Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I continue the program today reacting to the massive news
that was broken yesterday by Ross Dellinger of Yahoo Sports
that the University of Utah has essentially consummated a partnership
that is the first of its kind. We'll dig into
this throughout the course of the rest of the show.
And I told Porter I need the professor Matt Brown,
(00:22):
the editor of Extra.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Points on a Wednesday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Look, I know technically you're not a professor Matt, but
for the sake of the conversations we have, is it
okay if I call you Professor Brown?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
We can do that. The tweet jackets still in the closet.
I mean, and I listen, I sell college curriculum, So
that's like, maybe that's what you could call me the
adjunt I love it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And I think we could create like a characterture that
you could just use throughout the course of all your
radio appearances. And maybe, you know, we could just create
a brand and suddenly you get some nil action.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
If only you know it's Big Curriculum, Big Books to
wants to throw some money at me here. I would
love that Big or shoot Big Cookie too. I'll take
that money.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
We'll get to Cookie bro today, Matt, no doubt about that.
So look, you and I have discussed for years now
the private equity was probably on its way to collegiate athletics,
and now it's here, and it's here an hour backyard.
I just want your instant reaction to the deal and
some of your takeaways, now that you've had a day
or so to kind of just digest it.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah. I actually I'm going to have a full newsletter
about this tomorrow morning, and it's all written and edited
here right now. What the question I keep getting, and
it's probably one that you guys talked about too, is
just like, hey, is this a good deal or not?
Is this a good idea? And my terrible sports and
radio answer is I don't know, because there's so many
financial specifics about this that we don't know yet. And
(01:50):
you know, I filed the Grandma's and I know all
you other local reporters have too, and we'll get our
denial letter sometime in March, and hopefully we'll be able
to get some more information between now and then. The
the concern that I, I guess, the two concerns that
I have about this are not totally understanding what Utah
really wants to do with this money, and how much
(02:12):
more resvenue can Utah Athletics conceivably generate even with the
help of a private equity company that has lots of
ties to professional sports and audience data and and more
efficient multi uh you know, corporate sponsorship deals. I I
I think that there's room room for that number, bro,
And I'm very open to being suggested, you know, from
(02:34):
two suggestions from Utah or Utah A lined voices about
how much higher it could get. But I I don't
think it's going to double. And if and if, if
you can't grow it by two x, three x or anything.
I think the math behind these kind of deals gets tricky, all.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Right, So here's how I want to attack this with you.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Let's hone in on why this could be a good thing.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
First, what the truth?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What's the potential of this actually working out very well
for Utah Athletics and.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
The community here that cares about the program?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, it could. Right. One of the big advantages to
partnering with an institutional investor like Utah has, which is
very different from what the Big Ten was considering a
couple of weeks ago, is that they're partnering with a
firm that has deep institutional experience. Two Circles is an
analytics company that that's part of this PE firm's investment portfolio,
(03:28):
and they have better data that can help not only
sell tickets, but sell potential corporate sponsorships. Are there things
about monetizing licensing and marketing deals and new revenue that
you can learn from from F one that can be
applied to a college sports business.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Probably, And I can see the world where maybe some
of this information is more sophisticated than you were getting
from JMI or the what you were building up individually.
If you take this upfront money and invest it into
systems that can grow revenue over time rather than just
dumping it into athlete payroll. Yeah, there's a there's an
(04:07):
absolutely pathway where UTAH buys this equity stake back in
seven years or goes to somebody else and they get
the capital that they need to actually, you know, make
changes to the Huntsman Center or make some big investments
without having to go to taxpayers or without having to
hit up the same nine rich people that fund so
many other things like that. Yes, there is a way
(04:28):
this could work and give you experience that you couldn't
get from selling a bond or going to the bank.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
On the other side, a lot of people are panicked,
and certainly when it comes to private equity, one thing
that is undeniable is they're all in business for the
same thing, and that is to get a good return
on their investment and to make money. So what are
the potential downfalls, what are the potential pitfalls, what are
the things that may not be awesome about this?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
For the utes, Just off the top of my head,
I think the odds are very good that prices are
going to go up for tickets, for licensed goods, for
other things that the university Athletic Department is currently selling.
Because you're right, once an institutional investor gets involved, they
absolutely have to make their money back. And a lot
(05:14):
of the ways that Utah's revenue might increase are really
out of the university's hands. Right, There's nothing that a
private equity company can do to change the television deal
for the Big twelve In the short term. Utah is
not going to be able to spin up their own
Longhorn network. They don't even own the right rights to
be able to do something like that. The relationship between
a private equity company, and what you might get in
(05:35):
like NCAA tournament units is pretty tenuous, So you're only
looking at the like the revenues you can't control. That's tickets,
that's corporate sponsorships, that's game day revenues, and it's a
little bit of like sports camps for some of these
kind of secondary things, and you can absolutely grow those things.
But like right, cycles is not the big house, and
(05:56):
Salt Lake City is not New York or Los Angeles
or or in Austin. So one of the accounter argument
might be, even if everything goes well, it's difficult to
imagine a world where the revenues go up so much
that everybody can be paid back correctly without hurting your
core constituency, which are non super rich Utah fans. There's
(06:19):
a lot of examples of private equity companies getting involved
in other industries and the end result being great for
shareholders but not being great for customers or for the
existing institution. And we'll have to see if this one
ends up being different.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Talk to me about your understanding of the dynamic. I mean,
University of Utah is a publicly owned institution and they
are starting a company called Utah Brands and Entertainment LLC.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That is a for profit operation that.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Is now in charge of most everything related to the
athletic program. But for a publicly owned institution, what sort
of reaction should we expect from our legislators, the folks
that run the state on the political side, because we
haven't heard much from them so far.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
We haven't I actually submitted a formal request for comment
to the Governor's office. I wouldn't blame them. He doesn't
want to talk to me, he wants to talk to
somebody local, And I think the specific dynamics I would
defer to a be high state expert. One big concern,
broadly is that I think it's unpredictable how the federal
(07:22):
government will respond to this. Right There's a fellow named
Michael Baumgardner, who folks in this market might remember, used
to be a regent in the Washington state system. He's
a huge, huge Wazoo guy, and now he's a Republican congressman,
and he was up online yesterday saying like, Hey, if
public schools start taking private equity money for athletics, we're
(07:43):
going to want to revisit their tax exempt status. And
we're going to want to go after some of those
revenues because you're no longer functioning as a nonprofit entity.
