September 25, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly speak with Adam Breneman, founder of The College Sports Company, about the huge amount of money flowing into the business of college football. Breneman tells the hosts all about the new rules around revenue sharing and name, image, and likeness deals in college sports, how student athletes are stepping up to earn their big paydays, and why the future of this lucrative business requires the players to be at the negotiating table.
You can also watch this interview on the Bloomberg Podcasts YouTube page.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome back to the Deal.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez, and actually alongside Alex Rodriguez.
It's Monday.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We're here in Dallas.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
We just wrapped an unbelievable conversation with the legendary Jerry Jones.
It takes a lot for us to show up somewhere together,
but we had to for Jerry.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yeah, and like Magic Johnson, I mean, this is one
that was very close to my heart. Ever since I
dreamt of being an owner of sports, a professional sports team.
Jerry has been my north star and he's been a
longtime mentor.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
And yeah, he put on a masterclass.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
It's an unbelievable conversation. We can't wait for you guys
to hear it. That'll be out in just a few weeks.
A busy week for us. We're going our separate ways
at least for about twenty four hours. Thirty six hours.
You're heading off to Minnesota to see the Links play
in the semi finals.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
What a season they're having.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I mean, how excited are you?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
We're very, very excited. We're playing a very good Phoenix team.
Game two, we were fortunate to win Game one and
we're supposed to go to New York together and I
had to split because of a schedule. But I'm very excited.
You know, this is the road to number five, as
the team has labeled this year, because we got very
close against the Liberty last year and hopefully we can
close it this year.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yet number five being you already have four championships, the
most of any WNBA team, and so going for number
five under the leadership of Nafisa Callier, what an incredible team.
We are going to reconnect in New York, big Bloomberg
event that we're putting on that you're going to be
a part of. We're going to talk about building sports
and entertainment infrastructure in Africa with Messaiu Jerry and Adam Silver.
(01:48):
And meanwhile, we're looking at all the things happening in
the world of sports. Nothing bigger right now than college football.
You're Hurricanes, Man, what in the world they are on fire?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I am like optimate, but I'm cautious right because we've
been down this road before.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
We've had these start, false start, start, false start.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
But it seems like we have some momentum going and
we would beat a very good Florida team last week
at home, and then we played Florida State this upcoming
week and that's going to be like the moment because
they are our arch rivals.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, and we talk a lot on this show about
college sports and college football specifically.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
No one better to talk to them than Adam Brennanman.
He played at Penn State.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
He is now a college football analyst and also an entrepreneur.
Fun to talk to him because you know, he clearly
is following a playbook that you helped invent, you know, candidly,
he talks a lot about, you know, being ambitious in
his business dealings. Also just has some great insights, said
some things about where college sports is going and where
(02:47):
it should go that I found really really interesting. So
coming up next, Adam Brendman, Welcome back to the Deal.
I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. We could not be
(03:07):
more excited to have Adam Brennman here with us. He's
an analyst, he's an entrepreneur, former college football player. So
much happening in this world, Adam, as the season gets underway,
we are just thrilled to be talking to you.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
So welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
I appreciate us having me on, Love the show, Love
what you guys are doing. Alex, I've been a big
fan for a long time. The amount of times I've
looked at the A Rod Corp. Website as you've built
out your company and sewed it to my team and said, hey,
I love what he's doing here. I'm trying to do
it on a much smaller scale right now, but hopefully,
hopefully someday can achieve the things you have. And again,
love the show, love all the univis you guys are doing.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Thank you. So we're talking to you at a great time.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
You know. College football season is just in full swing,
you know, the first couple of weeks I have seen
some incredible games. What to you are the big storylines,
especially given sort of the business angle that we know
you really embrace as you think about college football right now.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
The biggest storyline in college football is just the money
that's flowing into the sport. The money has shifted from
it used to be just the media networks and the
schools getting the money. Now the players are getting paid
as well. And there's been so much negativity, as you
guys know, around athletes, student athletes getting paid in college athletics.
But as we looked at the product on the field,
(04:25):
college football has never been stronger. The viewership's never been better,
the game has never been better. The product on the field,
as far as the talent level, has been better. There's
been an effect with the NIL and the money where
guys are staying in school longer. You have players who
could have gone to the NFL that stay in school
because they're making two million dollars as a starting quarterback.
Think of a guy like Drew Aller at Penn State,
(04:46):
should have been a top five pick but stayed for
one more season at Penn State, now competing for a
national championship. So for all the negativity and all the
talk about nil and should players get paid, and people
say and football will never be the same college foot
it's not the college football I remember growing up.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, it's better than it ever was.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
And in college football and the fan bases, the pageantry,
there's a reason that college football games have better TV
ratings than any other sport. It's because of how diehard
these fans are. And I think and I alas only
only made that stronger.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, well, I mean I got to just talk a
little University of Miami because I'm going to geek out
a little bit. We've suffered for a long time, and
you know, I was telling Jase, I sit on the
board at the University of Miami for the last twenty years,
and we were fortunate to get back to quarterback from Georgia,
which I think you got.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
To run four million bucks.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I've been really on a high because Notre Dame played
Miami for the opener. I had to watch Catholic versus Convicts.
I'mvol in it right now. Disappointment or we kind of
we have a real shot with the University of Miami.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Give me your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Miami has a real shot.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
And you look at the ACC and Miami's the top
team in the conference right now. I don't even think
it's really that close. And you think about Carson Beck
and how he's playing that quarterback. He's a guy who's
played a lot of football. He has the experience. I
also like a guy who's been through some crap in
his career. It hasn't always been pretty, it hasn't always
been good. But sometimes guys who have talent but there's
(06:10):
been issues for whatever reason. Sometimes you just need a
fresh start. Sometimes you just got to go somewhere and
have someone new who believes in you. And that's what
Miami's been for Carson Beck. I mean, he's a guy
who played at Georgia, was a big recruit, so much
excitement and talk every single year, never quite got to
that pinnacle, and now has this fresh start at Miami
and you can see the confidence he's brought to that team.
(06:33):
He's brought a lot of confidence in swagger to this
Miami program. The Notre Dame win beating South Florida, who's
a top twenty team Week three of college football season.
So I really think Miami's got a good roster. Mario
Chris Ball's built that team the right way that he
built it in the trenches through high school recruiting, not
just through the transfer portal. I love Miami this season,
(06:53):
and their path to making the playoff isn't all that hard.
They may not play a ranked team other than Florida
State the rest of the schedule, So I'm a big
believer in Miami right now. Now, Carson Beck has to
keep playing well, keep taking care of the football, and
avoid some of those mistakes and have plagued him last
season In the last couple of years. But I'm happy
for Carson back more than anything else because he needed
a fresh start and it's always cool to see the
(07:16):
positive part of the transfer portal. You get a guy
who gets to have that kind of second part of
his career and thriving at his new school.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So, Adam, let's keep with this because to me, this
is like the single most interesting business story in the
world of sports is college sports right now. But when
it comes to college football, Carson Beck great story.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
We love to see it. You know, he doesn't go
to the NFL. You know you mentioned Duraler as well.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
What are the knock on effects of this, you know,
what are the effects that maybe we should be thinking
about from a business perspective, from the businesses of the
individual teams and the schools you know, this world so intimately, like,
what are the things we may not be seeing that
you're seeing as we think about all that money coming in.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
The biggest shift that's happened in the last year or
so in college sports, aside from just nil as a whole,
has been revenue sharing actually coming to college sports. So
what's happening now is these college athletic programs can pay
athletes directly out of the revenue they're getting from their
media deals and through the athletic department. Every Division I
(08:21):
program in college football, probably the same in basketball, has
opted into revenue sharing where they have a salary cap
just like the NFL does, where they can pay their
athletes in year one, it's twenty point five million dollars
a year. But the interesting part is you still have
nil that's outside of that twenty point five million. And
that's the business story that gets really competitive here, and
(08:44):
how do you get to a level playing field And
that's where the frustrations come in for a lot of coaches.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You have all these schools, let's just stick.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
With a big tan Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, USC,
all of them are saying, hey, we're going to pay
our play our athletes twenty point five million a year.
