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Let's get out to the hotline. Welcome in Kevin Reynolds
of the Solid Tribune. Kevin, how thatck are you, buddy?
Speaker 3: I'm good man.
Speaker 2: How are you living the dream?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: Appreciate you hopping on and talking some ball with us.
What he's been recently publicizing there at the Solid Tribune.
What you've been writing about recently, keV, Well.
Speaker 3: We just finished up the Kilani saga of last week,
so that was that was kind of the main thing
from a week ago, and now we kind of move
into an off season now where we have Utah making
private equity deals and by you trying to sayigure out
how it's going to get you know, break through to
the playoffs next year. And yeah, we'll move on to
basketball too.
Speaker 2: Well, let's discuss the Kalani Satake situation here. What did
you make of it? What did you take away from
that particular saga leading up to the Texas Tech Big
Twelve Championship game.
Speaker 3: A couple of things. First, I don't think I ever
really believe that Klana Sataki was actually going to leave
for Penn State or really anywhere, because Kilani is a
BYU guy. He grew up rooting for BYU, he played
for Lavelle Edwards, and I think he's in a really
good situation when you look overall at what he could
do at BYU if he got resources to do it,
with BYU being in the Big Twelve now having a
power Power Conference affiliation. He's won twenty two twenty what
is twenty two games in the last two years, and
that's the most of the Big Twelve over that time
has BYU in a championship game in the third year.
I mean, all these things that are very incredible accomplishments.
But at the same time, like I thought, BYU almost
put themselves in this position a little bit to where
you had a coach who had all this attachment to
the university, who was winning and highly successful, yet it
took this long to give him a contract extension and
give him the resources that he needs to compete and
go to.
Speaker 4: The college playoff.
Speaker 3: When you look at around and I think it's sometimes
difficult to compare, but when you look at how many
resources the basketball program has gotten over the last year,
Kevin Young, Aj Debondza, Rob Wright, you can go through
the list, Richie Saunders staying in BYU. Clearly BYU has
invested at a very high level in one sport, and
I think the question was will it invest in the
high level in football too, And I think Klanie play
played the cards right and the fact that he was saying, hey, like,
look at all the success that BYU football's had, It's
the flagship program. No matter how good basketball is, football
is the flagship program at BYU and pretty much every
other university, football is the flagship program. And like, I
don't think he was asking for a ton. I think
he was asking for what he needs. And I thought
I was. I was struck by kind of his reaction
to it last week, where I thought it was very
authentic and very genuine to who Kilanie is and the
fact that he didn't say that he had a list
of demands that he wanted Brian Santiago to meet. It
wasn't that he was asking to become the highest pig
coach in college football or that he wanted every single
facility to look like Texas or Alabama. I think he
was just genuinely wanting to feel respected at BYU. And
the other part is just can you get enough around
BYU football to compete going forward where they can be
a consistent player in the top fifteen. And I think
now that that looks like the foundation is in place
to have that. But yeah, I thought it just took
It took a very long time for BYU to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you hate the timing of it. It was probably
a little delayed. I don't know if you heard the
postgame comments from Kilani. Did you buy chance some of
the postgame comments you said, first of all, I was
trying to get the extension. Yeah, I was trying to
get the extension done way before. Even last year's extension
wasn't good enough. I think he's saying it wasn't maybe
long enough. He was just a two year extension. I
want to be here for the long run. I asked
for this stuff to be taken care of by the
bye week. It wasn't, and it lingered on, so I
didn't know if BYU was going to get that done.
Now we've got it done. It disrupted us for one day.
I tried to avoid it as much as I can
as head coach, but I don't make all the rules.
I'm just glad it got done eventually and that I'm
going to be here for a long time. I don't
ever have to plan about leaving. This is where it's at.
So you're saying, hey, this is where it's at. I've
always wanted to be here. I'm glad you guys were
able to Our guys were able to focus and keep
fighting along. But we were trying to get this done
a long time ago.
Speaker 3: Your thoughts reactions to that, No, Yeah, I think that's
just what we're talking about, is like, why did YU
kind of drag their feet on this for so long?
When also the coaching tool YU isn't exactly a super
long list. I mean, I know Jay Hill is in
the building, and I know he could potentially be a
head coach at BYU someday or if it's not YU,
he'll be a head coach somewhere else for sure, because
of how successful he's been going back to Weaver State
and then what he's done at BYU. But at the
same time, you have a guy in the building who
wants to be there, who has been extremely successful, has
has knows this job better than anyone, like pretty much
at this point now that he's been on the job
for over a decade, and they couldn't get it done.