And this is something that typically more liberal members of
Congress threatn every couple of years, and it's been an
ongoing debate since the seventies. But if public pushback from
this deal and potentially other deals is strong enough, yeah,
(08:06):
I know that becomes a meaningful risk. How does the
federal government and the tax code respond to these sort
of things. I would be shocked if Utah made this
arrangement without the TACIT approval of the governor's office and
from various lawmakers. But I think we both know there's
a lot of BYU fans in there, and it would
(08:26):
the Utah would not be the first state to potentially
mess up one school's financial plans because rival legislators want
to support their own vocal program. It has happened before.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yes it has.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
And I do want to get to the BYU you
know element here angle here in a moment. But I'm
genuinely asking you this to ask because I'm kind of
conflicted about what it could mean for the non revenue
generating sport. So this new entity Utah brands and Entertainment LLC.
The Utah athletic products that are involved are basketball, football,
(09:00):
in gymnastics.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Okay, that's all. It's those three. Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So last year, according to what I read, Utah roughly
about seventeen million dollars in debt, and the non revenue
generating sports the expenses were basically exactly that.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So based off of what we discussed as far as
the goal of private equity, which is to make money,
I see kind of two different outcomes here, And I wonder,
like if the fact that the non revenue generating sports
are not involved in the LLC, is that a good
thing for them, because is it essentially saying like, no,
you don't have to be viewed as a negative line
(09:37):
item now by our private equity partner because you're not
involved here and you'll continue to be bankrolled by our
revenue generating sports in this new infusion of cash. Or
are they in danger of being viewed as a negative
line item by these financial guys that don't give a
rip if Utah is good at softball.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Honestly, I think it's a really good question. And because
this is the first of its kind, we don't really
have a whole lot of historical data or institutions to
compare UTAH to to say, all right, well, if you
bring in an institutional capital investor, it means X, Y
or z for softball. What I can say broadly is
whether you work with an investment firm or not. UTA
(10:17):
still has an obligation to comply with the Big twelve,
the NCAA and Title nine in sponsoring a certain number
of Olympic sports and funding those with scholarships and equivalent support.
So the idea that okay, we brought in we brought
into NBA is now we're going to get rid of softball.
That is unlikely to happen, are there? I mean, even
(10:39):
before institutional investors power four institutions across the country, I
have been looking at how can I cut operational spending
from softball or soccer or tennis so we can still
say that we're offering the sport, but spend less money
on it, so we can funnel that into things that
bring in more money. And is that a conversation that
might continue to happen at UTAH?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Sure you know a pe or no pe.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I think that's part of the issue. But I think
fans are right to be concerned about who is going
to advocate for interests other than maximizing short term financial returns.
Whether that's money that we're spending to support other sports,
whether that's what we're doing with ticket prices, whether that's
(11:21):
what we're doing to what are things that are currently
free that might suddenly become not free, or things that
we haven't sold before that we might start selling. Some
of those may be great business decisions, some of them
might be short term cash grabs. And I think it's
going to be very important that the people that end
(11:41):
up serving on the board of this entity have the
political runway to say we don't need to pick up
that dollar right now, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I wanted you to help Buzz understand a little bit
why college athletics seems to have such a spending problem,
not a revenue generating problem, but such a spending problem.
Because Utah Athletics, like I said, you know, seventeen mil
as far as they're deficit a year ago, Ohio State,
maybe the most powerful football program in the country, is
(12:11):
operating in the Red Colorado. I could keep going, and
when you look at the revenue generated, it has to
just simply because be because college football and college athletics
has a spending problem.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Can you help us understand why we're in this space?
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, I think there's there's a couple of reasons for it,
because I would definitely agree across all of Division one
there's a significant spending problem. And part of that is
because I think there we run into problems if we
look at the itemized athletic budgets that you can that
you you know that the that the Tribune or other
local places will foila or the al feula. They're called
(12:46):
NFRX reports, and that's the data that shows that Utah
ran the seventeen million dollars deficit before the Colorado and
everything else. And I think it's important for people to
realize that those sheets are not meant to be, you know,
profit and loss statements in the same way that like
my business or your radio station or anyone's like anyone's
personal checking account. Is the Utah Department as of right now,
(13:07):
is a nonprofit entity that is not even trying to
show a profit. If you are working at Utah or
for that matter, for BYU or at Ohio State or
Southern Utah or anybody else, and you're an ad regardless
of what anybody actually says, and regardless of what's in
your job description. You are going to be judged by
how successful your teams are on the field and how
(13:29):
many ribbons you cut, not on your financial management necessarily
or your ability to go to turn a profit. Right.
Nobody goes, hey, we finished seventh this year, but we
paid off all of our debt. Like here's a big
plaquet nacta. That doesn't happen because it's a nonprofit entity.
There's no profit taking, right, Like the Utah Jazz aren't
going to spend every single dollar that they make, not
(13:52):
just because there's a salary cap, but because the Utah
Jazz owners would like to make money, and all of
the excess revenue that they get can go back into
their pockets to go buy a baseball team or go
do whatever what else it is that they want to do.
