August 8, 2025 • 11 mins
Sean Callahan with Husker Camp and Memorial Stadium Updates
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Nebraska Cornhuskers to talk about that. Some new surrounding
the program is our buddy, our Husker insider Sean Callahan. Sean,
how's it going, man.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, it's great to hear you. Man looking forward to
another good year here of after him buzz reports. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Absolutely, we'll start those here in a couple of weeks
when game week starts in the afternoons at five five
every single every single day during the week and whatnot.
But Sean, I got a package in the mail and
I didn't know what it was. I opened it up
and boom, there's a book with Sean Callahan's name on it.
Tell me about this thing.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, our my book, The Program Nebraska. It just came out.
It's about two weeks on the market now. But I've
put I put it together two summers ago, kind of
did all the research, all the interview using, did it
all together. And it's a curated history of Cornhusker football.
And so it's broken up into different sections the key coaches,
(00:58):
the key players, the legends of the program, the traditions,
and the rivals. So there's twenty chapters in the book.
It's a hardcover copy with Triumph Publishing, which is the
largest sports book publishing company in the country, and did
my first book with them, one Hundred Things Nebraska Fans
Should Know and Do Before they Die, about ten years ago.
In twenty thirteen was when that book came out. So
(01:19):
been able to do too now and it's a lot
of work, but it's a lot of fun once you
see the finished product, and sales have been good. I've been.
I was able to talk to so many people to
put this book together, and that was probably one of
the best parts I've I've got to know so many
people in the twenty five years i've covered Nebraska football,
and when you do a project like this, you just
(01:41):
get to reconnect. It's an excuse to like, get to go.
You know. I talked to Zach Taylor. You know he's
in his bangle's office. I talked to him for a
couple hours, and Tom Osburn for three hours and multiple
different interviews, and Bob Devanny's son, Mike Frank Sola. She
go down the line of people I was able to
reach connect with for some of the things I put together,
(02:02):
and was really happy with the finished product.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Can't wait to read it. I'm and thanks for sending
me a copy. I'm excited to dig into it. I
will talk about the team here in a second, because
I know you're really gearing up at this point, less
than three weeks since until we have kickoff. But I
saw Troy Dan and spoke quite a bit today about
different things within the program and spoke for quite a while.
(02:26):
I like it when you know, an administrator like this
will give the media time to ask plenty of questions.
The biggest thing has to be how we talked about
the stadium renovation timeline and stuff like that, and me
being from Iowa and me being an Iowa State fan
before I got here. You know, a couple of weeks ago,
their athletic director Jamie Poller basically said, Hey, we're putting
a lot of our big projects on hold because we
(02:47):
are in the whole as an athletic program quite a
bit right now. So can you tell me about the
you know, landscape of finances and college athletics and what
this means for the stadium renovation?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well it does really. I mean Nebraska themselves, they're extremely profitable.
They don't take any money from any subsidies or from
state or the university at all. In fact, they still
give five million back to subsidize the school. So they're
they're one of a kind. There's really no one else
that does it to that level on all directions. Nebraska
(03:21):
had a record year and donations raised. Seventy million dollars
in donations came into the athletic department last year. They
have seventeen six and thirty three total donors. Their attendance
was outstanding. Their four core women's sports ranks second in
the country, and attendance there are seven overall core sports
for men's and women's ranks seventh in the country, and
(03:43):
they were second in only Ohio state in the Big Ten.
So all the numbers and metrics are great for Nebraska
right now, but I think it's more of the optics game.
And yeah, you know, if you're reading the headlines coming
out of the university side, there's a lot of budget cuts,
a lot of things they're having to do like tuition
and you know, asking professors to take essentially buyouts. Right now.