They couldn't get it done until they were absolutely pushed
to the limit with Penn State coming in and a
couple of others. And the other part is it's like
the one thing I don't understand all the time from
like why it took so long, is it was only
a matter of time before the end of the season
hit or the end of the regular season hit, and
you have all these jobs open. Somebody was going to
be interested in Kawani Sataki, and if that was not
Penn State, it was going to be somebody else. That's
just the nature of when twenty two games in a
Power for conference and now there's a bunch of openings,
and if it didn't happen this year, it was probably
gonna happen next year, and it was going to be
a consistent thing until you get a deal in place
that is a long term deal. And so it felt
self inflicted to me from BYU side as to why
this became such a big deal on a week when
really BYU should be not focused on that, because this
is theoretically if you had a deal in place. This
is a time when you sign a recruiting class, the
best recruiting class you've had in a really long time,
best lender, Kaline Sintake, you have rider Liones brock Herris,
You're going to a Big twelve title game the third year,
and yet the entire conversation for the entire week is
about Penn State and Kline Satake. That to me feels
like feels like it was avoidable, and I don't know,
obviously in the end it was. We'll look back at
it and we will probably see the recruiting class and
the Big twelve title, but feels like it was definitely avoidable.
Speaker 2: Still top twenty one class, they got it done right,
and that could have it could have been bad, but
it ended up being good. Top twenty one class. If
BYU is overachieving right now versus their composite score, their
recruiting ranking, I think they had the seventieth best talent
per two four seven in college football. They've gone eleven
and two in back to back seasons. They were on
the outside looking in of the College Fotball Playoff, but
they're knocking on the door right now. What's the potential
for this Cougar football team that continually overachieved versus maybe
the talents and even the resources that they've had up
to this point in their college football path.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they. I think you're right. I was
talking to a recruit on Wednesday or last yeah, on
signing day last week, and he kind of said the
same thing of like BYU has been very successful with
recruiting classes that have not been among the best in
the Big twelve. If you look at the talent of
positive scores like you're talking about, and those aren't everything,
but I think they are something, and they're an indicator
of you know, how much like kind of what's the
ceiling of it the team can be, or like closing
the gap on teams like Texas Tech, who are obviously
at the top of the Big Twelve and now that
you can get a higher level of recruit consistently. I
think Brock Harris was a huge part of this recruiting
class in terms of being one of the first really
highly rated four to five star guys to sign on
to this class. Then you get Ryder Lions because of
the relationship there, and then everybody. I think once you
get a four or five star quarterback, depending on where
you look in the mix, then of course you can
start putting together a class that is in the top
twenty five consistently. And I think we still need to
see that build out for BYU. I don't think an
overnight six and those guys don't really get there until
twenty twenty seven. But yeah, I think the ceiling grows higher,
and now it's about closing the gap on the top
of the Big twelve, because you know, the Big Twelve,
for even though it's a powerful conference like we've seen,
like it's a one to two bid league and at
two bid league at most at least that's what it
looks like. So closing that gap on Texas Tech and
the heavy spenders in the Big twelve, like I think
by Us in the upper half of Lee for sure,
and they can definitely could be consistently there. But can
you consistently get back and maybe beat Texas Tech or
at least be more competitive. I think that is the
next goal, and I think that the recruiting classes.
Speaker 4: Like that help.
Speaker 2: Kevin Reynold Sully Tribune here on ESPN the Fandom, Little
Cougar Beat brought to you buy our good friends at
Bresa Cleaning Services. Bresa makes it a breeze to keep
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for seventy dollars off your first cleaning at A one
three eight zero eight zero eight seven. Kevin, what do
you plan on maybe publishing here this week and maybe
next week? Give us a little pref you give us
a little taste of what you guys are gonna be
talking about at the trip.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing. I mean,
I you know, the Bowl games are the Bowl games,
and I think those are probably fun to talk about
for a day or two. But you know, I don't
think they really move the needle that much. But you know,
I think that the biggest thing is about going into
the off season and what what by you need to do,
But also from a broader perspective, like what does it
look like? I think the big question in this state
will be for the next month or so about this
private equity deal from Utah. Oh yeah, and the ripple
effects around the Big twelve, the Big the Big ten,
the SEC and what does that actually look like? So
those are probably the toskers I think will be the
most interesting.
