Speaker 1: See the Allison Chains has aged fine, you know, excuse me,
Speaker 1: I'm not speaking for the entire catalog. Matt Brown might
Speaker 1: be close to my age. I think I'm older than Matt.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm older than Matt. But you know
Speaker 1: what this, it feels like your dad at some point
Speaker 1: may have gone through at Allison Chains phase.
Speaker 2: Is that? Is that fair?
Speaker 3: They were in there for sure. He was like the
Speaker 3: more early eighties hair metal, and then there was a
Speaker 3: bunch of bands that tried to like keep that going
Speaker 3: kind of as the grunge and alternative thing kind of
Speaker 3: blew up, so that they were in there for sure.
Speaker 1: Let's ask our guy, Matt Brown. I'm guessing Matt that
Speaker 1: I'm older than you. But my producer, Porter, who I love,
Speaker 1: is a child. He is a young and so he
Speaker 1: asked me. Yeah, he asked me a very fair and
Speaker 1: honest question. I was very introspective. How has the music
Speaker 1: that I loved from the nineties aged?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 2: How would you answer that question?
Speaker 5: Matt? Oh that that's a really that's a really good question.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know if much of it has aged
Speaker 5: all that well. It's funny I was having this exact
Speaker 5: same conversation with my wife a couple of days ago,
Speaker 5: like one of the commercially biggest bands of the nineties
Speaker 5: was Blues Traveler. Yeah, who's like now doomed to play
Speaker 5: like the Canton, Ohio State Fair circuit and if you
Speaker 5: play run around I think on the radio and I
Speaker 5: were like, what is this? What am I doing? I mean,
Speaker 5: there's a couple of bands that are going to be
Speaker 5: on the Classic Rocks, you know, circuit for our grandkids.
Speaker 5: But I think there's a lot more tumblewombas in there
Speaker 5: than maybe we might care to admit.
Speaker 2: Blues Traveler.
Speaker 1: As Porter points out as an excellent example, because Matt
Speaker 1: I am old enough to remember nineteen ninety four, I
Speaker 1: was at a music festival where Blues Traveler was the
Speaker 1: open excuse me, the closing act at a festival have
Speaker 1: included Fish and Dave Matthews band Blues Traveler was the closer.
Speaker 5: I am almost positive I went to a concert where
Speaker 5: Dave Matthews opened for Blues Traveler and not the other
Speaker 5: way around.
Speaker 1: That sounds right, Yeah, it was horror festival, that's right.
Speaker 1: It was Fish, Blues Traveler, widespread panic and Blues Traveler
Speaker 1: was the main act that. That is an excellent one,
Speaker 1: my friend. I'll give you a lot of credit for
Speaker 1: that one. That's a good one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I I'll have to think about this a little
Speaker 5: bit more. I mean, like, there's there's some classics there,
Speaker 5: there are some bands that went to the Hall of Fame,
Speaker 5: but there was a lot of forgettable moments. I mean,
Speaker 5: people forget this. But if you were around in the
Speaker 5: nineties and early two thousands for like nine months, and
Speaker 5: I'm guessing in Utah was probably a little bit longer
Speaker 5: than nine months, Like swing music inexplicably became extraordinarily popular. Yep,
Speaker 5: they let they let Big Bag Voodoo Daddy play the
Speaker 5: Super Bowl. Everyone just got watched Swingers and had a
Speaker 5: collective panic attack.
Speaker 1: That's what it was. These things happened, That's that's what
Speaker 1: it was. It was the Swingers Call and kid. Swingers
Speaker 1: is a movie with Vince Vaughan. Okay, everybody, calm down, Okay,
Speaker 1: just get your heads out of the gutter. Great movie,
Speaker 1: but that ultimately launched the Big Bag Voodoo Daddy's ex pull.
Speaker 1: Now you're on fire today already, Well.
Speaker 5: I listen. I may or may not have been somebody
Speaker 5: who was swept into that too, right, because if you know,
Speaker 5: if you're like one of the nine LDS kids in Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 5: and you're like, oh, I will for some inexplicable reason,
Speaker 5: I already learned how to swing dance and after on
Speaker 5: Wednesday Night mutual.