Your funnel money to college programs, and college sports doesn't
work that way. You have an incentive to spend every
dollar you have and sometimes dollars you don't have, because
(14:14):
the only thing that matters is keeping your donors engaged
by winning a lot of games. There has the optimistic
view is that once you begin to bring in more
institutional investors that they'll blow up the book for how
athletic departments have been running before and streamline and make
some of those things more efficient. And maybe that's true,
but I would caution that many of the things that
(14:36):
I think listeners to this show, like about Utah athletics
or like about college sports, are the sorts of things
that a private equity MBA might call inefficient.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yes, and that is another angle here that just can't
be overlooked as far as the potential. To your point,
there's so many things we don't know, and so I'm
going to ask you something I've been trying to uncover
to see if you have any information. Like the number
is five hundred million, but that's not all coming from
private equity. That's the combination of whatever the private equity
(15:08):
group is going to bring to the table and then
this other group of donors that have been allowed to
buy into it to have their own equity in the
LLC to hopefully see a return. Here's the issue, Like
in the interim right now, this is an athletic department
that needs an infusion of cash immediately before the transfer
portal because as part of Kaladie Satake's new deal, he
(15:30):
received a hefty guarantee of nil money in the coffers,
and there are already reports of BYU looking to grab
Utah football players because they don't.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Need to wait.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Do you have any idea whether or not the infusion
of cash is immediate, is it over time?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Do you have any idea what that looks like?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I don't, nor do I have an idea of exactly
what the percentages are for bote for whether from the
equity group versus outside groups or anything else. The only
understanding that I've gotten from you know, some of U
top people who are definitely not authorized to talk to me,
was that the school is expecting, you know, cash infusions
more than once, and it's not just going to be
(16:12):
here's a gigantic novelty check for four hundred and eighty
nine million dollars, Go buy yourself some linebackers. I would
also say that I believe it would be enormously misguided
for Utah to use the money that they're going to
get from this deal on player payroll. If you borrowed
(16:32):
money from a bank or from somebody else and used
it to just pay your existing staff, or to give
people raises rather than try to build it infrastructure that
will grow revenue. You are not going your credit rating
is not going to do well, especially because trying to
buy or retain any specific college athlete is a difficult thing.
(16:53):
It's difficult to predict you's going to be good. You
don't want to end up spending two million dollars, you know,
retaining somebody who does end up cracking your too deep
or anything like This is the I would look at
this as this is money that should go towards, you know,
finalizing whatever Utah wants to do with the Huntsman Center, right,
whether that's I guess, I guess the current plan is
relocating it or you know, rebuilding it in some capacity
(17:14):
like that would be a great use of this money.
Building a whole new external sales team, figuring out what
other stuff you can do and slap or red eye
on it and sell it is a good idea. Figuring
out who you got to bribe in the state House
so you're going to be allowed to sell beer at
football games. That'd be a great use of that money.
Using it to get into a bidding war with bou
over football players I'm not saying that Utah won't do that,
(17:35):
and I won't say like this was this is the
part of what's come up here with the big ten
schools here too. I think that would be a very
very bad idea.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I have a lot of friends on staff up there.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
If you're a Utah staffer, is this good news? Or
are you suddenly is there a marker on you all
of a sudden and you know, maybe there's a significant
changes because as your reference private equity, the playbook is, hey,
here's the money. Oh, by the way, we're year tomorrow
and we are looking at every piece of your operation.
How should this be met by Utah athletic staffers.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I think it kind of depends on what they do, right,
Like if you're a coach, if you're if you're an
operations person, if you're a dobo, like I don't think
that that's something that you can outsource. I think that's
I think that's fine if you're working in what they
call like athletic development, if you're if you're on the
fundraising department. You know, my understanding is that a lot
of the fundraising is arm is still going to stay
(18:27):
under the university Athletic Department rather than moving to this
other LLC. And you might be fine too. I don't
know if that strategy changes that much. If you're somebody
who's working really closely with JMI, if you're involved in
corporate sponsorships, group ticket sales, some of those things. I'm
not saying you're going to get laid off, but like,
could your job significantly change, your boss change, you're a
(18:49):
lot of your day to day Yeah, that could change too.
Like I wouldn't be expecting the under new management, which
is still going to be controlled by university employees. I'm
not expecting a blood bath on day one or anything.
But if you were in a revenue generating role at
the University Athletic Department, I would be concerned the same
(19:10):
way that i'd be concerned in any other job if
your boss is changing or your boss's boss is changing.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Since you and I last spoke, Matt, the last time
we spoke, we talked about the possibility of Kilannie taking
the Penn State job, and then two days later the
news broke that he was staying in Provo. And look,
I mean, we've been told for years that the Church
doesn't get involved in such things, and now the reports
are that, and I want to be clear, so everybody
calms down. I know it's not tithing money. Don't text me,
(19:36):
don't send an email. But you know, at the end
of the day, there was a combination of a bunch
of things, including our guy Cookie Bro that got off
the sideline. Okay, he was ready to get involved, and
it ends up with Klannie Stain. The reports are he's
now the second highest big coach in the Big twelveth
to Dion Jay Hill, Aaron Roderick coordinator's assistants get massive raises.
(19:58):
And then in addition, nil guarantees that he did not
have prior to your reaction to how that story all
kind of.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Unfolded, Well, the one thing I would say is I
would be completely blown away or shocked if any of
those nil guarantees are put into writing. I've been filing
foylas and I've got the new football contracts for like
eight other guys during this cycle. None of them reference nil.
None of them reference house settlement stuff. And the reason
(20:27):
for that is because if you're guaranteeing money over the cap,
that's breaking the rules. No one's going to put that
in writing because if that memo gets in front of
the CSC or whoever there could potentially be big finance.
So to the extent that that agreement does or done,
that does not exist.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I think that.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Would be a handshake understanding between big Cookie and big
MLM and big Wellness and whoever are the other big
industries that are supporting BWAU athletics right now. Right, I
am not super surprised that other donors decided to get involved.
I am It's going to take some getting used to
(21:05):
for me. And we've talked about this a lot before.
To hear about a BYU athletics employee making over nine
million dollars, not that clown. He doesn't deserve it. I
think he's a very good football coach and was hilariously
underpaid around the four million mark, given where he stands
compared to his peers in in this in this industry.
We've talked about it before too. It's it's going it
(21:26):
will be challenging to try and say that we don't
we don't outbid people, or you know, we don't want
this to be a transactional experience. We're not playing the
same game everybody else is. When I think at this
point it's pretty clear that you are. And that's not me,
you know, casting dispersions at cees or BYU or anything.