(04:05):
I mean there's a lot of stressful things going on
for doctor Jeffrey Gold and you know, the leaders of
our University Nebraska that they have to navigate through. So
I just think the optics with what's going on in
your entire system right now. Need to get kind of
sorted out before you just bring to the table the
announcement of a six hundred and fifty million or whatever
this is going to cost stadium project. And we know
(04:28):
it's going to happen. They've already brought it to the board,
it's been approved to some level, but it hasn't been
brought to the board improved and approved to what the
updated plans are going to be. And that's kind of
what we're waiting on.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Well, I got to be you know, quite honest, I've
been pretty critical about where college sports is just because
it feels so differently. It really does feel like just
kind of more localized in hyper focused minor league or
even legitimate professional sports is escially when you're talking about
football and men's basketball and the way the money has
(05:03):
come through with these media deals over the last few years,
and how conference realignment has kind of totally changed the
landscape of who our opponents are or who you even
feel like you have rivalries with how you build your schedules.
You see how teams are building their schedules now to
try to maximize their opportunities to make it to the playoffs.
So from the perspective of kind of just overall health,
(05:26):
you're the guy that I would trust to give me
a real good, accurate state of kind of the union
here based on collegiate athletics, where Nebraska fits in, Knowing
that they are far from the only institution that is
having these types of discussions about even just optics, what
would be kind of your assessment of where they are
right now at large with the rest of you know,
(05:46):
the Big Ten and also you know major colleges around
the country.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well, they're I mean they're in a great spot. They
have outstanding facilities in terms of the venues they play in.
I mean, they got the best volleyball arena, They've got
a basketball team that draws around the top ten in attendance,
So everything is there. Their their training table, their facilities
for the athletes, and the academic centers in the football
(06:11):
facilities are brand new, so there's not a lot that
needs to be done from the infrastructure perspective, Maybe baseball,
you can argue, is definitely due for some upgrades of
their major programs on campus. But other than that, I mean,
they're in great shape. They as far as what they have,
but you know again, yeah, it's just balancing this new
world as the revenue share and they have the money,
(06:34):
and being a Big ten member or an SEC member
is a significant advantage because like this year, in the
fiscal year, Nebraska will make like eighty two million dollars
from the Big Ten alone. And you know, I just
shared with you the record number of fundraising dollars that
came in was this year, and that was seventy million.
(06:54):
So Nebraska makes far and away more money from the
Big Ten than any other stream of revenue. Dannen did
share today that they make about ten million dollars per
home game with tickets and everything in there, so in
the concessions and everything else. So you know, you're making
seventy million off seven home games, seventy million from private boosters,
(07:15):
and over eighty million from the Big Ten conference. So
they have a lot of money to go around. But
the costs and the expenses continue to go up, and
that's where they're going to get creative. They hired their
own events team that's going to bring in private events.
There was some smoke about a concert maybe coming into
Lincoln this year in the stadium, but I think that
it's all going to wait till next year, and he
(07:35):
didn't want to put a number out there, but you
could see two, three or four things a year come
in the stadium, whether it's a concert or like Savannah
Bananas or just something fun like that. But they want
to do more than seven football games in that stadium.
They've got to get creative to find ways to bring
events to Memorial Stadium or even the the Vanny Center
(07:55):
of other properties that they have on campus that they
own that could be utilized now, especially the alcohol sales
on campus that you can bring in different acts and
events to the venues that you have control of.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, Sean Callahan joining us. The alcohol is I think
just a natural kind of appendage to this. What impact
is that going to have here within the next twelve
months on the money that they're able to make what
did I.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Read with it? Five million they'll make off alcohol sales
an additional five I mean, pretty significant number what it's
going to be. And this is just year one, so
they're going to improve as they improve the infrastructure of
the stadium. And you know, Ara Mark has already put
seven million dollars the new company that's going to run
the concessions into the stadium itself, so they're often running.
(08:42):
They had a trial run at the scrimmage on Saturday
with the alcohol in the stadium and whatnot, But that
first home game will be at night, and that would
be a real test for those folks kind of running
with the new system with the alcohol in the stadium,
because it's going to be a packed house for that
opening game at night. And there's no more re entry either.