Speaker 4: Now I can.
Speaker 5: Finally participate in popular culture and that poof it's gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were yep, remembered it, two LDS kids in
Speaker 1: my high school, me and my sister, and so I
Speaker 1: was able to introduce a lot of my classmates to
Speaker 1: the Lion King soundtrack and the Saturday's Warrior soundtrack.
Speaker 2: Now that was my addition to the music scene.
Speaker 5: Sure, sure, yeah, I know it's amazing that we weren't
Speaker 5: more popular if your kids, oh.
Speaker 1: Well said speaking of the LDS folk and our friends
Speaker 1: down south. Tom Homo has announced that after twenty years
Speaker 1: on the job, Matt he is electing to find something
Speaker 1: else to do with his time. And I've got to
Speaker 1: say I've often said this, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: being the athletic director at by U is the heart
Speaker 1: hardiest job in college athletics administration, but it's a it's
Speaker 1: among the hardest jobs.
Speaker 2: I Mean, look, as you.
Speaker 1: Know, you have to align with the institution while running
Speaker 1: a department that is probably least naturally aligned with what
Speaker 1: BYU is as a university. I think Tom did a
Speaker 1: remarkable job. He has earned his flowers on the way
Speaker 1: out the door. So your thoughts on the news that
Speaker 1: Tom is stepping down and who do you think BYU
Speaker 1: looks at now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny I wrote about this. I think I
Speaker 5: think earlier this week that I the longer I do
Speaker 5: this job, the more hesitant I am to publicly proclaim
Speaker 5: somebody to be a good athletic director, because I feel
Speaker 5: like I've been burned by this a couple of times,
Speaker 5: and like, oh, this guy made a couple of good
Speaker 5: hires and he returns my phone calls he must be
Speaker 5: a good ad, and then he ends up like a
Speaker 5: gigantic scandal, like six months after he gets the plaque
Speaker 5: at NACTA. And so I tend to try to, you know,
Speaker 5: be hesitant about that. But I'll say it on the radio.
Speaker 5: I said it in print. I think I think Tom
Speaker 5: was excellent, and I think he was excellent for a
Speaker 5: lot of the reasons that you just mentioned, Like he
Speaker 5: didn't just do the things that we can commonly associate
Speaker 5: with ads making good hires, which at EYU is hard
Speaker 5: raising money, you know, building a culture that develops other
Speaker 5: coaches and other administrators. But one of the things that
Speaker 5: I really admire about him, besides the fact that I
Speaker 5: think he's like legitimately good human being, is I think
Speaker 5: it was really important to him about to to find
Speaker 5: ways to make BYU Athletics to be a front porch
Speaker 5: that made that was accessible to everybody, even if those
Speaker 5: people might have had complicated feelings about the sponsoring institution
Speaker 5: or didn't want to sign up for maybe everything else
Speaker 5: that comes with with with YU fanhood. Right, Tom is
Speaker 5: not a ninth generation Pioneers Science Camp person. He's a convert.
Speaker 5: He's in charge of the department, which I think is
Speaker 5: inarguably the most diverse and least LDS part of the
Speaker 5: church education system, and has to learn how to speak
Speaker 5: the language that maybe comes a little bit more naturally
Speaker 5: to people like you and I, and I think I
Speaker 5: think he did a great job. It's very difficult to
Speaker 5: navigate conference realignment. It's difficult to operate a methodic department
Speaker 5: where their resources don't match fan expectations. And I think
Speaker 5: that was true for BYU for a long time and
Speaker 5: to do all that and to still have almost everybody
Speaker 5: that knows you and has worked with you, and even
Speaker 5: if they're not from the state, say you're a good person.