Speaker 2: Give you your take, and I'm sure your your your
counterparts there at the trip have written about the UH
the private equity deal with Outro Capital. What do you
make of it? What do we know about it? What
does this do for University of Utah athletics? What does
it all mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think probably I guess for me two things. One,
I think it was inevitable that somebody was going to
get private equity in the mix of college football, just
because it does take so much money to compete in
college athletics. If you're going to do REGs share and
you're going to do nil and you're going to have
to invest thirty twenty thirty forty million dollars into football
rosters to make the college football playoffs and get the
financial rewards of being competitive and the everything that comes
with being a college football playoff team. Obviously, these a
lot of schools were cast strapped, and Utah was kind
of one of them. I mean, they were going to
be running a deficit. Mark Carlin said that for the
next few years. I think they were in seventeen million
dollar deficit last year, and I know part of that
is to do with the Pac twelve and everything there,
So it's not like that it would be seventeen million
dollars every year. But at the same time, I think
a lot of schools needed to find a solution to
it and get more of a cash influx. And this
seems like it's going to bring in hundreds of million
dollars for Utah, So there is the inevitability of that.
But at the same time, like I think, there's real
questions about how if this is a good thing, if
this is where college athletics should be moving. I know
there's guardrails in place, and Utah has said there's guardrails
in place. But what actually happens when push comes to
show and the you know, Utah football is losing or
a basketball team is losing. What happens with the the
people in private equity who we've seen in every other
every other sector of where private equity fits like, it's
I don't know if you can expect that college football
will be completely different with college private equity than it was,
you know, I mean, look at our business with newspapers
right Like, I don't know if that's going to look
completely different just because it's college athletics and because there's
guardrails like do they have stay in coaching staff hires
or when you know, what does pricing look like for fans?
It's like, how does that change the fan experience? And
what does that look like? If it's not going well
like this? Are there kind of off ramps? And I
don't know if we have all the answers, and I
think but I do think there are serious questions to
be asked about all of this and what the future
looks like for Utah and then the other school that
goes goes into it, and we'll see. I mean, look
at Michigan, they've already said that they didn't. They did
not feel comfortable with this. So we'll see.
Speaker 2: Last thing, keV. Best way to support to you what
you do, how you do it. For all those that
are tuning in, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Just go solid tribute and read read our stuff. We
really appreciate it and we'll have a lot of stuff
on all the stuff we're talking about now.
Speaker 2: Love it, Kevin, appreciate you man, Thanks for hopping on.
Great great comments, great segment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank man.
Speaker 2: There you go. That's Kevin RYANDLDS.
Speaker 4: Guys.
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We'll be back. Don't go anywhere. Riley and Elson, the
lush's aired lefty, coming up next to talk some Cougar football.
Don't miss it. This is Cougar Sports on one of
three nine ninety eight point three, Cheaping.
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is stop for a little keeping up with the coogar.
Is gonna welcome in a former BYU great quarterback, the
luscious haired lefty that talks to BYU Cougar football this
season and wear ranks maybe amongst the best seasons in
BYU football history. It's gonna be brought to you by
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ifs answer much about it. Let's get out to the hotline.
Welcome in the Lush's aired Lefty. We got Riley Nelson
on the line. Riley, how the heck are you? Buddy?
Speaker 4: Chris de Bank credit doing great, Thanks for reaching out today.
Happy to be on.
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure always a blessing man talking ball with you.
Eleven and two man two losses or to the number
four team in the country. B always got an opportunity
to knock off another top twenty five team in Georgia
Tech in the pop tarts ball. It would have been
glorious had we beat had we played Notre Dame. It didn't.
It didn't happen because the Notre Dame Irish are now
the quitting Irish. You know, when things get tough, when
you get ousted out of the college football playoff, then
you quit. That is the Irish way. But is this
one of the best seasons in BYU football history? Where'd
you rank it amongst the best?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sure you've dug into the topic, like in
the stats more than I have. But I mean, well,
so let's talk in the Klonie Sataka era. Unquestionably it's
better than that. I mean, all due respect to the
COVID year and the eleven to one record that was
posted then, but like you can't even compare the level
of competition and strength and schedule and all that, And
then of course you had last year's eleven and two,
but this year is eleven and two. Beats last year
is eleven and two. In that, you know the with
the two losses, the tech that you only lost coming
to a ranked ranked top ten of oponent on the road,
then you're the lost coming to a conference championship game
where last year they failed to make it the conference
championship game. So unquestionably in the in the Kawanie Sataka era,
then my mind goes to in the men Hall era,
you got on nine, you got six, both of those,
but the O six, y'all were conference champions, right, Ben.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no six and O seven we were conference champions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Oh that's right, they were both eleven and two.
