December 6, 2023 • 36 mins
Doug gives his early season takes on Duke’s early season struggles, and if Northwestern is for real after beating Purdue, or if the Boilermakers have the same flaws from past years.
Then, Gottlieb is joined by sports attorney - and SANIL CEO - Jason Belzer to discuss how his company is leading the way in the rapidly changing NIL landscape, what he predicts the next stage in the evolution of paying collegiate athletes will look like.
Subscribe NOW to get the latest All Ball Podcasts! #douggottliebshow
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, what up. Welcome in.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm dog Gottlieb. This is all ball. Look, I can
dispense with the pleasant trees. Let's just get to some
of the stuff we've seen in college basketball. A couple
of things is in this past week we've seen Arkansas
takedown Duke and Kansas beat Yukon. The Kansas Yukon gap
was a great basketball game if possible, and I know
(00:30):
Yukon fans will forever say, you know, we got screwed
in the officiating, and that happens when you're in the fog.
I don't think it was I don't think the officiating
was terrible. Hunter Dickinson is a hard guy to officiate.
He's incredibly physical and he does complain a lot, but
he is a very talented player. And big guys in
(00:52):
many ways are at a disadvantage in terms of how
the game is officiated these days, especially guys a scoring
a low post, because you can be so physical the
low post, and yet you can't be physical out on
the court or or sometimes in screening situations. So the
first thing is that those are two places, and I
know there's others. I watched the Xavier Houston game Xavier's
(01:14):
always an incredible place that I know.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
It's like chicken or the egg. But I'll give you
an example i've done. I'm doing consulting work with Oklahoma
State this year.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And granted Oklahoma State has not had the recent success
of Arkansas, definitely not had the success of Kansas, but
a one proud fan base. You know, you end up
having six seven thousand people for creating a ranked team
to come in and play, and the difference is or
maybe you go to any of these games. It's really
weird how fans are in most places, not all places,
(01:51):
the basketball places it's not this way, but in most
places it's show me.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Look, I grant you that our Arkansas getting Duke on
their home floors is pretty special night.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
But like Arkansas, I have been struggling.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
You know, they were like a five hundred team, and
so to have your biggest crowd ever in Fayetteville, granted
it's for Duke. In many ways, that's the difference in
winning and losing games. And it's like, well, if you'd
win more, we'd show up more. But if you show
up more, we'd win more. And I think there's a
(02:29):
lot of there's there's just truth to that that are undeniable.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
But let's let's dig in on a little bit of
the meat.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
What's wrong with Duke is Duke turn around and lost
to Georgia Tech two straight roadmans. First, there's home and
road in college basketball, and I love the John shire
is unlike his predecessor Mike Rychevsky, But some of it
is a you know, it's at a conference scheduling, right,
that's the acc SEC showdown, So they had to go
on the road. But you know how often like it's
(02:58):
a celebration for all that Duke has accomplished when they
go on the road and they're the biggest game that
team has been in. Arkansas is a proud program, the
biggest program you could ever see.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I mean, there's a couple of things. I think.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
One probably still playing too many guys and a lot
of coaches I speak with are in that same boat
where you know, part of this, I'm sure is the
portal I'm not gonna lesten I'm being denial of how
things work in that you just can't lose everybody every year,
and you make some promises and I'm sure there's some
(03:38):
nil directed at a bunch of different players, and you're like, look,
we allocated resources to this player. We have to at
least see what he can do. And so it causes you.
This is a lot like in AAU basketball where you
got payers and you got players, you know, and you're like, well,
this kid came to practice that week and this kid's dad,
you know, face to the team ban and this.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
You know. Now it's obviously different, but you know.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I when you're around these programs enough, there is at
least a very small portion a portion of hey, who
do we take a look at and in what situations?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
At least a portion of it is some of the
nil stuff, the transfer portal stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
We don't want to lose everybody every year, and we
definitely don't want to lose half of our team checking
out because we're only playing seven guys or six.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Guys to start the season. That said, there's other reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
One is you don't really know what you have, and
whatever you think you have, you don't know what you
have until you play them in front of eighteen thousand people,
because people react differently in front of eighteen thousand people
than they do and it's an empty practice gym and
you're going up against the team, you know, and the
ball screen coverage that you're very well aware of.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
How to manipulate.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
But I think that part of the do thing is
you play too many guys. The dude thing is you
have some really young players. I mean even even you
know Proctor has come back for year two, like Philipowski's
a stud. Then those guys playing a lot last year,
but you know Procter wasn't like he was playing thirty
(05:16):
five minutes and he's still only a sophomore and this
is a much bigger role. But I think it's all
the whirling pieces around that you're trying to figure out.
And I thought Eric Musselman did a great job of
not guarding the non shooters for Duke. And look, on
some level, you have to you have to change how
(05:38):
you play when teams play kind of a one man
zone with the shop blocker. I mean that's having seen
that Creighton game up close against Oklahoma State and I
watched all the film leading up to it, that's how
they play right where they press up on three or
four perimeter players force every everything into the lane. And
he got Ryan Kalkbrenner, who's seven point one and does
(06:00):
a great job of not fowling in the lane, kind
of daring you to take and make mid range jump
shots or those little floater shots in two on ones,
and it's those are the shots you don't necessarily want
to take when you're a coach. That's not what we're
that's not what you're shooting for. So the first thing
for Duke is I think they're playing too many guys,
(06:21):
and I think that will work itself out. I do
think that that if you watched John Shire last year,
he seemed to figure out what he had by about
this time or into January, and it is inorganic to
have conference play. You know, I used to really hate
I don't like conference play this time of year, but
(06:41):
you almost wish that everybody had like a four.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Game conference stretch.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I'll give you a scheduling thought in a moment, but anyway,
I working back to Duke playing too many guys.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
That's really kind of what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
And you're at this point of the year where once
you kind of get to January, you're hoping you're freshmen,
the good ones.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
They've evolved some, but you know that the juniors and
seniors can kind of carry you.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But you have your juniors and seniors for the most part,
because they're not as talented as guys that have left.
That makes any sense, I mean, you look around the
country and you'll notice that some of the starting lineups
are evolving where the younger players are starting to take
Oh why is that? Because when they got there, they
weren't ready and they're still probably not ready now, but
(07:32):
they have a higher ceiling, or the thought is they
have a higher ceiling than the older players. Now, some
teams just have older players. They're going to ride or
die with them. I think that's what you have from Creighton,
for example. But the Duke thing, a lot of it
is playing to any pieces. A lot of it is
trying to figure out how it's really hard to win
with young guys and people have you know, because we
(07:52):
see Duke a lot. They got them scouted and you know,
forever this has been an issue with Duke. Duke and
I don't they don't play as much that way defensively,
but you know, there was probably a ten year span
there where Duke all they did defensively was get up
the line and try and pressure you, and it didn't
(08:14):
matter who they were playing against. That's how they played right.