Speaker 5: That's rare. And I think as somebody who just who
Speaker 5: cares about this industry, like not because I care about BYU,
Speaker 5: like specifically when we're another I'm sad he's gone because
Speaker 5: I think there's some really difficult or leaving Like he's
Speaker 5: not dead, but he's he's leaving this industry because there's
Speaker 5: some really difficult questions that I think would benefit from
Speaker 5: good human beings. I think Tom is one of those
Speaker 5: good human beings.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and he's always been good to
Speaker 1: me and the opportunities I've had to interview him and
Speaker 1: off the air as well. So I think BYU lost
Speaker 1: a good one. So during the press conference to announce
Speaker 1: it was very reverend. It was a very reverend press
Speaker 1: conference to announce that that Tom was stepping down the
Speaker 1: president of BYU, Shane Rees. See Shane Rees gott to
Speaker 1: have the sea you know this matter, you got to
Speaker 1: have the see president c. Shane Rees went over his
Speaker 1: list of you know kind of criteria for who he
Speaker 1: would look at next for Tom and it was the
Speaker 1: standard bring him young answer that you would expect to
Speaker 1: align with the institution, even said, you know, he's got
Speaker 1: to lead with Jesus in mind. You know the things
Speaker 1: that they say, and it leads to the question, who
Speaker 1: do you think they look at next? You think it's
Speaker 1: in house. President Rees said it was going to be
Speaker 1: a national search. Who do you think they land out?
Speaker 1: Give me give me your thoughts there, Matt.
Speaker 5: So, I'm told it is a national search. And I
Speaker 5: could be wrong here, but this is the first time
Speaker 5: that I can recall since I've been doing this professionally
Speaker 5: that BYU has retained the services of like a third
Speaker 5: party search firm. Normally you don't need to do that
Speaker 5: because you and I could sit down here and I
Speaker 5: was like, there's only six LDS coaches, right, we can
Speaker 5: figure out who the list is is. It's not rocket science,
Speaker 5: And it's true there's not a lot of people that
Speaker 5: have the college athletics industry experience and presumably a Temple
Speaker 5: recommend right, I want to say there's five, maybe six
Speaker 5: sitting Division one ads who are LDS and for a
Speaker 5: variety of reasons, be that age, your personal preference. Most
Speaker 5: of them are not going to be candidates for this role.
Speaker 5: I think there's three really excellent, very capable people, at
Speaker 5: least three, maybe more everybody at b YU, but at
Speaker 5: least three capable internal people who could do this job.
Speaker 5: But the fact that they're working with an outside firm
Speaker 5: makes me think that BYU is going to seriously consider
Speaker 5: a lot of folks who are not currently working in
Speaker 5: college athletics. The Marriott School of Business is good for
Speaker 5: a lot of things. There's a whole bunch of CEOs
Speaker 5: out there, a whole lot of attorneys that have worked
Speaker 5: in the entertainment industry in some capacity. B what you've
Speaker 5: done this before. I would be pretty surprised if the
Speaker 5: AD is not either, you know, one of one of
Speaker 5: the two or three people that are currently on staff.
Speaker 5: Like if it's not somebody that's already in the athletic department,
Speaker 5: I think it's going to be somebody that most people
Speaker 5: listening to this have never heard of. Because it's not
Speaker 5: going to be a senior associate, a d at Kentucky
Speaker 5: or the number three of Utah or anything like this.
Speaker 5: This is the kind of world where I think they're
Speaker 5: going to look at you know who am I Jet
Speaker 5: blues because this role is changing so much, right it's
Speaker 5: not as much about hiring the best baseball coach as
Speaker 5: it is now navigating some really complicated business and legal realities.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly where I wanted to go next, because
Speaker 1: this is a job that is a different ask than
Speaker 1: it was twenty years ago. And yeah, you know, you
Speaker 1: could go over a litany the guy who I think
Speaker 1: they I don't know if Brian Rolapp answers the phone
Speaker 1: because he's the CEO of the National Football League. He
Speaker 1: essentially is Goodell's number two. I think if Rolapp stays
Speaker 1: with the NFL, he's going to be the next commissioner,
Speaker 1: And therefore I don't know that he even interviews for it.
Speaker 1: But he is a BYU grad, He's a Harvard MBA.
Speaker 1: I've met him a number of times. You've had him
Speaker 1: on the show. He is a dynamic pro and he's
Speaker 1: a really smart dude. He is kind of credited by
Speaker 1: you know for essentially leading the NFL to where they're
Speaker 1: at right now with their myriad of revenue streams based
Speaker 1: off their broadcast deals. But this is a long and
Speaker 1: complicated way of me asking you a simple question, which is,
Speaker 1: how has the changing dynamic and landscape of collegiate athletics,
Speaker 1: namely college football, changed the ask for what this job
Speaker 1: is now.