It's just like if you're if you're going to be
a powerful institution right now, you can't pretend to Princeton
(21:47):
like you are. Whether it's it's for a coach or
an associate ad or a graphic designer or a backup
defensive tackle. There will be times when you are going
to be the high bidder. That's okay, because this isn't
the Curritlin Safety Socie. This is this is capitalism and
we have to we have we have to participate in
that world, uh to get people to work for any
for everything, I I will be, I will be. I'm
(22:11):
happy for him, and I'm happy for fans of that
program because I know what Kalani means to not just
the school, but to a lot of fans here as
something beyond just good at football. And I also, I
think we both know if you had left, and if
j Hill had gone with him, by you would have
been completely screwed. Because it's it's not only there's a
huge line of coaches that are that are that are
are able to take that job.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Given the current requirement.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Are are you, you know, based off of your knowledge
of how b YU operates in the LDS Church and
their economic policies, are are you a little bit surprised
that they have decided that their new approach is to
pay their football and basketball coach not just market value,
but among the highest paid coaches in their leagues.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I'm you know, am I surprised just given how I
remember by U and the Church operating in the ninety
in twenty and twenty tens. Yeah, but also this industry
in college sports is super different than than whatever it
was then too, and all institutions end up evolving compared
to where things are here too. I'm sure that you know,
(23:14):
somebody from the church will will give an interviews sometime
a little bit later, and you know that take great
pains to point out that the money to support BYU's
roster and coaching staff is coming from donors, that it
is not coming from you know, Guatemalan widows, mit or
anything to support this. And that's it. I don't envy
(23:36):
anybody in their public relations department because I can tell
you outside of Utah, outside in the rest of this country.
And I know this because I've been fielding a bunch
of text and calls from national reporters like can you
explain this weird Mormon thing to me? It's that regular
people don't see that difference. They just know this church
has a whole lot of money. We all read the
stories about ensign peaks and now suddenly BYU's paying a
(23:58):
lot of money. And you can give as many interviews
as you want to the desert at news regular people
are not going to the regaon people going to follow
the line and assume that it's coming from the church,
even though you and I know that it isn't. And
that's I think that's a difficult thing for the PR
Department because I think we both know it's not like
the church is going to say here, I'll prove it.
(24:19):
Let me open my books like that. We both know
that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
No, No, that will never happen.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Last thing that I'll set you loose, and let's help
people find the newsletter because I'm sure it's going to
be met with great interest out here. Look, you know
the BYU has the church is the ultimate backer. And
let's be clear, we know that it's not tithing money.
I know I have to say that every time I
bring it up. But they also have a bunch of powerful,
(24:45):
very rich donors and boosters that are very fine donating
millions and millions of dollars to back up the athletic
department and therefore, in their mind further the message of
a church they believe in, so they don't need private equity.
Texas Tech has oil money. Uh if UTAH didn't do this, like,
(25:05):
what would the result be? It feels like this is
Utah's answer to sec Big ten, bigger TV payouts, Big twelve.
Texas Tech oral money by you with their financial model.
It kind of fee feels like the only route. Is
that fair to say?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
I don't think I personally agree. Okay, And this is
the sort of thing I would love for the university
and potentially government officials to talk about here, because typically
if you are a public university, then you need a
bunch of money because you need to build a new
basketball arena, you want to create a new mixed use
(25:43):
real estate development and like athletic district where you can control,
you know, some of the land. If you want to
go do X, Y or Z, you sell bonds, You
can borrow money at really low interest rates. In some states,
you could even ask for a direct government appropriation, like
if Wyoming needs a new football stadium or something, Whyoming
(26:05):
taxpayers help front that? And I don't even think that's
necessarily an unreasonable asks. There's lots of ways that you
can you can get money without giving up equity in
a way that like Boston College can't do those things.
So I would be very interested. And as my knowledge,
no one's really talked about this yet about why this
model makes sense rather than everything else that was available
(26:27):
to them. The only thing I could think of is
you partner with a private equity company and then you
get all the big brains behind F one Racing and
these other data analytics companies. You go to the bank,
you don't get anything. They're stuck with the same guys.
I understand why you Time particular, would think if we
don't have loyal money, and we don't have Larry Ellison,
(26:48):
you know, like like Michigan does, and we're in this
truck stop conference and we don't get the jack Atic
television deal, we have to swing and do something crazy.
And I don't mind admitting this on the air. Many
of the other schools that I'm aware that I've had
these kind of conversations because it's not just Utah. Most
of them have been in the Big Twelve over the
acc these schools that I think are in a similar
(27:09):
boat where their ambitions don't line up with their current
television kills. But there's always other ways. It's probably not
realistic to expect donors alone to do this sort of
thing because there's only so many rich Utah fans, But
I would really like to hear the school side of
the story about why other financial mechanisms weren't appropriate here.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I think there's any shot Utah gets a Big Ten
invite before it tout you loose man.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
It's funny every time this kind of thing comes up
when I go check Twitter and it's you know, I
can just look at my mention as the sixteen Utah
fans saying like, yeah, they're doing this to join the
Big Ten, and like that's not how it works. Got
Like if we think about this in our lifetime, I
think you might be a little bit older than me,
but probably not by much. Like who has been a
more relevant important athletic program, UCLA or Utah? Like it's
(27:56):
it's not close, it's Utah by mile, and they I
can tell you because I saw some of the documents.
When the Big Ten was financially modeling their last round
of expansion, Utah wasn't even on it. I really struggled
to imagine a world or even with five hundred million
dollars that you can buy or build enough things that
(28:18):
would make Utah a financially additive team to how the
Big Ten is currently structured, when Florida State right now
probably isn't.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I wish that I.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Could tell people that this was America and this was
a meritocracy and you could just win your way in, baby,
But that's not how Rutgers got that spot. That's not
how UCLA or Washington got that spot. This is America,
and that it's not really a meritocracy. It's who your
friends were in nineteen twenty and Utah made the wrong
friends back said.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Well, well said good stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Hey, I'm sure we have a lot of listeners eager
to check out the newsletter, So where can they go
find it?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Matt?
Speaker 3 (28:55):
If you are interested in the sort of thing friends,
you could find it at Extra Points MB dot com,
or you can find me online at Matt Brown EP
or Matt Brown, I'm blue Sky.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Great stuff, sir, appreciate the time. Be well with chat soon.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Okay, of course, do what my friends.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Thank you, Matt Brown. I'm telling you extra points.
