You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast
Take Two as we've been battling some technical issues this
morning, but I think we've got them all set and we continue to
press on with our coverage of the house settlement and what's
going on with college athletics. I'm Galen Clavio, great to have
you joining us. We've got Ben Portnoy back from
Sports Business Journal. Ben, great to see you again.
How you doing? I'm good, man.
No, it's a busy time. It's a good thing there's
nothing to talk about in college sports these days.
So I think we're, I know we're really hurting for content and
discussion points, but we should be alright.
We're going to we're going to struggle mightily with all of
this, but we'll find a way to persevere.
No, a ton going on obviously and looking forward to, to talking
about this with Ben. We had Ben on back in, I think
late March or early April about what we are now going to be
talking about, sort of, but it's taking some twists and turns
along the way. So we wanted to talk through
some of the things he's seeing as a journalist and somebody
who's in this space and covering things and also just what we
might see moving forward. We're going to have some more
podcasts coming up next week. So a lot to talk about with this
is as we got a lot of different angles to hit throughout the
course of the summer. Just a reminder before we get
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order. All right, Ben, let's go ahead
and launch into it. And for those of you watching
along on YouTube, which you should be if you're not at this
point, I'm going to switch our aspect ratio so we can do some
good old fashioned vertical video talking about what's going
on in the world of college sports.
And just, I guess, you know, maybe to start with Ben, we're
about a week out right now from when the announcement of the
settlement occurred. Judge Claudia Wilkin taking as
she should, taking her time to put out the, the, the report and
the OR the the, the settlement, I guess approval process a week
in. We've seen a ton of stories.
We've seen, you know, a lot of things going back and forth.
We've seen a lot of people questioning where this landed.
What has been your take home points I guess from this first
seven days in the post house settlement era?
You know, I think the biggest thing that I've taken away is
just, I think that people have some real optimism around
college athletics right now. And I think that that's been,
not to say lacking, but I think there's been so much going on
that people have had a hard time wrapping their heads around like
where does this thing go now? I would press that by saying a
couple of things like the house settlement is not a catch all,
Like it's not a silver bullet. It's not going to magically fix
a lot of the problems that exist in the ecosystem.
But I think like kind of the way that I've, I've kind of
explained it to a lot of folks is like if you have a list of
like 10 things that you need to do to fix college sports, the
house settlement checks off like two or three things on that
list. And I think it at least gives
you a structure and somewhat of a whatever you want to call it,
like a baseline, basically of what this governance structure
of what the format of how college sports can operate
moving into the next, whatever the next iteration of this is
five years, 10 years, whatever it is down the line.
And I think that's ultimately what what it is right now.
And I think again, like there's a lot of optimism.
I think people are finally looking at this is like, hey,
the kind of mess of the last five years.
We at least have something that we feel pretty good about and
that we feel confident that we can at least get, you know, some
kind of governance and some kind of kind of ability to get our
arms around this enterprise. I think that's where where
everyone's at right now. Yeah, I mean, you know, the the
devil's always in the details with these sorts of things.
And I think that that's where perhaps some people are being
caught. I'm not going to say off guard,
but there's a lot of questions about different aspects of this.
And the biggest piece I would say that that's drawn the most
controversy, the most uncertainty is this idea of nil
go. You know, this, this agency that
Deloitte is running that's supposed to be a clearing house
for nil deals. There's supposed to be a self
reporting process for NI deals of $600.00 or more that is then
supposed to go through this process that ultimately could
end up with an arbiter that decides whether an nil deal is,
is, you know, appropriate or not given the criteria.
A lot of the question marks have really come up around how do you
even guarantee that nil deals are getting reported in the 1st
place? Doesn't this look like it's ripe
for corruption, given that, you know, we're, we're not what,
five years removed from a system where all of these payments were
happening under the table and behind closed doors?
You know, so when you, when you see that and you look at the way
that that's being presented and talked about by the conference
commissioners, they were very optimistic in that call a couple
of days ago that, oh, this was going to really help to
straighten things out. Like where do you see that in
terms of where people would like college athletics to be versus
where the actual market might be?
No, that's a really good question.
I think, you know, there's kind of two layers to this, right?
Like, OK, I think we can all agree that because of the
economic system in July 1, you're going to have rules like
that's that's a important distinction.
So it meant that people were front loading deals and saying,
cool, if I can get everything in under the gun, then we can pay
the kids more. We we need to use the money we
have on the books that otherwise like we basically will just be
like sitting on our books and doing nothing with right.
So there's a little bit of that. So that's why you've seen like
nil deals skyrocket over the last 6-8 months.
