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POTB 530: A mid-summer check-in with Zach Osterman · Podcast on the Brink

0:16
Speaker 1: Welcome back to a new episode of Podcast on the
0:20
Speaker 1: Brink Friday, July eleventh, our first podcast in quite a while.
0:28
Speaker 1: Not a lot has gone on and Who's Your Nation
0:31
Speaker 1: the last month and a half, but various things have
0:35
Speaker 1: gone on, and to help us make sense of some
0:37
Speaker 1: of those things to talk about it, Zach Osterman, our
0:40
Speaker 1: good friend of the Indianapolis Star, is back on a
0:45
Speaker 1: podcast on the Brink. Zach, how are you doing on
0:48
Speaker 1: this beautiful Friday afternoon in July.
0:52
Speaker 2: I was panicked when I realized the mute button was
0:54
Speaker 2: a little bit different. I thought it wasn't gonna find
0:56
Speaker 2: it in time. It's eighty seventy degrees outside, and when
1:00
Speaker 2: we're done here, I got to go cut my grass.
1:02
Speaker 2: So I'm guessing this is going to be a much
1:04
Speaker 2: more enjoyable, much more enjoyable experience than what comes after.
1:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's really no good time a day at
1:12
Speaker 1: this point of the year to cut the grass. I
1:14
Speaker 1: figured that out the other morning, went out around seven
1:16
Speaker 1: forty five. I thought I could beat the heat a
1:18
Speaker 1: little bit. Neighbors maybe didn't like it, but I was
1:20
Speaker 1: trying to beat the heat. And it was nine thirty
1:22
Speaker 1: when I was done. It was already steamy and human
1:26
Speaker 1: out there, so no good time. Definitely been a hot summer.
1:30
Speaker 1: But Zach, you know, there's there's been a lot obviously
1:33
Speaker 1: with AU basketball the last well, it's been a busy offseason.
1:37
Speaker 1: But since we were last had an episode, obviously, Indiana
1:43
Speaker 1: picks up a commitment from Alexa Reestitch, which the Serbian guard.
1:48
Speaker 1: They've they've got a commitment now from twenty twenty six
1:51
Speaker 1: guard Prince Alexander Moody. But I wanted to start with
1:55
Speaker 1: just a roster for next season right now, Indiana at
1:58
Speaker 1: twelve players, and my understanding is Anthony Leele going to
2:03
Speaker 1: be moving on? Obviously his waiver situation was a bit
2:08
Speaker 1: of a long shot to begin with, but still seems
2:11
Speaker 1: like Luke Goody's floating around out there as a potential
2:14
Speaker 1: addition to next season's roster. But as the later we
2:17
Speaker 1: get into summer with Indiana's tour our trip to Puerto
2:22
Speaker 1: Rico less than a month away. Now, what have you heard?
2:26
Speaker 1: Where where do things stand with with Goodie? Is there
2:29
Speaker 1: any update? Have you heard anything? Do you feel like
2:32
Speaker 1: there's a timeframe where we may know something in terms
2:35
Speaker 1: of his status for next season?
2:37
Speaker 2: No. I mean, to be honest, I'm I'm surprised that
2:40
Speaker 2: we've gotten this deep into the summer and not heard anything.
2:43
Speaker 2: And I know that. You know, Darren DeVries kind of
2:47
Speaker 2: pointed out when we all huddled with him at Huber
2:49
Speaker 2: that there are a lot more of these requests this year.
2:54
Speaker 2: And it's worth pointing out too, there's quite a lot
2:56
Speaker 2: of turnover at the NCAA right now as we kind
2:59
Speaker 2: of face. He's in a lot of these new structures
3:02
Speaker 2: around the nil clearinghouse, and you're seeing a lot of
3:04
Speaker 2: sort of longtime administrators stepping back and retiring maybe allah
3:10
Speaker 2: what we've seen with some college coaches frankly in the
3:12
Speaker 2: last few years that said, I mean for it to
3:15
Speaker 2: be July eleventh and a player who I think, you know,
3:19
Speaker 2: there were a lot of players that kind of put
3:20
Speaker 2: in these waivers just basically seeing if like they could
3:24
Speaker 2: get them because the NCAA just didn't have an appet
3:28
Speaker 2: to tell anyone. Know. I think goodies in a different case,
3:31
Speaker 2: because I think there is at least an argument that
3:34
Speaker 2: he should get the year back. I mean, I understand
3:36
Speaker 2: the rules are written the way they are. I think
3:38
Speaker 2: you can argue, especially in the modern context that those
3:43
Speaker 2: rules are probably a little bit arbitrary and and what
3:46
Speaker 2: specifically is holding Goodie back from getting sort of just
3:50
Speaker 2: automatically getting one of his years back is kind of arbitrary.