That's a revenue share agreement getting paid from the athlete
department to the athlete, and they have to perform services
for that, just like a normal contract would be. Now
thethn department has to split that between sports. So I
(09:11):
would assume probably three fourths goes to football, say sixteen
million of the twenty million goes to football. Now, what
happens is when everyone pays their players twenty million dollars, well,
everyone's pretty much back in zero because there's no competitive
advantage for any program. So what's happening is Ohio State
and Ohio State says, we got to pay our guys
more than Penn State pays their guys.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
We're competing for championships.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
So now you have what's really true nil outside of
the revenue sharing cap in IL, which is the businesses
doing deals with the athletes. What the arms race is
right now is what schools can create true commercial NIL
programs that get their athletes paid more than just the
revenue sharing money. So it's it's some of these schools
(09:54):
are trying to put together a pool of donors or
businesses to say we want you to do that are
real NIL deals with all of our top athletes that
we want to come in here so that the quarterback
can make maybe two and a half million instead of
two million, and then you can compete in the transfer
portal with all of them, which some coaches like, some
coaches don't like. How do you make sure that doesn't
(10:15):
become just pay for play where then you kind of
don't even have a salary cap anymore, and you're just
funneling money through donors to athletes like what was happening
in the early days of NIL. So it's pretty chaotic,
and the money's going to keep flowing in. And you
guys know the amount of money that these teams are
making on football and men's basketball, and so women's basketball
(10:36):
had a lot of places that it is worth it
for them to try to fundel this money to the
athletes because the product is so great. The conferences are
consolidating to get the better media rights, which means more
money will fall back to the schools. So the money
continues to get more and more massive in college football
and college for US.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Adam, that's a thank you for that. That was a
very very good explanation. I mean, it's such as movies
so fast and you said a lot. I just want
to make sure that I get this part clear. So
I'm clear on the twenty point five rev share, right,
and that's split among all sports, And you said three
fourth we'll go to football.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
That sounds about right. Is there a cap outside of that?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
So in the situation of a quarterback, can you just
spend the unlimited amount of money kind of go up
to like another forty or fifty million dollars for the roster.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
The short answer is yes, But the nuance in this
is that the school is not allowed to facilitate that payment.
So it's so similar to alex when you played Major
League baseball, you had your contract with the Major League
Baseball team, but you also could do a brand deal
with Nike or Adidas or Pepsi or That's what's happening
in college football. But because the difference is there's recruiting
(11:45):
in college football, so you're not just drafting players and
then trading them and then doing a free agency. You're recruiting.
So that's where pay for play comes in. You're now
trying to recruit the players. So the more money you
pay them, the easierness to recruit. So these schools that
have the twenty point five million dollar cap, they're trying
to get that incremental money above and that's the gray
area where this isn't happening. But for example, if Penn
(12:08):
State has a massive donor, Terry Pagoula, the owner of
the Bills, like, I'm sure they'd love for him to
be more involved than a nil. But say he wanted
to be involved and he said, I could buy whatever
roster we want here, so he could go just you know,
pay all these athletes through nil deals, get them to
go to the school. Who's to judge what the fair
market value is of that deal? Because that's the nuance
To directly answer your question, Alex, the deal that's outside
(12:31):
the cap has to be fair market value and go
through a clearing house from the NCAA. There's a group
called the College Sports Commission which was put in place
after the House settlement in college sports and after revenue
staring came in that said anything that's outside of the
revenue staring cap has to be fair market value, has
to be true commercial nil to avoid the schools just saying,
hey this donor just pay this guy all this money
(12:53):
to come to our school. But who's going to tell
Phil Knight at Nike what fair market value is. He's
going to say, I'll pay the guy whatever I want.
It's worth it Tnike and to me. So that's the
nuance of it all. There's no cap on true nil
because who's the talent athlete? You're not worth three million
dollars a year to this company, but the making sure
that it stays fair is the biggest challenge right now
(13:15):
facing college sports, and that's the arms race. I interviewed
I flight director at Ohio State. He's straight up said
the biggest arms race right now. It used to be facilities.
Who has the nicest facility in college sports? Now it's
who can build out the best, true, true commercial nil
outside of their athletic department and you can do it
the fastest so that they have a recruiting advantage.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, I mean this happened so Alex's older daughter is
a student at Michigan. I mean Michigan played this brilliantly, right,
I mean they had a donor you know, who came
in and essentially was able to pay their quarterback and
woo him away from LSU. Right, he was committed LSU
and now he's at Missig. He's the starting quarterback at Michigan.
Do I have that right correct?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Bryce Underwood, he's a great player, going to be going
to be one of the best quarterbacks in college football.
And Michigan got a bunch of donors together and just
sole them away basically when he was in high school.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
As a recruit.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
So the legality of all that, and that was pre
revenue share. So that was when it was just straight
nil collectives. These schools weren't allowed to be part of it.
It was what the donors were. The donors could be
part of it. The donors could pull their money together
through collectives and pay the athletes. So that's what happened
with Bryce Hunderwood and Michigan got their quarterback of the future.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, I mean it's why, Alex. Isn't it wild to
think about? I mean, this is like so radically different.
I mean you must see it, Alex, you must see it.
Even in you know, being on the board of Miami,
like it totally changes the governance of it of a school.
Like it couldn't be more different than it was.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah, and Adam, it's interesting what you said about, you know,
players get more motivated because of the money. When I
was seventeen coming out of Miami, I was the number
one pick in the country and I signed for one
point three million. And I agree with you because I
also had a coach that had and iron fist and
his name was lou Panela, and he never made you
(15:04):
feel like you were the special kid on the block.
It was in the contrary and because of him, because
of his coaches style, which it resembles like a Nick
Saban right, like just a great coach, but very tough,
all of my fundamentals, made sure you were accountable at
every inch of every single.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Day of the game.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
And he has a big, big time print on my career.
So the money was not a negative. It was actually
a neutral or positive.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Like some of these athletes.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
I would hear all the time from coaches, old school
guys say well, you pay the players one hundred a million,
four million a year. These coaches are guys who have
kind of been around the system a while have said
and said to me, if I got a million dollars,
I'd stop working. How is this going to motivate the players.
They're just going to show up and get their check
and go home. And I found the exact opposite. The
(15:53):
money has motivated these players even more. There's no better
motivator to show up every day on time, to practice,
to put in the extra work, to want to perform well,
to ensure that you're getting paid your million dollar a
year contract you have with a school, and to also
get that next contract, get the year two revenue share deal.
If a player is making two hunderd grand one year,
(16:13):
he's going to want to make four hundred the next year.
So I think it's actually enhanced the product in college football.
It's made it all better. It's made it more well rounded,
where you also have more balance in the system. Now,
I mean college football. College athletics has been such a
big business for everyone but the athletes for so long,
and now finally the athletes can be part of that business.
(16:34):
They can partake in the upside, they can get the
reward in for the hard work they're putting in. I
think it's been a big positive and it's really actually
made the athletes work harder because there's a financial incentive
at stake.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
All right, let's talk about the business you're building, or
one of the businesses you're building. The college sports company.
You found this a few years ago, clearly you know,
seeing part of what was happening. It's only accelerated since then.
Given how using your word chaotic it is, how do
you build a sustainable business in this? And how much
(17:20):
has it changed what you were trying to do as
you're constantly I'm imagining sort of evolving what you're aiming
for yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
The college sports company came or started based on really
two pillars. One was that content is king and everyone
wants to do content. I was just finding as I
was creating content myself and building a platformal line telling
stories about football, breaking down the game, people were coming
to me athletes and college athletes and schools and said, hey,
(17:47):
we want content. How do we do content? We need
to do content. At the same time, every school now
and every NIOL collective has a revenue issue. They're trying
to figure out how do we drive more revenue because
think about it, every school has a new twenty pointy
five million dollar bill they got to pay every year
they didn't have last year. So all these schools are like, man,
we need more money.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
How do we drive more revenue?