So it used to be you could leave the stadium
(09:03):
at halftime, go to your car tailgate, come back in
the stadium for the third quarter. They're not going to
allow that. So that's actually put more pressure on the
vendors in the stadium to meet the demand because people
are gonna be able to leave and come back in
anymore at.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Halftime, and theoretically it'd be a lot more money doing
it that way. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
The last little thing on this John before I let
you go, is, you know, when we get into the
actual season itself, the momentum of a team that is
winning and is going to be in the mix to
be you know potentially three and oh four and oh five,
and oh, I know that's what the goal is. I
know what the optimism is. I know we're less than
(09:42):
three weeks away, so people are getting super itchy to
see this team on the field. We want to see
what Ryola looks like. We want to see what Matt rule.
Year three has been the magic year for him in
both of his other previous major college stops. What realistically
should we keep our expectations at before we get ourselves
too carried away.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It's a hard thing to answer until we kind of
see the first game or two play out. But I
mean it's set up. I mean they've got a great
schedule with opportunities to win big games at home. Michigan,
USC and Iowa are all on Lincoln. They're all big games.
They're all opportunities to get wins over ranked level opponents.
So I think that's kind of where you start. You know,
(10:21):
the Penn State road game is going to be tough.
You've got to take advantage of getting this game in
Kansas City as well to open the year. I think
they're pushing seventy thousand tickets sold for Arrowhead. I know
they're expecting it to be very close, if not a sellout.
An Arrowhead stadium, ninety percent of that crowd ninety five
percent maybe it could be a Nebraska fans. So they've
got a real opportunity to essentially get an eighth home
(10:43):
game by playing that game in Kansas City, and that
could jump start, to me the whole season if they
go out there and play well.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, well, like you said, one game at a time,
that is going to be three weeks from yesterday is
going to be that kickoff, and we'll see about Cincinnati
and how good they are. It could be a little
trappy to me because I think they're pretty feisty, but
we'll see what's going on. And the guy who's gonna
break it all down for us is the award winning
journalist and incredible author, Sean Callahan. Sean, thanks so much, man.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Emery Songer
The Nebraska Cornhuskers to talk about that. Some new surrounding
the program is our buddy, our Husker insider Sean Callahan. Sean,
how's it going, man.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, it's great to hear you. Man looking forward to
another good year here of after him buzz reports. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Absolutely, we'll start those here in a couple of weeks
when game week starts in the afternoons at five five
every single every single day during the week and whatnot.
But Sean, I got a package in the mail and
I didn't know what it was. I opened it up
and boom, there's a book with Sean Callahan's name on it.
Tell me about this thing.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, our my book, The Program Nebraska. It just came out.
It's about two weeks on the market now. But I've
put I put it together two summers ago, kind of
did all the research, all the interview using, did it
all together. And it's a curated history of Cornhusker football.
And so it's broken up into different sections the key coaches,
(00:58):
the key players, the legends of the program, the traditions,
and the rivals. So there's twenty chapters in the book.
It's a hardcover copy with Triumph Publishing, which is the
largest sports book publishing company in the country, and did
my first book with them, one Hundred Things Nebraska Fans
Should Know and Do Before they Die, about ten years ago.
In twenty thirteen was when that book came out. So
(01:19):
been able to do too now and it's a lot
of work, but it's a lot of fun once you
see the finished product, and sales have been good. I've been.
I was able to talk to so many people to
put this book together, and that was probably one of
the best parts I've I've got to know so many
people in the twenty five years i've covered Nebraska football,
and when you do a project like this, you just
(01:41):
get to reconnect. It's an excuse to like, get to go.
You know. I talked to Zach Taylor. You know he's
in his bangle's office. I talked to him for a
couple hours, and Tom Osburn for three hours and multiple
different interviews, and Bob Devanny's son, Mike Frank Sola. She
go down the line of people I was able to
reach connect with for some of the things I put together,
(02:02):
and was really happy with the finished product.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Can't wait to read it. I'm and thanks for sending
me a copy. I'm excited to dig into it. I
will talk about the team here in a second, because
I know you're really gearing up at this point, less
than three weeks since until we have kickoff. But I
saw Troy Dan and spoke quite a bit today about
different things within the program and spoke for quite a while.