I continue the program today reacting to the massive news
that was broken yesterday by Ross Dellinger of Yahoo Sports
that the University of Utah has essentially consummated a partnership
that is the first of its kind. We'll dig into
this throughout the course of the rest of the show.
And I told Porter I need the professor Matt Brown,
(00:22):
the editor of Extra.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Points on a Wednesday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Look, I know technically you're not a professor Matt, but
for the sake of the conversations we have, is it
okay if I call you Professor Brown?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
We can do that. The tweet jackets still in the closet.
I mean, and I listen, I sell college curriculum, So
that's like, maybe that's what you could call me the
adjunt I love it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And I think we could create like a characterture that
you could just use throughout the course of all your
radio appearances. And maybe, you know, we could just create
a brand and suddenly you get some nil action.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
If only you know it's Big Curriculum, Big Books to
wants to throw some money at me here. I would
love that Big or shoot Big Cookie too. I'll take
that money.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
We'll get to Cookie bro today, Matt, no doubt about that.
So look, you and I have discussed for years now
the private equity was probably on its way to collegiate athletics,
and now it's here, and it's here an hour backyard.
I just want your instant reaction to the deal and
some of your takeaways, now that you've had a day
or so to kind of just digest it.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah. I actually I'm going to have a full newsletter
about this tomorrow morning, and it's all written and edited
here right now. What the question I keep getting, and
it's probably one that you guys talked about too, is
just like, hey, is this a good deal or not?
Is this a good idea? And my terrible sports and
radio answer is I don't know, because there's so many
financial specifics about this that we don't know yet. And
(01:50):
you know, I filed the Grandma's and I know all
you other local reporters have too, and we'll get our
denial letter sometime in March, and hopefully we'll be able
to get some more information between now and then. The
the concern that I, I guess, the two concerns that
I have about this are not totally understanding what Utah
really wants to do with this money, and how much
(02:12):
more resvenue can Utah Athletics conceivably generate even with the
help of a private equity company that has lots of
ties to professional sports and audience data and and more
efficient multi uh you know, corporate sponsorship deals. I I
I think that there's room room for that number, bro,
And I'm very open to being suggested, you know, from
(02:34):
two suggestions from Utah or Utah A lined voices about
how much higher it could get. But I I don't
think it's going to double. And if and if, if
you can't grow it by two x, three x or anything.
I think the math behind these kind of deals gets tricky, all.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Right, So here's how I want to attack this with you.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Let's hone in on why this could be a good thing.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
First, what the truth?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What's the potential of this actually working out very well
for Utah Athletics and.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
The community here that cares about the program?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, it could. Right. One of the big advantages to
partnering with an institutional investor like Utah has, which is
very different from what the Big Ten was considering a
couple of weeks ago, is that they're partnering with a
firm that has deep institutional experience. Two Circles is an
analytics company that that's part of this PE firm's investment portfolio,
(03:28):
and they have better data that can help not only
sell tickets, but sell potential corporate sponsorships. Are there things
about monetizing licensing and marketing deals and new revenue that
you can learn from from F one that can be
applied to a college sports business.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Probably, And I can see the world where maybe some
of this information is more sophisticated than you were getting
from JMI or the what you were building up individually.
If you take this upfront money and invest it into
systems that can grow revenue over time rather than just
dumping it into athlete payroll. Yeah, there's a there's an
(04:07):
absolutely pathway where UTAH buys this equity stake back in
seven years or goes to somebody else and they get
the capital that they need to actually, you know, make
changes to the Huntsman Center or make some big investments
without having to go to taxpayers or without having to
hit up the same nine rich people that fund so
many other things like that. Yes, there is a way
(04:28):
this could work and give you experience that you couldn't
get from selling a bond or going to the bank.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
On the other side, a lot of people are panicked,
and certainly when it comes to private equity, one thing
that is undeniable is they're all in business for the
same thing, and that is to get a good return
on their investment and to make money. So what are
the potential downfalls, what are the potential pitfalls, what are
the things that may not be awesome about this?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
For the utes, Just off the top of my head,
I think the odds are very good that prices are
going to go up for tickets, for licensed goods, for
other things that the university Athletic Department is currently selling.
Because you're right, once an institutional investor gets involved, they
absolutely have to make their money back. And a lot
(05:14):
of the ways that Utah's revenue might increase are really
out of the university's hands. Right, There's nothing that a
private equity company can do to change the television deal
for the Big twelve In the short term. Utah is
not going to be able to spin up their own
Longhorn network. They don't even own the right rights to
be able to do something like that. The relationship between
a private equity company, and what you might get in
(05:35):
like NCAA tournament units is pretty tenuous, So you're only
looking at the like the revenues you can't control. That's tickets,
that's corporate sponsorships, that's game day revenues, and it's a
little bit of like sports camps for some of these
kind of secondary things, and you can absolutely grow those things.
But like right, cycles is not the big house, and
(05:56):
Salt Lake City is not New York or Los Angeles
or or in Austin. So one of the accounter argument
might be, even if everything goes well, it's difficult to
imagine a world where the revenues go up so much
that everybody can be paid back correctly without hurting your
core constituency, which are non super rich Utah fans. There's
(06:19):
a lot of examples of private equity companies getting involved
in other industries and the end result being great for
shareholders but not being great for customers or for the
existing institution. And we'll have to see if this one
ends up being different.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Talk to me about your understanding of the dynamic. I mean,
University of Utah is a publicly owned institution and they
are starting a company called Utah Brands and Entertainment LLC.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That is a for profit operation that.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Is now in charge of most everything related to the
athletic program. But for a publicly owned institution, what sort
of reaction should we expect from our legislators, the folks
that run the state on the political side, because we
haven't heard much from them so far.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
We haven't I actually submitted a formal request for comment
to the Governor's office. I wouldn't blame them. He doesn't
want to talk to me, he wants to talk to
somebody local, And I think the specific dynamics I would
defer to a be high state expert. One big concern,
broadly is that I think it's unpredictable how the federal
(07:22):
government will respond to this. Right There's a fellow named
Michael Baumgardner, who folks in this market might remember, used
to be a regent in the Washington state system. He's
a huge, huge Wazoo guy, and now he's a Republican congressman,
and he was up online yesterday saying like, Hey, if
public schools start taking private equity money for athletics, we're
(07:43):
going to want to revisit their tax exempt status. And
we're going to want to go after some of those
revenues because you're no longer functioning as a nonprofit entity.