3:55
Speaker 2: And so for it for it to be July eleventh
3:58
Speaker 2: and him not him, to still be waiting for an
4:01
Speaker 2: answer is surprising to me. I don't know, you know,
4:05
Speaker 2: I don't know if that, I don't know if I
4:10
Speaker 2: don't know if any timetable has been communicated privately. I
4:16
Speaker 2: will say in general, schools have always kind of treated
4:19
Speaker 2: these the best practice in these cases to not comment,
4:24
Speaker 2: to not sort of make a public show of it,
4:27
Speaker 2: to try and be respectful to process for fear of
4:30
Speaker 2: maybe influencing the the NCAA to rule against them. And
4:35
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I think we can all kind
4:36
Speaker 2: of put two and two together with Anthony Lele. I mean,
4:38
Speaker 2: he's you know, sort of offering to to sell some
4:43
Speaker 2: of his IU gear on social media and things like that.
4:46
Speaker 2: I don't think we need some sort of formal confirmation
4:49
Speaker 2: that Lele has decided just to move on. But it
4:53
Speaker 2: does surprise me, not necessarily that the quiet around Goodie
4:57
Speaker 2: doesn't surprise me. Again, I think that is generally taken
4:59
Speaker 2: as bat practice in these situations. But to be this
5:03
Speaker 2: deep into the summer and a player who I think
5:05
Speaker 2: has a distinct case for an extra year of eligibility
5:10
Speaker 2: to still be waiting for an answer one way or
5:13
Speaker 2: the other, that surprises me, and that, you know, I
5:19
Speaker 2: guess to what extent I will insert my personal opinion,
5:22
Speaker 2: I'm not sure it sits very well with me, but
5:25
Speaker 2: not that anybody at NC DOUBA cares very much what
5:28
Speaker 2: I think.
5:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess the good thing for Goodie
5:31
Speaker 1: and for Indiana at least at this point is from
5:34
Speaker 1: my understanding. You may have heard different, but my understanding
5:37
Speaker 1: is is that he can continue to work with the
5:39
Speaker 1: team this summer. There's nothing preventing that from happening. So
5:43
Speaker 1: it's not like any grounds being missed or you know,
5:47
Speaker 1: on account for but you know, for him obviously having
5:51
Speaker 1: things in a bit of limbo. I mean, if if
5:54
Speaker 1: he is going to be moving on up to this
5:55
Speaker 1: season has basketball aspirations, I assume you would want to
6:00
Speaker 1: be able to figure that situation out sooner rather than later.
6:03
Speaker 1: If he's going to go overseas or try to latch
6:07
Speaker 1: on to you know, a G League roster next season.
6:09
Speaker 1: Not sure exactly what he plans to do beyond basketball,
6:11
Speaker 1: but beyond that, and you know, I think from a
6:14
Speaker 1: planning perspective, when when the coaches are putting together the
6:17
Speaker 1: roster for next season, it would be nice to know
6:19
Speaker 1: at least before the Puerto Rico trip, what the roster
6:23
Speaker 1: is going to look like. You know, if there's a
6:25
Speaker 1: maybe a need to go out and get another player.
6:27
Speaker 1: I know, we get late, as we get later into
6:28
Speaker 1: the summer, the likelihood of that happening diminishes. So that's
6:33
Speaker 1: a situation where I kind of agree with you. You know,
6:36
Speaker 1: I did understand initially why maybe the timetable for this
6:40
Speaker 1: was taking a little bit longer with the volume of labors,
6:42
Speaker 1: but you know, we're we're getting into, you know, later
6:46
Speaker 1: in the summer now, really and to have this kind
6:48
Speaker 1: of an outstanding issue, particularly if if he's going to
6:51
Speaker 1: be denied and wants to do an appeal, it seems
6:53
Speaker 1: like this could could drag on for a while. The
6:55
Speaker 1: other thing I wanted to get your thoughts on because
6:58
Speaker 1: you've done amount of reporting on this, You've covered it extensively.
7:03
Speaker 1: You quite frankly, I've I've leaned on you as a
7:05
Speaker 1: resource at times due to my lack of understanding on
7:09
Speaker 1: this topic. But the House settlement now in effect, we
7:13
Speaker 1: know that there's been a lot of changes in terms
7:15
Speaker 1: of revenue sharing in the sport and the NIL deals.