Speaker 5: Well, and I would say that the I think the
Speaker 5: ask for being the ad at BYU is different than
Speaker 5: being the AD at Utah, although both of those jobs
Speaker 5: have changed very significantly over the last five or six years,
Speaker 5: in part because of some of the changing finances. Right,
Speaker 5: you know, DYU is I understand it is not a
Speaker 5: place where you're going to be able to, you know,
Speaker 5: permitted to habitually deficit spend. You're going to have to
Speaker 5: bring in revenues that match what do you want to
Speaker 5: be able to to spend, and that means you're going
Speaker 5: to need somebody who is dynamic about finding new money
Speaker 5: in a way that aligns with church principles that that
Speaker 5: you know, you're not going to be able to make
Speaker 5: come up with an extra fifty million dollars through selling
Speaker 5: data rights to gambling companies, which is something that a
Speaker 5: few other major conferences have kicked the tires on or
Speaker 5: or deeper. You know, MMR deals with with with with
Speaker 5: with beer or something. So whether that's getting even even
Speaker 5: more creative about earned revenue from sponsorships, whether that's potentially.
Speaker 6: Playing more games or other games outside of of the
Speaker 6: United States, and trying to engage globally, whether that's that's
Speaker 6: doing different things at by U TV, all that kind
Speaker 6: of stuff's on the table.
Speaker 5: But there's also almost a government affairs and legal component
Speaker 5: to all of this.
Speaker 4: Right, everybody who's an AD now has the responsibility to
Speaker 4: comply with Title nine, and that is much more complicated
Speaker 4: now than it was two weeks ago, and certainly and
Speaker 4: two years before.
Speaker 5: You know, before then, you have various reporting responsibilities with
Speaker 5: the Department of Education, which may or may not continue
Speaker 5: to exist. Your athletes may or may not be employees
Speaker 5: in three or four years. You're being sued six ways
Speaker 5: from Sunday as part of the NCAA. If you're a
Speaker 5: Big twelve athletic director or university president, you have to
Speaker 5: be worried that the big tenant SEC aren't going to
Speaker 5: try to muscle you out of big time college sports.
Speaker 5: So this is a job that's not just about hiring
Speaker 5: and training and running successful athletic programs, and it's not
Speaker 5: just a sales job. I think it's a little bit
Speaker 5: of a lobbying job, it's a little bit of a
Speaker 5: lawyer job. It's certainly some backchannel political diplomacy kind of job.
Speaker 5: And then at BYU you're also a very public ambassador
Speaker 5: for the church. This is not a place where you
Speaker 5: can get photographed on a fundraising visit in a bar,
Speaker 5: even if you're not drinking, even if you're not doing
Speaker 5: anything wrong, because there's going to be pressures here that
Speaker 5: are just not a thing that you have to deal
Speaker 5: with at Utah or with the Philadelphia Eagles at the
Speaker 5: Phoenix Suns. And that's not necessarily a criticism, that's that's
Speaker 5: just the reality of the gig.