That's how they played up the line, pressuring everything. Matter
of fact, the twenty ten team that won the national championship,
that was the one team you know, I'm always going
to be the guy. They called them alarmingly unathletic, and
the crazy part was that they were alarmingly on athletic
(08:36):
at that time. Here's the contextup. But they played Arizona State,
who I think had James Harden in Madison Square Garden
and they got just carved up by Arizona State. And
they got carved up because they were trying to pressure
everywhere defensively, and they had Nolan Smith and John Shire
then Kyle Singler as well, so you didn't It's not like.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You had the freakiest athletes on Earth.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And when they changed their lineup and put Brian Zubek in,
they played much more back off the line, you know,
help oriented defense where they.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Just muled you on the glass and with their size
in a lane. Like again, no one's ever gone like, yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I mean the Duke guys have told me like, of
course you were right, but they didn't realize the adjustment.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The coach k adjustment in style mid.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Season changed forever the trajectory of that team, and Zubec
became a dominant big guy for them based upon how
they were playing. They couldn't play up the line with
the guys they were playing with. One of the reasons
that the Greg Paulis struggled in his career. Greg paulso
really good player, really good player, but what he was
was a point guard who could really pressure, who could
(09:52):
pressure that way defensively. That's just not who he was
or will ever be. The point is that Duke always
played one way. And one of the things that coaches
run into this time of the year is because you
haven't self scouted in practice, right, even when you play
in scrimmages, secret scrimmages, nobody doesn't guard guys, And now
(10:12):
you get into games and people get you completely scouted.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Some people won't. We're not gonna guard.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
We're not gonna go past, you know, the free throw
line to make him shoot where some guys you know,
we're going to change how he played ball, string coverings, whatever. Well,
that causes everything you run you kind of have to
tweak and adjust to and it's not easy. So I'd
say that's the other thing is now Dukes being scouted
and as probably the most watched college basketball team or
(10:39):
one of the two or three buzz watch college boss people.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
That's the adjustment they're going to have to make.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And then trying to integrate, you know, Caleb Foster into
that lineup, who obviously, you know, we always have a
guy who in the Champions Classic as freshman, who makes
a bunch of shots and we get an unreal sense
of who they are. I love Caleb Foster. I saw
him last year. He was you know, those two Jeremy
and Caleb Foster were two dynamic guards in California. And
(11:04):
you know it's interesting, you know, Brownie James is so
high up on these draft wars.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
This makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Those dud just dominated him, Caleb specifically when he played
against They played against four times last year in high school.
But both of them are just freshmen and you know,
their reputation and their upside demand minutes. But as freshmen
you're going to be super inconsistent, and that's what they're
running into. And now they're scouted as well. So Purdue
(11:32):
loses again to Northwestern, and look, you can lose in
conference play on the road. Welsh Ryan is what a
cool place. I mean, just like historically, I hope people understand,
and I know it's been open for a while now,
but I hope people understand that was the worst gym.
(11:52):
It was a gym, worst gym in the Big Ten
by a mile. All the other teams in the Big Ten,
I'm trying to think of that, they've all made kind
of the same. You know, Breslian is really good, but
you know, you look at what Penn State did where
they reck Hall was like perfect college basketball venue. Now
(12:15):
they play in the Price Jordan Center. They've done it
for twenty years. It's just cavernous. It doesn't make any sense.
You know, Wisconsin's place, the Coal Center is big, and
they don't lose there often, but there's no real atmosphere there.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Ohio State's shotten Steen Center or.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Whatever, Like it's just a big it's like a bad
NBA arena. Where what Northwestern did was they gutted the
inside and kept it at seven thousand seats and they
just made it an incredible venue.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
And I can't.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Implore college administrators enough and like, look, a lot of
schools don't have this opportunity. But oklahom State's per for example,
right like that place is awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
It's thirteen. It's too damn big. You know.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
It's not just that Oklahoma State hasn't been as good.
It's also that there's the thunder who wasn't there. But
just like seven thousand seats its great, A Pactorina is great.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I think Northwestern is the best remodel. They're an SMU.
Those are the two best remodels. Where they took a
small gym and instead of falling in love with hey,
we can put a couple of more thousand seats or
build some new kind of NBA style place where we
(13:37):
can get concerts in and whatever, and they do it.
They do those things obviously, sometimes either to get into
a tournament bid or to get to make more money
off concerts forever. The ones that just keep it the
stops New Mexico even they went down I think four
(13:57):
thousand seats back when they redid the pit.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
But wels Ryan is awesome. But the warning sign it
has for Purdue is kind.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Of we think that the only way to beat them
is with small What was with really athletic guards getting
after Braden Smith and with with five men who can shoot,
who can shoot threes and drag Zach Edy out because
that's what they've lost. You know, the last two years
in the tournament is to low majors, but Northwestern's ability
(14:29):
to beat Purdue granted at home two consecutive years. How
the Cats play, You could be happier Chris Collins. Everyone
I know, everyone I know in Evanston last year was like,
and we're gonna have to fire Chris Collins and he's
an awesome dude, Like, well, so why do you have
(14:50):
to fire him?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Like, well, I just program's kind of stuck in not
really doing anything.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And then of course they go to the NCAA tournament
and remember before he got there, they've never been to
an NCAH. But I just I'm not sure I really
understood that whole thing. But they play beautiful basketball in
terms of the consistency of their movement within all the
actions that they run.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And look, they they really attacked Zach Edy.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And Zach Edy, you know, he fouled out like pretty
much every big guy that Northwestern had, and yet they
just kept coming at him and changing their coverages and
trying to limit his pain touches. And they're really quick
and you know, forcing him off the block, and you know,
when he's not two to four feet away, it's a
(15:35):
different game, and.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
He does struggle to move out of his zone.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That was an amazing play they ran for him, them
to win the game or just send the ball game
to overtime.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
And they just threw it up to him.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And he's just bigger than everybody catches and lays it
in with like zero point six seconds ago.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
But I again, the point is not.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
That that Northwestern can win a home game again it's
the number one ranked team in the country, or that
they have produced number it's more how do they do it?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
And they did it a different way.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yes, they some of their fives can step out and shoot,
and they're you know those big ten teams, they're all
loaded up with you know, two or three six foot
ten dudes, so he can throw multiple bodies at him.
But I thought it was the movement, the actions, you know,
not just getting caught up. So many teams they say, hey,
we want to attack Zach Edy on a ball screen,
(16:28):
so they put them on a ball screen, you know,
right the start of every possession. Whereas what Northwestern does is,
you know, they really moved around, coming some slight of
hand stuff and then they get Boo booie kind of
in that two on one where he's you know, coming
downhill and he's got a great floater game, really good
in those middies, and you know, just a volume of
(16:48):
attacks on a big guy, and I think some of
that wears him out on the offensive end as well.