I'm sorry I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we lost thirty six six. We lost because
at u of A to start the season, like a
fifty yard field goal Nick Folk got us game winning field.
We also had like an offensive p I called us
called on us that set us back and you know
it was a touchdown. Anyway, we lost double ot to
Matt Ryan, ranked ranked Boston college team on the road,
and then seven we lost to Tulsa on the road
in a shootout. The Tulsa team was was led by
oh gosh, Gus malls On. That was the best offense
in college football that year, and our defense had their
worst performance ever. It was atrocious. And then we lost
to U c. L A on the road in the
Rose Bowl by like one, you know.
Speaker 4: That that was Oh we beat him, seventeen sixteen, we
beat him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we lost by maybe lotted by six or
something like that. The uy U U c l A.
I can't remember. Yeah, we lost on the road in
the Rose Bowl.
Speaker 4: They called back, which what team would you say was better?
To MEO six is better? Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting because you had a young Max Hall,
Austin Colley, Dennis Pitta, but our offense was middle of
the pack in two thousand and seven. Harvey Unga also
a young Harvey Unga, so our offense although like look
in the loss versus UCLA at UCLA, it was our
offense that that didn't show up in the game in Tulsa,
the defense didn't show up. So it's like, statistically throughout
the year, the defense was was elite. We were top
ten defense and the offense was like a top forty
offense roughly around there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I mean O nine was not conference champions.
So even though they were eleven and two so to me, like,
maybe you give the NATO six. So let's go, like Kilani,
so this year beats last year, so let's talk about it.
So let's go. So this year, oh six is in
the running. I don't know where you put twenty and one.
The twelve and two year. Just the way that ended
put such a bad taste in everybody's mouth. But dude,
that was pretty magical and like that Crochton offense and
Luke State League and Dolman and Doug Jolly and Reno
and everybody doing their thing like that was I remember
those guys being on being on Sports Center every every week.
But and I think they won the conference championship, but
I'm not sure that anyway can my criteria you have
to have. You know, By's had their share of ass
to have been the top ten finish, which you know,
I don't think BYU will backdoor their way and who knows,
maybe if they put you know, if they Beta Georgia
Tech in the in the ball and a couple of
these teams on the back half of the bracket, you know,
don't show up and they college football playoff, maybe BYU
like breaksam. But the great thing about playing at BYU
is the criteria is extremely high, so to me, like
conference champion, which unfortunately wasn't accomplished this year, and then
a top ten finish. So I don't know how many
teams meet that criteria. I'm pretty sure obviously eighty four does.
I'm pretty sure ninety six did. I think did did
did they do that in eighty two?
Speaker 2: Eighty three was really good, eighty four obviously in the
national championship year, eighty five was really good. Nineteen eighty
was a really good season with Jim McMahon. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Conference champion championships matter like conference championships matter to me,
And I think that's what's broken about the state of
college football is the dude, I am beside myself that
Miami got in like didn't even play in the conference
championship game. You know, I don't Duke is your conference champion?
Like how did they not get anyway? So I don't
get started on all that. The question was where does
this rankling BYU. It maybe is sitting there around just
us like back of the knakin. It's maybe sitting there
around five, four or five. But the reasons why it's
not top three for me, I mean obviously, eighty four
is one. You were the national champion, right, And the
reason why it's not right there behind that for me
is they didn't quite get the jobs done as far
as becoming a champion conference champion. And then you know
the two losses by U has had undefeated and one
lost seasons previously. So there you go. There's my there's
my ranking of it. But dude, from the start, this
might be this might be the absolute best from where
everybody had us pegged in August. And I'm not talking
about the media, because I'm pretty sure they did away
with the preseason media pull, but I'm just talking about
like losing rests laugh and not knowing who the QB
is going to be in expectations like bottoming out and
everybody saying, yeah, i'd I'd be happy with six wins
if we could just get to boiligibility right, And now
here we were, you know, eleven and two playing for
the conference championship. It's an amazing job by these players
and these coaches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what were your what was your like early preseason
predictions all considered, right.