Speaker 5 (18:07):
And that's where kind of the epiphany came in that
the best way for schools to thrive in this era
of college sports is to think an act like a
media company. It's to create content with all the athletes
they have currently at their schools. It's to create content
with the former athletes that want to be part of
the program. Think about how many former athletes want to
be a media Well, let's use them and let's build
(18:28):
these school specific media networks that we can then monetize
to drive revenue for the school for nil for paying
the players themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So that's how we started. It's evolved since then.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
As you guys know, this landscape of college sports is
crazy and you have new legislation, new rules, But we
work with schools all over the country and work with
their athletes to build school specific networks, media networks, have
shows that each of those networks, and then we monetize
it through sponsorship, advertising, events, experiences, e commerce, everything that
(19:02):
a normal media company would do, and then we share
that revenue with the school or with the NL collective,
and that's the solution for them. So the schools are
getting brand building, their athletes get to be part of content,
and they also are getting revenue on the back end.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It's been fun. I mean, the.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
World of college sports and sports itself has become really
an asset class. People want to invest in sports, people
are excited about sports and college sports. I think the
shift in what college sports looks like it's only becoming
more professionalized.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
You know, Adam, it reminds me of how private companies
are staying private longer, right because it can lose more capital.
You don't have the quarterly earnings, CEOs can really think
about long term or enterprise value versus like what's going
to be great on the next quarterly call. I think
about a player like Anthony Edwards who plays with us,
and it was a number one take out of Georgia.
(19:50):
He would have made probably who knows, maybe tens of
millions of dollars over the course of four years, and
the whole course of the Timbulls may have been completely different.
I guess my question and is I'm sitting here in
our facilities with the Minnesota Timbos in the links, and
as I think about how should we I'm asking for
your advice here because you're right in the middle of
college sports. How should we be assessing players? Because if
(20:15):
a player's making three and a half million dollars, is
he going to have the same motivation to be great
in the NBA or the WNBA. Because this is a
new I think I can relate with players, but it's,
like Jason said, radically different than when I played.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
How would you think about recruiting players?
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Yeah, I think athletes that are getting paid a ton
of money in college are just as motivated as anyone
else who is trying to make it with their career.
I'm thinking of a football player specifically. I won't mention
his name that I talked to who who made a
comment to me He made like eight hundred grand the
one year he was in school, and all he was
talking about was how hard he wanted to work because
(20:53):
he wanted his next deal to be two million dollars.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
And I just kept thinking.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I kept coming back to that because the average person,
you would say, hey, this guy's eighteen years old making
eight hundred grand. I mean, the things I would have
done with eight hundred grand when I was eighteen in college. Like,
I see this perspective, and it's like, man, like you
taste it a little bit, right, Like you get that
taste in your mouth, and then you're around people who
are making even more and more and not. I think
that's just human nature. Like now that I'm postplaying in
(21:18):
my business career, the more I'm around people who make
more and more money, the more motivated I get. I'm like, oh, well,
that guy figured out how to make that much money.
Why can't I figure that out? I really think that
you have these guys who make all this money in college,
they know what the top echelon looks like, and I
still think that they're going to want to get there,
whether it's money motivation. I also think that if there
(21:38):
is an athlete who was good enough in college to
work their butt off, avoid distractions and get to that
pinnacle of college sports, they're going to have that same
attitude in professional sports that's in their DNA. At that point,
they're not going to say, hey, I made four million.
I think I'm going to just just ease out. Like
in their DNA is that there's greatness within them. So
(22:00):
I think it's finding those guys. The guys who can
have consistent excellence in college desplained how much money they made,
are ones that are going to be are going to
be great professionals. I do think that there is a
new shift in sports where like when I was playing football,
if I would have told my coaches that I wanted
to start a podcast or have a business on the side,
they would have like laughed me out of the room.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Right. It would have been like no.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Like Bill O'Brien was my head coach at Penn State,
he would have been like, dude, like you just messed up.
That play on third down. You're not starting a podcast
like Learn Your Play, where like nowadays, it's way more accepted,
and I think it should be like where athletes it's
cool to invest as an athlete, and Alex You've been
a big part of that. I think like the shift
in that athletes are entrepreneurs, athletes are businesses, Athletes create content,
(22:46):
Athletes can be venture capitalists and can start businesses and
can invest in their hometown and can buy real estate.
All that is cool now and it has shifted completely,
and I think that's an amazing thing for the athlete
because for a long time, it was almost no matter.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
What your sport was.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
It was kind of like, hey, if you talk about that,
it's kind of like you're not focused on your sport
and you better just shut up and play well on
Saturday or play well on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So, Adam, and I'm trying to figure out the best
way to ask this question because I've been thinking about
this so much. The whole notion of you know, you
went to Penn State, had a great career there, you
played for a great coach in Bill o Brien you
just mentioned. I think about going back to something you
mentioned earlier. I love Georgia Tech football. I love Brent Key,
(23:29):
I love Haines King, the quarterback. You know, this is
a guy who's been there for several years. In the
case of Haines King, you have a lot of situations
where quarterbacks, especially, but other players as well, especially you know,
wide receivers and whatnot, they get a better deal, they
move on. There is not the continuity within a program.
(23:52):
This is something that is candidly like the transfer portal,
so sort of shifting gears has chased a lot of
even very success full college coaches, you know, out of
the game. Nick Sabans essentially sort of threw his hands up,
and there have been other examples of that. He is
sort of the most the best known. What do you
think about that, this essentially sort of unlimited free agency
(24:13):
that's happening. Is that going to be how it is
going forward?
Speaker 4 (24:18):
What do you think?
Speaker 5 (24:19):
Yeah, it's a great question. The transfer portal has gotten
absolutely bonkers. Every coach stays up at night having nightmares
about it. Like anything in business and life, things were
so far in one direction right that they were so
far in favor of the coaches and the administrators and
the media companies and anti player that when you get
(24:41):
that far out of whack, a lot of times you.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Can overcorrect the other way.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Yeah, and I think what's happened in college sports is
we've over corrected in benefit of the players. Like we've
gotten to the point where players can transfer as many
times as they want. There's multiple transfer portal windows in
college football. There's not binding tracks for the players, like
if the players are going to get paid two million
bucks a year, like there should be a contract that
they play in the bowl game, and there are now
(25:07):
with revenue sharing that they show up on time to practice.
They're not getting that check if they skip a week
of workouts, all those kind of things, just like he
would in professional leagues. So that has changed with revenue
sharing where there are now binding contracts with the players interest.
But the biggest piece has been the transfer portal windows.
Those contracts still don't keep players from transferring, but now
the issue in college football has been that there's multiple
(25:28):
transfer portal windows. So what's been happening is there's a
window after the season in college football where players can transfer,
and there's also a window after spring practice before the
season starts. And what's been happening is that because of
the two windows, it really disincentivizes coaches to be honest
with their players.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Because if you have a coach who.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
Has a quarterback battle going on at a major program,
his obligations to protect his team, to do what's the
best thing in interest of his program. Yes, he may
have a great relationship with the player, but his my
best interest is making sure that all the best players
sail on his team. Why would that coach name any
starters until that transfer portal closes. So a lot of
coaches may have a quarterback battle. Hey, if they tell
(26:11):
one the backup quarterback that you're not going to be
the starter this year, that guy's going to hop in
the portal. So a lot of times you've seen this trend,
there's like elongated battles of the top positions in college sports,
and everyone's like, man, why hasn't school X named their
quarterback yet? I'm like, because they don't want the guy
to transfer, so they haven't announced the starter. There's this
perception of a quarterback competition still to the public and
(26:31):
to the team, when the coach may really know. So
that's the number one thing coaches are asking for is
let's get one transfer portal window. Let's make it right
after the season, and after the season you decide you
are either at your school for the next year or
you're transferring, and then if you transfer, you get to
go through spring practice. You're there all off season. But
get rid of this window, this transfer window that's after
(26:52):
spring practice, which really would help coaches, administrators, general managers
build their rosters better. It would help college sports. But
that's an example of how we kind of overcorrected for
the players, and now we're getting back to the center
where it seems to make more sense.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So Adam your words, I mean, and I agree, I mean,
this is so confusing, and I'm sure our listeners, while
you're doing an incredible job describing it, they're still a
little confused, right Cotail Now every cocktail party you go
to everyone and Jace, you know that because we've been
in some of these conversations. Okay, where does this go?