And then you know, like, look, Braden Smith is good,
but there are times in which he still looks like
a sophomore. They don't don't really have They don't have
a wing who can go get you a bucket.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
They're not built that way.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
And you know they're a good team that that Purdue
continues to be a good team that doesn't have an
NBA player.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Can will Zach you be playing the NBA? Probably?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, I mean he'll make it. He'll make a ton overseas.
Will you play in the NBA? Probably, But you're like,
what does that matter? Well, when you have a guy
who can just all things are going bad and break
you down, and maybe not even.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
An NBA player, like like Boo Boo.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
He's not an NBA player, but he's one of those
stud college players who can just end the game. Hey,
I'm just gonna get you a bucket, and they don't don't.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Really built that way, really built that way.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
So I still like Purdue and I think they can
win a national championship because I don't think this is
a year in which the top teams have a lot
of those guys, or especially have an older guy like that.
But you can see that some of the same old
Purdue issues peak their head out at inopportune moments. So
my guest today is Jason Belzer. Jason, I'll tell you
(18:09):
about his company, all the things that he does, but
it's a perfect time to have men since he truly
is an expert in the nil space as well as
the college coaching kind of space.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
He's a former student athlete.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
And he's the founder of Ady University. He's a professor
of strategy as well and sports law at Rutgers University,
and he's also the director of the Jewish Coaches Association.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Let's welcome in. He's Jason Belzer.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Jason, your let's start with your background in hoops for
the last ten years you've done.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
What So?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
I have been a attorney in college sports for almost
seventeen years now, and I represent a whole bunch of
college basketball coaches, both on the men's and women's side.
Helped start the College Insider Tournament and then build a
media company called Athletic Director d one Ticker, which helped
(19:26):
me build relationships with administrators and coaches and all the
important people in college athletics.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
You went to law school ware Rutgers played football. Ruers
went to law school or Rutgers.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
What was Rutgers football like? When you played there?
Speaker 5 (19:43):
We were the worst team in the country.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
We were literally at the time, I believe there was
one hundred and twenty FBS schools and we were one twenty.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
My recruiting tip to Rutgers.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
When I was in high school, we lost to West
Virginia eighty to seven, Which is did you go there?
Because it was really the only chance I had to
play Division I football. Plus it was a school that
was forty minutes down the road from where I grew up,
So or at least FBS football now, we got really good,
(20:14):
really fast, And I wasn't really contributing much to that.
But it was, you know, it was a great opportunity
to engage and be part of a you know, a
big time football program, even though we weren't very good
at least initially.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So you're going to law school, was it always your
intention to go into some sort of sports law, some
from a sports focus.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
I mean I knew when I was an undergrad that
I wanted to be an agent, and I actually wanted
to be an agent representing student athletes, but you couldn't.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Do that back then.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
So I said, I'm going to do the next best thing,
and I'm going to be an agent that represents college coaches.
And I literally just started code calling and emailing people.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
I was reaching out to Rick Patino and you know,
lud Olson and anybody else that was coaching at the time,
trying to get them to let me represent them.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
I was a twenty one year old kid, and eventually
I caught on.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
I got some people to join, and you know, that's
where I got involved very early on.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
In the Jewish Coaches Association.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
And started working with some young Jewish coaches like Josh Passner,
who literally just became head coach at Memphis at the time,
and you know, the rest is history on that end.
But even throughout that time, I've always been a tremendous
advocate for student athletes and NIL rights. I was I
(21:45):
am like a walking oxymoron. I'm the guy that is
helping coaches make millions of dollars and then at the
same time realizing that some of this money should be
shared with the student athletes, which is why as NIL
started to become more of a reality, I knew that
I was maybe the best positioned person on the entire
planet to help the industry through what was going to
(22:06):
be a very tumultuous time that we are in. And
everything that I predicted has happened, and everything that I
believe will happen is unfolding here, and we are seeing
this before our eyes. We're going to be at revenue
share in some capacity within the next twelve to eighteen months,
no question.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Do you think what about the schools where there isn't
the revenue.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
I don't think it matters.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
I think you're going to have a subset about forty
schools that are going to make a decision that that
is the route that they're going to want to go.
That decision will be predicated on a few factors. Number One,
Either they will make the decision themselves, the decision will
be made for them through the court system through one
of these employment or NLRB cases, or the decision will
(22:58):
be partially predicated on what Congress passes.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
I have no.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I am not going to rely on Congress to do anything.
They can't even get a budget pass, much less save
college athletics. And so there's no question that these conversations
already happening. I can tell you that they're happening because
I'm involved in some of them. About what does this
new model look like? We as an organization, my company
(23:29):
Student Athlete NIL now works with more than forty different institutions.
We are the largest mover of money in NIL as
it relates to rosters than anybody else. We have over
a thousand student athletes under contract. And so this the
groundwork is there, and we are moving violently towards a
(23:52):
new era in whatever looks like the semi professionalization of
college sports, even though it's pretty much been semi pro two.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Or three years. We'll just have some structure around it.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Okay, So in your mind, what does it look like in.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
The ultimate and easiest structure it would be to have
these institutions that choose to want to participate in this
to agree upon a revenue share. We would start with football,
potentially basketball, but football is a much bigger piece where
there is some sort of guaranteed minimum compensation for every
(24:31):
athlete on the roster. I suspect that, based on what
we are seeing in the SEC Conference that that number
will be an estimated eight to ten million dollars for football,
meaning that you're looking at about one hundred thousand dollars
for each student athlete. That football and maybe basketball is
(24:52):
split off into a professional organization that is licensed underneath
the existing athletic departm, so it could be Michigan Football
LLC or whatever you want to call it. When that happens,
the student athletes are likely to be deemed employees unless
there's some sort of safe harbor position that is provided
(25:14):
by you know, maybe Senator Cruz or whoever else if
the legislation gets through. But by splitting it off, what
it does is that it creates a scenario where Title
nine no longer applies because if my athletes are employees,
it doesn't matter. And what ends up happening then, is
that I can choose to keep my women's teams. I
(25:35):
can likely choose to gut them to save money if
I need to, which will happen to some capacity. But
I don't have to play this nonsense Title nine game.
If these athletes are actually generating revenue, and then the
big question becomes, what happens to all of the other sports,
what happens to women's sports, what happens to Olympic sports.
The reason why SEC schools and we work with the
(25:58):
number of them, and we're paying a number of their
payrolls are trying to drive eight, nine, ten million dollars
a year into their collectives is because they know this
is happening. It's going to be here in the next
twelve to twenty four months, and so they are literally
trying to wean themselves off of that money today. They
(26:19):
are saying, if we're going to have to operate in
a revenue share world in two years or one year,
why are we not trying to figure out how to
operate with ten million dollars less in our budgets today?
And let's just allocate those dollars to the student athletes
right now. The problem is that there are schools within
(26:40):
the SEC less so than SEC, and more so in
the Big Ten that don't have that type of money.