7:20
Speaker 1: Just a big picture, you know, I know you talked
7:23
Speaker 1: to Scott Dolson about how Indiana is going to handle
7:25
Speaker 1: it's revenue sharing. Can you give us kind of a,
7:28
Speaker 1: you know, a brief overview of how that's going to
7:30
Speaker 1: work from an Indiana perspective, the revenue sharing piece, and
7:33
Speaker 1: then what you've heard maybe so far in terms of
7:37
Speaker 1: how NIL has been impacted you. I saw some reporting
7:40
Speaker 1: earlier this week from various places in terms of the
7:43
Speaker 1: new I guess process for getting these NIL deals approved.
7:47
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like things are maybe being rubber stamped
7:52
Speaker 1: and just pushed through, and so there's maybe going to
7:55
Speaker 1: be some pushback on some of these deals and having
7:57
Speaker 1: to verify certain things before they do initially you know,
8:00
Speaker 1: before they do get pushed through. I know, kind of
8:03
Speaker 1: a loaded question there, but can you just maybe talk
8:06
Speaker 1: speak to this new system, how Indiana is going to
8:09
Speaker 1: handle it, and kind of what you've heard so far
8:12
Speaker 1: in terms of how things are going on that front.
8:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's important to kind of preface this because
8:20
Speaker 2: I know a lot of people know this, but I
8:22
Speaker 2: also think, at least anecdotally, I think a lot of
8:24
Speaker 2: people don't. In IL and revenue sharing are are still
8:28
Speaker 2: two separate things, but they are now sort of governed
8:32
Speaker 2: under the same umbrella in a way that NIL, you know,
8:37
Speaker 2: initially kind of started as this entity completely undo itself,
8:41
Speaker 2: and then it was kind of slowly brought closer and
8:43
Speaker 2: closer to the schools and the conferences. What's happened now
8:47
Speaker 2: is the House settlement, as you said, is in effect,
8:51
Speaker 2: and that means revenue sharing has begun. You know, athletes
8:55
Speaker 2: who knows how that stuff structured, Like Indiana pays monthly,
8:58
Speaker 2: Like I just know this cause my wife works at I.
9:00
Speaker 2: You I don't know if these kids are getting monthly paychecks.
9:03
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're getting you know, fifty thousand
9:05
Speaker 2: now and fifty thousand at the end of the season
9:07
Speaker 2: or whatever. You know that that stuff can be negotiated.
9:10
Speaker 2: But the the rev share split for year one, and
9:17
Speaker 2: when I talked to Scott Dolson about this, you know,
9:19
Speaker 2: Indiana's Indiana obviously researched this and kind of tried to
9:23
Speaker 2: figure out the best practice with it. I think it's
9:26
Speaker 2: probably fair to say Indiana was about as straightforward as
9:30
Speaker 2: it could be in terms of its rev share approach
9:36
Speaker 2: in year one. I think they kept it pretty simple.
9:39
Speaker 2: They followed a lot of industry standards. All the money
9:43
Speaker 2: is just going into straight revenue sharing. No extra scholarships,
9:46
Speaker 2: no Alston payments, It's all just direct payment to athletes football.
9:53
Speaker 2: Dalton wouldn't kind of share exact numbers, and it's worth saying,
9:56
Speaker 2: like those numbers kind of drift a little bit because
9:58
Speaker 2: you may not with your Kurtz signette. You may not
10:01
Speaker 2: spend all your money because you might want a little
10:04
Speaker 2: bit of a reserve somewhere. Like if you come out
10:06
Speaker 2: of spring practice and you have a couple needs you
10:09
Speaker 2: didn't expect. You don't want to have no rev shirt
10:10
Speaker 2: money because then you can't go get players that are
10:14
Speaker 2: going to help you feel those holes. So it's it's,
10:16
Speaker 2: you know, down to the dollars and cents, just like
10:19
Speaker 2: payrolls in baseball or basketball or something like that. It's
10:23
Speaker 2: never going to be like an exact thing. Football at
10:27
Speaker 2: Indiana is I think going to come up just shy
10:29
Speaker 2: of about seventy five percent of the revenue bucket, which
10:34
Speaker 2: is over fifteen million dollars. It's a little under fifteen
10:36
Speaker 2: and a half. I think it's like fifteen point three
10:39
Speaker 2: something to the point three to four or something like that.