What's NIO? How does it really work? Is it a
binding contract? I guess my questions are oversimplified. In five years,
(27:29):
where does this land? Is there going to be some
type of a salary cap? Is there sometimes of a
formal union that protects the players, that the commissioners can
speak to the union at a very high level macro
and say, you got to do X for the player,
you got to protect the school, We got to do
what's best for the sport.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Where does it land in five years?
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Yeah, that's the million dollar question. One of the things
I was really eye opening to me was I was
at the College Football National Championship Game this past year.
Every conference is meeting about the future of college sports.
The school presidents are all meeting about the future of
college sports. You know, there's the SEC coaches meeting and
there's all these meetings going on. But guess who has
(28:08):
no seat at the table? The players. There's no one
representing the players at the table. Just like the NFL
has NFLPA and the MLB has the MLBPA, and they
have their entity or their representation, who's negotiating on their behalf.
The athletes don't have that in college sports. And the
biggest reason they don't is because college sports in general
administrators the NCAA has refused to call student athletes what
(28:32):
they really are. They're employees of the school, and that's
a dirty topic in college sports. Right now, there's a
lot of debate around are they employees, and if they
are employees, you open up this can of potential lawsuits
and all these issues with the even pass athletes that
weren't employees but maybe should have been classified as employees.
There's a big push from a lot of groups to
keep the athletes as student athletes in college sports. My
(28:55):
take to answer your question directly, Alex, is that in
five years, we will classify college apple letes as employees
and college athletes will have collective bargaining and representation at
the table. There will be collective bargaining for what revenue
share contracts look like. There will be group licensing deals
similar to NFLPA and the other players associations. That's really
(29:15):
the cleanest solution. It's the solution that scares everyone the most.
It's the solution that scares administrators, I like directors and
conference commissioners because they don't want to deal with the
athletes being employees. But as you guys are hearing about
college sports, doesn't it just seem like, hey, this is
an employee model, Like the players are getting paid to
perform a service. The longer we refuse to call them that,
the more complicated it gets. You're like, well, are there contracts?
(29:37):
Are they not contracts? Are we able to fire the athlete?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Are we not? Can we cut them? Like? How'es it
actually work?
Speaker 5 (29:43):
I think that's kind of the elephant in the room
and all these conversations is are the athletes employees? And
I think the notion that they are currently student athletes
is a falsehood. Yes, some are getting a degree and
some are focused on that, but a lot of them,
the majority, are focused more so on getting a paycheck
and maximizing their value of the school, making the most
(30:05):
amount of money, which they should. I would have done
the same thing if I was in their shoes.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, I had one more question that as you were
talking at them. It really strikes me, which is, you know,
there's so much focus from the beginning of the season,
from long before the beginning the season now on the
college football playoff. It's expanded, It's probably going to continue
to expand at some point. And this is sort of
building on what you just said, does big time college
(30:30):
football break off of the nc DOUBLEA? Like, do we
have a world where we essentially create, for lack of
better term, NFL junior And it's you know that it's
big ten SEC, maybe part of the ACC and Notre Dame.
What is the right business model for college football going forward,
given the amount of money and given that the playoff
(30:53):
is already the separate entity.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Yeah, well, the number one thing is the nc DOUBLEA
has shown a lack of ability to govern anything in
college sports. I mean they were in this position because
ncible A refused to act on what they knew was
coming down the pipe for a long time with nil. Clearly,
the NCBLA isn't the answer for governance and for the
organizational structure of college sports. I also think that a
(31:17):
lot of these major sports like football, for example, basketball, baseball,
women's basketball. If I asked you who's in charge of football,
who's in charge of college football? Like you wouldn't know
who's actually in charge? Isn't Greg Sankee the commissioner of
the SEC. Maybe Greg sankei is the person who's ultimately
in charge of college football because he's the most powerful person.
(31:39):
But he's also in charge of the cross in swimming
and diving, in field hockey and all these other sports.
There's no leader of college football looking out for the
interests of college football, which is different than the interest
of college basketball. It's different than the interests of everywhere else,
but we have this set of rules that is kind
of the same for each sport. It's just governed under
NCAA Athletics. What I think the future should look like
(31:59):
is is college football breaks off. Maybe men's basketball does
as well. The major conferences Big ten of the SEC
and football break off and self govern themselves and a
breakoff from the other group of five programs in college football.
These conferences will continue to expand we've seen tons of
conference realignment and conference expansion. It's not going to stop.
(32:21):
These conferences want the best media rights deals, and the
way you do it is you get national. You go
multiple different time zones and media markets, and you collect
all these schools and then you sell your media rights
to these networks and the better the games are, the better.
If you only had the Big Ten of the SEC
playing each other every year one power conference in football
say they merge, the amount of revenue from media dollars
(32:43):
would be even higher because you wouldn't be playing the
who did Miami play Bouthain Cookman or someone you would
You wouldn't have these like low level games that no
one's watching on you get a revenue for so you
would you would have all these great games more revenue.
So I think the solution is continuing to expand the conferences,
and then the two power conferences eventually go off on
(33:05):
their own as the premier college football entity, if you
will knock, governed by the incidable.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely definitely where we're headed.
And the good news is is that college football will
still exist in other forms as well, when you know,
we love the game and people will keep playing it.
All right, Lightning Round five questions. We're going to bounce
(33:32):
it back and forth. First thing that comes to your mind,
I'll start, then Alex will pick up.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Are you reading, Let's do it? Okay.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
What's the best piece of advice you've received on deal
making or business?
Speaker 5 (33:42):
I would say that persistence can get you a long way,
just will power. I believe that human beings underestimate their
ability to will something to happen, and I think that
works a lot and deals as well.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Who's your dream deal making partner?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Can I say, Ox Rodriguez? Or is that is that
a yeah? Sure?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
It would be the first one.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
I would go A rod or I would go I'm
a big Gary Vaynerchuk guy too, I got that.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Okay, yeah, which team do you want to see win
a championship more than any pipe state?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
What's your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Oh? Make me all dreams and nightmares? Oh? Good one?
All right?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
And finally, what's your advice for someone listening who wants
a career like yours?
Speaker 5 (34:26):
I think similar to what I said in the beginning,
is that you have the ability to will something to happen,
and that the number one underrated skill set is proactivity.
Being proactive and not waiting for direction or rating for
someone to tell you what to do. We'll just get
up and take action. Action is the way that you
make something happen. And I think throughout my career I've
(34:46):
learned that if you just take action, the luck follows.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
I love it all right.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Well, you are a true multi hyphen it Adam Brenneman's entrepreneur,
media personality, TV analysts, a former All American tight end,
you run the college sports company. You've got a podcast
called Next Up. So we love following your career. We
really enjoyed having you, and thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Thanks guys, Thanks for having me all. I appreciate it
was fun.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.
This episode was made by Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong, and Lizzie Phillip.
Amy Keen is our editor and Will Connelly is our
video editor. Our theme music is made by Blake Maples.
Our executive producers are Kelly Leferrier, Ashley Hoenig, and Brendan Newnham.
Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support
(35:42):
from Rachel Carnivale and Elena Los Angeles. Thanks so much
for listening to the Deal. If you have a minute, subscribe,
rate and review our show. It'll help other listeners find us.
I'm Jason Kelly. See you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome back to the Deal.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez, and actually alongside Alex Rodriguez.
It's Monday.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We're here in Dallas.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
We just wrapped an unbelievable conversation with the legendary Jerry Jones.
It takes a lot for us to show up somewhere together,
but we had to for Jerry.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yeah, and like Magic Johnson, I mean, this is one
that was very close to my heart. Ever since I
dreamt of being an owner of sports, a professional sports team.
Jerry has been my north star and he's been a
longtime mentor.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
And yeah, he put on a masterclass.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
It's an unbelievable conversation. We can't wait for you guys
to hear it. That'll be out in just a few weeks.
A busy week for us. We're going our separate ways
at least for about twenty four hours. Thirty six hours.
You're heading off to Minnesota to see the Links play
in the semi finals.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
What a season they're having.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I mean, how excited are you?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
We're very, very excited. We're playing a very good Phoenix team.
Game two, we were fortunate to win Game one and
we're supposed to go to New York together and I
had to split because of a schedule. But I'm very excited.
You know, this is the road to number five, as
the team has labeled this year, because we got very
close against the Liberty last year and hopefully we can
close it this year.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yet number five being you already have four championships, the
most of any WNBA team, and so going for number
five under the leadership of Nafisa Callier, what an incredible team.
We are going to reconnect in New York, big Bloomberg
event that we're putting on that you're going to be
a part of. We're going to talk about building sports
and entertainment infrastructure in Africa with Messaiu Jerry and Adam Silver.
(01:48):
And meanwhile, we're looking at all the things happening in
the world of sports. Nothing bigger right now than college football.
You're Hurricanes, Man, what in the world they are on fire?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I am like optimate, but I'm cautious right because we've
been down this road before.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
We've had these start, false start, start, false start.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
But it seems like we have some momentum going and
we would beat a very good Florida team last week
at home, and then we played Florida State this upcoming
week and that's going to be like the moment because
they are our arch rivals.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, and we talk a lot on this show about
college sports and college football specifically.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
No one better to talk to them than Adam Brennanman.
He played at Penn State.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
He is now a college football analyst and also an entrepreneur.
Fun to talk to him because you know, he clearly
is following a playbook that you helped invent, you know, candidly,
he talks a lot about, you know, being ambitious in
his business dealings. Also just has some great insights, said
some things about where college sports is going and where
(02:47):
it should go that I found really really interesting. So
coming up next, Adam Brendman, Welcome back to the Deal.
I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. We could not be
(03:07):
more excited to have Adam Brennman here with us. He's
an analyst, he's an entrepreneur, former college football player. So
much happening in this world, Adam, as the season gets underway,
we are just thrilled to be talking to you.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
So welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
I appreciate us having me on, Love the show, Love
what you guys are doing. Alex, I've been a big
fan for a long time. The amount of times I've
looked at the A Rod Corp. Website as you've built
out your company and sewed it to my team and said, hey,
I love what he's doing here. I'm trying to do
it on a much smaller scale right now, but hopefully,
hopefully someday can achieve the things you have. And again,
love the show, love all the univis you guys are doing.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Thank you. So we're talking to you at a great time.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
You know. College football season is just in full swing,
you know, the first couple of weeks I have seen
some incredible games. What to you are the big storylines,
especially given sort of the business angle that we know
you really embrace as you think about college football right now.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
The biggest storyline in college football is just the money
that's flowing into the sport. The money has shifted from
it used to be just the media networks and the
schools getting the money. Now the players are getting paid
as well. And there's been so much negativity, as you
guys know, around athletes, student athletes getting paid in college athletics.
But as we looked at the product on the field,
(04:25):
college football has never been stronger. The viewership's never been better,
the game has never been better. The product on the field,
as far as the talent level, has been better. There's
been an effect with the NIL and the money where
guys are staying in school longer. You have players who
could have gone to the NFL that stay in school
because they're making two million dollars as a starting quarterback.
Think of a guy like Drew Aller at Penn State,
(04:46):
should have been a top five pick but stayed for
one more season at Penn State, now competing for a
national championship. So for all the negativity and all the
talk about nil and should players get paid, and people
say and football will never be the same college foot
it's not the college football I remember growing up.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, it's better than it ever was.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
And in college football and the fan bases, the pageantry,
there's a reason that college football games have better TV
ratings than any other sport. It's because of how diehard
these fans are. And I think and I alas only
only made that stronger.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, well, I mean I got to just talk a
little University of Miami because I'm going to geek out
a little bit. We've suffered for a long time, and
you know, I was telling Jase, I sit on the
board at the University of Miami for the last twenty years,
and we were fortunate to get back to quarterback from Georgia,
which I think you got.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
To run four million bucks.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I've been really on a high because Notre Dame played
Miami for the opener. I had to watch Catholic versus Convicts.
I'mvol in it right now. Disappointment or we kind of
we have a real shot with the University of Miami.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Give me your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Miami has a real shot.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
And you look at the ACC and Miami's the top
team in the conference right now. I don't even think
it's really that close. And you think about Carson Beck
and how he's playing that quarterback. He's a guy who's
played a lot of football. He has the experience. I
also like a guy who's been through some crap in
his career. It hasn't always been pretty, it hasn't always
been good. But sometimes guys who have talent but there's
(06:10):
been issues for whatever reason. Sometimes you just need a
fresh start. Sometimes you just got to go somewhere and
have someone new who believes in you. And that's what
Miami's been for Carson Beck. I mean, he's a guy
who played at Georgia, was a big recruit, so much
excitement and talk every single year, never quite got to
that pinnacle, and now has this fresh start at Miami
and you can see the confidence he's brought to that team.
(06:33):
He's brought a lot of confidence in swagger to this
Miami program. The Notre Dame win beating South Florida, who's
a top twenty team Week three of college football season.
So I really think Miami's got a good roster. Mario
Chris Ball's built that team the right way that he
built it in the trenches through high school recruiting, not
just through the transfer portal. I love Miami this season,
(06:53):
and their path to making the playoff isn't all that hard.
They may not play a ranked team other than Florida
State the rest of the schedule, So I'm a big
believer in Miami right now. Now, Carson Beck has to
keep playing well, keep taking care of the football, and
avoid some of those mistakes and have plagued him last
season In the last couple of years. But I'm happy
for Carson back more than anything else because he needed
a fresh start and it's always cool to see the
(07:16):
positive part of the transfer portal. You get a guy
who gets to have that kind of second part of
his career and thriving at his new school.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So, Adam, let's keep with this because to me, this
is like the single most interesting business story in the
world of sports is college sports right now. But when
it comes to college football, Carson Beck great story.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
We love to see it. You know, he doesn't go
to the NFL. You know you mentioned Duraler as well.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
What are the knock on effects of this, you know,
what are the effects that maybe we should be thinking
about from a business perspective, from the businesses of the
individual teams and the schools you know, this world so intimately, like,
what are the things we may not be seeing that
you're seeing as we think about all that money coming in.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
The biggest shift that's happened in the last year or
so in college sports, aside from just nil as a whole,
has been revenue sharing actually coming to college sports. So
what's happening now is these college athletic programs can pay
athletes directly out of the revenue they're getting from their
media deals and through the athletic department. Every Division I
(08:21):
program in college football, probably the same in basketball, has
opted into revenue sharing where they have a salary cap
just like the NFL does, where they can pay their
athletes in year one, it's twenty point five million dollars
a year. But the interesting part is you still have
nil that's outside of that twenty point five million. And
that's the business story that gets really competitive here, and
(08:44):
how do you get to a level playing field And
that's where the frustrations come in for a lot of coaches.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You have all these schools, let's just stick.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
With a big tan Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, USC,
all of them are saying, hey, we're going to pay
our play our athletes twenty point five million a year.