That's sort of like the two sentence explanation, the thing
that comes out of this, and I think there's definitely some
skepticism around like, hey, how or is the market actually going
to go down? And I don't really I think
that's a fair, that's a fair criticism of like, is there
going to be actually a world where come into it where there's
a little like like, is the price tag going to go down?
And yes, understandably there's some criticism around that.
But the thing that I think is really, really important to
explain with a lot of this and at least where the house I went
landed in the last whatever five days is that you this is all
coming out of a federal lawsuit. It's not just the NCAA sort of
superfluously, you know, creating rules and regulations
and then saying, cool, abide by this or you know, like, that's
not really what's happening here.
What's happening here is you've got a federal judge layout
groundwork for a governance structure that's going to have
subpoena, you know, an arbitration process, all of
those things. And because of that, you're
going to have something that allows for basically like more
teeth than anything the NCAA could have had because it's
coming out of a leaf structure. And I.
Yeah, it's, it's a complicated thing for a lot of people to get
their heads wrapped around because, and this was brought
this, I've seen this in several of the legal writings that we've
had around this up to this point.
It's you know, that you're, you're not just talking about a
law for college athletes. You're talking about a, you
know, essentially a principle of law, which is, of course, the
right of publicity, which is what NINIL is all based around.
And this idea that you have actors and other people,
musicians, like they all have rights of publicity.
There are specific laws in specific states that deal with
right of publicity and that's what nil falls under.
But there's no national law about right of publicity.
You know, it's always been something that's been at a state
level. So that's one aspect of it where
the the idea of having a national law and this is
something that we're seeing being mentioned as a possibility
for this bill in Congress that's being discussed.
You know, there's all these factors where it's like you're
trying to create something at the federal level that doesn't
exist to apply to a specific class of people, in this case
college athletes and the business of college sports.
It's not just as simple as the NCAA saying this is what we're
going to do because there's no precedent for it really anywhere
else within any of the industries that you would try to
connect this with. It's a very unique thing.
And it doesn't even tie in with professional sports because
professional sports utilize unions and, you know, players
associations and collective bargaining to decide these
things. This is a completely different
thing that colleges and universities are trying to put
forth. And it's hard to say exactly
where that's going to land because that then has to be
there will be lawsuits. There will be people suing and
saying no, my rights are being infringed in this.
So it's really it. That aspect of it does feel hard
to predict, like what direction things are going to go.
Yeah, sorry I lost you a little bit there.
But I think like, look, the important pieces, right?
Like to your point, like it's it, it's different, right?
Like this is fundamentally different than just the NC as
but stipulating rules. Like again, it comes out of a
federal lawsuit. Like that's the point here.
I think that that is really important and and I think it's
what gives us teeth, right. Then you also tie in the fact
that like, so you know, I, I've sort of game this out with a few
people and I think it's an important sort of distinction
here is that if you have, let's play this out a little bit,
right? Like if I'm a football player at
Georgia and I get $100,000 NIL deal, I submit it to Deloitte
and you give me the thumbs down like, hey, this isn't kosher.
We're not going to allow this deal to go through, right?
Like the first thought in the previous system was cool, I'm
now going to sue you and hopefully I'm going to win
because you're, you know, it's an antitrust issue.
And that's, that's where we're going to go around and around
and probably I'm going to win. Well, the way that this
structure is set up is there's an arbitration process.
And so generally speaking, look like I'm no lawyer despite as
much as I need to play in the legal weeds these days.
Maybe law school was a better and better idea.
But you know, I do think that, you know, because of that,
because there's an arbitration process, like generally
speaking, if an arbitrator goes through and says, hey, we're
going to spike this deal or this isn't, you know, we're not going
to give this the thumbs up. Like courts are generally not
keen on overturning what an arbitrator has ruled already.
Like I think that when you add kind of those legal layers to
this to what you were saying, I think about why this is
different. That's what gives this teeth in
a way that's that's unique, right?
Like, for example, like the NCAA for years, like the problem in
the conversation around investigations into the NCAA was
like they don't have subpoena power.
Like if you know, you go back and you would know this probably
better than me. But like, I think if, correct me
if I'm wrong, but like part of the reason that the Miami case
became such a big issue in the sort of mid early 2000s was that
Miami basically was like, yeah, NCA, we're not going to give you
anything. And so and, and so they couldn't
do anything about it. Whereas now you're coming from
a, a legal perspective, like this group will have subpoena
power and go so on and so forth. And so because of that, it, it,
it ultimately and fundamentally changes the way that the
governance of college sports can operate.
And it takes us out of the hands of the NCAA and goes in with the
with the College Sports Commission, which has kind of
been laid out as part of the settlement as well.