10:43
Speaker 2: Seventy five is widely seen as kind of the industry
10:45
Speaker 2: standard for football. I think a few schools will do more,
10:48
Speaker 2: probably not a ton more. Obviously, there's there's just not
10:53
Speaker 2: a lot of room beyond if you're doing if you're
10:55
Speaker 2: going all the way to seventy five percent, there's only
10:56
Speaker 2: another twenty five percent you can you can throw in there.
11:00
Speaker 2: But that's, you know, and that's one of those where
11:02
Speaker 2: the Big ten didn't tell anybody that they you know,
11:06
Speaker 2: that this is what you have to do, you have
11:09
Speaker 2: to meet this certain number. But I do think there
11:11
Speaker 2: was probably some guidance in terms of saying, hey, listen,
11:15
Speaker 2: football is is the bread winner here and we need
11:18
Speaker 2: to feed football. Football needs to be you know, kind
11:21
Speaker 2: of consistent across the board as much as possible in
11:25
Speaker 2: a conference where it is so directly tied to such large,
11:30
Speaker 2: you know, annual revenue numbers. And I think also probably
11:35
Speaker 2: for just competitive purposes. The idea that you're not going
11:37
Speaker 2: to have like these wild gaps between what one you
11:40
Speaker 2: know what in Ohio State's putting into football, what are
11:43
Speaker 2: produced putting in football, et cetera. Basketball is going to
11:46
Speaker 2: be close to twenty percent, which from my understanding is
11:49
Speaker 2: kind of the high end of the range. The range
11:52
Speaker 2: I heard from a couple different places at football schools
11:55
Speaker 2: was fifteen to twenty percent, with the presumption that more
11:58
Speaker 2: schools would be more like fifteen to seventeen, fifteen to eighteen,
12:03
Speaker 2: and it would be the schools that would emphasize basketball
12:05
Speaker 2: a little bit more than would go to twenty to.
12:08
Speaker 3: Be to be clear ment, you're talking just.
12:10
Speaker 2: Men's basketball, Yes, men's basketball, thank you. There are gonna
12:14
Speaker 2: be some big eat schools that go north of that number,
12:16
Speaker 2: perhaps well north of it, because while they don't have
12:19
Speaker 2: the overall revenues anywhere near the overall revenues a Big
12:22
Speaker 2: ten school for example, would have, or an SEC school,
12:25
Speaker 2: they don't have football defet So you know Yukon, Marquette, Villanova,
12:31
Speaker 2: probably Georgetown, you know those places. Yeah, those places are
12:34
Speaker 2: probably gonna have not everybody like I don't know if
12:37
Speaker 2: you know I don't know if Seaton Hall is gonna
12:39
Speaker 2: be able to go crazy, whether or Butler or somebody
12:42
Speaker 2: like that, but some of those big E schools are
12:44
Speaker 2: going to have more money than probably any Big ten
12:47
Speaker 2: or SEC school in men's basketball, simply because they don't
12:50
Speaker 2: have to feed football. The next two sports in terms
12:55
Speaker 2: of percentages, will be women's basketball and volleyball. Those are
12:58
Speaker 2: kind of your next two highest revenue sports if you
13:03
Speaker 2: think about it, you know, in terms of just like
13:04
Speaker 2: how much money you're making off of them manually, and
13:08
Speaker 2: then everything else will be The word that Scott used
13:13
Speaker 2: to me was sort of sprinkled across the rest of
13:17
Speaker 2: the athletics programs, I thought. Mike Bobinski said something really
13:22
Speaker 2: interesting to Nathan Baird where he said, basically, there would
13:24
Speaker 2: be a reserved fund of a few hundred thousand dollars
13:27
Speaker 2: that would not be specific to any one sport, but
13:29
Speaker 2: would be for the recruiting and retention of elite athletes. So,
13:33
Speaker 2: you know, if Purdue has a chance to get an
13:35
Speaker 2: Olympic diver, which of course they've had, you know, some
13:38
Speaker 2: very successful divers in the recent past, you go to
13:42
Speaker 2: that fund rather than swim dive having you know, just
13:45
Speaker 2: like a consistent number all the time. I wouldn't be
13:48
Speaker 2: shocked if Indiana did something like that, And so that's
13:51
Speaker 2: how they'll break it up in year one. You know,
13:52
Speaker 2: they're already starting projections for year two. But I think
13:55
Speaker 2: there's going to be a lot of learn along the way.