That's a revenue share agreement getting paid from the athlete
department to the athlete, and they have to perform services
for that, just like a normal contract would be. Now
thethn department has to split that between sports. So I
(09:11):
would assume probably three fourths goes to football, say sixteen
million of the twenty million goes to football. Now, what
happens is when everyone pays their players twenty million dollars, well,
everyone's pretty much back in zero because there's no competitive
advantage for any program. So what's happening is Ohio State
and Ohio State says, we got to pay our guys
more than Penn State pays their guys.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
We're competing for championships.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
So now you have what's really true nil outside of
the revenue sharing cap in IL, which is the businesses
doing deals with the athletes. What the arms race is
right now is what schools can create true commercial NIL
programs that get their athletes paid more than just the
revenue sharing money. So it's it's some of these schools
(09:54):
are trying to put together a pool of donors or
businesses to say we want you to do that are
real NIL deals with all of our top athletes that
we want to come in here so that the quarterback
can make maybe two and a half million instead of
two million, and then you can compete in the transfer
portal with all of them, which some coaches like, some
coaches don't like. How do you make sure that doesn't
(10:15):
become just pay for play where then you kind of
don't even have a salary cap anymore, and you're just
funneling money through donors to athletes like what was happening
in the early days of NIL. So it's pretty chaotic,
and the money's going to keep flowing in. And you
guys know the amount of money that these teams are
making on football and men's basketball, and so women's basketball
(10:36):
had a lot of places that it is worth it
for them to try to fundel this money to the
athletes because the product is so great. The conferences are
consolidating to get the better media rights, which means more
money will fall back to the schools. So the money
continues to get more and more massive in college football
and college for US.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Adam, that's a thank you for that. That was a
very very good explanation. I mean, it's such as movies
so fast and you said a lot. I just want
to make sure that I get this part clear. So
I'm clear on the twenty point five rev share, right,
and that's split among all sports, And you said three
fourth we'll go to football.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
That sounds about right. Is there a cap outside of that?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
So in the situation of a quarterback, can you just
spend the unlimited amount of money kind of go up
to like another forty or fifty million dollars for the roster.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
The short answer is yes, But the nuance in this
is that the school is not allowed to facilitate that payment.
So it's so similar to alex when you played Major
League baseball, you had your contract with the Major League
Baseball team, but you also could do a brand deal
with Nike or Adidas or Pepsi or That's what's happening
in college football. But because the difference is there's recruiting
(11:45):
in college football, so you're not just drafting players and
then trading them and then doing a free agency. You're recruiting.
So that's where pay for play comes in. You're now
trying to recruit the players. So the more money you
pay them, the easierness to recruit. So these schools that
have the twenty point five million dollar cap, they're trying
to get that incremental money above and that's the gray
area where this isn't happening. But for example, if Penn
(12:08):
State has a massive donor, Terry Pagoula, the owner of
the Bills, like, I'm sure they'd love for him to
be more involved than a nil. But say he wanted
to be involved and he said, I could buy whatever
roster we want here, so he could go just you know,
pay all these athletes through nil deals, get them to
go to the school. Who's to judge what the fair
market value is of that deal? Because that's the nuance
To directly answer your question, Alex, the deal that's outside
(12:31):
the cap has to be fair market value and go
through a clearing house from the NCAA. There's a group
called the College Sports Commission which was put in place
after the House settlement in college sports and after revenue
staring came in that said anything that's outside of the
revenue staring cap has to be fair market value, has
to be true commercial nil to avoid the schools just saying,
hey this donor just pay this guy all this money
(12:53):
to come to our school. But who's going to tell
Phil Knight at Nike what fair market value is. He's
going to say, I'll pay the guy whatever I want.
It's worth it Tnike and to me. So that's the
nuance of it all. There's no cap on true nil
because who's the talent athlete? You're not worth three million
dollars a year to this company, but the making sure
that it stays fair is the biggest challenge right now
(13:15):
facing college sports, and that's the arms race. I interviewed
I flight director at Ohio State. He's straight up said
the biggest arms race right now. It used to be facilities.
Who has the nicest facility in college sports? Now it's
who can build out the best, true, true commercial nil
outside of their athletic department and you can do it
the fastest so that they have a recruiting advantage.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, I mean this happened so Alex's older daughter is
a student at Michigan. I mean Michigan played this brilliantly, right,
I mean they had a donor you know, who came
in and essentially was able to pay their quarterback and
woo him away from LSU. Right, he was committed LSU
and now he's at Missig. He's the starting quarterback at Michigan.
Do I have that right correct?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Bryce Underwood, he's a great player, going to be going
to be one of the best quarterbacks in college football.
And Michigan got a bunch of donors together and just
sole them away basically when he was in high school.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
As a recruit.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
So the legality of all that, and that was pre
revenue share. So that was when it was just straight
nil collectives. These schools weren't allowed to be part of it.
It was what the donors were. The donors could be
part of it. The donors could pull their money together
through collectives and pay the athletes. So that's what happened
with Bryce Hunderwood and Michigan got their quarterback of the future.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, I mean it's why, Alex. Isn't it wild to
think about? I mean, this is like so radically different.
I mean you must see it, Alex, you must see it.
Even in you know, being on the board of Miami,
like it totally changes the governance of it of a school.
Like it couldn't be more different than it was.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah, and Adam, it's interesting what you said about, you know,
players get more motivated because of the money. When I
was seventeen coming out of Miami, I was the number
one pick in the country and I signed for one
point three million. And I agree with you because I
also had a coach that had and iron fist and
his name was lou Panela, and he never made you
(15:04):
feel like you were the special kid on the block.
It was in the contrary and because of him, because
of his coaches style, which it resembles like a Nick
Saban right, like just a great coach, but very tough,
all of my fundamentals, made sure you were accountable at
every inch of every single.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Day of the game.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
And he has a big, big time print on my career.
So the money was not a negative. It was actually
a neutral or positive.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Like some of these athletes.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
I would hear all the time from coaches, old school
guys say well, you pay the players one hundred a million,
four million a year. These coaches are guys who have
kind of been around the system a while have said
and said to me, if I got a million dollars,
I'd stop working. How is this going to motivate the players.
They're just going to show up and get their check
and go home. And I found the exact opposite. The
(15:53):
money has motivated these players even more. There's no better
motivator to show up every day on time, to practice,
to put in the extra work, to want to perform well,
to ensure that you're getting paid your million dollar a
year contract you have with a school, and to also
get that next contract, get the year two revenue share deal.
If a player is making two hunderd grand one year,
(16:13):
he's going to want to make four hundred the next year.
So I think it's actually enhanced the product in college football.
It's made it all better. It's made it more well rounded,
where you also have more balance in the system. Now,
I mean college football. College athletics has been such a
big business for everyone but the athletes for so long,
and now finally the athletes can be part of that business.
(16:34):
They can partake in the upside, they can get the
reward in for the hard work they're putting in. I
think it's been a big positive and it's really actually
made the athletes work harder because there's a financial incentive
at stake.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
All right, let's talk about the business you're building, or
one of the businesses you're building. The college sports company.
You found this a few years ago, clearly you know,
seeing part of what was happening. It's only accelerated since then.
Given how using your word chaotic it is, how do
you build a sustainable business in this? And how much
(17:20):
has it changed what you were trying to do as
you're constantly I'm imagining sort of evolving what you're aiming
for yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
The college sports company came or started based on really
two pillars. One was that content is king and everyone
wants to do content. I was just finding as I
was creating content myself and building a platformal line telling
stories about football, breaking down the game, people were coming
to me athletes and college athletes and schools and said, hey,
(17:47):
we want content. How do we do content? We need
to do content. At the same time, every school now
and every NIOL collective has a revenue issue. They're trying
to figure out how do we drive more revenue because
think about it, every school has a new twenty pointy
five million dollar bill they got to pay every year
they didn't have last year. So all these schools are like, man,
we need more money.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
How do we drive more revenue?
