University Of Houston Eddie Nunez Joins to Talk UH Cougars & College Athletic Landscape.

University Of Houston Eddie Nunez joins to Talk UH Cougars & College Athletic Landscape.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, our good friend any Nyonya is vice president
Intercollegiate Athletics with this hour on the radio program to
talk all things about college athletics.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
So I tease the audience. I said, you know, I'm
going to ask you to bring me a dummies guide
to NIL and paying athletes and what you can do
and when you can't say, and what you can do
and how you can leave them to your collective. I
don't know if there's a book like that, but when
there is one, can you send me a copy because
I'm confused as hell right now.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, I think you're in the same basket as a
lot of people. And I feel bad because people ask
me about it and I don't have an answer because
my general response is is that if an athlete wants
to go somewhere, they'll figure out a way to get
it done, and the schools will figure out a way
to find that money for the kid. So there's real

(00:53):
The cliff Notes version of it is, nil's come a
long way, even in the last several years. If you
think of back when this first it happened, it happened
with at Abandon and he challenged Dancey doable A and
that opened up Pandora's box and last several years we've
lived in a world of nil. At that nil world
that we've lived in started well with a lot of

(01:14):
unknown cre It went into a whole different era of
kind of more paying, got close to pay for play,
but it wasn't. There was still a lot of business
actions that we were working. And then where we are today,
that opened up many lawsuits. Of course, throughout the last
several years. In the House case, the settlement opened up
an opportunity called resshare, and this is where we are today.

(01:37):
Reshare is basically an opportunity for every athletic department if
they choose to revenue share up to a certain percentage
with your student athletes. That percentage that amount is roughly
about twenty two percent of the Power five or Power
four now athletic department revenues. So it equates to this
year twenty point five million dollars that we are allowed.

(01:59):
That is our cat to revenue share with our student athletes.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
You can spend all twenty point five, you can spend
ze one. I could spend zero.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
But as a Power four member, that is the ACC
the Big twelve, the Big ten in the SEC those
four conferences are mandatory if you are a member one
of those that you are going to be revenue sharing. Again,
doesn't say how much, but I have to revenue share something.
We made a decision at the University of Houston to

(02:28):
be all in, just like everybody else in the Big
twelve and basically everybody else in the Power four. That's
going to give us a chance to compete. Now, that
was hard. We had to do some things within our budget.
We had to work with our campus, We had to
work with our board to make sure we were able
to do what we were trying to do. That revenue sharing,
how it's distributed to every one of our teams. It
depends on each institution, but across the board, there's a

(02:51):
pretty basic standard that football is your highest revenue sport, Basketball,
men's basketball, and so on and so on and so
on all the way down, and so those two are
going to always have the higher percentages. Some schools will
always do football at a much much higher, you know,
revenue distribution than what others do. For us, we want

(03:12):
to invest more in basketball, still keeping football at a high,
high level at the same time being able to do
something for most sports. We've also added scholarships. That's part
of this process too, for with this has allowed us
to open up some scholarship limitations that were there in
the previously. So some sports have been able to add scholarships,

(03:33):
others have been able to do revenue store. So that's
the revenue component. The old nl THO nl THO we
are today though, is true business purposes. You if you,
as a business owner wants to do an NIL deal
with a student athlete, we will give you that access
to those student athletes be able to go out and
they will if it's performed a commercial or do something

(03:56):
for it for that work purpose, as long as it's
within that market value that the clearinghouse, a clearing house, revenue,
you know, everything else, they have a chance to be
able to do it. So we're coming a long way.
But the one thing that is evident, and I keep
saying this to everybody, we don't have all the answers
and we won't have all the answers until this continues

(04:18):
to get closer and closer to a federal some federal
legislation that allows bigger guidance and direction than we've ever had.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
So the twenty point five million dollars. That's per season correct,
pre academic year. Yep.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
And for the next two years though, it's going to
go at four percent in the next two years.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
And that's money that is at your disposal that you
will choose to spend on programs according to what you
as an athletic director and your department says yep.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
And I basically tell a coach, this is what your
your revenue distribution is. You can distribute it accordingly with
your team as necessary. I don't get into the minutia
of if he wants to give this quarterback or this
running back, or this is power forward to this point guard.
For me, it's about this is what it is. This
is your cap. You can't go over it. And when

(05:05):
do you give the caps? Have you given your cats
to your coaches yet? Yep?

Speaker 2 (05:07):
So that began.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
So starting July first of this year, we were able
to start this process. So every program and in our
department that was going to be doing revenue sharing started
that process.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
What if one of your coaches and we'll throw your
football in your basketball, let's say your women's basketball coach.
You got a brand new coach. Yes, I've got this.
Top twenty five kid that wants to come, and I
can't get nil because it's going to be harder for
the non rev sports. But you have the twenty point
five that says, look, I need an extra two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. Can can they come to you

(05:40):
with that kind of stuff? They can come. They're not
going to get it, but so you you feel like
you have to. You have to withstand a number that
cannot go over the top. You can't make adjustments on
the This is every institution. So what I've done with
every program, as I've said, this is what you're getting. Understand,
if you spend it all and I don't have any

(06:01):
more to give you because we're gonna maximize our revenue distribution,
We're gonna do everything we possibly begins, and I'm gonna
try to split it out. Now, if I save twenty
thousand dollars at the end of the day and say okay,
I'm gonna hold twenty over here just in case somebody
needs a little sprinkling, we can do that. But because
this is all still very new to us, we don't

(06:22):
know what that's gonna mean, how it's gonna look. We
also are using some of that money because part of
this house settlement, two point five million dollars of your
twenty point five has to go to scholarships. So when
I say that any new scholarships that I open up,
you have to utilize up to two and a half
million dollars. So in essence, I have eighteen million dollars

(06:44):
that I can that we can share within our department
and so our coaches within that distribution. This is what
they know.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
And so the likelihood of them coming at the last
minute saying, hey, I need one hundred thousand more, well,
they already knew where we were when we started this,
and come next next July first, there'll be a whole
other process. And so this is they are in a
very challenging position because it's not just that they're coaching
their team, they're managing their rosters. They're doing everything they've

(07:14):
been doing for years. The saary cap too, it's a
salary cap, it's everything. And then they're saying, okay, this
young man or young woman they're going to be leaving
at this point, Okay, at that point, do the contract?

