Speaker 2: Hire.
Speaker 1: Less than an hour away from kickoff. We have the
Speaker 1: college Football National Championship game on our radio station between
Speaker 1: Ohio States and Notre Dame. Let's bring in our next guest,
Speaker 1: because I've misbehaved with the clock and I hate to
Speaker 1: keep him waiting. Pleasure to spend some time with Rick
Speaker 1: new Heisel last week here in Park City, and Rick
Speaker 1: joins us now on a Monday, Rick, Happy Monday, sir,
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 2: I am fantastic Spence. How you doing man? And that
Speaker 2: was that song that you brought me back with? Is
Speaker 2: that just trying to explain to the listeners how old
Speaker 2: I am? What the heck you're doing?
Speaker 1: You know, I hate to blame my producer, but Porter
Speaker 1: decided to play it must just been the California Ties.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful song, Rick, is it not.
Speaker 2: It's a great song. It was written in the sixties,
Speaker 2: performed in the sixties, and so am I a video
Speaker 2: product of the sixties. So there you have it?
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough? Well, I wanted to bring some of
Speaker 1: the because I thought it was so fascinating listening to
Speaker 1: you discuss the future of college football last week during
Speaker 1: the daunt List Capital event that we did, and people
Speaker 1: really enjoyed what you had to say, and I actually
Speaker 1: it kind of gave me some hope, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring that conversation on air. We're, of course, in
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, where the home of the University of
Speaker 1: Utah Brigham Young plays their college ball about forty forty
Speaker 1: five miles away. In the hypothetical I kind of posed
Speaker 1: to you. I indicated it felt like we're headed towards
Speaker 1: a pro model, and you kind of pushed back a
Speaker 1: little bit on that, and I thought your answer was
Speaker 1: well thought out and very well articulated. So for our listeners,
Speaker 1: who of course didn't have a chance to hear it,
Speaker 1: the Rick new heisil take on the future of college
Speaker 1: football and specifically where you think Utah and BYU could
Speaker 1: fit in well.
Speaker 2: Currently, if you subscribe to the theory that, as the
Speaker 2: old man said to his son one day, the answers money, Now,
Speaker 2: what was the question. If you subscribe to that theory,
Speaker 2: then we are headed to super late and that is
Speaker 2: going to be incredibly successful. And there's going to be
Speaker 2: a little bit of a kind of a gumball rally
Speaker 2: as to which teams make the field and how big
Speaker 2: the field. Actually, is is it the SEC and the
Speaker 2: Big ten? Are they going to take some you know,
Speaker 2: folks from the Big twelve and the ACC that are
Speaker 2: currently positioned well? And really, if you choose to do that,
Speaker 2: which the big money people might very well and the
Speaker 2: television executives might very well, you're basically just saying it's
Speaker 2: it's all a product of timing, right, Stanford ten years
Speaker 2: ago would have been in the Big ten, but ten
Speaker 2: ten years later after they didn't, you know, keep up
Speaker 2: with the Joneses with admissions, they're now in the ACC.
Speaker 2: Utah given their amazing rise from Mount West to Pac
Speaker 2: twelve now to the Big twelve. And I know it
Speaker 2: was an off year for the Utes given the injuries,
Speaker 2: but Utah could very well be on the right side
Speaker 2: of the line, as could be why you've given a
Speaker 2: ten win season. So these are things, But why would
Speaker 2: we do that? Why would we limit the amount of
Speaker 2: opportunities that were providing young people? Remembering that only three
Speaker 2: percent of these kids and that's a high number, are
Speaker 2: going to get a chance to play professionally, So why
Speaker 2: would we do that? Why would we limit educational opportunities?
Speaker 2: I would offer that we can keep everybody. There's currently
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty three teams in Division one. We
Speaker 2: can keep everybody. What we have to do is make
Speaker 2: the smaller leagues, those who aren't as attractive as television attractive.
Speaker 2: And the way you do that is you borrow the
Speaker 2: European soccer model of promotion relegation, So you get these
Speaker 2: smaller conferences able to win their way into the big conferences,
Speaker 2: and the big conference seller dwellers who are just raking
Speaker 2: money off the top, they have to go to the
Speaker 2: other leagues and earn their way back. And I think
Speaker 2: we'll get a competitive model. We'll have way more popular
Speaker 2: television inventory, and my fingers across, that'll be the choice
Speaker 2: because that will keep as many scholarships as is possible,
Speaker 2: which is exactly what the whole enterprise was created for.
