and generated through television contracts.
It's it's, you know, billions of dollars.
Nobody's going broke. There's the the way that college
athletics works. Most of these conferences.
Are. You know their pass throughs.
And most of the teams have set their.
Budgets up so. That they're non profit
entities, so they're spending as.
Much as they're taking. In because that.
Allows them to justify. The idea that nobody's making
money in. College athletics and so.
This is part of this larger. Issue of paying.
Players, you know. Not controlling coach contracts
like all of those financial elements kind of feed in.
So the reason why all this ties back into the CST idea is that
even though the business might look like it's losing money, and
even though the business. Itself and the people who are
going in front of Congress, commissioners and coaches.
Are saying we can't afford all of this?
Well, they can and the conferences know it.
And if the conferences were really in dire?
Shape and if the. Schools were really in dire.
Shape from a financial. Perspective.
They probably would. Have come up with.
This. Idea on their own, but they're
not. Instead what's.
Happening is the strongest. Conferences the SEC.
In the Big 10. Are consolidating power.
By trying to grab. As many.
Television properties as possible.
They're trying to. Edge out their competition.
Which in this case. Is the ACC.
The Big 12 and the Now. Former PAC 12 and they're
perfectly fine with. That set of circumstances.
Because then they can dictate the terms the.
Idea that the big. 10. The SEC And their television.
Partners, ESPN, Fox, NBC. Are going to be like, you know
what? You're right.
We should let somebody else run. This and make all the money.
Is is pretty silly, the idea that that a there's money being
lost. Here and B.
That even if there was money being lost, that this group of
people would voluntarily cede control to other people.
Who so that they could make money off of.
It I think to me it's the greatest distillation of the
problem. Here.
Which is just that. College sports They're.
Trying to find a way to spend as little money as.
Possible while making as much money as possible.
And they've argued that they're broke, but they're.
Not and they know it and if you're paying attention.
You know it too, so. This will go nowhere.
This will not gain traction. There's no incentive for the SEC
in the Big 10 and ESPN and. Fox to yield any control over
the. Direction that college sports is
going right now. And look, it's not.
Going in a great. Direction but.
The reality is there's there's no incentive.
To change anything right? Now because it's not going in a
great. Direction for the traditional.
Aspects of college sports. But for these?
Upper echelon. Leagues.
I think they. Like the direction that things
are going because at the end of the day, the way things are
trending. They're the.
Ones that are ultimately going to have the.
Final say they're. Going to have the most control
and that's the way that they want it, and up to this point,
nobody's really been able to keep them from doing.
That so anyway. We'll talk.
More about this if there's more to talk about, I actually don't
expect. To see a whole lot more the one.
Last thing I'll say if you're a fan of.
European football you'll recognize this, this whole Super
League idea that been that was floated in European football.
Is to some. Degree a battle between.
The domestic leagues and the individual brands within their
leagues that have. Equal or greater.
Market share so like. The Premier League clearly would
not want a Super League, because that would.
Greatly diminish the Premier League, but the Premier League's
pretty powerful and the Premier League and the.
Football Association of England was able to essentially stage a
populist revolt against the idea of a Super League.
But at the but the bedrock of that was the idea that, well,
the Premier League doesn't want to lose its financial place and
they've. Got some weight to throw around.
Same thing with. The Champions League.
Same thing with Serie. A La Liga the.
Bundesliga Like there's there's. A There's a lot.
Of financial. Pressures here that are cast as
other things. But you know, realistically
speaking, what you're. Dealing with is power structure
against power structure. And in this case.
Much like as in the college. Football case, the existing
leagues or the? Existing conferences, that's
where the. Power structure is.
That's not. Going to go away.
Just because a group. Of people comes in and says.
We need to. Have a better idea?
You might have a better idea. Unless it's coming from those
people, why would they give up? What?
They've already got so. The the last.
Last thing I'll say is Indiana should be counting its
blessings. That it joined the.
Big 10 in 1900 and has been a member in good standing.
Because either direction. They're being kind of.
Brought along for the ride. And this is, again, it's a
cautionary tale to some degree. It's why you you have to invest
in football like Indiana has this year.
It's why you have to invest in your.
Core sports like basketball. Because if you don't.
You you start to lose. Relevance and.
You start to see these much larger brands really starting
to. To put themselves.
In a position where they can. Dictate your terms, so.
Glad Indiana is in this mix and and that either way either the
status. Quo or wherever we're heading
with the status quo or under. This new system, at least
Indiana will be in the mix. I just hope Indiana could
continue to improve itself from a.
A competitive perspective? So that it can stay in the mix
as we move. Forward anyway.
That'll wrap things up for us here.
I hope you all. Have a great weekend.
Might have a podcast. Coming out over the.
Weekend we'll see. But if not, if you're in
Bloomington or in Indianapolis, enjoy the eclipse.
If we. Don't talk to you before Monday.
Be safe. Be careful. 4 Crimson cast.
In the back home network, I'm Galen.
Clavio, we'll catch you folks on the flip side.
Bring back the bison. That's all everybody.