Speaker 4: Said Yeah, I said I said eight. This is even
to me, this was quarterback agnostic because I just felt
really strong that the defense, which was the strength of
the team last year, was very good and they had
made moves to be better. So I had said, you know,
I'm pegging at eight. I said, my most optimistic case
is is ten. So that was my quarter. So I
wasn't that off, but I was blue goggling, And for me,
it all stends to the fact that like, we are
not the Cougars of the eighties, which, by the way,
the defenses in the eighties were awesome too. You don't
become a double digit win team if you're not really
good on both sides of the ball. But I really
felt like this defense was special enough to carry this
team this year, which is why my floor maybe didn't
go as low as others. And I think it proved
to be true that the defense was definitely the rock
and the most consistent performing of the three phases for
this team. But man bear Bachmeyer's consistency and the offensive production,
especially in the run game, and LJ. Martin becoming the
Offensive Conference Player of the Year, like all those things. Like, Bro,
if you would have said to me, we would have
the offense the conference off Sensive Player of the Year
on our team. Yeah, I would have been like sweet.
So you know, the defense did probably what me personally
expected it to do, and the offense far exceeded my expectations,
which were pretty mediocre for them at the outset.
Speaker 2: The Lusher's aired left former b YU Great quarterback Riley
Nelson here on your Utah ESPN Ready Network Keeping up
with the Cougar segment brought to you by Odeon men'swhear
odeonmenswear dot Com. What do you make of the private
equity deal? I know you're in the U kind of
the insurance world, which cross pollinates a little bit with
the business and finance world. You represent a number of
individuals out there, probably in private equity or those VC firms.
What's your opinion on this new foray with private equity
and athletic departments? You know, allowing their university is allowing
their athletic departments to split off, creating LLCs for profit
LLCs in order to stay competitive in the college football landscape.
Speaker 4: I feel pretty good anybody who will listen for on
this topic. For the last ten years, I said this
is where it's going, the all of it, and not
all of athletics, but at least football and basketball at
certain places will all just be licensed and you know,
they'll rent the facilities, will be owned, the brand will
be owned by the universities, but they will not be
university employees running them or doing those. To me, I
thought that this was the endgame. It's the only logical
endgame for it too. The only thing I want to
say is that I do not ever want to hear
the term student athlete again. That's not the case athlete student, No,
not even that. Guys, Joe Ben Ben, you know as
well as I do, like it's a joke. These dudes.
There are ninety percent of their courses are online, which
you know, well whatever, I'll just say it because I paused.
But like online work, you verifying that the person is
actually matriculated, that class is actually the ones submitting the
work online. We don't have a great system for verifying that.
I just like, let's not fall Let's be okay with
Europe that like goes and identifies MESSI at eleven years
old down in Argentina and rolls them in is in
their you know, academy at fourteen and yeah, you know,
he probably got a GED's worth of education, but no
one was trying to parade around like the king with
no clothes saying that, you know, MESSI was in Varses'
academy to get a world class education, like miss me
with all that garbage. He was there to become an
elite athlete. And that's what these kids are now. They
graduate high school and they are now going to these
programs to become elite athletes. And those because the rosters
are so big and there are so many teams, I
will concede that you still have a large portion of
these rosters that are there that are studying, that are
getting good grades and are doing both education and not
But that's a large portion of the roster, not a
large portion of the twenty two starters on offense and defenses.
In fact, it's probably a very slim minority any of
those guys who are actually you know, pursuing academics at
a high level at best to further their professional prospects.
They're doing networking and you know, establishing relationships and things
like that that they can call on when they're playing
careers over whether that be at the end of their
football eligibility or whether that be at the end of
some professional But like there's no academic book leaning in there.
So let's just end the Like I'm the little kid
in the crowd that's pointing out that the king has
no clothes, and I know I'm not the first, but like,
miss me with the academic portion of all this, And
let's call this what it is, a farm system for
like college football. This is the this is the first
major domino to fall. For this to true, we can
all get rid of the facade and all get rid
of like trying to convince ourselves to college football is
anything other than a farm system for the NFL. So
there you go. There's my rant. I hope that I
hope that the lists enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: I love it. Man, great breakdown? Uh is it? Uh? Like,
what happens if this fails? If it's not profitable? You
know that's the scenario that some bway fans are wondering.