(02:26):
I like it when you know, an administrator like this
will give the media time to ask plenty of questions.
The biggest thing has to be how we talked about
the stadium renovation timeline and stuff like that, and me
being from Iowa and me being an Iowa State fan
before I got here. You know, a couple of weeks ago,
their athletic director Jamie Poller basically said, Hey, we're putting
a lot of our big projects on hold because we
(02:47):
are in the whole as an athletic program quite a
bit right now. So can you tell me about the
you know, landscape of finances and college athletics and what
this means for the stadium renovation?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well it does really. I mean Nebraska themselves, they're extremely profitable.
They don't take any money from any subsidies or from
state or the university at all. In fact, they still
give five million back to subsidize the school. So they're
they're one of a kind. There's really no one else
that does it to that level on all directions. Nebraska
(03:21):
had a record year and donations raised. Seventy million dollars
in donations came into the athletic department last year. They
have seventeen six and thirty three total donors. Their attendance
was outstanding. Their four core women's sports ranks second in
the country, and attendance there are seven overall core sports
for men's and women's ranks seventh in the country, and
(03:43):
they were second in only Ohio state in the Big Ten.
So all the numbers and metrics are great for Nebraska
right now, but I think it's more of the optics game.
And yeah, you know, if you're reading the headlines coming
out of the university side, there's a lot of budget cuts,
a lot of things they're having to do like tuition
and you know, asking professors to take essentially buyouts. Right now.
(04:05):
I mean there's a lot of stressful things going on
for doctor Jeffrey Gold and you know, the leaders of
our University Nebraska that they have to navigate through. So
I just think the optics with what's going on in
your entire system right now. Need to get kind of
sorted out before you just bring to the table the
announcement of a six hundred and fifty million or whatever
this is going to cost stadium project. And we know
(04:28):
it's going to happen. They've already brought it to the board,
it's been approved to some level, but it hasn't been
brought to the board improved and approved to what the
updated plans are going to be. And that's kind of
what we're waiting on.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Well, I got to be you know, quite honest, I've
been pretty critical about where college sports is just because
it feels so differently. It really does feel like just
kind of more localized in hyper focused minor league or
even legitimate professional sports is escially when you're talking about
football and men's basketball and the way the money has
(05:03):
come through with these media deals over the last few years,
and how conference realignment has kind of totally changed the
landscape of who our opponents are or who you even
feel like you have rivalries with how you build your schedules.
You see how teams are building their schedules now to
try to maximize their opportunities to make it to the playoffs.
So from the perspective of kind of just overall health,
(05:26):
you're the guy that I would trust to give me
a real good, accurate state of kind of the union
here based on collegiate athletics, where Nebraska fits in, Knowing
that they are far from the only institution that is
having these types of discussions about even just optics, what
would be kind of your assessment of where they are
right now at large with the rest of you know,
(05:46):
the Big Ten and also you know major colleges around
the country.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well, they're I mean they're in a great spot. They
have outstanding facilities in terms of the venues they play in.
I mean, they got the best volleyball arena, They've got
a basketball team that draws around the top ten in attendance,
So everything is there. Their their training table, their facilities
for the athletes, and the academic centers in the football
(06:11):
facilities are brand new, so there's not a lot that
needs to be done from the infrastructure perspective, Maybe baseball,
you can argue, is definitely due for some upgrades of
their major programs on campus. But other than that, I mean,
they're in great shape. They as far as what they have,
but you know again, yeah, it's just balancing this new
world as the revenue share and they have the money,
(06:34):
and being a Big ten member or an SEC member
is a significant advantage because like this year, in the
fiscal year, Nebraska will make like eighty two million dollars
from the Big Ten alone. And you know, I just
shared with you the record number of fundraising dollars that
came in was this year, and that was seventy million.