Speaker 1: So I had I had breakfast with a gentleman about
Speaker 1: three months ago who is a pretty heavy hitter in
Speaker 1: our market, and we discussed the dynamic of, you know,
Speaker 1: where the schools are at locally with their collectives, and
Speaker 1: he told me that his understanding is bringing me on
Speaker 1: right now has nine seven figure donors, while the University
Speaker 1: of Utaon only has two. Now that was about three
Speaker 1: or four months ago. I don't know what's changed, but
Speaker 1: do you have a grasp or an accurate understanding on
Speaker 1: just how that collective down in Provo is doing. It
Speaker 1: seems like it's very healthy. They signed the number one
Speaker 1: player in college basketball next year. According to what I've
Speaker 1: been told, both Yegor Demon and Cannon Catchings are seven
Speaker 1: figure kids. I don't know how much of the support
Speaker 1: Kalani gets on the football side that Kevin gets on
Speaker 1: the basketball side, but the football team was really good
Speaker 1: this year. Do you have an accurate understanding of just
Speaker 1: exactly where they're at down there with their finances?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's hard because so many of these things
Speaker 5: get you know, cut through telephone, and it's the private
Speaker 5: institutions and you don't have to You don't get the
Speaker 5: same stuff you do from the irs as you might
Speaker 5: for other places. The folks that I trust has said, Hey,
Speaker 5: you know, there's this kind of meme around the internet
Speaker 5: that b what you use basketball budget is just from
Speaker 5: the youth, It's just just from Ryan Smith. And that
Speaker 5: isn't true. Whether it's nine seven big donors or four
Speaker 5: big donors or six big donors, I don't know the
Speaker 5: exact number, but I know it's multiple people and my
Speaker 5: understanding and I think we've said this on the year
Speaker 5: before here too, and that hasn't changed. Is the amount
Speaker 5: of money and the kind of major financial commitments coming
Speaker 5: to be what you basketball are not the same that
Speaker 5: are coming into be WHATU football. And part of that
Speaker 5: I think is just a business decision. You can drop
Speaker 5: seven figures on one basketball player and that can be
Speaker 5: the difference between playing in Dayton and playing in the
Speaker 5: Sweet sixteen. You could put seven figures in the one
Speaker 5: football player and you've changed nothing. You really can't overspend
Speaker 5: on four or five guys. You need fifty five guys
Speaker 5: to be a really, really effective team. And I think
Speaker 5: the rules for roster management in football, especially at a
Speaker 5: place like BYU, are always going to be very different.
Speaker 5: So it probably does make more financial sense to make
Speaker 5: a bigger splash for basketball. I hope that you can
Speaker 5: win sixty five percent of your games in conference. I
Speaker 5: can't speak to where the elite heavy hitter donor activity
Speaker 5: is happening in Utah. I think that that was a
Speaker 5: school that did a really good job of engaging their
Speaker 5: corporate community, did a really good job of engaging some
Speaker 5: of their donors who are maybe not dropping seven figures,
Speaker 5: but are comfortable dropping high five figures. And you need
Speaker 5: a lot of those two I think maybe if there
Speaker 5: are some either a basketball head coaching change or a
Speaker 5: reason for more of the basketball folks to get a
Speaker 5: little bit more engaged, or some other kind of big
Speaker 5: news on the football side, I wouldn't be surprised to
Speaker 5: see more of that money coming back out. It's very
Speaker 5: hard for almost anybody, if you're not Ohio State, to
Speaker 5: get the same twelve people to write you big checks
Speaker 5: every single year. There's gonna be years when you're just
Speaker 5: going to financially go for it, and there's probably gonna
Speaker 5: be years when you don't. And that's going to be
Speaker 5: true for most P four programs.
Speaker 1: All right, So moving off of BYU, but staying in
Speaker 1: the space, and thank you for doing this. If I
Speaker 1: could quote Kendrick Lamar, not like us, because there's no
Speaker 1: way I would dig through dozens and dozens of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three nil collective nine nineties.
Speaker 2: But Matt, you did that. So what did you learn
Speaker 2: through this exercise?
Speaker 1: You know you can go whatever direction you want, just
Speaker 1: kind of a big picture question. You wrote on this
Speaker 1: just a few days ago, and you know you learned
Speaker 1: about how these collectives grew or shrank to your point,
Speaker 1: and how they're paying athletes. It is a topic that
Speaker 1: all college athletic fans are interested in. What did you
Speaker 1: learn as you kind of undertook this exercise.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so for those for folks that are listening
Speaker 5: here right. An NIL collective can be set up as
Speaker 5: a nonprofit or a for profit or not for profit.