You know, it's all it's all, it's all top line revenue.
They're gonna be taking their percentage off the top and
no matter what happens.
Speaker 4: But but but you said profitable, since professional sports is
not even about running profitably, right, Like, if you're lucky
enough to be in mega markets like la or or
like Houston, but Houston hasn't had a good franchise in
forever like that. Basically like ellery in New York can
win a championship, yeah, you can actually get some cash flow.
But to be ask Rian Smith, like the business being
in the business of professional sports now is not about
profitable revenues. It's not about the marginal profit on a
dollar earned. It is about valuations. So this private equity
is not private equi firm is not investing in the
University of Utahs Athletics in order to generate you know,
millions of dollars of profit that they can then be
reinvested or distributed to shareholders. No, like they're simply investing
five hundred million dollars or whatever it is, sitting on
it while everybody else offs on. This is a play
to be the first one to be on the ground
floor of a market. So they're going to be the
first ones that's gonna make this. This is going to
continue to dominate over the next ten years, and then
they're gonna flip you know, their universe. This private equi
firm is gonna flip their University of Utah arrangement for
another big paycheck and kind of it's anyway, it's all
about valuation, it's not about profitability. And part of the
reason why I say that is not only has pro
Sport's not done that which is operated in the free
market environment for decades and since it's an exception, but
look across these are publicly state funded schools. You can
look at the books of ninety plus percent of all
these major programs and none of them running the black.
They all run in the red. So why would someone
be willing to write a five hundred million dollars check,
you know, for the access to get on the ends
on this right. Well, the reason why they're doing that
is because they know whatever the valuation that that five
hundred million, they're going to be able to sell it
for two and a half to three x in eight
to ten years. So that's the game at play here,
and you know it is what it is. We're all
the suckers, you know, We're all the suckers that will
continue to watch. Like I don't think live sporting events
are the only thing that draw live eyeballs for advertisers.
Everything else is watched on demand and ads can be
skipped or ignored or passed over. But your only captive
audience now now these days is live sporting events beginning
with the NFL college football right behind it. And so
you know, as long as all of us are willing
to tune in on Saturdays and Sundays, this financial model
will be sustainable. And by that I mean that you
can run unprofitable businesses but then flip for higher valuations
as long as you you know, are able to stay
alive over whatever the holding period is.
Speaker 2: What do you think Utah is going to do with
this newfound cash, this influx of resources.
Speaker 4: No wasted the same way the college that you know,
in the old model colleges wasted state funded like state taxes, right,
they wasted public or they wasted they wasted dollar dollars.
And when I say wasted, sorry, I just should say
like they'll overpay for things. There's just no there's gonna
be there account That's what I'm saying. There's no accountability
like oh, tax holders are gonna you know, especially in
these big conferences. You want to go try and get
some legislation passed that Curbs in Alabama, that Curbs is
spending for the Rolling Tide in their and their football facilities. Like,
I can't think of what would be a less popular
proposition than that, And so I don't mean wasted. They'll
be reinvested into facilities. The only thing this time is
that it's not all going to go to facilities because
a lot of it's gonna have to go to funding
the roster, right, so it'll go to funding the roster,
it'll go to kind of facilities upgrades, whatever, whatever the
latest trend is. You know, when I was coming up,
Oregon had just started where they were wearing a different
jersey every game, and so like that was the arms
race is like people were starting to like make locker
rooms a little bit. They were. They're funny enough, like
when I was coming up, and well, Lee, you and
I you will remember that, like getting a locker like
the pro that was like an open locker and not
an actual locker with a with like a lock on it.
Ye like that. That that was like the big facilities upgrade.
And then the big arms race was like, hey, we're
we wear multiple uniforms throughout the year and you get
three or four different pair of cleats. That's what it
was twenty years ago. Now it's you know, salaries and
signing bonuses and nil deals. But you know they'll they'll
just spend it wildly on whatever, on whatever the arms
or you know, whatever the thing to attract talent, both
in the in the form of coaches and players will
be And if the private equity firms, here's the difference, right,
because everybody here is private equity and they think like
leverage buyouts are buying buying a business. It's a distressed asset.