(06:54):
So Nebraska makes far and away more money from the
Big Ten than any other stream of revenue. Dannen did
share today that they make about ten million dollars per
home game with tickets and everything in there, so in
the concessions and everything else. So you know, you're making
seventy million off seven home games, seventy million from private boosters,
(07:15):
and over eighty million from the Big Ten conference. So
they have a lot of money to go around. But
the costs and the expenses continue to go up, and
that's where they're going to get creative. They hired their
own events team that's going to bring in private events.
There was some smoke about a concert maybe coming into
Lincoln this year in the stadium, but I think that
it's all going to wait till next year, and he
(07:35):
didn't want to put a number out there, but you
could see two, three or four things a year come
in the stadium, whether it's a concert or like Savannah
Bananas or just something fun like that. But they want
to do more than seven football games in that stadium.
They've got to get creative to find ways to bring
events to Memorial Stadium or even the the Vanny Center
(07:55):
of other properties that they have on campus that they
own that could be utilized now, especially the alcohol sales
on campus that you can bring in different acts and
events to the venues that you have control of.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, Sean Callahan joining us. The alcohol is I think
just a natural kind of appendage to this. What impact
is that going to have here within the next twelve
months on the money that they're able to make what
did I.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Read with it? Five million they'll make off alcohol sales
an additional five I mean, pretty significant number what it's
going to be. And this is just year one, so
they're going to improve as they improve the infrastructure of
the stadium. And you know, Ara Mark has already put
seven million dollars the new company that's going to run
the concessions into the stadium itself, so they're often running.
(08:42):
They had a trial run at the scrimmage on Saturday
with the alcohol in the stadium and whatnot, But that
first home game will be at night, and that would
be a real test for those folks kind of running
with the new system with the alcohol in the stadium,
because it's going to be a packed house for that
opening game at night. And there's no more re entry either.
So it used to be you could leave the stadium
(09:03):
at halftime, go to your car tailgate, come back in
the stadium for the third quarter. They're not going to
allow that. So that's actually put more pressure on the
vendors in the stadium to meet the demand because people
are gonna be able to leave and come back in
anymore at.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Halftime, and theoretically it'd be a lot more money doing
it that way. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
The last little thing on this John before I let
you go, is, you know, when we get into the
actual season itself, the momentum of a team that is
winning and is going to be in the mix to
be you know potentially three and oh four and oh five,
and oh, I know that's what the goal is. I
know what the optimism is. I know we're less than
(09:42):
three weeks away, so people are getting super itchy to
see this team on the field. We want to see
what Ryola looks like. We want to see what Matt rule.
Year three has been the magic year for him in
both of his other previous major college stops. What realistically
should we keep our expectations at before we get ourselves
too carried away.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It's a hard thing to answer until we kind of
see the first game or two play out. But I
mean it's set up. I mean they've got a great
schedule with opportunities to win big games at home. Michigan,
USC and Iowa are all on Lincoln. They're all big games.
They're all opportunities to get wins over ranked level opponents.
So I think that's kind of where you start. You know,
(10:21):
the Penn State road game is going to be tough.
You've got to take advantage of getting this game in
Kansas City as well to open the year. I think
they're pushing seventy thousand tickets sold for Arrowhead. I know
they're expecting it to be very close, if not a sellout.
An Arrowhead stadium, ninety percent of that crowd ninety five
percent maybe it could be a Nebraska fans. So they've
got a real opportunity to essentially get an eighth home
(10:43):
game by playing that game in Kansas City, and that
could jump start, to me the whole season if they
go out there and play well.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, well, like you said, one game at a time,
that is going to be three weeks from yesterday is
going to be that kickoff, and we'll see about Cincinnati
and how good they are. It could be a little
trappy to me because I think they're pretty feisty, but
we'll see what's going on. And the guy who's gonna
break it all down for us is the award winning
journalist and incredible author, Sean Callahan. Sean, thanks so much, man.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Emery Songer
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