13:57
Speaker 2: I think probably one of the biggest lessons that everyone
14:00
Speaker 2: took from NIL that we're going to see overlaid onto
14:02
Speaker 2: revenue sharing is that, you know, whatever we think is
14:06
Speaker 2: best practice here in months one through eight is going
14:09
Speaker 2: to seem so outdated by the time we get to
14:11
Speaker 2: like month eighteen or month twenty four, and there's gonna
14:14
Speaker 2: be a lot of evolving sort of thinking on how
14:17
Speaker 2: to marshal all this, never mind the fact that some
14:20
Speaker 2: of the spending could evolve. You know, there's I think
14:23
Speaker 2: there are people who believe, for example, that we might
14:26
Speaker 2: eventually get to a place where schools are released to
14:31
Speaker 2: add scholarships without that money counting against your revenue sharing cap,
14:37
Speaker 2: at which point I think a school like Indiana might
14:40
Speaker 2: at least have some interest in adding scholarships in a
14:43
Speaker 2: sport like baseball or men's soccer or softball or you know,
14:48
Speaker 2: men's and women's swimming and diving, where there's probably not
14:52
Speaker 2: gonna be a lot of money running around those sports
14:54
Speaker 2: either way, accept at a very small handful of schools,
14:57
Speaker 2: but where the currency is probably going to be more
14:59
Speaker 2: scholar larship opportunities. And there are some folks in college
15:03
Speaker 2: athletics who wonder, if you know right now, if you
15:06
Speaker 2: want to add scholarships, you have to take that money
15:08
Speaker 2: out of your revenue sharing pool. That I have heard
15:12
Speaker 2: very sort of loosely that there are some people who
15:15
Speaker 2: think that maybe that restriction might get lifted and you
15:18
Speaker 2: might just be allowed to add scholarships and then the
15:20
Speaker 2: revenue sharing pool just stays where it is, and that
15:24
Speaker 2: might be I think the I think the reason for
15:27
Speaker 2: that is basically because a lot of these bigger schools
15:30
Speaker 2: are saying we need to be able to serve the
15:33
Speaker 2: non revenue sports better in this revenue share era. And
15:37
Speaker 2: we'll see, we'll see how that happens. But you know,
15:41
Speaker 2: that's that's just kind of one example of like, don't
15:45
Speaker 2: don't marry yourself to any of this being you know,
15:47
Speaker 2: written in stone, because we're going to change the way
15:50
Speaker 2: that all this works. And one of the big things
15:54
Speaker 2: when you bring up the anile clearing house to kind
15:56
Speaker 2: of go to number two there, and that is now formally,
15:59
Speaker 2: as you said, under the roof of the NCAA, the
16:02
Speaker 2: NIL GO process with Deloitte sort of scrutinizing or auditing
16:09
Speaker 2: every every NIL deal over six hundred dollars and essentially
16:12
Speaker 2: coming back and saying, either this reflects in athletes's fair
16:15
Speaker 2: market value and it's valid and it's approved, or it
16:18
Speaker 2: doesn't and we're rejecting it and sending it back to
16:21
Speaker 2: the athlete in question to try and amend it to
16:25
Speaker 2: you know, fit our process. Like, no one knows really
16:31
Speaker 2: if that's going to stand up. I mean, I think
16:34
Speaker 2: almost since the conception of the idea of the clearinghouse,
16:38
Speaker 2: people have looked at it and thought it was ripe
16:41
Speaker 2: for legal challenge. Already, you are seeing, as you mentioned,
16:46
Speaker 2: some complaints, you know, some grievance being aired publicly over
16:51
Speaker 2: a lack of understanding of you know what what basically
17:00
Speaker 2: what like what the auditing process is looking for and
17:03
Speaker 2: how to tailor these deals to satisfy their requirements. You know,
17:09
Speaker 2: sometimes that there's probably some legitimate compoint there. There's probably
17:12
Speaker 2: some people that are just you know, politicking to raise noise,
17:15
Speaker 2: and there are a lot of people that think that
17:16
Speaker 2: at some point someone will challenge legally the idea that
17:20
Speaker 2: the NCAA or any apparatus that it creates can can
17:24
Speaker 2: tell an athlete what is or her fair market value is.