Yeah, I mean, it's there was a point it felt like in the mid
twenty 10s, you know what I mean?
So much of this, frankly, without getting into a large
political discussion, kind of maps to the political
environment of the United States in as much as a lot of it.
The NCAA relied upon for decades was school shame and the idea
that if you got caught cheating that you would have to throw
yourself on the mercy of the NCAA and they would they would
meet her out the punishments. Now, some schools like they
would, they would use delays. You know, the the famous Jerry
Tarkanian quote about the NCAA being so mad about Kentucky
basketball that they just gave Cleveland State two more years
of probation. Like, that was that was really
predicated on an era where with the NCAA doesn't really want to,
you know, tackle the big guys and gals when they're violating
rules because they don't really have that subpoena power.
And if you really wanted to fight it, you could.
But you were a pariah as a school, as a university at that
point. And then about 10-15 years ago.
And I think we need to give like, North Carolina athletics
their, their, their, their plaudits for this because they
just were like, yeah, we broke the rules, but we argue that we
didn't break the rules and you can't do anything about it.
And as it turned out, the NCAA couldn't do anything about it.
I mean, they could have tried, but they probably would have
gotten sued in court and maybe lost.
And when you are a body that is essentially your entire
existence is predicated on we enforce rules and then we
distribute money. That's the two things that the
NCAA, I guess you want to throw in organized championships.
Sure. That puts you in a position
where you can't actually enforce the rules.
You've got some problems. And I guess that's where for a
lot of people that very specifically the nil aspect of
this, until we see it in action, there's going to be this
perception that schools are taking advantage of the system,
that you've got money going under the table.
And it's been interesting because one of the arguments
I've seen from a lot of journalists and I think
rightfully so, is that when an IO payments became available,
suddenly the hegemony that for instance, the SEC had been
maintaining over success in football, success in baseball,
things like that suddenly started to go away.
And suddenly you get a lot more competitive balance, which makes
you question, well, gosh, what was going on under the table in
this previous era. So I think there are there is a
lot of sensitivity about going back to a system that favors
these under the table payments, even if now it's like, well,
schools realize you've got to pay athletes to come play.
Maybe that will be the thing that continues to keep it even I
I don't know. I mean, do you have any thoughts
on on that setup and what to think there?
No, I mean, I think you're right.
Like, think about it. The simplest possible terms.
Listen, it's a lot easier to tell the NCAA to go to hell than
it is to tell the federal government to go to hell.
Like, those are two very different things.
Like, that's essentially what this boils down to, right?
Like, you know, you've got to a point where the NCAA, everyone
kind of just said, yeah, OK, like, that's nice and all good
and well, but like, we don't actually believe in those rules
and we're just going to sue you because of it.
And I think that, like, whereas with this, again, it's laid out
in a federal lawsuit, it just changes things.
And I think that that's why there's a lot of optimism from a
lot of administrators. And like, you know, I spoke with
a lot of this past week down in Orlando was the NACTA
convention, which is essentially, you know, the AD
convention annually that's held, you know, split between Orlando
and Vegas every other year. And so, you know, it was down
there and spoke with, you know, a number of folks were
intimately involved and piercing together this governance
structure and, you know, a number of other athletic
directors from around the country.
And like the point was and the sentiment was like, like, what
are we going to do otherwise? Like sit around with our hands
in our pockets and do nothing? Like, you know, we have to do
something. And I think that this something
is at least better than nothing. And I think, again, it sort of
lays out some level of a baseline for everyone to be able
to say, hey, in five years, 10 years, whatever.
Like this, this is a starting point, right?
Like this is governance structure 1A.
Like this is not the final form. And I think that's really
important for people to know. And I think and understand is
like this may not be permanent, it may not be the long term
solution. It's not going to be, you know,
the catch all. But I do think it at least gives
everyone a chance to get their hands around like the craziness
of the last couple years and and operate in a system that has at
least again some rules and regulations.
The the other, the next thing I was going to ask you about
though is this idea of So what we've talked about the nil
space, the revenue share is another thing that people I
think are there's some confusion about.
And so, you know, the best way to describe it is they've taken
a certain percentage of the total revenues of the power for
schools. And that's the revenue share
money, that average number that you can pay as a school to your
athletes, but you don't have to pay the full amount.
And there's no guidance about what percentages you're going to
pay to the various classes of athletes that are out there.
And so I think that what's interesting is there's a lot of
confusion and I think rightfully so because the announcement came
out. Well, twenty and a half million
dollars or whatever the number is will be going out in Rev
share. But that's not necessarily true.