And so while the revenues are similar for both conferences,
I can tell you that Ruckers and Purdue and Northwestern
and Maryland, they don't have the same capacity as Ohio
(27:01):
State and Michigan. Everybody knows that they're not paying the
same numbers for nil and that's not too different from
what's happening in the SEC. I mean Mississippi State, you know,
South Carolina. Are they as competitive with LSU and Alabama?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
They're not.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
So Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
The picture you're paying, though, means, as you said, and
this is a very realistic picture, is whenever you pump
something up like football, something's going to fall short, like
women's sports. How does that work? I mean, I understand
you're talking about legally splitting them off, but the reality
is that so much of this has been created so
(27:39):
that there's equal opportunity, and I just wonder how that
plays out in Congress and in the courts.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
So how I will give you the solution, but I
have some questions for you. First, Doug, Yeah, how can
Congress force any entity to do something? Where's the money
going to come from. It's going to be too late
by that point.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Well, here, here's where where does the money come from?
Is this?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
As you know and I know, states give far less
to their land grant universities for sports, if anything, then
they ever have previously. But that doesn't stop them from
giving money and giving benefits as well to other areas
of the school. So that's the that's the threat. Right,
If you don't do it our way, then you get
(28:29):
no funding.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
So the University of Arizona that is facing a massive
budget crisis is now a sudden going to have to
come up with the next their five million dollars ten
million dollars to continue to fund their women's programs because
Congres said, so that's going to be a disaster. I
will tell you what will happen. You may very well
be right, Doug, Like, let's play that out one hundred
(28:51):
percent certainty it happens, what will then happen and this
is the likely outcome for all of this is that
you will have a private equity firm come in, and
a private equity firm will come and say I will
give you I will Arizona, whoever, I will give you
one hundred million. I will give you two hundred million dollars,
(29:12):
five hundred million dollars.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
What is Ohio State football worth? What is Texas football worth? Billions? Right?
I will give you X number of dollars as an annuity.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
For whatever percentage twenty five thirty percent of your future revenue.
You take that two three hundred million dollars and then
that money and its interest, you know you will make
you ten percent on that will pay for your women's
programs moving forward, and we're good. Right, So the school
will be forced to sell off and Doug take the
(29:48):
University of Arizona as an example, because it's low hanging
fruit here. You don't think that the president and the
board of trustees of that university, facing an existential crisis
wouldn't take five hundred million dollars right now to sell
off fifty percent of their athletics program to save the university.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
Of course they would.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
I mean, what is the endowment of Arizona a billion,
billion and a half. You're gonna get fifty percent of
your endowment for a portion of your athletics team.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
They're gonna sell it tomorrow. Rutgers operates at a twenty
five million dollar loss every year.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
If they can go raise five hundred million dollars, then
the university's endowment is a billion dollars. They will sell
that tomorrow and it solves all their problems. And as
an alum, you know, if Oklahoma State puts out a
shingle and says, hey, we're gonna go do this, You're
gonna go put your money in Doug.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
Right, so am I? Everybody will? Everyone wants to be
an owner.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
You know what the ironic thing is, that's essentially what
we're doing with the collectives anyway. Right, you're just not
actually getting an ownership stake unless you invest into my company.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
But that's getting You're getting an ownership stake of a player,
but you're not getting any return on it.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Right, That's the only turn.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
On what you're seeing.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Sure, what about what happens with the donation game? Does
that totally go away?
Speaker 5 (31:11):
Well, it's all going to go in house regardless.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I mean it's already moved in house in some capacities.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
We have many mechanisms that.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
We work with universities to be able to manage cash flow.
I mean we are in the transfer portal, we're in
day two and by our estimations this there will be
about four hundred million dollars that will change hands over
the next forty five to sixty days.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
In terms of contracts.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
We will control the largest proportion of that because of
the number of universities that we represent. But this will
also be the biggest nil exchange ever because the reality
is that we probably go to rev share and a
lot of that will be absorbed in house, right, and
then donors just you know, Doug, You'll keep going Oklahoma State,
and then Oklahoma State will sign its revshare contract with
(32:03):
the football and basketball teams, and the donor money will
just flow into this university and be one bucket of
the revenue share. There is so much more opportunity for
real nil though that schools are taking are not taking
advantage of the majority of them are not because they
have poor infrastructure set at the place to drive this
type of revenue.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
When you say real nil, what do you mean?
Speaker 4 (32:24):
I mean real endorsement marketing potential? I mean, you know,
I'll give an example, Doug. I know you may not
want to hear it, but we work with the University
of Oklahoma, and I would say that Crimson and Cream
is kicking the butt of whatever Oklahoma State has going on,
because we are writing, we are running a high, you know, functioning,
professionalized operation where we are generating.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
We have generated in excess of.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Two and a half million dollars in real nil, non
donor money for ou student athletes over the last thirteen
months that we've been operating at Oklahoma. What has Oklahoma
State been able to generate for their athletes in that
same time, not touching donor money, not a whole lot, right,
(33:11):
real nil right endorsements, trading cards, marketing appearances, television commercials,
membership programs, all of those different things. There is more
money in nil than there is in multimedia rights because
you're not beholden to just one partner. You don't have
(33:33):
to just be an exclusive partner of Hal Smith. You
can go work with McDonald's and everybody else. That's just
part of it, right, and so there's real nil value.
That's what our focus is is an organization. Sure, we're
running money from donors, but at the end of the day,
we want to build a billion dollar industry that is
based on real nil transactions and the power of the
(33:55):
student athlete is an influencer.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Who's the what school or are the most advanced in
the real ail.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
There are a handful. Again, I would say Oklahoma LSU
has done a fantastic job. Not on the collective side,
They've done an awful job on their collective. They've done
a great job in helping provide marketing opportunities for their
student athletes. USC has done an okay job, again not
on the collective side.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
On real nil.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Tennessee has done a pretty good job because of Spire.
The difference is that we are a sports marketing company, right.
We employ full time salespeople, we employ full time business developers.
The vast majority of schools are just operating collectives, or
they have collectives that are being operated by part time
donors and alumni, and then internally they have people that
(34:47):
aren't real revenue generators. That's also the problem. Doug College
athletics has been based on a ecosystem of money that
comes from donors. Right, That's why it doesn't stay. He's
Texas A and m to go fire Jimbo Fisher and
have to go you know, loan. There another seventy five
million dollars in money through their nonprofit status athletics department
(35:09):
to go pay it off from donors. These people are
not thinking about what the bottom line is, how do
we drive real, real revenue to our student athletes? And
so there has been a very very small amount of
money that has come through. Nebraska probably has done a
good job because Blake Lawrence has started Open Doors is
from Nebraska and he's dedicated a lot of his time
(35:31):
to doing that. Oregon because of Division Street and what
Phil Knight has been able to do there. But outside that,
most institutions are not doing very much at all when
it comes to monetizing the real value of what a
student athlete is, mostly because their hands off.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
They don't want to deal with it.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
And that's why ads rather retire than go figure out
this nil thing.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's it for Part one, Okay, part two. What are
the downsides? Well, the downsides what about women's athletics and
will college athletes actually sit out if they can't get
the deal they want when it's collectively bargained for?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
And we'll get to that in the next episode. I'm
Doug Gottlieb. This is all ball
Hey, what up. Welcome in.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm dog Gottlieb. This is all ball. Look, I can
dispense with the pleasant trees. Let's just get to some
of the stuff we've seen in college basketball. A couple
of things is in this past week we've seen Arkansas
takedown Duke and Kansas beat Yukon. The Kansas Yukon gap
was a great basketball game if possible, and I know
(00:30):
Yukon fans will forever say, you know, we got screwed
in the officiating, and that happens when you're in the fog.