Speaker 2 (07:24):
How much have they have? We paid them? How much?

Speaker 3 (07:27):
So there's a lot of nuances that everybody's going through
and they have to have great coaches around them. Every
one of our coaches is assigning somebody that's helping them
within their own staff. In our department, we have people
that are helping them in all these different aspects. But
you know, and I use men's basketball because they've the
success they've had, the if you look back at the

(07:48):
success they had, there's many reasons. But one thing that
I keep referring to, and I keep telling everybody the
consistency of his staff, the continuity of who he has
and what they do, and everyone knows their role and
they all do it a great job with It allows
coach to maximize how he communicates, who's responsible for what.
Ultimately he's his hands on everything, but he also has

(08:10):
trust within Kellen and others to be able to maximize
and do things that they can do well.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
These kids are getting these dollars on a yearly basis.
Can there number fluctuate? Yeah, oh yeah, everybody's done.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Okay, So these are all negotiated with their their representatives
or their agents. Some coaches decide, you know what I'm
gonna do, use a round about number thousand dollars for
every kid.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
Well, that's great.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Some people will say, Matt, you're worth You're worth ten thousand, Eddie,
you're only worth a thousand. Great's that's a decision that
was worked and when I come in and that's what
I decide with my representation and coach. If I say, Okay,
this is good, I'm going to sign it. They sign
a contract. Everybody's on a contract because there one year deals,
so they are all one year deals essentially. So that's
the reason why frankly, we're seeing so many general managers

(08:50):
now in college football, absolutely because because I mean, I
love Willy, but I don't want Willy Bounds into books.
I want Willy drawing up plays and recruiting kids to
come to school. You need others that have more of
I don't want to say expertise, I mean that's the
easiest way to say it, but that have an understanding
of what managing this. And that's why I spent this

(09:11):
summer time with a lot of the professional organizations here
in town and others outside of the city, asking questions,
trying to understand ressher and how all that works. And
I mean I sat down with Patrick Fotida for a
little while because many times but one of the times
was to understand some of the dynamics and the nuances
that they deal with with the rockets. This is this

(09:31):
isn't an essence what they do and so, and they
do a great job of it. They maximize their the
contracts that they have in place. They're maximizing and getting
the most out of kids.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, if you talk to him next time, tell him
his radio broadcaster could use a little bit more money
in his next contract. So, I don't know if you're
gonna see Patrick and that. If you could drop that in,
I will. I will try to do what I can
on the nil, which is completely separate. There's a clearinghouse,
yes sir, that will say, we don't think you can
pay a golfer seventy five thousand dollars when there's really

(10:04):
no marketability towards that golfer unless the program is very
popular and this person doesn't have an Instagram follow of
a two hundred fifty thousand. The clearinghouse tells, you know,
but if I want that kid bad enough, I should
we be concerned that there's gonna be the backroom deals,
there's gonna be the handshake deals, there's gonna be the
well this kid wants to come here, even though the
clearinghouse said no, we'll take.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Care of that person. Well, again, the clearinghouse is saying
no to that deal. The first thing they do is
you're you're gonna if let's just use an example, Coke
Cole is a great partner of ours. I'll to throw
a plug in for them there. Sure, and so they
if they if they come to you, Matt say hey, Matt,
we want to sponsor any one of your players. Okay,

(10:46):
well I have to get this young man or young woman.
Coke Cole's willing to put five thousand dollars. Let's just
say into an nil deal. The nil deal will be
written up. You'll put in there or they'll put in
there what they expect from it that's submitted to the clearhouse.
Clear house will basically say, okay, is it a true
market purpose business purpose? Is it in the range of compensation? Now,

(11:09):
this is where you were going with this. Yes, we
have a bigger range of compensation, probably because of the
city size here, in the demographics and everything else.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
So it should help you, it should help us.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
And that's what we're looking to partner more with some
bigger partners here. In the city, not just the small
and the mediums, but everyone. At the same time, there's
other schools that it can help as well. When you
have brands, like other schools at other institutions or other
conferences that have a lot more tradition, or their fan
bases are more robust, they might have a a same claim.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
They could say we have a stronger fan base like
Alabama has the entire state is compared to your competing
with all these Texas schools.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
And they have had success in a certain sport and
they show it in this And so that's the dynamics
that we don't know yet how it's going to come
to life. I do believe this first part is going
to be a little bit rocky and bumpy with everybody.
As we go through it, they're going to come back
and say it doesn't meet the range conversation, can you
please redo this or it's not accepted. So we have

(12:08):
a chance once we get it back the first time,
we can redo it, add some more things that the
student athlete has to do, resubmit it, and if they
see it then and say okay, this now makes sense.
You're doing a lot more work. That money equates to
that you're good. If they reject it at that point,
then it's done.