We've seen several different schools say they're going to do
it different ways. And now we've also got a, you
know, what is almost certainly going to be a Title 9 lawsuit
likely to come soon about what does that need to be split
proportionally across female and male athletes?
Because that's how Title 9 is largely been interpreted up to
this point, at least in terms of scholarships.
Now that I think it's a lot of legal questioning about that.
But the the the Rev share piece, like it's important, it's
revolutionary because it does mean that athletic departments
are giving money directly to athletes.
And that's never happened before.
But it's a very kind of vague space right now as far as how
it's actually going to happen school by school.
No, it is. And I think like look like it's
easy to see how, you know, a school like Indiana is probably
going to put more money toward men's basketball than it might
football. And I don't mean that like it's
obviously going to contribute realistically, like make up a
number if you have 20 and a half million dollars, like
realistically Indiana's probably going to put, you know, twelve,
$13 million towards football, right?
It's not going to be 2 million, to be clear.
But like, you know, if Indiana's playing in a world where they
can give five, six, $7,000,000 to to men's basketball, like
that's a big difference, right? That from a lot of people in a
lot of other places. And so because of that, you're
going to have sort of this like financial sort of accounting
that I think is going to be vary from school to school.
Like that is an interesting dynamic.
And I think it's also interesting for a lot of
athletic departments, like look like, you know, I live in
Columbia, SC. If you look down the road, like
the women's program needs resources in a way that others
don't, right? Or the baseball program.
And so like that creates an interesting financial accounting
piece. Source Those programs, those
places, those teams in a way that keeps them compared.
So I think that like that's where this becomes a fascinating
dynamic of like, what are schools going to do?
And it's going to vary a lot. And I think that's, that's the
thing, Like, yes, football's going to get the vast majority.
Yes, men's basketball's going to probably be second by a decent
amount. But then what you do beyond
that, I think is fascinating. Yeah.
I mean, and look, the money, the numbers that are going around
right now, I think people are having a hard time reconciling
what they're hearing and seeing currently with what we are
supposedly going to be looking at moving forward.
So as an example, you know that we had the quote from Kurt
Stignetti about a month ago where he was talking about, you
know, it's like 45 to $50 million of money being spent on
football teams. And you know, Signetti saying,
well, you know, in Indiana, like we don't, we're not in that
range. We're, we're, we have good NIL
resources, but it looks like it's more in like the $25
million range. There was the story yesterday or
couple days ago about Texas Tech spending $55 million in
combination NIL and revshare. Like that's a lot of money.
That's a that's a ton of money and it's not something that's
going to be consistent across areas of college sports.
Is it really a situation where we're going to see those numbers
retreat back to to more reasonable numbers, I guess, in
the eyes of people? How so?
That's where I think a lot of people's questions are coming
from, because on the one hand they're seeing the numbers that
supposedly will be coming through this new system, but
then they're seeing what's happening currently and it's
like, are we really going to go backwards?
Yeah, no, I mean, that's I think that's where there's a
skepticism, right? Like kids don't want to take a
pay cut. Like it's pretty simple, right?
Like the football team's not going to be, you know, not going
to be thrilled about taking less money or whatever it might be.
And I think like that's where it becomes this sort of impasse
between the two things of like, OK, we're putting in the
structure, but that also means that like, are the prices going
to go down or whatever it might be?
And so that's why I think like it becomes really important.
And maybe this is like rose colored glasses a little bit
because look, I think if anything's been proven, it's
that, you know, college athletics is really good at
figuring out ways to get around the rules and then finding ways
to get around everything. So, but I say that to say, like,
you know, are there marketing deals that get put in place?
Are there groups that are, you know, put together to to better
sort of marry brands and, you know, things like that into ways
for kids to profit off of their NIL and things like that, Like
that becomes a really important piece.
So like, for example, like a multimedia rights partner, like
Learfield, for example, that works with Indiana, right?
Are they going to be tasked with saying, Hey, we want you to help
bring more brands to the table that we can marry with our
athletes as sort of true NIL deals, true marketing deals to
help bolster what they can make off the field, like and, and
sort of supplement this package because that money will not be
subject to the cap, right? Like that's considered an
outside marketing deal. Like if, if Learfield and, and
the providers for schools like that, like Indiana can do that.
Like that's where you can see those price tags still go up.
But again, under the rules, technically you can't promise
that, but you know, we'll see what what happens there.
One big aspect to a lot of this, and we alluded to it earlier,
but I think we should probably circle back and talk about it
more directly, is this idea that a lot of these things, you know,
are going to really struggle to be held up in court or to hold
up in court without some kind of overarching federal legislation
or, or something that codifies this system.