I don't think it was I don't think the officiating
was terrible. Hunter Dickinson is a hard guy to officiate.
He's incredibly physical and he does complain a lot, but
he is a very talented player. And big guys in
(00:52):
many ways are at a disadvantage in terms of how
the game is officiated these days, especially guys a scoring
a low post, because you can be so physical the
low post, and yet you can't be physical out on
the court or or sometimes in screening situations. So the
first thing is that those are two places, and I
know there's others. I watched the Xavier Houston game Xavier's
(01:14):
always an incredible place that I know.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
It's like chicken or the egg. But I'll give you
an example i've done. I'm doing consulting work with Oklahoma
State this year.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And granted Oklahoma State has not had the recent success
of Arkansas, definitely not had the success of Kansas, but
a one proud fan base. You know, you end up
having six seven thousand people for creating a ranked team
to come in and play, and the difference is or
maybe you go to any of these games. It's really
weird how fans are in most places, not all places,
(01:51):
the basketball places it's not this way, but in most
places it's show me.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Look, I grant you that our Arkansas getting Duke on
their home floors is pretty special night.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
But like Arkansas, I have been struggling.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
You know, they were like a five hundred team, and
so to have your biggest crowd ever in Fayetteville, granted
it's for Duke. In many ways, that's the difference in
winning and losing games. And it's like, well, if you'd
win more, we'd show up more. But if you show
up more, we'd win more. And I think there's a
(02:29):
lot of there's there's just truth to that that are undeniable.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
But let's let's dig in on a little bit of
the meat.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
What's wrong with Duke is Duke turn around and lost
to Georgia Tech two straight roadmans. First, there's home and
road in college basketball, and I love the John shire
is unlike his predecessor Mike Rychevsky, But some of it
is a you know, it's at a conference scheduling, right,
that's the acc SEC showdown, So they had to go
on the road. But you know how often like it's
(02:58):
a celebration for all that Duke has accomplished when they
go on the road and they're the biggest game that
team has been in. Arkansas is a proud program, the
biggest program you could ever see.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I mean, there's a couple of things. I think.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
One probably still playing too many guys and a lot
of coaches I speak with are in that same boat
where you know, part of this, I'm sure is the
portal I'm not gonna lesten I'm being denial of how
things work in that you just can't lose everybody every year,
and you make some promises and I'm sure there's some
(03:38):
nil directed at a bunch of different players, and you're like, look,
we allocated resources to this player. We have to at
least see what he can do. And so it causes you.
This is a lot like in AAU basketball where you
got payers and you got players, you know, and you're like, well,
this kid came to practice that week and this kid's dad,
you know, face to the team ban and this.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
You know. Now it's obviously different, but you know.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I when you're around these programs enough, there is at
least a very small portion a portion of hey, who
do we take a look at and in what situations?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
At least a portion of it is some of the
nil stuff, the transfer portal stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
We don't want to lose everybody every year, and we
definitely don't want to lose half of our team checking
out because we're only playing seven guys or six.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Guys to start the season. That said, there's other reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
One is you don't really know what you have, and
whatever you think you have, you don't know what you
have until you play them in front of eighteen thousand people,
because people react differently in front of eighteen thousand people
than they do and it's an empty practice gym and
you're going up against the team, you know, and the
ball screen coverage that you're very well aware of.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
How to manipulate.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
But I think that part of the do thing is
you play too many guys. The dude thing is you
have some really young players. I mean even even you
know Proctor has come back for year two, like Philipowski's
a stud. Then those guys playing a lot last year,
but you know Procter wasn't like he was playing thirty
(05:16):
five minutes and he's still only a sophomore and this
is a much bigger role. But I think it's all
the whirling pieces around that you're trying to figure out.
And I thought Eric Musselman did a great job of
not guarding the non shooters for Duke. And look, on
some level, you have to you have to change how
(05:38):
you play when teams play kind of a one man
zone with the shop blocker. I mean that's having seen
that Creighton game up close against Oklahoma State and I
watched all the film leading up to it, that's how
they play right where they press up on three or
four perimeter players force every everything into the lane. And
he got Ryan Kalkbrenner, who's seven point one and does
(06:00):
a great job of not fowling in the lane, kind
of daring you to take and make mid range jump
shots or those little floater shots in two on ones,
and it's those are the shots you don't necessarily want
to take when you're a coach. That's not what we're
that's not what you're shooting for. So the first thing
for Duke is I think they're playing too many guys,
(06:21):
and I think that will work itself out. I do
think that that if you watched John Shire last year,
he seemed to figure out what he had by about
this time or into January, and it is inorganic to
have conference play. You know, I used to really hate
I don't like conference play this time of year, but
(06:41):
you almost wish that everybody had like a four.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Game conference stretch.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I'll give you a scheduling thought in a moment, but anyway,
I working back to Duke playing too many guys.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
That's really kind of what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
And you're at this point of the year where once
you kind of get to January, you're hoping you're freshmen,
the good ones.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
They've evolved some, but you know that the juniors and
seniors can kind of carry you.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But you have your juniors and seniors for the most part,
because they're not as talented as guys that have left.
That makes any sense, I mean, you look around the
country and you'll notice that some of the starting lineups
are evolving where the younger players are starting to take
Oh why is that? Because when they got there, they
weren't ready and they're still probably not ready now, but
(07:32):
they have a higher ceiling, or the thought is they
have a higher ceiling than the older players. Now, some
teams just have older players. They're going to ride or
die with them. I think that's what you have from Creighton,
for example. But the Duke thing, a lot of it
is playing to any pieces. A lot of it is
trying to figure out how it's really hard to win
with young guys and people have you know, because we
(07:52):
see Duke a lot. They got them scouted and you know,
forever this has been an issue with Duke. Duke and
I don't they don't play as much that way defensively,
but you know, there was probably a ten year span
there where Duke all they did defensively was get up
the line and try and pressure you, and it didn't
(08:14):
matter who they were playing against. That's how they played right.