17:28
Speaker 2: And then we you know, we're back in court. The
17:30
Speaker 2: lawyers start start the register going again, and we decide
17:37
Speaker 2: exactly how much we are going to be legally allowed
17:41
Speaker 2: to govern the NIL space. And I think the reason
17:43
Speaker 2: everybody's looking at that is because even at the big schools,
17:47
Speaker 2: a lot of athletics directors are looking at the money
17:51
Speaker 2: they've had to pour into NIL, which you know, has
17:53
Speaker 2: reached in some places twenty and thirty million dollars annually
17:57
Speaker 2: in terms of like overall like collective distribution. And then
18:02
Speaker 2: they're looking at this twenty point five million dollar hole
18:04
Speaker 2: for revenue sharing, which is only going to keep expanding.
18:07
Speaker 2: You know, the revenue share number is going to keep
18:09
Speaker 2: going up at a time when for all but a
18:12
Speaker 2: select number of schools, television revenues are probably about to plateau,
18:17
Speaker 2: or at least certainly you know that we're getting to
18:21
Speaker 2: the point in the bell curve. I'm doing this, it's
18:24
Speaker 2: great radio with my hands. The point in the bell
18:27
Speaker 2: curve where we stop going up exponentially and things start
18:30
Speaker 2: to flatten out a little bit. And I say this
18:34
Speaker 2: every time I talk about revenue sharing, because everyone has
18:37
Speaker 2: forgotten the settlement, part of the House Settlement, that there
18:40
Speaker 2: is a billion dollar settlement that has to be backfilled
18:45
Speaker 2: for athletes. I think, going back to like twenty sixteen,
18:47
Speaker 2: Ye're allowed to claim a portion of it, and it's
18:50
Speaker 2: going to be through media rights revenues that the NCAA
18:54
Speaker 2: and the member conferences pay for that primarily. And so
18:58
Speaker 2: you know, if you're Indiana, big ten distributions aren't just
19:01
Speaker 2: going to keep spiking up and up and up here
19:03
Speaker 2: because everybody's gonna have to basically lose some of that
19:08
Speaker 2: money to the settlement, at least in the in the
19:10
Speaker 2: near term. So basically, listen, we can have a conversation
19:16
Speaker 2: about how college athletics allowed itself to get here. And
19:18
Speaker 2: that's a philosophical sort of discussion slash blame game that
19:23
Speaker 2: we could do for you know, two hours, you know,
19:26
Speaker 2: unto itself. But right here and now, athletics directors are
19:31
Speaker 2: you know, even at the most moneyed schools are just
19:33
Speaker 2: saying we can't fund twenty million in twenty point five
19:38
Speaker 2: million in REVS share twenty five to thirty million in
19:41
Speaker 2: NIL and keep everything else operating as normal. Nobody wants
19:46
Speaker 2: to cut sports, Nobody wants to to sort of, you know,
19:50
Speaker 2: pair back college athletics. But the NIL number can't just
19:54
Speaker 2: keep climbing indefinitely. There has to be some kind of
19:58
Speaker 2: stabilization in that mark. It Does the clearing house do that?
20:05
Speaker 2: I'm skeptical, but maybe it at least puts us on
20:07
Speaker 2: a path to something like that. I'm not sure, but
20:10
Speaker 2: that's That's probably the thing that's keeping ads up at
20:13
Speaker 2: night as much as anything else right now. I think
20:15
Speaker 2: revenue sharing has made you know, tons of sense all
20:18
Speaker 2: the way through how to structure all this. I think
20:21
Speaker 2: that you know, it's it's been pretty straightforward in the end,
20:24
Speaker 2: as people have really kind of dug their hands into it.
20:26
Speaker 2: It is that question of how deep is this hole
20:31
Speaker 2: going to continue to grow in terms of like booster
20:33
Speaker 2: dollars that I have to funnel to these two you know,
20:38
Speaker 2: ever expanding pots of cash, and will at some point
20:45
Speaker 2: we hit the nuclear scenario where I have to start
20:47
Speaker 2: cutting sports to afford it. And that's that's kind of
20:51
Speaker 2: I think the next big sort of sort of burning
20:56
Speaker 2: question in college athletics here.
20:59
Speaker 1: The other same thing just about the clearing house in general.