Now. You know, I think it's first
important to note that even though baseball has an antitrust
exemption, even though the NFL has a limited antitrust
exemption around broadcast rights, the reality is those
systems work in terms of owners and franchises on the one hand
and athletes and unions on the other, because there is an
established labor relationship between employer and employee.
That's not what's happening here.
And and you know, college athletics had the opportunity to
say we're going to make athletes employees.
They've they've vigorously and vehemently avoided that.
And now we find ourselves in a position where they're trying to
kind of thread this needle where we'll know they're no, they're
still students. They're not employees, but we're
going to be paying them, which that's a hard thing to get your
brain wrapped around. But to then add another layer to
it and say, well, we're not going to collectively bargain
with these people. We're going to hold all the
power, but we need essentially legislation passed and signed
by, by the president to, to, to codify this system.
How likely do you see that as being something that occurs And,
and what are the things we need to be watching for at the
congressional level? Because that's really where it's
got to start. Well, as we all know, Congress
is a really efficient place to get it that get things done.
But I think that like, look, I mean, look, there was a hearing
yesterday. I guess we're talking on what
Friday, like on Thursday that there was a hearing around
college sports and it pretty much was Republicans were in
favor of it, Democrats weren't. And kind of that was that.
And we found that out within about 5 minutes and we still had
a 2 1/2 hour hearing. So I, I say that to say like, I
think there's optimism that Congress will get something
done. And I do think like Republicans
actually are in favor of trying to get something done.
But I think that it's going to entail a bipartisan, you're
going to need a bipartisan bill. And I think there's some real
concerns from a lot of lawmakers about if we carve out an
antitrust exemption for college athletics, what's like the
ramifications beyond that? Because like, I think that's
something that's important to note.
And like, look, I'm not a lawyer.
Yeah. And I joke, but like, despite,
despite my efforts in the last few months, like I am not a
lawyer. But I do think, like, there is
something to be said of like, what are the ramifications if
Congress creates a bill or sets a precedent with college
athletics that, hey, you can carve out this niche.
What does that mean for 12 other businesses?
Like, what does that mean for mean for the like steel industry
or like, are there other places that that sets a precedent that
is then taken advantage of and what comes down the line because
of it? And I think that's a really
important piece that isn't necessarily considered
sometimes. And I think as far as like what
people should watch for Congress, like, look, there's
going to be a handful of bipartisan bills that come out
in the next couple months that, you know, Republicans are trying
to push toward the finish line. I think Democrats, it's a mixed
bag because I think Democrats tend to vary on labour things
and it's a little bit of a more complicated discussion there.
I think Republicans see this as like a possible win, you know,
not to play politics, but that's essentially where it stands
right now. And, and so I think that because
of that, you see a little bit of a divide.
And I think, you know, it's a little bit of a hope and a
prayer. But I do think that I, I will
say this much like, I think there's too intangible progress
that because the House settlement has been passed,
because you have a, a structure in place that will help push
some kind of legislation forward.
Now, when that actually happens is a year from now.
Is it 2 years from now? Is it three years from now?
Like we'll see. But to your point, like there's
going to be challenges to it. And I think, like, the idea is
that, you know, the hope being that at some point lawmakers
will push something through that will help codify essentially
what's in the House settlement. Yeah.
And I think it's important for people to note that a, what
makes this such a complicated thing is the weird confluence of
like business and employment types that are at at play in
this. Like there is no system like
college athletics anywhere else in the world.
There, there are academies, there are lower level, you know,
professional leagues. The way that, and we talked
about this on another podcast, but you know, the way that youth
talent is developed and then made professional in say England
or France or Germany is not like what it looks like in the United
States. And the fact that you have in
many cases, like the vast majority are public educational
institutions that have lived under educational statutes,
title nines and educational statute that doesn't apply in
other areas because there's federal funding involved that,
you know, things like that. You're, but you've got this,
what is now, you know, a multibillion dollar business
going on. That's college athletics, which
is very important to the marketing and the alumni service
and everything of, of universities.
You're, you're really trying to create something that is going
to have ramifications in the larger labor market and the
larger industrial market. But it is a very unique case
with this particular type of business.
And you know, part and I think this is where when you say like
Republicans are broadly in favor of getting something done, it's
largely because, I mean, I think there is a recognition that
something has to happen to codify this system that is very
unique. Where Democrats have expressed,
I think, very reasonable concerns is the the legislation
that's being proposed gives all the power to the schools and to
the the NCAA as an organization, when really the debate for the
last 20 years has been why aren't we giving athletes the
right since they're the ones that are largely generating the
the on field or on court products that are allowing for
all the money to flow through? You know, why are coaches
getting all of the benefits financially when the players
largely were stuck in place? And it's like, well, here over
the last five years, you finally had some movement in favor of
players. And the reaction in the bill is,
well, we need to make sure that that doesn't get too big while
everybody else continues to earn money.