For pennies on the dollar. You know, you do a
big reduction in force, you improve the profit, you take
the company from losing money and being on a lifeline,
and through very scrupulous financial measures and operational efficiencies you're
able to do that. Well, the problem is like this
is not this is Adam Smith, in visible head of
the free market has been tough in college football, largely
because it's again, these are institutions that are subsidized by
state and federal governments, and anytime you have the government. Okay, Ben,
I'm gonna stop out in my own podcast on the
economics of government intervention and subsidizing markets and the reason
why they refuse to run an efficient But your question was,
how are they going to spend it they're going to
spend it largely on rosters. They're going to do what
they need to do to get their facilities to try
and get coaching and play in here and keep their
nose above water. As the other big dogs like Texas,
Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, Notre Dame and all
these other guys follow suit behind them in the next
three to five years.
Speaker 2: No, it's funny. I've had I've had debates with individuals
about these industries that are too big to fail. Right. Obviously,
you had the market crash in two thousand and eight,
the financial system, uh, the the housing market crash. You
have the car manufacturer too big to fail, and you
have this subsidization with tax payer dollars, especially for the
state run institutions that are just unscrupulously and without any
sort of accountabilities spending and just mortgaging everything for their
athletics department. And then the university just keeps on bailing
them out because it's a marketing tool in the front
porch of the of the university. And if they win
in sport, they get more, they get more students, and
they can elevate and elevate student fees and all those things, right,
so I was hoping it would bust. But who's bailing
them out? Private equity also all.
Speaker 4: Of this so that a professor who hasn't been published
in ten years can be protected by tenure and be
paid at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah, it just
makes me sick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting study, no doubt about it. And
now private equity comes in to kind of bail it
all out. So like, what is the what are universities
gonna do? Now? I do think it's actually you look
at the PAC twelve and how it's no longer exists. Administrators, chancellor's,
presidents of these universities that are academics. They shouldn't be
competing in corporate America. They are incompetence comparative to those
in the sports sports media world and the entrepreneurial world,
the private equity VC world, Like they just aren't built
that way through academics. So they're competing in a world
in which they have no core competencies and that's why
they fail.
Speaker 4: Here's my one worry though, I'm pretty sure it's a
joint venture, right, Like the University of Utah didn't hand
this over wholeheartedly. So here's what I'm worried about as
a tax payer is now, rather than have to your
point about having these academics who have come up and
now our administrators of universities, of the institutions of learning
and academics, you just alluded to the fact that they're
not experts in sports or sports entertainment or business for
that matter. But guess who are the sharks that work
at these private equities. So now it's not that we're
just you know, trying to hold a present accountable for
their use of taxpayer dollars in funding an athletic program.
Now we've got private equity sharks. So yeah, they're coming
to the table with some of their own mate. But
if you think that there is going to any way
be any separation between like the private equity, is going
to be putting even in my opinion, the heat will
be turned up and there will be even more pressure
put on the university to pony up for athletics with
private equity involved. When before and it was just the university,
it was a little bit cleaner lines. You have more
skilled negotiators, more scrupulous you know, financial professionals coming after
university putting the heat on to pay their share to
pitch in from there. So you know we're but hey, man,
I love being able to start my Saturday at ten
am and go until about one thirty am and just
be mindlessly entertained by this wonderful sport we call football.
I'm not gonna If that means that my taxes, you know,
have to increase in order to fund University of Utah,
then so be it. I guess right, because I'm not
going to be the first one to boycott.
Speaker 2: I love it. Riley Nelson, Riley, just real briefly give
us an update on work on family. How can we
get ahold of you for all of your specialty services
you offer?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know this is part of your businessman. I
got rid of my Twitter. I just couldn't. I couldn't.
I was wasting too much time on there and I
always tend to eight. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when did you get all? I'm looking for you
right now and you're gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I deleted my account. I didn't just reactivated either,
I deleted up. I deleted So I was just thinking.