21:03
Speaker 1: To me, is it already seems like there's some chaos
21:06
Speaker 1: in terms of these deals being submitted and we're kind
21:09
Speaker 1: of we're not really at like a point of the
21:12
Speaker 1: year where there's a ton of activity going on in
21:14
Speaker 1: terms of guys committing, So it seems like it's something
21:18
Speaker 1: where they really need to get this figured out sooner
21:21
Speaker 1: rather than later, because when the football transfer portal window
21:24
Speaker 1: opens and the basketball transfer portal window opens next spring,
21:30
Speaker 1: it needs to be a pretty streamlined, buttoned up process
21:33
Speaker 1: or you're gonna have complete chaos in terms of because
21:36
Speaker 1: a lot of guys are gonna want to know like
21:38
Speaker 1: what deal I can get coming to the school and
21:41
Speaker 1: all that, and so there has to be at least
21:44
Speaker 1: some I guess resolution in terms of what's going to
21:48
Speaker 1: be allowed, what's not gonna be allowed. It seems pretty
21:50
Speaker 1: open ended still in terms of how that's all gonna work.
21:53
Speaker 1: And like I said, right now is not even really
21:55
Speaker 1: the prime time for player movement. But you know, what's
21:58
Speaker 1: not kid ourselves here. A lot of the player movement
22:02
Speaker 1: around college sports is based on money, and so guys
22:04
Speaker 1: are going to want to know how they're going to
22:05
Speaker 1: be compensated at their new school. So to me, that
22:07
Speaker 1: seems like another kind of unresolved issue with the whole claim.
22:10
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea of this clearinghouse was good in theory,
22:13
Speaker 1: and then you talk about you know, the first word
22:16
Speaker 1: that people bring up when they hear clearinghouse is lawsuit, right,
22:19
Speaker 1: and then you also have the idea of just figuring
22:22
Speaker 1: out the volume of deals that are going to be
22:25
Speaker 1: flowing into that when we get to the busier points
22:27
Speaker 1: of year. I think it just seems like a you know,
22:30
Speaker 1: very much a work in progress and a system that
22:32
Speaker 1: you know, we could be sitting here a year or
22:35
Speaker 1: two from now and talking about how it was this
22:37
Speaker 1: big failed experiment and how it didn't work out. It
22:39
Speaker 1: could be wrong, but it to me just seems like
22:41
Speaker 1: a system that may not be sustainable for the long term.
22:45
Speaker 2: Because there also were just like I mean, I've heard
22:47
Speaker 2: rumors of schools exploring workarounds like what if you convert.
22:51
Speaker 2: I think the way it was explained to me and
22:53
Speaker 2: I think it was some of our friends down south
22:55
Speaker 2: that were that were floating ideas like this because where
23:00
Speaker 2: I'm from, rules exist to be worked around wherever possible
23:06
Speaker 2: in college athletics, particularly college football, and I think the
23:12
Speaker 2: way it was explained to me is like, what if
23:13
Speaker 2: you convert a collective into a marketing agency and then
23:17
Speaker 2: hire an athlete on its talent, which is kind of
23:20
Speaker 2: how you know that works for a lot of people
23:23
Speaker 2: at the professional level. You know, you sign on with
23:25
Speaker 2: like creative artists or something like that, and then they
23:30
Speaker 2: go represent your you know, they go negotiate as your representation,
23:38
Speaker 2: you know, commercial deals, and essentially what in effect they
23:42
Speaker 2: are doing is representing you as talent that some sort
23:45
Speaker 2: of business would want to hire, or if you want
23:48
Speaker 2: to think about it a different way, And these aren't
23:50
Speaker 2: perfect comparisons by any means, but the way that like
23:54
Speaker 2: a movie studio would hire a popular actor or actress,
23:57
Speaker 2: they would go to their agency and say, we want
24:00
Speaker 2: talent in this movie. We think that's what's gonna make
24:02
Speaker 2: it really sing at the box office. What do we
24:05
Speaker 2: have to do, what will it take? How do we
24:06
Speaker 2: how do we make that match? Well, if you're trying
24:10
Speaker 2: a collective into a marketing agency, and again you sign
24:14
Speaker 2: athletes as talent, then you're those aren't nil deals. You know,
24:19
Speaker 2: those are business arrangements. And I don't see how the
24:23
Speaker 2: NCAA comes close to governing that. And you know, you
24:29
Speaker 2: certainly can't tell a marketing agency what a player is.
24:34
Speaker 2: Is a you know, is allowed to be paid or
24:36
Speaker 2: not paid like that that you know, I don't know
24:39
Speaker 2: if that is possible in the end, But the point
24:43
Speaker 2: is it's it's there are so many This is why
24:48
Speaker 2: I say, whatever seems like common knowledge now or or
24:52
Speaker 2: conventional wisdom or best practice, just like in il, we're
24:56
Speaker 2: going to look back in twelve months, we're gonna be like,
24:57
Speaker 2: why did we ever think that was the right thing
24:59
Speaker 2: to do? Boy? Do we look stupid? You know, because
25:02
Speaker 2: it just it's going to keep evolving that way or
25:07
Speaker 2: at least the next probably twenty four to thirty six months.