And this is something that typically more liberal members of
Congress threatn every couple of years, and it's been an
ongoing debate since the seventies. But if public pushback from
this deal and potentially other deals is strong enough, yeah,
(08:06):
I know that becomes a meaningful risk. How does the
federal government and the tax code respond to these sort
of things. I would be shocked if Utah made this
arrangement without the TACIT approval of the governor's office and
from various lawmakers. But I think we both know there's
a lot of BYU fans in there, and it would
(08:26):
the Utah would not be the first state to potentially
mess up one school's financial plans because rival legislators want
to support their own vocal program. It has happened before.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yes it has.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
And I do want to get to the BYU you
know element here angle here in a moment. But I'm
genuinely asking you this to ask because I'm kind of
conflicted about what it could mean for the non revenue
generating sport. So this new entity Utah brands and Entertainment LLC.
The Utah athletic products that are involved are basketball, football,
(09:00):
in gymnastics.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Okay, that's all. It's those three. Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So last year, according to what I read, Utah roughly
about seventeen million dollars in debt, and the non revenue
generating sports the expenses were basically exactly that.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So based off of what we discussed as far as
the goal of private equity, which is to make money,
I see kind of two different outcomes here, And I wonder,
like if the fact that the non revenue generating sports
are not involved in the LLC, is that a good
thing for them, because is it essentially saying like, no,
you don't have to be viewed as a negative line
(09:37):
item now by our private equity partner because you're not
involved here and you'll continue to be bankrolled by our
revenue generating sports in this new infusion of cash. Or
are they in danger of being viewed as a negative
line item by these financial guys that don't give a
rip if Utah is good at softball.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Honestly, I think it's a really good question. And because
this is the first of its kind, we don't really
have a whole lot of historical data or institutions to
compare UTAH to to say, all right, well, if you
bring in an institutional capital investor, it means X, Y
or z for softball. What I can say broadly is
whether you work with an investment firm or not. UTA
(10:17):
still has an obligation to comply with the Big twelve,
the NCAA and Title nine in sponsoring a certain number
of Olympic sports and funding those with scholarships and equivalent support.
So the idea that okay, we brought in we brought
into NBA is now we're going to get rid of softball.
That is unlikely to happen, are there? I mean, even
(10:39):
before institutional investors power four institutions across the country, I
have been looking at how can I cut operational spending
from softball or soccer or tennis so we can still
say that we're offering the sport, but spend less money
on it, so we can funnel that into things that
bring in more money. And is that a conversation that
might continue to happen at UTAH?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Sure you know a pe or no pe.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I think that's part of the issue. But I think
fans are right to be concerned about who is going
to advocate for interests other than maximizing short term financial returns.
Whether that's money that we're spending to support other sports,
whether that's what we're doing with ticket prices, whether that's
(11:21):
what we're doing to what are things that are currently
free that might suddenly become not free, or things that
we haven't sold before that we might start selling. Some
of those may be great business decisions, some of them
might be short term cash grabs. And I think it's
going to be very important that the people that end
(11:41):
up serving on the board of this entity have the
political runway to say we don't need to pick up
that dollar right now, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I wanted you to help Buzz understand a little bit
why college athletics seems to have such a spending problem,
not a revenue generating problem, but such a spending problem.
Because Utah Athletics, like I said, you know, seventeen mil
as far as they're deficit a year ago, Ohio State,
maybe the most powerful football program in the country, is
(12:11):
operating in the Red Colorado. I could keep going, and
when you look at the revenue generated, it has to
just simply because be because college football and college athletics
has a spending problem.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Can you help us understand why we're in this space?
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, I think there's there's a couple of reasons for it,
because I would definitely agree across all of Division one
there's a significant spending problem. And part of that is
because I think there we run into problems if we
look at the itemized athletic budgets that you can that
you you know that the that the Tribune or other
local places will foila or the al feula. They're called
(12:46):
NFRX reports, and that's the data that shows that Utah
ran the seventeen million dollars deficit before the Colorado and
everything else. And I think it's important for people to
realize that those sheets are not meant to be, you know,
profit and loss statements in the same way that like
my business or your radio station or anyone's like anyone's
personal checking account. Is the Utah Department as of right now,
(13:07):
is a nonprofit entity that is not even trying to
show a profit. If you are working at Utah or
for that matter, for BYU or at Ohio State or
Southern Utah or anybody else, and you're an ad regardless
of what anybody actually says, and regardless of what's in
your job description. You are going to be judged by
how successful your teams are on the field and how
(13:29):
many ribbons you cut, not on your financial management necessarily
or your ability to go to turn a profit. Right.
Nobody goes, hey, we finished seventh this year, but we
paid off all of our debt. Like here's a big
plaquet nacta. That doesn't happen because it's a nonprofit entity.
There's no profit taking, right, Like the Utah Jazz aren't
going to spend every single dollar that they make, not
(13:52):
just because there's a salary cap, but because the Utah
Jazz owners would like to make money, and all of
the excess revenue that they get can go back into
their pockets to go buy a baseball team or go
do whatever what else it is that they want to do.