I'm I'm, I'm very much simplifying it, but that's
essentially the argument that's going to have to get sussed out
here. I don't know how that lands.
I don't think anybody really does.
But I will say that if you had to guess, especially since it's
not just a matter in Congress, the House of Representatives,
you can pass with a simple majority something in the
Senate, you got to have at least 60 votes in favor or it's not
going anywhere. The idea that you're going to
get Democrats to just follow along with whatever Republicans
come up with in this political environment is essentially a non
starter. That's where I think the
questions rise about how do we get to where college athletics
needs to get to to survive this process.
I think to your point of like, this is so different than
anywhere else in the world too. I think is a good one.
It's kind of a funny story, but like I did a TV spot for BBC
about the house settlement a couple months ago and trying to
explain the house settlement and why college sports are important
to Americans, to a British audience was like, I swear, I
must have been. It was like I was speaking
Swahili or something like that. It was just like, it's just it's
sort of incoherent on a little bit of a level, on some level.
And I think, you know, I used this example in the last couple
days and I think it bears merit of like why we're where we're
at, right with this with Congress and everything else.
It's like college sports is essentially a mom and pop
operation that has all of a sudden started, operated,
started making the profits of like Coca-Cola and meeting the
infrastructure of that, but has had made no effort to do so for
like 15 years. And so because of that, again,
you have like essentially a mom and pop operation that's
operating like as such, even though it's turned into a, you
know, Fortune 500 company or whatever it might be.
And so I think because of that, you're trying to sort of sort of
rectify that in real time. And I think that's why you have
to go to Congress. That's why you have to have
these changes as far as like how the how things operate.
And again, to your point, I think like the antitrust piece
is really interesting because like, if you're and you heard it
from a couple of Congress, Democratic Congress lawmakers
yesterday in this hearing was like, I don't love, and I'm
paraphrasing, but essentially the idea was, I don't love the
fact that we're looking at a bill that essentially takes away
empowerment from athletes when we've spent 20 years trying to
give them more empowerment. And so I think that like on a
super basic level, like that's why you see opposition from the
Democratic side. And I think there's that
validity to that. And I think there's also
validity to the Republican side as well in terms of just wanting
to push something through. And then, you know, for lack of
a better term, like save college sports, like, listen, that that
does really well at the polls and on on Saturdays in the fall,
right? And so I think like, you know,
you add those two things together, It's why there's a
little bit of an impasse on Capitol Hill.
And I think it makes it, you know, demonstrates a little bit
of why this is such a complicated ask.
And it's again, like, this isn't a private the institution or
this isn't a private league, right?
Like this isn't the NFL going for an antitrust exemption or
the Major League Baseball or whatever, right?
Like this is a very different thing because you are inherently
tied to higher education, to the public schools, to, you know,
public money, to state funding, all of those things.
And I think that's what creates layers to this that I think
makes it increasingly complicated.
Yeah. And, and there's not really any
simple solutions. There's.
I mean, I do think there might be a route to coming up with a
solution that would be equitable.
But it would require for the first time, college athletics
leaders and the networks that are largely pushing them in this
direction and have for the last 15 years that the television
networks, I mean, to say we need to bring athletes to the table.
We need to have them as partners in this, not treat them like
opposition. I've but I've still yet to see
that from college athletics. I'm I'm not hearing that
language coming from Greg Sankey or I mean, we're not hearing
much of anything coming from Tony Petiti.
You know, like they're they're just there is still this very
kind of parochial attitude towards this is our money.
This is our sport, Not we need to share this with the athletes
in some way that is at least in some, you know, some cases
equitable and takes into account the fact that these are results.
So I do, I am very curious to see how that goes and I'm very
curious to see if they can actually get something passed
without acknowledging that and bringing those people to the
table in a meaningful manner. I think it's been one of the big
question points about this entire process since the Niall
doors were thrown open four years ago.
Yeah, you're exactly right. And like, look, unionization is
complicated no matter what business you're in, right?
Like in college sports, it's really complicated because
you're talking about essentially 18 to 22 year olds that are, you
know, shifting in and out every other year.
And I think there's a lot of sort of transients to it.
And I think because of that, it's hard to create a really
strong union, whereas like, for example, like you think about,
you know, look like, believe me, when I was 18 or 19 or 20, like
I probably shouldn't have been running a union for people.