Speaker 5: And if you're a nonprofit, if you're a five o'
Speaker 5: one C three, you have to file at nine to ninety,
Speaker 5: which is a form that any any reporter or any
Speaker 5: JOQ public person can examine where you have to declare
Speaker 5: how much money you brought in and where you spent
Speaker 5: a lot of it and who you're paying. One of
Speaker 5: Utah's main collective for fiscal year twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 5: Crimson Collective, was one of those nonprofits. They told the
Speaker 5: i r S that they brought in a little over
Speaker 5: five and a half million dollars, which was on the
Speaker 5: higher end of the collectives that we examined over the
Speaker 5: course of the year. I think that the largest one
Speaker 5: from fiscal year twenty three was Notre Dames that that
Speaker 5: was well into the eight figures. That doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 5: that five and a half million dollars was all of
Speaker 5: Utah's budget, right, there's going to be commercial deals and
Speaker 5: activities or other collective activities, our individual athlete deals that
Speaker 5: have nothing that don't show up there. But I think
Speaker 5: this was an interesting snapshot because for a while it
Speaker 5: seemed like that was the future. Everyone's going to have
Speaker 5: a five to one seats free collective. People could donate
Speaker 5: to it and and and write that off their taxes,
Speaker 5: and that was going to be the most efficient way.
Speaker 5: The i R s on multiple times has has has
Speaker 5: questioned that distinction. More and more of these groups are dissolving.
Speaker 5: Some of them are dissolving just because the collectives in
Speaker 5: general are going to be less powerful in the post
Speaker 5: house settlement era. So I don't I don't think this
Speaker 5: is the future anymore. But you know, from what we
Speaker 5: were able to see, you could see, Hey, this this
Speaker 5: Utah was able to raise more money than than many
Speaker 5: other similar programs, Like it was a bigger fund than
Speaker 5: Washington's main collective. It was. It was a bigger fund
Speaker 5: than what Purdue was reporting. It was. It was bigger
Speaker 5: than what some of the other schools in the Big
Speaker 5: twelve are reporting, which which speaks to some of that
Speaker 5: donor activity.
Speaker 2: All Right, excuse me.
Speaker 1: Moving over to a story you and I talked about
Speaker 1: when the Biden administration they handed down the Title nine guidance,
Speaker 1: which at the time indicated nil payments would follow under
Speaker 1: the Title nine guidelines. And you were kind of the
Speaker 1: first guest we had on the show to talk about
Speaker 1: the potential roll back once the Trump administration took over.
Speaker 1: And it's not just that, is it. It's the rescinding
Speaker 1: the National Lation National Labor Relations Memorandum viewing college athletes
Speaker 1: as employees. And then there's the Title nine stuff as
Speaker 1: well that's been rolled back. So walk us through this.
Speaker 1: What does it mean? What do we need to know
Speaker 1: about this map?
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's try to translate this into like non policy
Speaker 5: dorc language here. Right right before the Biden administration left
Speaker 5: the White House, their Department of Education put out a
Speaker 5: memo that said, hey, you know, based on this case law,
Speaker 5: based on how Title nine has traditionally been interpreted, we
Speaker 5: believe that the House Settlement revenue sharing needs to be
Speaker 5: split the same way that scholarship money is distributed. You
Speaker 5: have to comply with Title nine for this particular thing,
Speaker 5: which is very significant because almost every school, and I'm
Speaker 5: sure including the schools in this market, we're planning on
Speaker 5: distributing you know, eighty five plus percent of their you know,
Speaker 5: direct direct payments to football, men's basketball, maybe women's basketball,
Speaker 5: but certainly not anything resembling a fifty to fifty or
Speaker 5: fifty three to forty seven split. You know, the industry
Speaker 5: perception and expectation was, I think the Trump White House
Speaker 5: is going to roll this back, which is exactly what happens.