That's how they played up the line, pressuring everything. Matter
of fact, the twenty ten team that won the national championship,
that was the one team you know, I'm always going
to be the guy. They called them alarmingly unathletic, and
the crazy part was that they were alarmingly on athletic
(08:36):
at that time. Here's the contextup. But they played Arizona State,
who I think had James Harden in Madison Square Garden
and they got just carved up by Arizona State. And
they got carved up because they were trying to pressure
everywhere defensively, and they had Nolan Smith and John Shire
then Kyle Singler as well, so you didn't It's not like.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You had the freakiest athletes on Earth.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And when they changed their lineup and put Brian Zubek in,
they played much more back off the line, you know,
help oriented defense where they.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Just muled you on the glass and with their size
in a lane. Like again, no one's ever gone like, yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I mean the Duke guys have told me like, of
course you were right, but they didn't realize the adjustment.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The coach k adjustment in style mid.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Season changed forever the trajectory of that team, and Zubec
became a dominant big guy for them based upon how
they were playing. They couldn't play up the line with
the guys they were playing with. One of the reasons
that the Greg Paulis struggled in his career. Greg paulso
really good player, really good player, but what he was
was a point guard who could really pressure, who could
(09:52):
pressure that way defensively. That's just not who he was
or will ever be. The point is that Duke always
played one way. And one of the things that coaches
run into this time of the year is because you
haven't self scouted in practice, right, even when you play
in scrimmages, secret scrimmages, nobody doesn't guard guys, And now
(10:12):
you get into games and people get you completely scouted.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Some people won't. We're not gonna guard.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
We're not gonna go past, you know, the free throw
line to make him shoot where some guys you know,
we're going to change how he played ball, string coverings, whatever. Well,
that causes everything you run you kind of have to
tweak and adjust to and it's not easy. So I'd
say that's the other thing is now Dukes being scouted
and as probably the most watched college basketball team or
(10:39):
one of the two or three buzz watch college boss people.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
That's the adjustment they're going to have to make.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And then trying to integrate, you know, Caleb Foster into
that lineup, who obviously, you know, we always have a
guy who in the Champions Classic as freshman, who makes
a bunch of shots and we get an unreal sense
of who they are. I love Caleb Foster. I saw
him last year. He was you know, those two Jeremy
and Caleb Foster were two dynamic guards in California. And
(11:04):
you know it's interesting, you know, Brownie James is so
high up on these draft wars.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
This makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Those dud just dominated him, Caleb specifically when he played
against They played against four times last year in high school.
But both of them are just freshmen and you know,
their reputation and their upside demand minutes. But as freshmen
you're going to be super inconsistent, and that's what they're
running into. And now they're scouted as well. So Purdue
(11:32):
loses again to Northwestern, and look, you can lose in
conference play on the road. Welsh Ryan is what a
cool place. I mean, just like historically, I hope people understand,
and I know it's been open for a while now,
but I hope people understand that was the worst gym.
(11:52):
It was a gym, worst gym in the Big Ten
by a mile. All the other teams in the Big Ten,
I'm trying to think of that, they've all made kind
of the same. You know, Breslian is really good, but
you know, you look at what Penn State did where
they reck Hall was like perfect college basketball venue. Now
(12:15):
they play in the Price Jordan Center. They've done it
for twenty years. It's just cavernous. It doesn't make any sense.
You know, Wisconsin's place, the Coal Center is big, and
they don't lose there often, but there's no real atmosphere there.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Ohio State's shotten Steen Center or.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Whatever, Like it's just a big it's like a bad
NBA arena. Where what Northwestern did was they gutted the
inside and kept it at seven thousand seats and they
just made it an incredible venue.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
And I can't.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Implore college administrators enough and like, look, a lot of
schools don't have this opportunity. But oklahom State's per for example,
right like that place is awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
It's thirteen. It's too damn big. You know.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
It's not just that Oklahoma State hasn't been as good.
It's also that there's the thunder who wasn't there. But
just like seven thousand seats its great, A Pactorina is great.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I think Northwestern is the best remodel. They're an SMU.
Those are the two best remodels. Where they took a
small gym and instead of falling in love with hey,
we can put a couple of more thousand seats or
build some new kind of NBA style place where we
(13:37):
can get concerts in and whatever, and they do it.
They do those things obviously, sometimes either to get into
a tournament bid or to get to make more money
off concerts forever. The ones that just keep it the
stops New Mexico even they went down I think four
(13:57):
thousand seats back when they redid the pit.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
But wels Ryan is awesome. But the warning sign it
has for Purdue is kind.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Of we think that the only way to beat them
is with small What was with really athletic guards getting
after Braden Smith and with with five men who can shoot,
who can shoot threes and drag Zach Edy out because
that's what they've lost. You know, the last two years
in the tournament is to low majors, but Northwestern's ability
(14:29):
to beat Purdue granted at home two consecutive years. How
the Cats play, You could be happier Chris Collins. Everyone
I know, everyone I know in Evanston last year was like,
and we're gonna have to fire Chris Collins and he's
an awesome dude, Like, well, so why do you have
(14:50):
to fire him?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Like, well, I just program's kind of stuck in not
really doing anything.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And then of course they go to the NCAA tournament
and remember before he got there, they've never been to
an NCAH. But I just I'm not sure I really
understood that whole thing. But they play beautiful basketball in
terms of the consistency of their movement within all the
actions that they run.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And look, they they really attacked Zach Edy.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And Zach Edy, you know, he fouled out like pretty
much every big guy that Northwestern had, and yet they
just kept coming at him and changing their coverages and
trying to limit his pain touches. And they're really quick
and you know, forcing him off the block, and you know,
when he's not two to four feet away, it's a
(15:35):
different game, and.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
He does struggle to move out of his zone.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That was an amazing play they ran for him, them
to win the game or just send the ball game
to overtime.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
And they just threw it up to him.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And he's just bigger than everybody catches and lays it
in with like zero point six seconds ago.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
But I again, the point is not.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
That that Northwestern can win a home game again it's
the number one ranked team in the country, or that
they have produced number it's more how do they do it?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
And they did it a different way.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yes, they some of their fives can step out and shoot,
and they're you know those big ten teams, they're all
loaded up with you know, two or three six foot
ten dudes, so he can throw multiple bodies at him.
But I thought it was the movement, the actions, you know,
not just getting caught up. So many teams they say, hey,
we want to attack Zach Edy on a ball screen,
(16:28):
so they put them on a ball screen, you know,
right the start of every possession. Whereas what Northwestern does is,
you know, they really moved around, coming some slight of
hand stuff and then they get Boo booie kind of
in that two on one where he's you know, coming
downhill and he's got a great floater game, really good
in those middies, and you know, just a volume of
(16:48):
attacks on a big guy, and I think some of
that wears him out on the offensive end as well.
And then you know, like, look, Braden Smith is good,
but there are times in which he still looks like
a sophomore. They don't don't really have They don't have
a wing who can go get you a bucket.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
They're not built that way.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
And you know they're a good team that that Purdue
continues to be a good team that doesn't have an
NBA player.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Can will Zach you be playing the NBA? Probably?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, I mean he'll make it. He'll make a ton overseas.