And I'm even at 28, I probably shouldn't be either.
So, you know, I say that to say like you, whereas you look at
like the NFL, for example, where you've got like folks that are,
you know, in their mid 30s or, you know, more senior or
whatever it might be, where you have infrastructure to be able
to do this and represent those parties in a way that I think is
a little bit different. And I don't say that to
underestimate college athletes. Like, look, they're really
impressive kids and the kids are way ahead of where I am.
What together it makes it really hard to create a structure where
like, say, a college football players union would be really
strong and have an ability to to collectively bargain.
And I think that's on some level why you see Congress pushing
towards some kind of special exemption.
That's why you see administrators push it wanting
some kind of special exemption because again, like, it's just
it, it's just like an inherently complicated thing, like, right.
Like it's not literally the same thing, but like, imagine trying
to create a union for like high school football players.
Like we're kind of just talking about like one step above that.
And I think that that's again, like why that makes this so hard
and so complicated. And not to mention you've got
like totally different labor laws state to state, right?
Like you've got right to work states, you've got things like
that. And I think that creates a
problem now, again, like because you have an antitrust exemption
on some level because in say, for example, like the NFL,
right, like the Dolphins and the 49ers don't play by different
salary cap rules because they're in California and Florida, which
is essentially what we're doing right now in college athletics.
But where every state has different laws and it's just
it's just, you know, flawed. But I think that because of
that, it creates an issue of like, how do you collectively
bargain and how can you create a union?
How can you create representation for athletes to
have a voice in this that is also like not even palatable,
but you know, strong. And I think like has like some
teeth to it. And I think that's what where
this becomes really complicated. Well, it's funny because I
again, I think, you know, there's some fundamental
misconceptions even about how this works at the professional
level. Like, you know, the NF LS
antitrust exemption is about broadcast rights.
It's not about labor, you know, and, and that that's a big
distinction. I mean, it still affects the
money. But, you know, again, what I
what we try to bring across on the show is the NFL, Major
League Baseball, all these entities, these are franchises,
They are essentially like branch offices of a larger business.
Even though they have, you know, the teams, the franchises have
their own identity. They have their own uniforms,
they have their own Staffs, but they have to abide by the larger
rules. And you can't just start an NFL
team, you know, and, and get into the league.
You have to buy into the league and they have to want you.
You know, I mean, this is what I mean.
Mark Cuban likely would have started his own NFL team by this
point if he could just start one up.
The other thing that I think is worth noting, it's interesting
on the union front, this is the last thing I'll say on this.
Like, you're right in that the transient nature of college
sports and college athletes does make it difficult.
But it's important to note the NFL, the average length of a
career in the NFL is about 3 years. 50% of the people that
play in the NFL have three years or less of service in the NFL.
And then, you know, there, there's a lot of downstream
things that happen as a result of that.
But again, yes, you do have that older group of veteran players,
but it one of the arguments you see in the NFL, you see it in
the NBA, it's like because you get these older players that
stick around longer, most of the labor laws are actually skewed
towards the players that are in it longer.
And so it's not exactly a fair system there either.
It's just that at least there's some level of representation
that you can claim within it. So it's, it is a very
complicated set of circumstances and I'm just very fascinated to
see how all of it plays out in terms of what finally gets
decided because it's it again, it's likely going to irritate
some groups very significantly. It's very hard, though, under
the current settings of things to guarantee that everybody's
going to get what they want and what they need in order to move
forward. And that's where, you know,
while I understand the optimism about what's occurred up to this
point, it still feels like we're only in like the third inning of
a nine inning game when it comes to what college sports from a
business perspective will ultimately look like.
No, I think that's spot on. And actually someone, an
administrator made that analogy with me.
A couple, I think, I can't remember who's an administrator,
commissioner, but one of the two made it, made it.
That analogy with me a couple weeks ago was like, essentially
like, hey, we're in like we're like 25% through the iteration
of whatever the hell this becomes in 5-10 years, whatever,
right? And so I think like, because of
that, like we're, there's still going to be changes.
And I think that like, I get it for a lot of folks, they, they
want to, you know, roll their eyes and want this to move on
and get to the point at the end. And I, and I get that like it's
really hard. And I do think like, actually,
frankly, like I do think fans are getting a little like
disenfranchised, if you want to call it that, I guess on some
level because of all the changes and transients and everything
else. And I think that's really hard.
And I think that like, we take fruit, did we take advantage,
we're take for granted, I should say, you know, the support and
the fan, the fan support that comes with college athletics on
some level through all of this. And you see it with the CFP
discussions and what that goes into that.