Speaker 5: But I think not to get like partisan here, it
Speaker 5: just still creates a sense of uncertainty and challenge if
Speaker 5: you're an athletic administrator right now. One of the reasons
Speaker 5: is that historically the federal government arm that investigates Title
Speaker 5: nine is out of the Department of Education, with the
Speaker 5: Office of Civil Rights within there. And the Trump administration
Speaker 5: wants to get rid of the Department of Education, and
Speaker 5: if not completely, then then to gut it so much
Speaker 5: that I can't handle most of its responsibilities. And that
Speaker 5: this isn't me as like a crazy live saying this
Speaker 5: like that's that's what they said they wanted to do
Speaker 5: as part of their government restructuring. So I mean, it
Speaker 5: isn't really clear whether that responsibility goes to the Department
Speaker 5: of Justice if it goes away entirely, if it goes
Speaker 5: to somebody else, and and that that's true for other
Speaker 5: similar Title nine reporting. So part of the challenge right
Speaker 5: now if you're a school isn't just how do I
Speaker 5: protect myself from being sued or losing a lawsuit when
Speaker 5: I set up this house settlement money, but how do
Speaker 5: I set myself up for long term compliance? And also
Speaker 5: how do I set myself up for long term compliance
Speaker 5: in case, you know, Democrats come back in the White
Speaker 5: House in four years and bring a bunch of this
Speaker 5: stuff back. Do I want to be able to go
Speaker 5: into a lawsuit and then realize that I haven't been
Speaker 5: keeping receipts for a while?
Speaker 7: Like there's there's there's a lot of concern because the
Speaker 7: speed and the somewhat randomness of the federal government cutbacks
Speaker 7: and reorganizations.
Speaker 5: Is faster than what people understand. How to comply with
Speaker 5: any of those rules are so long answer to say,
Speaker 5: people are confused, and they're probably going to be confused
Speaker 5: for a few more weeks.
Speaker 1: So moving over into this space, while kind of staying
Speaker 1: in the same general area, you were one of the
Speaker 1: first that I heard say that you are now skeptical
Speaker 1: that college football will eventually land on this pro model
Speaker 1: that we've all pontificated on for a number of years,
Speaker 1: and very smart college football media members like yourself right
Speaker 1: about all the time. And you know that was prior
Speaker 1: to the new administration taking over, and you articulated why
Speaker 1: you were a little bit skeptical that we were going
Speaker 1: to fall into this model even though a lot of
Speaker 1: people believe it is an eventuality. Let's revisit it now
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration is in the White House. Are
Speaker 1: you still in that space where you're not sure that
Speaker 1: this pro model is the eventual place where this plane
Speaker 1: will land or have you kind of change your stance there?
Speaker 5: No, I think where I am right now is very uncertain.
Speaker 5: I completely understand the it's inevitable argument, and a lot
Speaker 5: of that centers on not the White House and not
Speaker 5: Congress necessarily, but the courts system, where a world where
Speaker 5: you are directly distributing revenued athletes and what they are
Speaker 5: doing and practice resembles an employment relationship. More and more
Speaker 5: that that that courts would eventually rule that big time
Speaker 5: football players and big time basketball players are employees and
Speaker 5: have to be treated as such, and and in a
Speaker 5: divide to Congress, there isn't really the ability to pass
Speaker 5: the law to prevent that. But where we are right
Speaker 5: now is one a world where so much of the
Speaker 5: kind of administrative law and precedent around labor relations it's
Speaker 5: being thrown out the window. We've gone here and in
Speaker 5: four months from the National Labor Relations Board ruling in
Speaker 5: favor of athlete unionization too, they're legitimately not potentially not
Speaker 5: being a National Labor Relations board at all. Uh, there's
Speaker 5: there's a there's a real chance this Supreme Court might
Speaker 5: decide it's unconstitutional. Uh, they've already fired all the people
Speaker 5: that that that said that that were ruling in favor
Speaker 5: of the college athletes to begin with. We're also moving
Speaker 5: towards the world here where Republicans have unified control of
Speaker 5: of of the legislature. And the guy that's most invested
Speaker 5: in college sports right now, and and who's going to
Speaker 5: lead a committee is Ted Cruz. And Ted Cruz is
Speaker 5: already signaled, hey, I am I'm broadly sympathetic to to
Speaker 5: college sports concerns right now, I'm not exactly a friend
Speaker 5: of organized labor. Whether he grants the NC double a
Speaker 5: and outright anti trust exemption or or something different. The
Speaker 5: idea that Congress can just step up and say, I
Speaker 5: don't care what the court say new law, college athletes
Speaker 5: aren't employees is a legitimate possibility right now. And you
Speaker 5: might go, ah, but I won't do that because that's
Speaker 5: not very free market of them, Like come on, have
Speaker 5: you met Tommy Tuberville like that? That's that's not the point.