Will you play in the NBA? Probably, But you're like,
what does that matter? Well, when you have a guy
who can just all things are going bad and break
you down, and maybe not even.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
An NBA player, like like Boo Boo.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
He's not an NBA player, but he's one of those
stud college players who can just end the game. Hey,
I'm just gonna get you a bucket, and they don't don't.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Really built that way, really built that way.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
So I still like Purdue and I think they can
win a national championship because I don't think this is
a year in which the top teams have a lot
of those guys, or especially have an older guy like that.
But you can see that some of the same old
Purdue issues peak their head out at inopportune moments. So
my guest today is Jason Belzer. Jason, I'll tell you
(18:09):
about his company, all the things that he does, but
it's a perfect time to have men since he truly
is an expert in the nil space as well as
the college coaching kind of space.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
He's a former student athlete.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
And he's the founder of Ady University. He's a professor
of strategy as well and sports law at Rutgers University,
and he's also the director of the Jewish Coaches Association.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Let's welcome in. He's Jason Belzer.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Jason, your let's start with your background in hoops for
the last ten years you've done.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
What So?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
I have been a attorney in college sports for almost
seventeen years now, and I represent a whole bunch of
college basketball coaches, both on the men's and women's side.
Helped start the College Insider Tournament and then build a
media company called Athletic Director d one Ticker, which helped
(19:26):
me build relationships with administrators and coaches and all the
important people in college athletics.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
You went to law school ware Rutgers played football. Ruers
went to law school or Rutgers.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
What was Rutgers football like? When you played there?
Speaker 5 (19:43):
We were the worst team in the country.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
We were literally at the time, I believe there was
one hundred and twenty FBS schools and we were one twenty.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
My recruiting tip to Rutgers.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
When I was in high school, we lost to West
Virginia eighty to seven, Which is did you go there?
Because it was really the only chance I had to
play Division I football. Plus it was a school that
was forty minutes down the road from where I grew up,
So or at least FBS football now, we got really good,
(20:14):
really fast, And I wasn't really contributing much to that.
But it was, you know, it was a great opportunity
to engage and be part of a you know, a
big time football program, even though we weren't very good
at least initially.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So you're going to law school, was it always your
intention to go into some sort of sports law, some
from a sports focus.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
I mean I knew when I was an undergrad that
I wanted to be an agent, and I actually wanted
to be an agent representing student athletes, but you couldn't.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Do that back then.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
So I said, I'm going to do the next best thing,
and I'm going to be an agent that represents college coaches.
And I literally just started code calling and emailing people.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
I was reaching out to Rick Patino and you know,
lud Olson and anybody else that was coaching at the time,
trying to get them to let me represent them.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
I was a twenty one year old kid, and eventually
I caught on.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
I got some people to join, and you know, that's
where I got involved very early on.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
In the Jewish Coaches Association.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
And started working with some young Jewish coaches like Josh Passner,
who literally just became head coach at Memphis at the time,
and you know, the rest is history on that end.
But even throughout that time, I've always been a tremendous
advocate for student athletes and NIL rights. I was I
(21:45):
am like a walking oxymoron. I'm the guy that is
helping coaches make millions of dollars and then at the
same time realizing that some of this money should be
shared with the student athletes, which is why as NIL
started to become more of a reality, I knew that
I was maybe the best positioned person on the entire
planet to help the industry through what was going to
(22:06):
be a very tumultuous time that we are in. And
everything that I predicted has happened, and everything that I
believe will happen is unfolding here, and we are seeing
this before our eyes. We're going to be at revenue
share in some capacity within the next twelve to eighteen months,
no question.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Do you think what about the schools where there isn't
the revenue.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
I don't think it matters.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
I think you're going to have a subset about forty
schools that are going to make a decision that that
is the route that they're going to want to go.
That decision will be predicated on a few factors. Number One,
Either they will make the decision themselves, the decision will
be made for them through the court system through one
of these employment or NLRB cases, or the decision will
(22:58):
be partially predicated on what Congress passes.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
I have no.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I am not going to rely on Congress to do anything.
They can't even get a budget pass, much less save
college athletics. And so there's no question that these conversations
already happening. I can tell you that they're happening because
I'm involved in some of them. About what does this
new model look like? We as an organization, my company
(23:29):
Student Athlete NIL now works with more than forty different institutions.
We are the largest mover of money in NIL as
it relates to rosters than anybody else. We have over
a thousand student athletes under contract. And so this the
groundwork is there, and we are moving violently towards a
(23:52):
new era in whatever looks like the semi professionalization of
college sports, even though it's pretty much been semi pro two.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Or three years. We'll just have some structure around it.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Okay, So in your mind, what does it look like in.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
The ultimate and easiest structure it would be to have
these institutions that choose to want to participate in this
to agree upon a revenue share. We would start with football,
potentially basketball, but football is a much bigger piece where
there is some sort of guaranteed minimum compensation for every
(24:31):
athlete on the roster. I suspect that, based on what
we are seeing in the SEC Conference that that number
will be an estimated eight to ten million dollars for football,
meaning that you're looking at about one hundred thousand dollars
for each student athlete. That football and maybe basketball is
(24:52):
split off into a professional organization that is licensed underneath
the existing athletic departm, so it could be Michigan Football
LLC or whatever you want to call it. When that happens,
the student athletes are likely to be deemed employees unless
there's some sort of safe harbor position that is provided
(25:14):
by you know, maybe Senator Cruz or whoever else if
the legislation gets through. But by splitting it off, what
it does is that it creates a scenario where Title
nine no longer applies because if my athletes are employees,
it doesn't matter. And what ends up happening then, is
that I can choose to keep my women's teams. I
(25:35):
can likely choose to gut them to save money if
I need to, which will happen to some capacity. But
I don't have to play this nonsense Title nine game.
If these athletes are actually generating revenue, and then the
big question becomes, what happens to all of the other sports,
what happens to women's sports, what happens to Olympic sports.
The reason why SEC schools and we work with the
(25:58):
number of them, and we're paying a number of their
payrolls are trying to drive eight, nine, ten million dollars
a year into their collectives is because they know this
is happening. It's going to be here in the next
twelve to twenty four months, and so they are literally
trying to wean themselves off of that money today. They
(26:19):
are saying, if we're going to have to operate in
a revenue share world in two years or one year,
why are we not trying to figure out how to
operate with ten million dollars less in our budgets today?
And let's just allocate those dollars to the student athletes
right now. The problem is that there are schools within
(26:40):
the SEC less so than SEC, and more so in
the Big Ten that don't have that type of money.