Your funnel money to college programs, and college sports doesn't
work that way. You have an incentive to spend every
dollar you have and sometimes dollars you don't have, because
(14:14):
the only thing that matters is keeping your donors engaged
by winning a lot of games. There has the optimistic
view is that once you begin to bring in more
institutional investors that they'll blow up the book for how
athletic departments have been running before and streamline and make
some of those things more efficient. And maybe that's true,
but I would caution that many of the things that
(14:36):
I think listeners to this show, like about Utah athletics
or like about college sports, are the sorts of things
that a private equity MBA might call inefficient.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yes, and that is another angle here that just can't
be overlooked as far as the potential. To your point,
there's so many things we don't know, and so I'm
going to ask you something I've been trying to uncover
to see if you have any information. Like the number
is five hundred million, but that's not all coming from
private equity. That's the combination of whatever the private equity
(15:08):
group is going to bring to the table and then
this other group of donors that have been allowed to
buy into it to have their own equity in the
LLC to hopefully see a return. Here's the issue, Like
in the interim right now, this is an athletic department
that needs an infusion of cash immediately before the transfer
portal because as part of Kaladie Satake's new deal, he
(15:30):
received a hefty guarantee of nil money in the coffers,
and there are already reports of BYU looking to grab
Utah football players because they don't.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Need to wait.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Do you have any idea whether or not the infusion
of cash is immediate, is it over time?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Do you have any idea what that looks like?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I don't, nor do I have an idea of exactly
what the percentages are for bote for whether from the
equity group versus outside groups or anything else. The only
understanding that I've gotten from you know, some of U
top people who are definitely not authorized to talk to me,
was that the school is expecting, you know, cash infusions
more than once, and it's not just going to be
(16:12):
here's a gigantic novelty check for four hundred and eighty
nine million dollars, Go buy yourself some linebackers. I would
also say that I believe it would be enormously misguided
for Utah to use the money that they're going to
get from this deal on player payroll. If you borrowed
(16:32):
money from a bank or from somebody else and used
it to just pay your existing staff, or to give
people raises rather than try to build it infrastructure that
will grow revenue. You are not going your credit rating
is not going to do well, especially because trying to
buy or retain any specific college athlete is a difficult thing.
(16:53):
It's difficult to predict you's going to be good. You
don't want to end up spending two million dollars, you know,
retaining somebody who does end up cracking your too deep
or anything like This is the I would look at
this as this is money that should go towards, you know,
finalizing whatever Utah wants to do with the Huntsman Center, right,
whether that's I guess, I guess the current plan is
relocating it or you know, rebuilding it in some capacity
(17:14):
like that would be a great use of this money.
Building a whole new external sales team, figuring out what
other stuff you can do and slap or red eye
on it and sell it is a good idea. Figuring
out who you got to bribe in the state House
so you're going to be allowed to sell beer at
football games. That'd be a great use of that money.
Using it to get into a bidding war with bou
over football players I'm not saying that Utah won't do that,
(17:35):
and I won't say like this was this is the
part of what's come up here with the big ten
schools here too. I think that would be a very
very bad idea.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I have a lot of friends on staff up there.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
If you're a Utah staffer, is this good news? Or
are you suddenly is there a marker on you all
of a sudden and you know, maybe there's a significant
changes because as your reference private equity, the playbook is, hey,
here's the money. Oh, by the way, we're year tomorrow
and we are looking at every piece of your operation.
How should this be met by Utah athletic staffers.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I think it kind of depends on what they do, right,
Like if you're a coach, if you're if you're an
operations person, if you're a dobo, like I don't think
that that's something that you can outsource. I think that's
I think that's fine if you're working in what they
call like athletic development, if you're if you're on the
fundraising department. You know, my understanding is that a lot
of the fundraising is arm is still going to stay
(18:27):
under the university Athletic Department rather than moving to this
other LLC. And you might be fine too. I don't
know if that strategy changes that much. If you're somebody
who's working really closely with JMI, if you're involved in
corporate sponsorships, group ticket sales, some of those things. I'm
not saying you're going to get laid off, but like,
could your job significantly change, your boss change, you're a
(18:49):
lot of your day to day Yeah, that could change too.
Like I wouldn't be expecting the under new management, which
is still going to be controlled by university employees. I'm
not expecting a blood bath on day one or anything.
But if you were in a revenue generating role at
the University Athletic Department, I would be concerned the same
(19:10):
way that i'd be concerned in any other job if
your boss is changing or your boss's boss is changing.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Since you and I last spoke, Matt, the last time
we spoke, we talked about the possibility of Kilannie taking
the Penn State job, and then two days later the
news broke that he was staying in Provo. And look,
I mean, we've been told for years that the Church
doesn't get involved in such things, and now the reports
are that, and I want to be clear, so everybody
calms down. I know it's not tithing money. Don't text me,
(19:36):
don't send an email. But you know, at the end
of the day, there was a combination of a bunch
of things, including our guy Cookie Bro that got off
the sideline. Okay, he was ready to get involved, and
it ends up with Klannie Stain. The reports are he's
now the second highest big coach in the Big twelveth
to Dion Jay Hill, Aaron Roderick coordinator's assistants get massive raises.
(19:58):
And then in addition, nil guarantees that he did not
have prior to your reaction to how that story all
kind of.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Unfolded, Well, the one thing I would say is I
would be completely blown away or shocked if any of
those nil guarantees are put into writing. I've been filing
foylas and I've got the new football contracts for like
eight other guys during this cycle. None of them reference nil.
None of them reference house settlement stuff. And the reason
(20:27):
for that is because if you're guaranteeing money over the cap,
that's breaking the rules. No one's going to put that
in writing because if that memo gets in front of
the CSC or whoever there could potentially be big finance.
So to the extent that that agreement does or done,
that does not exist.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I think that.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Would be a handshake understanding between big Cookie and big
MLM and big Wellness and whoever are the other big
industries that are supporting BWAU athletics right now. Right, I
am not super surprised that other donors decided to get involved.
I am It's going to take some getting used to
(21:05):
for me. And we've talked about this a lot before.
To hear about a BYU athletics employee making over nine
million dollars, not that clown. He doesn't deserve it. I
think he's a very good football coach and was hilariously
underpaid around the four million mark, given where he stands
compared to his peers in in this in this industry.
We've talked about it before too. It's it's going it
(21:26):
will be challenging to try and say that we don't
we don't outbid people, or you know, we don't want
this to be a transactional experience. We're not playing the
same game everybody else is. When I think at this
point it's pretty clear that you are. And that's not me,
you know, casting dispersions at cees or BYU or anything.