Speaker 5: This isn't about ideology anymore, right Like, this is about
Speaker 5: whether guys that don't follow college sports very close they
Speaker 5: are reading the tea leaves and think that there's going
Speaker 5: to be enough you know, fan resentment on the nil
Speaker 5: era to try to slam the door on some of
Speaker 5: this stuff. So I don't want to say that that's
Speaker 5: that's absolutely going to happen. But I think any attorney,
Speaker 5: any athlete, labor rights advocate, any athletic director that's not
Speaker 5: willing to grapple with the actual political reality right now,
Speaker 5: it has their head in his hand. It's such a
Speaker 5: different world than it was six months ago. And you
Speaker 5: just simply cannot rely on on on task, precedent and
Speaker 5: previous institutions to rule a particular way anymore.
Speaker 1: Dovetails are to the final question for today for the
Speaker 1: second time in form, the power brokers from the SEC
Speaker 1: and the Big Ten are getting together to discuss what
Speaker 1: they want this entire thing to look like moving forward.
Speaker 1: They'll discuss the house for NCAA settlement, future governance, and
Speaker 1: then of course the CFP format, scheduling, partners ships and such.
Speaker 2: We're in the Big twelve footprints.
Speaker 1: What do you make of this continued momentum moving in
Speaker 1: the direction of those two conferences essentially calling all the shots.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think if I was a fan of a
Speaker 5: Big twelve institution, I'd be deeply concerned about this because
Speaker 5: I don't know if there's a really effective way that
Speaker 5: the Big twelve and ACC can can fight some of
Speaker 5: these changes. The idea that, hey, the last college football
Speaker 5: playoff format was built around a conference alignment world that
Speaker 5: doesn't exist anymore, I think that has some merit, and
Speaker 5: I don't think the Big Ten and the SEC demanding
Speaker 5: multiple automatic bids has any merit. I think that that's
Speaker 5: terrible and honestly anti American, But they have the leverage
Speaker 5: to potential push for some of those things, so and
Speaker 5: I think that would be absolutely terrible for for for
Speaker 5: this conference. The more spots that are locked up by
Speaker 5: these bigger these bigger brands, it's not going to free
Speaker 5: up more space for you guys. It's gonna it's going
Speaker 5: to create a path to help them get seven and
Speaker 5: nobody in this league for football recruits and anywhere close
Speaker 5: to the championship caliber level to compete with the Ohio
Speaker 5: States or Organs on a year and year out basis.
Speaker 5: So this is I would consider this a borderline existential threat.
Speaker 5: I don't I can't sit here on the radio and
Speaker 5: tell you I know exactly how this is going to
Speaker 5: go or whether they're going to be successful in twenty
Speaker 5: sixteen or successful a little bit later on. But this
Speaker 5: is a concern that I think really needs to animate,
Speaker 5: not just Big twelve and ACC athletic directors, but university
Speaker 5: presidents and their attorneys. All.
Speaker 1: Right, man, Where can people go find all that work
Speaker 1: that ultimately allows you to talk for twenty minutes about
Speaker 1: things and none of us fully understand.
Speaker 5: You can find the Extra Points newsletter at extra points
Speaker 5: mb dot com. I have a story coming out tomorrow
Speaker 5: about changes in the video game group licensing space, which
Speaker 5: I understand are of interest too. Many fans. I've also
Speaker 5: got some original reporting coming on in a day or
Speaker 5: two about the US Soccer Federation potentially trying to take
Speaker 5: over college soccer, and more about what's happening here in
Speaker 5: New Orleans. To find it at Extra Points MD dot com.
Speaker 5: You can find me on the internet at Matt BROWNEP.
Speaker 2: You're the man, Matt. Thanks for the time, buddy. We'll
Speaker 2: chat soon.
Speaker 5: Okay, always my pleasure. Be well friends.
Speaker 1: All Right, Matt Brown, I'm telling you it is the
Speaker 1: best college football newsletter if you're trying to understand the
Speaker 1: landscape and the business of what's happening. I read it
Speaker 1: every time you post one. At Matt BROWNEP is where
Speaker 1: you find them.