And that's a whole other probably 3 1/2 hour podcast.
But but I think like because of that, it becomes a hard thing to
for people to track and follow. But I think it is important to
note that like we're still early in this and like there's going
to be more change. And I think if you go into it
knowing that there's going to be more change, that's it's a
helpful lens I think. Yeah, it's, yeah, the College
Football Playoff thing. We that's another podcast we
will get into. But if it's a great example of
even how college sports is not unified, you know that that
there's again, it it is it is a group of warring tribes that
have decided to come together on this one thing.
That's an existential threat, but you've also got power plays
going on, you know, by certain conferences to try to influence
other aspects of the system. And yet it all ties in together
because it all ultimately affects the revenue.
What gets lost in the shuffle is fan fatigue and the the rapid
changes that have occurred over the last 10 years, basically in
the college sports space, and the feeling increasingly that
nobody's actually got their hand on the wheel.
Or worse, multiple people have their hand on the wheel and they
keep changing the direction of the boat.
And you worry you're going to like run off of the waterfall at
some point with the with the way that things are going.
Because if you lose sight of the audience, you do eventually kind
of lose control of where the business heads.
Yeah. And I think that's right.
And I think like that's why you see with a lot of athletic
departments that are shifting their thinking toward more like
different business practices of like trying to generate more
revenue. Like it's a hard sell for a lot
of people and it becomes a harder thing to do because
you're pushing people out on some level, you're pricing
people out. And and I think like that's a
really hard thing. You know, I was up in Knoxville
a few weeks ago and I was talking to Danny White there AD
at the AD at Tennessee a few days ago.
And one of the things that Danny was talking about and sort of
explaining is sort of how Tennessee has driven more
revenue. And I mean, they've literally
doubled their athletic department budget in four years.
Like they went from 140 million to $280 million in four years.
And that is a massive turn. Like that's not just shaking the
couch cushions. And the way they did that
essentially was by reseeding Nealon Stadium and reseeding the
basketball arena as well. And they did it because their
old system was really antiquated and had people who are basically
paying. You had some people who are
sitting next to each other, that one person paying 5 grand for
their season tickets and one person paying 500.
And they had to standardize it. But by doing that, like that's a
really hard process because at some point you're going to
alienate people because you're going to push people out and
you're going to charge people a hell of a lot more than what
they were making, what they were paying for tickets previously.
And so again, like Tennessee ends up driving a ton more
revenue because of that. And it's a huge change.
But at the same time, it's also it's also, how do you marry that
with keeping a fan base alive and keeping a a group that's
really excited? And I think, you know, at a
place like that, people were always going to buy football
season tickets. Like you can play that game a
little bit more, play that game a little bit with Indiana
basketball, similar thing, right?
Like people are going to buy tickets, generally speaking.
And but I think like, that's where fans I think get caught in
the crosshairs. And I think that's a really hard
place for a lot of fans. And I and I sympathize with a
lot of people who kind of throw up their arms and they're just
like, yeah, Nope, I'm good. Yeah, it's, it's going to be,
it's, it's rough. It's a it's a different world
out there right now. And obviously, yeah, I think
fans rightfully feel like they are the last ones to know or be
informed or or have any input in anything and that that is a
shame. But these are the growing pains
I think of as and you alluded to this earlier, a mom and pop
operation in terms of like it was very local, it was very
regional and then the money got involved and now you're trying
to retrofit a bunch of things that probably should have
happened 30 years ago. And you can point the finger
right at the schools in the NC double AI mean Charlie Baker
said this essentially, although I the the the irony of the NCAA
president saying, you know, colleges didn't adapt.
It's like, wow, like what it's I wonder, I wonder why?
I wonder why that was. Anyway, Ben, we've had so many
technical issues with this. I want to end on a high note,
but we appreciate you coming on and talking through all of this.
And I'm sure we'll have you on again.
We got to talk CFP stuff whenever that lands and we got
to talk to IU football at some point down the line here as they
gear up for this next season. So I appreciate you joining us
here on the show. Anytime.
No, this was good. I brought my IDs coffee mug out
just for it. So this was, I got it planned.
I planned ahead a little bit. Despite our technical
difficulties, we made it work. This was this was great.
Anytime, I'm always happy to do it.
Then that is that is perfect. Well, Ben Portnoy from Sports
Business Journal, join us here on the show.
Thank you and thanks to all you folks catching up with us here
on Crimson Cast. We'll be back more coming up
this upcoming week, including hopefully an IU football
recruiting update. There's a lot going on with IU
football anyway, catch you folks on the flip side, stay never
daunted. So everybody.