Speaker 5 (18:07):
And that's where kind of the epiphany came in that
the best way for schools to thrive in this era
of college sports is to think an act like a
media company. It's to create content with all the athletes
they have currently at their schools. It's to create content
with the former athletes that want to be part of
the program. Think about how many former athletes want to
be a media Well, let's use them and let's build
(18:28):
these school specific media networks that we can then monetize
to drive revenue for the school for nil for paying
the players themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So that's how we started. It's evolved since then.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
As you guys know, this landscape of college sports is
crazy and you have new legislation, new rules, But we
work with schools all over the country and work with
their athletes to build school specific networks, media networks, have
shows that each of those networks, and then we monetize
it through sponsorship, advertising, events, experiences, e commerce, everything that
(19:02):
a normal media company would do, and then we share
that revenue with the school or with the NL collective,
and that's the solution for them. So the schools are
getting brand building, their athletes get to be part of content,
and they also are getting revenue on the back end.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It's been fun. I mean, the.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
World of college sports and sports itself has become really
an asset class. People want to invest in sports, people
are excited about sports and college sports. I think the
shift in what college sports looks like it's only becoming
more professionalized.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
You know, Adam, it reminds me of how private companies
are staying private longer, right because it can lose more capital.
You don't have the quarterly earnings, CEOs can really think
about long term or enterprise value versus like what's going
to be great on the next quarterly call. I think
about a player like Anthony Edwards who plays with us,
and it was a number one take out of Georgia.
(19:50):
He would have made probably who knows, maybe tens of
millions of dollars over the course of four years, and
the whole course of the Timbulls may have been completely different.
I guess my question and is I'm sitting here in
our facilities with the Minnesota Timbos in the links, and
as I think about how should we I'm asking for
your advice here because you're right in the middle of
college sports. How should we be assessing players? Because if
(20:15):
a player's making three and a half million dollars, is
he going to have the same motivation to be great
in the NBA or the WNBA. Because this is a
new I think I can relate with players, but it's,
like Jason said, radically different than when I played.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
How would you think about recruiting players?
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Yeah, I think athletes that are getting paid a ton
of money in college are just as motivated as anyone
else who is trying to make it with their career.
I'm thinking of a football player specifically. I won't mention
his name that I talked to who who made a
comment to me He made like eight hundred grand the
one year he was in school, and all he was
talking about was how hard he wanted to work because
(20:53):
he wanted his next deal to be two million dollars.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
And I just kept thinking.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I kept coming back to that because the average person,
you would say, hey, this guy's eighteen years old making
eight hundred grand. I mean, the things I would have
done with eight hundred grand when I was eighteen in college. Like,
I see this perspective, and it's like, man, like you
taste it a little bit, right, Like you get that
taste in your mouth, and then you're around people who
are making even more and more and not. I think
that's just human nature. Like now that I'm postplaying in
(21:18):
my business career, the more I'm around people who make
more and more money, the more motivated I get. I'm like, oh, well,
that guy figured out how to make that much money.
Why can't I figure that out? I really think that
you have these guys who make all this money in college,
they know what the top echelon looks like, and I
still think that they're going to want to get there,
whether it's money motivation. I also think that if there
(21:38):
is an athlete who was good enough in college to
work their butt off, avoid distractions and get to that
pinnacle of college sports, they're going to have that same
attitude in professional sports that's in their DNA. At that point,
they're not going to say, hey, I made four million.
I think I'm going to just just ease out. Like
in their DNA is that there's greatness within them. So
(22:00):
I think it's finding those guys. The guys who can
have consistent excellence in college desplained how much money they made,
are ones that are going to be are going to
be great professionals. I do think that there is a
new shift in sports where like when I was playing football,
if I would have told my coaches that I wanted
to start a podcast or have a business on the side,
they would have like laughed me out of the room.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Right. It would have been like no.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Like Bill O'Brien was my head coach at Penn State,
he would have been like, dude, like you just messed up.
That play on third down. You're not starting a podcast
like Learn Your Play, where like nowadays, it's way more accepted,
and I think it should be like where athletes it's
cool to invest as an athlete, and Alex You've been
a big part of that. I think like the shift
in that athletes are entrepreneurs, athletes are businesses, Athletes create content,
(22:46):
Athletes can be venture capitalists and can start businesses and
can invest in their hometown and can buy real estate.
All that is cool now and it has shifted completely,
and I think that's an amazing thing for the athlete
because for a long time, it was almost no matter.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
What your sport was.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
It was kind of like, hey, if you talk about that,
it's kind of like you're not focused on your sport
and you better just shut up and play well on
Saturday or play well on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So, Adam, and I'm trying to figure out the best
way to ask this question because I've been thinking about
this so much. The whole notion of you know, you
went to Penn State, had a great career there, you
played for a great coach in Bill o Brien you
just mentioned. I think about going back to something you
mentioned earlier. I love Georgia Tech football. I love Brent Key,
(23:29):
I love Haines King, the quarterback. You know, this is
a guy who's been there for several years. In the
case of Haines King, you have a lot of situations
where quarterbacks, especially, but other players as well, especially you know,
wide receivers and whatnot, they get a better deal, they
move on. There is not the continuity within a program.
(23:52):
This is something that is candidly like the transfer portal,
so sort of shifting gears has chased a lot of
even very success full college coaches, you know, out of
the game. Nick Sabans essentially sort of threw his hands up,
and there have been other examples of that. He is
sort of the most the best known. What do you
think about that, this essentially sort of unlimited free agency
(24:13):
that's happening. Is that going to be how it is
going forward?
Speaker 4 (24:18):
What do you think?
Speaker 5 (24:19):
Yeah, it's a great question. The transfer portal has gotten
absolutely bonkers. Every coach stays up at night having nightmares
about it. Like anything in business and life, things were
so far in one direction right that they were so
far in favor of the coaches and the administrators and
the media companies and anti player that when you get
(24:41):
that far out of whack, a lot of times you.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Can overcorrect the other way.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Yeah, and I think what's happened in college sports is
we've over corrected in benefit of the players. Like we've
gotten to the point where players can transfer as many
times as they want. There's multiple transfer portal windows in
college football. There's not binding tracks for the players, like
if the players are going to get paid two million
bucks a year, like there should be a contract that
they play in the bowl game, and there are now
(25:07):
with revenue sharing that they show up on time to practice.
They're not getting that check if they skip a week
of workouts, all those kind of things, just like he
would in professional leagues. So that has changed with revenue
sharing where there are now binding contracts with the players interest.
But the biggest piece has been the transfer portal windows.
Those contracts still don't keep players from transferring, but now
the issue in college football has been that there's multiple
(25:28):
transfer portal windows. So what's been happening is there's a
window after the season in college football where players can transfer,
and there's also a window after spring practice before the
season starts. And what's been happening is that because of
the two windows, it really disincentivizes coaches to be honest
with their players.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Because if you have a coach who.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
Has a quarterback battle going on at a major program,
his obligations to protect his team, to do what's the
best thing in interest of his program. Yes, he may
have a great relationship with the player, but his my
best interest is making sure that all the best players
sail on his team. Why would that coach name any
starters until that transfer portal closes. So a lot of
coaches may have a quarterback battle. Hey, if they tell
(26:11):
one the backup quarterback that you're not going to be
the starter this year, that guy's going to hop in
the portal. So a lot of times you've seen this trend,
there's like elongated battles of the top positions in college sports,
and everyone's like, man, why hasn't school X named their
quarterback yet? I'm like, because they don't want the guy
to transfer, so they haven't announced the starter. There's this
perception of a quarterback competition still to the public and
(26:31):
to the team, when the coach may really know. So
that's the number one thing coaches are asking for is
let's get one transfer portal window. Let's make it right
after the season, and after the season you decide you
are either at your school for the next year or
you're transferring, and then if you transfer, you get to
go through spring practice. You're there all off season. But
get rid of this window, this transfer window that's after
(26:52):
spring practice, which really would help coaches, administrators, general managers
build their rosters better. It would help college sports. But
that's an example of how we kind of overcorrected for
the players, and now we're getting back to the center
where it seems to make more sense.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So Adam your words, I mean, and I agree, I mean,
this is so confusing, and I'm sure our listeners, while
you're doing an incredible job describing it, they're still a
little confused, right Cotail Now every cocktail party you go
to everyone and Jace, you know that because we've been
in some of these conversations. Okay, where does this go?