So my oldest son turned eight. I go eight six
board too, I believe, and I believe that data supports
the notion that any infinite, any algorithmic infinite scroll model
is First of all, it's like it's extremely harmful for
kids and youth so and then and then obviously it's
you know, it's extremely unproductive. It can be that for
adults too. For me, it was just an unproductive waste
of time and something that drew my attention from more
valuable pursuits like raising my kids. But the biggest thing
was I didn't want to be a hypocrite for for
my kids. I'm not planning. I'm planning on holding now
as long as I can. Like my goal, I don't
know if I and there's parents who are on the
next stage of life for me who are probably gonna
laugh at this, but like my goal is to try
and plan is trying and get my kids like graduating
on missions without an internet enabled phone, Like I'll have
messaging and they'll be communication. That's my goal. I don't know,
ye I'll last there, but you know, rather shoot for
the goal and fall a little bit short than like
throw my hands up. And my kids got an internet
enabled phone at nine years old, right, So, but my
thing was I cannot I've not imposed that. My house
would be a house of hypocrisy if I were to
try it, impose that on my children and not live
by it myself. So I got rid of everything out
there that has an algorithmic, an infinity algorithm feed. So
the big long way of saying, if you want to
find me, find me on LinkedIn. The good thing is
the feed on LinkedIn is so bad. There's no temptation
to scroll that thing. You go on LinkedIn, you spend
the absolute minimum time you have to on there, and
you're out of there. But I do use it as
a communication tool, so my emails posted on there. Obviously
you can message me there. I do maintain a Facebook
profile to keep in touch with, you know, the folks
from the mission, and I've got some family that's international.
That seems to be the easiest way to do that.
So you can message me on Facebook. Although like disclaimer,
I only ever monitor that I do my LinkedIn at
least weekly. My Facebook is maybe like quarterly at best,
maybe two three times a year. But work's good. Kids good,
We're in the middle of wrestling season. It's great. I
don't know if my kids will end up being wrestlers,
but I cannot think of a better sport to teach
them like toughness and perseverance and being able to work
through uncomfortable situations. So I encourage anybody out there, if
you've got little kids, like throw them in your local
little wrestling class. It's been so good for my boys
building confidence. It's not just about the struggles either. I've
seen them take huge leaps of confidence, especially if the
boys aren't like naturally like my boys are kind of
long and skinny, and so they lose at this stage.
If they advance, you know, then they're gonna have the
leverage advantage. But like at this stage, kind of the
more muscly stout built kid, naturally built kids tend to
do better, and so my boys kind of take their lesson,
but they come back the next day and fight all
this anyway, it's all great stuff. So that's what our
family's doing, and obviously just gearing up for the holiday season.
Spend some good time with the fam. Watched the coops
take care of the yellow jackets. We were I mean,
that was such a smart play to go in the
Pop Tart Bowl because we were so tempted to go
down there, like I'm sure a big portion of Cougar
Nation was his book our Disney World trip along with
the ball game trip. But my wife, my wife decided
we're not quite there. We're not quite old enough right
at eight six board two. That's an adventure that's maybe
a little bit beyond our scope. But just planning to
hunker down this holiday season and enjoy time with the
family and enjoy Cougars. Oh. By the way, Ben, speaking
of enjoying the Cougars, shout out to the basketball team.
That was incredible one day. I know I'm not a
basketball guy, but maybe rather than ranting about the economics
of college football, I'd love to just give my flowers
to this basketball team do They are special? Not only
like talented, but the roster construction is like something we've
never seen. And then Bro, when your best player as
a dog who's willing to do it on both ends
of the floor and he wants those big moments anyway,
hoops is awesome. World's pretty good man. Thanks so much
for having me on today.
Speaker 2: Riley, love and appreciate you. A renaissance man. You're a
man after my own heart. I've already looked at gab
phones for my four year old and two year old.
I'm like, I'm never giving them a smartphone. Bro. We
could go on for days about certain philosophy. Let's go, baby.
I love you, and I invite everyone to connect with
you on LinkedIn. Nobody does it better. Riley Nelson love it.
Appreciate you buddy, Thanks so much.
Speaker 4: Ben.
Speaker 2: There you go, the lesher shared Lefty. We'll go to break, guys.
But tis the season to be giving, guys, and I
would like to invite you to give, if you have
the means, help those that are in need right now
at the road home this holiday season with much needed blankets, coats, shoes,
hats and gloves. Drop off donations at any Rocky Mountain
Chevy dealer. Visit espnfan dot com for dealership locations. Spread
the warmth and help others find their way home. Let's
go to break. Coming up next, Welcome in a special guest,
a friend of mine, a friend of the BYU athletics program.
He's been a donor, he's been a CFO for Apex.
Now Vivin, a CEO of Newvie. Entrepreneur Keith Nelson joining
us next. I want to get his thoughts on this
private equity deal. What it means for college athletics, what
it means for the University of Uta athletics from a
financial standpoint. What does he see, what is he like?
What does he dislike about this deal that coming up next?
Keith Nelson, This is Cougar Sports on one of three
nine ninety eight point three