And so while the revenues are similar for both conferences,
I can tell you that Ruckers and Purdue and Northwestern
and Maryland, they don't have the same capacity as Ohio
(27:01):
State and Michigan. Everybody knows that they're not paying the
same numbers for nil and that's not too different from
what's happening in the SEC. I mean Mississippi State, you know,
South Carolina. Are they as competitive with LSU and Alabama?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
They're not.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
So Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
The picture you're paying, though, means, as you said, and
this is a very realistic picture, is whenever you pump
something up like football, something's going to fall short, like
women's sports. How does that work? I mean, I understand
you're talking about legally splitting them off, but the reality
is that so much of this has been created so
(27:39):
that there's equal opportunity, and I just wonder how that
plays out in Congress and in the courts.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
So how I will give you the solution, but I
have some questions for you. First, Doug, Yeah, how can
Congress force any entity to do something? Where's the money
going to come from. It's going to be too late
by that point.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Well, here, here's where where does the money come from?
Is this?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
As you know and I know, states give far less
to their land grant universities for sports, if anything, then
they ever have previously. But that doesn't stop them from
giving money and giving benefits as well to other areas
of the school. So that's the that's the threat. Right,
If you don't do it our way, then you get
(28:29):
no funding.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
So the University of Arizona that is facing a massive
budget crisis is now a sudden going to have to
come up with the next their five million dollars ten
million dollars to continue to fund their women's programs because
Congres said, so that's going to be a disaster. I
will tell you what will happen. You may very well
be right, Doug, Like, let's play that out one hundred
(28:51):
percent certainty it happens, what will then happen and this
is the likely outcome for all of this is that
you will have a private equity firm come in, and
a private equity firm will come and say I will
give you I will Arizona, whoever, I will give you
one hundred million. I will give you two hundred million dollars,
(29:12):
five hundred million dollars.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
What is Ohio State football worth? What is Texas football worth? Billions? Right?
I will give you X number of dollars as an annuity.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
For whatever percentage twenty five thirty percent of your future revenue.
You take that two three hundred million dollars and then
that money and its interest, you know you will make
you ten percent on that will pay for your women's
programs moving forward, and we're good. Right, So the school
will be forced to sell off and Doug take the
(29:48):
University of Arizona as an example, because it's low hanging
fruit here. You don't think that the president and the
board of trustees of that university, facing an existential crisis
wouldn't take five hundred million dollars right now to sell
off fifty percent of their athletics program to save the university.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
Of course they would.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
I mean, what is the endowment of Arizona a billion,
billion and a half. You're gonna get fifty percent of
your endowment for a portion of your athletics team.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
They're gonna sell it tomorrow. Rutgers operates at a twenty
five million dollar loss every year.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
If they can go raise five hundred million dollars, then
the university's endowment is a billion dollars. They will sell
that tomorrow and it solves all their problems. And as
an alum, you know, if Oklahoma State puts out a
shingle and says, hey, we're gonna go do this, You're
gonna go put your money in Doug.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
Right, so am I? Everybody will? Everyone wants to be
an owner.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
You know what the ironic thing is, that's essentially what
we're doing with the collectives anyway. Right, you're just not
actually getting an ownership stake unless you invest into my company.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
But that's getting You're getting an ownership stake of a player,
but you're not getting any return on it.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Right, That's the only turn.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
On what you're seeing.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Sure, what about what happens with the donation game? Does
that totally go away?
Speaker 5 (31:11):
Well, it's all going to go in house regardless.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I mean it's already moved in house in some capacities.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
We have many mechanisms that.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
We work with universities to be able to manage cash flow.
I mean we are in the transfer portal, we're in
day two and by our estimations this there will be
about four hundred million dollars that will change hands over
the next forty five to sixty days.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
In terms of contracts.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
We will control the largest proportion of that because of
the number of universities that we represent. But this will
also be the biggest nil exchange ever because the reality
is that we probably go to rev share and a
lot of that will be absorbed in house, right, and
then donors just you know, Doug, You'll keep going Oklahoma State,
and then Oklahoma State will sign its revshare contract with
(32:03):
the football and basketball teams, and the donor money will
just flow into this university and be one bucket of
the revenue share. There is so much more opportunity for
real nil though that schools are taking are not taking
advantage of the majority of them are not because they
have poor infrastructure set at the place to drive this
type of revenue.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
When you say real nil, what do you mean?
Speaker 4 (32:24):
I mean real endorsement marketing potential? I mean, you know,
I'll give an example, Doug. I know you may not
want to hear it, but we work with the University
of Oklahoma, and I would say that Crimson and Cream
is kicking the butt of whatever Oklahoma State has going on,
because we are writing, we are running a high, you know, functioning,
professionalized operation where we are generating.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
We have generated in excess of.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Two and a half million dollars in real nil, non
donor money for ou student athletes over the last thirteen
months that we've been operating at Oklahoma. What has Oklahoma
State been able to generate for their athletes in that
same time, not touching donor money, not a whole lot, right,
(33:11):
real nil right endorsements, trading cards, marketing appearances, television commercials,
membership programs, all of those different things. There is more
money in nil than there is in multimedia rights because
you're not beholden to just one partner. You don't have
(33:33):
to just be an exclusive partner of Hal Smith. You
can go work with McDonald's and everybody else. That's just
part of it, right, and so there's real nil value.
That's what our focus is is an organization. Sure, we're
running money from donors, but at the end of the day,
we want to build a billion dollar industry that is
based on real nil transactions and the power of the
(33:55):
student athlete is an influencer.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Who's the what school or are the most advanced in
the real ail.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
There are a handful. Again, I would say Oklahoma LSU
has done a fantastic job. Not on the collective side,
They've done an awful job on their collective. They've done
a great job in helping provide marketing opportunities for their
student athletes. USC has done an okay job, again not
on the collective side.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
On real nil.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Tennessee has done a pretty good job because of Spire.
The difference is that we are a sports marketing company, right.
We employ full time salespeople, we employ full time business developers.
The vast majority of schools are just operating collectives, or
they have collectives that are being operated by part time
donors and alumni, and then internally they have people that
(34:47):
aren't real revenue generators. That's also the problem. Doug College
athletics has been based on a ecosystem of money that
comes from donors. Right, That's why it doesn't stay. He's
Texas A and m to go fire Jimbo Fisher and
have to go you know, loan. There another seventy five
million dollars in money through their nonprofit status athletics department
(35:09):
to go pay it off from donors. These people are
not thinking about what the bottom line is, how do
we drive real, real revenue to our student athletes? And
so there has been a very very small amount of
money that has come through. Nebraska probably has done a
good job because Blake Lawrence has started Open Doors is
from Nebraska and he's dedicated a lot of his time
(35:31):
to doing that. Oregon because of Division Street and what
Phil Knight has been able to do there. But outside that,
most institutions are not doing very much at all when
it comes to monetizing the real value of what a
student athlete is, mostly because their hands off.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
They don't want to deal with it.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
And that's why ads rather retire than go figure out
this nil thing.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's it for Part one, Okay, part two. What are
the downsides? Well, the downsides what about women's athletics and
will college athletes actually sit out if they can't get
the deal they want when it's collectively bargained for?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
And we'll get to that in the next episode. I'm
Doug Gottlieb. This is all ball
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Death, Sex & Money
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.