What's NIO? How does it really work? Is it a
binding contract? I guess my questions are oversimplified. In five years,
(27:29):
where does this land? Is there going to be some
type of a salary cap? Is there sometimes of a
formal union that protects the players, that the commissioners can
speak to the union at a very high level macro
and say, you got to do X for the player,
you got to protect the school, We got to do
what's best for the sport.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Where does it land in five years?
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Yeah, that's the million dollar question. One of the things
I was really eye opening to me was I was
at the College Football National Championship Game this past year.
Every conference is meeting about the future of college sports.
The school presidents are all meeting about the future of
college sports. You know, there's the SEC coaches meeting and
there's all these meetings going on. But guess who has
(28:08):
no seat at the table? The players. There's no one
representing the players at the table. Just like the NFL
has NFLPA and the MLB has the MLBPA, and they
have their entity or their representation, who's negotiating on their behalf.
The athletes don't have that in college sports. And the
biggest reason they don't is because college sports in general
administrators the NCAA has refused to call student athletes what
(28:32):
they really are. They're employees of the school, and that's
a dirty topic in college sports. Right now, there's a
lot of debate around are they employees, and if they
are employees, you open up this can of potential lawsuits
and all these issues with the even pass athletes that
weren't employees but maybe should have been classified as employees.
There's a big push from a lot of groups to
keep the athletes as student athletes in college sports. My
(28:55):
take to answer your question directly, Alex, is that in
five years, we will classify college apple letes as employees
and college athletes will have collective bargaining and representation at
the table. There will be collective bargaining for what revenue
share contracts look like. There will be group licensing deals
similar to NFLPA and the other players associations. That's really
(29:15):
the cleanest solution. It's the solution that scares everyone the most.
It's the solution that scares administrators, I like directors and
conference commissioners because they don't want to deal with the
athletes being employees. But as you guys are hearing about
college sports, doesn't it just seem like, hey, this is
an employee model, Like the players are getting paid to
perform a service. The longer we refuse to call them that,
the more complicated it gets. You're like, well, are there contracts?
(29:37):
Are they not contracts? Are we able to fire the athlete?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Are we not? Can we cut them? Like? How'es it
actually work?
Speaker 5 (29:43):
I think that's kind of the elephant in the room
and all these conversations is are the athletes employees? And
I think the notion that they are currently student athletes
is a falsehood. Yes, some are getting a degree and
some are focused on that, but a lot of them,
the majority, are focused more so on getting a paycheck
and maximizing their value of the school, making the most
(30:05):
amount of money, which they should. I would have done
the same thing if I was in their shoes.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, I had one more question that as you were
talking at them. It really strikes me, which is, you know,
there's so much focus from the beginning of the season,
from long before the beginning the season now on the
college football playoff. It's expanded, It's probably going to continue
to expand at some point. And this is sort of
building on what you just said, does big time college
(30:30):
football break off of the nc DOUBLEA? Like, do we
have a world where we essentially create, for lack of
better term, NFL junior And it's you know that it's
big ten SEC, maybe part of the ACC and Notre Dame.
What is the right business model for college football going forward,
given the amount of money and given that the playoff
(30:53):
is already the separate entity.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Yeah, well, the number one thing is the nc DOUBLEA
has shown a lack of ability to govern anything in
college sports. I mean they were in this position because
ncible A refused to act on what they knew was
coming down the pipe for a long time with nil. Clearly,
the NCBLA isn't the answer for governance and for the
organizational structure of college sports. I also think that a
(31:17):
lot of these major sports like football, for example, basketball, baseball,
women's basketball. If I asked you who's in charge of football,
who's in charge of college football? Like you wouldn't know
who's actually in charge? Isn't Greg Sankee the commissioner of
the SEC. Maybe Greg sankei is the person who's ultimately
in charge of college football because he's the most powerful person.
(31:39):
But he's also in charge of the cross in swimming
and diving, in field hockey and all these other sports.
There's no leader of college football looking out for the
interests of college football, which is different than the interest
of college basketball. It's different than the interests of everywhere else,
but we have this set of rules that is kind
of the same for each sport. It's just governed under
NCAA Athletics. What I think the future should look like
(31:59):
is is college football breaks off. Maybe men's basketball does
as well. The major conferences Big ten of the SEC
and football break off and self govern themselves and a
breakoff from the other group of five programs in college football.
These conferences will continue to expand we've seen tons of
conference realignment and conference expansion. It's not going to stop.
(32:21):
These conferences want the best media rights deals, and the
way you do it is you get national. You go
multiple different time zones and media markets, and you collect
all these schools and then you sell your media rights
to these networks and the better the games are, the better.
If you only had the Big Ten of the SEC
playing each other every year one power conference in football
say they merge, the amount of revenue from media dollars
(32:43):
would be even higher because you wouldn't be playing the
who did Miami play Bouthain Cookman or someone you would
You wouldn't have these like low level games that no
one's watching on you get a revenue for so you
would you would have all these great games more revenue.
So I think the solution is continuing to expand the conferences,
and then the two power conferences eventually go off on
(33:05):
their own as the premier college football entity, if you
will knock, governed by the incidable.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely definitely where we're headed.
And the good news is is that college football will
still exist in other forms as well, when you know,
we love the game and people will keep playing it.
All right, Lightning Round five questions. We're going to bounce
(33:32):
it back and forth. First thing that comes to your mind,
I'll start, then Alex will pick up.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Are you reading, Let's do it? Okay.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
What's the best piece of advice you've received on deal
making or business?
Speaker 5 (33:42):
I would say that persistence can get you a long way,
just will power. I believe that human beings underestimate their
ability to will something to happen, and I think that
works a lot and deals as well.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Who's your dream deal making partner?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Can I say, Ox Rodriguez? Or is that is that
a yeah? Sure?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
It would be the first one.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
I would go A rod or I would go I'm
a big Gary Vaynerchuk guy too, I got that.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Okay, yeah, which team do you want to see win
a championship more than any pipe state?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
What's your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Oh? Make me all dreams and nightmares? Oh? Good one?
All right?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
And finally, what's your advice for someone listening who wants
a career like yours?
Speaker 5 (34:26):
I think similar to what I said in the beginning,
is that you have the ability to will something to happen,
and that the number one underrated skill set is proactivity.
Being proactive and not waiting for direction or rating for
someone to tell you what to do. We'll just get
up and take action. Action is the way that you
make something happen. And I think throughout my career I've
(34:46):
learned that if you just take action, the luck follows.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
I love it all right.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Well, you are a true multi hyphen it Adam Brenneman's entrepreneur,
media personality, TV analysts, a former All American tight end,
you run the college sports company. You've got a podcast
called Next Up. So we love following your career. We
really enjoyed having you, and thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Thanks guys, Thanks for having me all. I appreciate it
was fun.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.
This episode was made by Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong, and Lizzie Phillip.
Amy Keen is our editor and Will Connelly is our
video editor. Our theme music is made by Blake Maples.
Our executive producers are Kelly Leferrier, Ashley Hoenig, and Brendan Newnham.
Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support
(35:42):
from Rachel Carnivale and Elena Los Angeles. Thanks so much
for listening to the Deal. If you have a minute, subscribe,
rate and review our show. It'll help other listeners find us.
I'm Jason Kelly. See you next week.
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