It's just like if you're if you're going to be
a powerful institution right now, you can't pretend to Princeton
(21:47):
like you are. Whether it's it's for a coach or
an associate ad or a graphic designer or a backup
defensive tackle. There will be times when you are going
to be the high bidder. That's okay, because this isn't
the Curritlin Safety Socie. This is this is capitalism and
we have to we have we have to participate in
that world, uh to get people to work for any
for everything, I I will be, I will be. I'm
(22:11):
happy for him, and I'm happy for fans of that
program because I know what Kalani means to not just
the school, but to a lot of fans here as
something beyond just good at football. And I also, I
think we both know if you had left, and if
j Hill had gone with him, by you would have
been completely screwed. Because it's it's not only there's a
huge line of coaches that are that are that are
are able to take that job.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Given the current requirement.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Are are you, you know, based off of your knowledge
of how b YU operates in the LDS Church and
their economic policies, are are you a little bit surprised
that they have decided that their new approach is to
pay their football and basketball coach not just market value,
but among the highest paid coaches in their leagues.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I'm you know, am I surprised just given how I
remember by U and the Church operating in the ninety
in twenty and twenty tens. Yeah, but also this industry
in college sports is super different than than whatever it
was then too, and all institutions end up evolving compared
to where things are here too. I'm sure that you know,
(23:14):
somebody from the church will will give an interviews sometime
a little bit later, and you know that take great
pains to point out that the money to support BYU's
roster and coaching staff is coming from donors, that it
is not coming from you know, Guatemalan widows, mit or
anything to support this. And that's it. I don't envy
(23:36):
anybody in their public relations department because I can tell
you outside of Utah, outside in the rest of this country.
And I know this because I've been fielding a bunch
of text and calls from national reporters like can you
explain this weird Mormon thing to me? It's that regular
people don't see that difference. They just know this church
has a whole lot of money. We all read the
stories about ensign peaks and now suddenly BYU's paying a
(23:58):
lot of money. And you can give as many interviews
as you want to the desert at news regular people
are not going to the regaon people going to follow
the line and assume that it's coming from the church,
even though you and I know that it isn't. And
that's I think that's a difficult thing for the PR
Department because I think we both know it's not like
the church is going to say here, I'll prove it.
(24:19):
Let me open my books like that. We both know
that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
No, No, that will never happen.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Last thing that I'll set you loose, and let's help
people find the newsletter because I'm sure it's going to
be met with great interest out here. Look, you know
the BYU has the church is the ultimate backer. And
let's be clear, we know that it's not tithing money.
I know I have to say that every time I
bring it up. But they also have a bunch of powerful,
(24:45):
very rich donors and boosters that are very fine donating
millions and millions of dollars to back up the athletic
department and therefore, in their mind further the message of
a church they believe in, so they don't need private equity.
Texas Tech has oil money. Uh if UTAH didn't do this, like,
(25:05):
what would the result be? It feels like this is
Utah's answer to sec Big ten, bigger TV payouts, Big twelve.
Texas Tech oral money by you with their financial model.
It kind of fee feels like the only route. Is
that fair to say?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
I don't think I personally agree. Okay, And this is
the sort of thing I would love for the university
and potentially government officials to talk about here, because typically
if you are a public university, then you need a
bunch of money because you need to build a new
basketball arena, you want to create a new mixed use
(25:43):
real estate development and like athletic district where you can control,
you know, some of the land. If you want to
go do X, Y or Z, you sell bonds, You
can borrow money at really low interest rates. In some states,
you could even ask for a direct government appropriation, like
if Wyoming needs a new football stadium or something, Whyoming
(26:05):
taxpayers help front that? And I don't even think that's
necessarily an unreasonable asks. There's lots of ways that you
can you can get money without giving up equity in
a way that like Boston College can't do those things.
So I would be very interested. And as my knowledge,
no one's really talked about this yet about why this
model makes sense rather than everything else that was available
(26:27):
to them. The only thing I could think of is
you partner with a private equity company and then you
get all the big brains behind F one Racing and
these other data analytics companies. You go to the bank,
you don't get anything. They're stuck with the same guys.
I understand why you Time particular, would think if we
don't have loyal money, and we don't have Larry Ellison,
(26:48):
you know, like like Michigan does, and we're in this
truck stop conference and we don't get the jack Atic
television deal, we have to swing and do something crazy.
And I don't mind admitting this on the air. Many
of the other schools that I'm aware that I've had
these kind of conversations because it's not just Utah. Most
of them have been in the Big Twelve over the
acc these schools that I think are in a similar
(27:09):
boat where their ambitions don't line up with their current
television kills. But there's always other ways. It's probably not
realistic to expect donors alone to do this sort of
thing because there's only so many rich Utah fans, But
I would really like to hear the school side of
the story about why other financial mechanisms weren't appropriate here.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I think there's any shot Utah gets a Big Ten
invite before it tout you loose man.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
It's funny every time this kind of thing comes up
when I go check Twitter and it's you know, I
can just look at my mention as the sixteen Utah
fans saying like, yeah, they're doing this to join the
Big Ten, and like that's not how it works. Got
Like if we think about this in our lifetime, I
think you might be a little bit older than me,
but probably not by much. Like who has been a
more relevant important athletic program, UCLA or Utah? Like it's
(27:56):
it's not close, it's Utah by mile, and they I
can tell you because I saw some of the documents.
When the Big Ten was financially modeling their last round
of expansion, Utah wasn't even on it. I really struggled
to imagine a world or even with five hundred million
dollars that you can buy or build enough things that
(28:18):
would make Utah a financially additive team to how the
Big Ten is currently structured, when Florida State right now
probably isn't.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I wish that I.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Could tell people that this was America and this was
a meritocracy and you could just win your way in, baby,
But that's not how Rutgers got that spot. That's not
how UCLA or Washington got that spot. This is America,
and that it's not really a meritocracy. It's who your
friends were in nineteen twenty and Utah made the wrong
friends back said.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Well, well said good stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Hey, I'm sure we have a lot of listeners eager
to check out the newsletter, So where can they go
find it?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Matt?
Speaker 3 (28:55):
If you are interested in the sort of thing friends,
you could find it at Extra Points MB dot com,
or you can find me online at Matt Brown EP
or Matt Brown, I'm blue Sky.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Great stuff, sir, appreciate the time. Be well with chat soon.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Okay, of course, do what my friends.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Thank you, Matt Brown. I'm telling you extra points.
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