Speaker 1: And I love your anecdote about you being a walk
Speaker 1: on ultimately needing to kind of maintain the space for
Speaker 1: people to have the same experience you did. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Rick Kuhuisel doesn't exist in the future. I mean
Speaker 2: he doesn't get to play at UCLA. He can find
Speaker 2: his way to Division two and so forth, but to
Speaker 2: get a chance to run out on the field and
Speaker 2: see that rose in the center of it, and to
Speaker 2: be the MVP of a Rose Bowl doesn't happen. That's
Speaker 2: not fair. There are guys out there that deserve that chance,
Speaker 2: that have worked their tails off, and I got my
Speaker 2: fingers crossed that we'll do the right thing. And the leaders,
Speaker 2: more importantly, the leaders of college football who are going
Speaker 2: to be offered extravagant sums of money, will be willing
Speaker 2: to say, listen, let's push a little of that back
Speaker 2: in the table and remember who this is really for.
Speaker 1: So perhaps the role of private equity and venture capitalist
Speaker 1: funds in college football isn't as topical or interesting to
Speaker 1: certain listeners as it is to me. But I find
Speaker 1: it fascinating that we could be moving into a space, Rick,
Speaker 1: as you know, where college football teams at some point
Speaker 1: and we're seeing a little bit because college football teams
Speaker 1: have general managers, some of them have cap experts and
Speaker 1: a ton of lawyers to make sure they're following the rules,
Speaker 1: but ownership structures could potentially eventually look like the NFL.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that's also becoming closer and closer
Speaker 1: to a reality.
Speaker 2: Well, in certainly the Big Twelve where Utah resides and
Speaker 2: also the ACC it's a reality because their face right
Speaker 2: between the eyes with this proposition of the House settlement,
Speaker 2: which is going to cost them some measure of twenty
Speaker 2: million dollars a year annually to pay their players. That's
Speaker 2: just going to happen. And if it doesn't happen, it's
Speaker 2: even worse news because we're going to lose that lawsuit.
Speaker 2: That number will be exponentially high higher and will lose programs. Again,
Speaker 2: the goal for me is preserve all the programs. So
Speaker 2: what has to happen is we have to keep looking
Speaker 2: at how we're going to provide the resources for the enterprise.
Speaker 2: We didn't look in the future. We kept breaking off
Speaker 2: the table, even though the golden goose was even getting
Speaker 2: more golden and fatter. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: now the Supreme Court has realized that these are employees,
Speaker 2: These kids are working hard, and they're not getting enough
Speaker 2: of the proceeds. So now that they're going to we've
Speaker 2: got a restructure, and in restructuring, I hope that private
Speaker 2: equity will be included. That doesn't make it bad, that
Speaker 2: doesn't make it professional. It just means that we're borrowing
Speaker 2: some money for a good return that will make this
Speaker 2: all make sense. And again, if you don't think of
Speaker 2: this through the eyes of how much am I going
Speaker 2: to make, but how many scholarships I'm going to retain?
Speaker 2: And I know that sounds Pollyanna will be better off
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: I wanted to move over to a conversation you and
Speaker 1: I had about the Pac twelve because when we got
Speaker 1: on the phone, you were good enough to give me
Speaker 1: some time. We discussed you know what I perceived to
Speaker 1: be and look, I know it's yesterday's news, but I
Speaker 1: don't get a chance in view you on the show
Speaker 1: very often. And I'm still sad about it because as
Speaker 1: a student at the University of Utah in the late nineties,
Speaker 1: I understand how the past twelve changed, not just the
Speaker 1: athletic department but the school that I attended, and when
Speaker 1: it collapsed, I just I was pretty bummed out. And
Speaker 1: it's a new day, it's a new world Utahs on
Speaker 1: the the Big twelve. But you have kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit of a different take, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to speak for you, but potentially George Klaoff cough kind
Speaker 1: of falling on the sword and maybe a bit of
Speaker 1: an unfair way. Is that a fair way to to
Speaker 1: kind of articulate your your sentiment.
Speaker 2: I think it's too easy to point at the commissioners
Speaker 2: Larry Scott and George Klayoff Cooff as the villains here.
Speaker 2: Maybe they made some four decisions, and retrospectively, I think
Speaker 2: they would both agree that they have. But at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, it was the president's of the
Speaker 2: PAC twelve that overvalued their worth, that overvalued what television
Speaker 2: was going to pay for them. The time zone on
Speaker 2: the West Coast isn't as valuable as the time zone
Speaker 2: on the East Coast, and because of it, they kept saying, well,
Speaker 2: we're worth the same as the Big ten, going back
Speaker 2: to the days when you know, the PAC twelve would
Speaker 2: kind of dominate the Rose Bull and how in the
Speaker 2: world are we going to take less money than the
Speaker 2: Big ten. They turned down a deal just the year
Speaker 2: previous that would have been the equal of the Big twelve,
Speaker 2: and did so because of their ego. And I think
Speaker 2: therein lies the problem, not really an educated understanding of
Speaker 2: what the economics were in television, and the presidents need
Speaker 2: to be held accountable for that.
Speaker 1: All right, before we get to tonight and that will
Speaker 1: be where we end. I wonder what the Rick new
Speaker 1: heisill take is on the new expanded twelve team CFP
Speaker 1: now that we're about to see it culminate with its
Speaker 1: final game tonight.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love that we've shared the wealth
Speaker 2: in terms of opportunity. I love that Boise State was
Speaker 2: in it. Never mind that they didn't win. They played
Speaker 2: a big time game if they don't turn the ball over,
Speaker 2: and how many football games can we say that about.
Speaker 2: I love that SMU in year one, taking no money
Speaker 2: from the ACC for television, got in. They proved that,
Speaker 2: you know, it's exciting for fall can be played by
Speaker 2: teams that were in the last year or in a
Speaker 2: group of five. That's wonderful stuff. Indiana is a wonderful story.
Speaker 2: We talk all the time about the Cinderellas of college
Speaker 2: basketball and what makes the college basketball tournament so fun.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what we see. And when the scores were
Speaker 2: an insighted everybody said, well, it's we were wrong to
Speaker 2: do it. Look at the NFL playoffs in Week one.
Speaker 2: They were one sided except for the Commander Tampa game.
Speaker 2: It's just the way it is. It doesn't always turn
Speaker 2: out to be, you know, a final minute finish, but
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, it was fantastic. It
Speaker 2: will absolutely keep the parody and recruiting from sea to
Speaker 2: shining sea. People will know they can get to the
Speaker 2: playoffs from any portion of the country and that's great
Speaker 2: news for the game of college football.
Speaker 1: So we move over to tonight with two blue bloods
Speaker 1: and I'm sure the power Brokerson.
Speaker 2: I'm here in Atlanta. I'm here in Atlanta, and you know,
Speaker 2: my mom and dad are from the Midwest. Their names
Speaker 2: are Dick and Jane. I was this close to be
Speaker 2: a named spot, but I am in with a bunch
Speaker 2: of Dick and James from all over the Midwest. They
Speaker 2: brought the Midwestern weather to Atlanta. It's about twenty five degrees.
Speaker 2: They were having the time of their life. It's like
Speaker 2: I'm watching a group of people that are at the
Speaker 2: Elks Club having Friday night fish rye. It is the
Speaker 2: greatest thing. And I am enjoying these two brands getting
Speaker 2: ready to go to battle.
Speaker 1: I love it. Do you have a feel for which
Speaker 1: fan base will be better represented tonight.
Speaker 2: I'm going to guess Ohio State's going to be probably
Speaker 2: sixty forty in the majority. A lot of red jerseys
Speaker 2: around here, a lot of excitement about their first national
Speaker 2: championship since twenty fourteen. They have the opportunity to be
Speaker 2: the first in the CFP to win the championship and
Speaker 2: the first in the twelve team format to win the championship,
Speaker 2: which is wonderful. Notre Dame's trying to get their first
Speaker 2: championship since nineteen eighty eight when Doctor lou was their coach.
Speaker 2: Who'll see if they can get that done. If they
Speaker 2: can get the game to the fourth quarter, they're in it.
Speaker 2: But I'm picking the Buckeye.
Speaker 1: All right, my friend, will since you're there and you're busy,
Speaker 1: we will set you loose and I will say a
Speaker 1: very big thank you for not just your time today
Speaker 1: but your participation last week. It was fun to see you, Okay,
Speaker 1: it was a blast.
Speaker 2: Your dad was a blast as well. Please giving my
Speaker 2: best and college football fans enjoy the evening. It's a
Speaker 2: great night for the game. The game always delivered.
Speaker 1: Yes, it does. The great Rick new Heisel played high
Speaker 1: level quarterback when he was playing his college ball at UCLA.
Speaker 1: Spent a little bit of time in the pros as well,
Speaker 1: probably better known as a coach at a very high
Speaker 1: level where he won a Rose Bowl. Spent time coaching
Speaker 1: at Colorado, spent time coaching at you dub where he
Speaker 1: won his Rose Bowl. Was with the Ravens for three years,
Speaker 1: then took over at UCLA, and now he's doing the
Speaker 1: broadcast thing with CBS. So we appreciate his time. And
Speaker 1: we have the College Football National Championship coming your way
Speaker 1: in about forty minutes from right now, so stay tuned.