25:11
Speaker 2: And you know, maybe this pushes us to full employment
25:14
Speaker 2: status and collective bargaining. I don't know. It probably further
25:19
Speaker 2: fractures the college athletics landscape, you know, just just by
25:23
Speaker 2: its very nature. But it's it's going to be between
25:28
Speaker 2: entities or individuals that challenge some of these rules and
25:32
Speaker 2: then ones that just try to create workarounds.
25:35
Speaker 1: It's going to be you know, I mean, do you
25:38
Speaker 1: think that's where we're headed? Is that the whole employment
25:40
Speaker 1: piece is that?
25:42
Speaker 2: I mean? I my argument would be that it will
25:47
Speaker 2: come with a lot of headache for twelve to twenty
25:51
Speaker 2: four months because the scale of it is incredibly difficult.
25:56
Speaker 2: It's not like it is not apples to apple with
26:00
Speaker 2: like you know, the NFLPA or the NBA Players Association.
26:05
Speaker 2: Because the needs of a big ten football player are
26:09
Speaker 2: different vertically than the needs of a you know, a
26:15
Speaker 2: Colonial Athletic Association football player, and they're all so different
26:19
Speaker 2: horizontally to the needs of a big ten volleyball player.
26:22
Speaker 2: So how do you create the structure that allows all
26:26
Speaker 2: these people to be treated as employees while also recognizing
26:31
Speaker 2: that they need to be able to organize and bargain collectively,
26:36
Speaker 2: but in different ways and for different things. And I
26:42
Speaker 2: think that probably a lot of people would have to
26:44
Speaker 2: wear that on the chin, and some people would probably
26:46
Speaker 2: wind up looking silly, and some would probably lose their jobs.
26:50
Speaker 2: But I think that when we get to the other side,
26:52
Speaker 2: the very bad metaphor that I have reached for is
26:56
Speaker 2: It's like when you know your car's breaking down and
26:58
Speaker 2: you can pay five thousand to get it fixed fully
27:01
Speaker 2: and it'll run like new and everything will be fine.
27:05
Speaker 2: Or the mechanic keeps telling you they can do patch
27:07
Speaker 2: jobs for seven or eight hundred bucks and you don't
27:09
Speaker 2: want to go for the full five thousand, but you
27:11
Speaker 2: know you're just going to keep pouring money into a
27:14
Speaker 2: car that's going to keep breaking down, and eventually you'll
27:17
Speaker 2: probably have to pay the big price. Anyway, I think
27:21
Speaker 2: that's a little bit where it feels like college athletics is.
27:25
Speaker 2: There's you know, we have two hundred years of labor
27:27
Speaker 2: law in this country that can guide us in terms
27:29
Speaker 2: of how to structure you know, athletes as employees, and
27:32
Speaker 2: then we can collectively bargain things like multi year contracts
27:35
Speaker 2: with buyouts, medical care insurance. You know, we can collectively
27:41
Speaker 2: bargain things as basic as like when the when portal
27:44
Speaker 2: windows will be open, what athletes are allowed to do
27:47
Speaker 2: and not to do when they move between schools, unlimited
27:51
Speaker 2: transfer exceptions or maybe one time transfer exceptions. These are
27:54
Speaker 2: all things that you can collectively bargain. It. You could say, well,
27:56
Speaker 2: if we give you this, then you need to give
27:58
Speaker 2: us that. You know, all politics are short term, so
28:01
Speaker 2: nobody wants to wear it on the chin. And and
28:05
Speaker 2: that's why I think we're going to keep seeing these
28:06
Speaker 2: sort of incremental steps towards something like that, and I
28:09
Speaker 2: think in the end we're probably gonna wind up there anyway.
28:14
Speaker 2: The one philosophical difficulty I struggle to kind of reconcile
28:18
Speaker 2: in that future is that one of the few legal
28:23
Speaker 2: arguments the nca has actually had some success with in
28:26
Speaker 2: the last few years, and one that I do even
28:30
Speaker 2: as someone who is kind of skeptical of a lot
28:32
Speaker 2: of the old arguments the NCAA makes in these cases,
28:35
Speaker 2: this is when I do have some some some time
28:40
Speaker 2: for is that college athletics can't become just a fully
28:46
Speaker 2: professional model because nobody watches minor league sports. You know that.
28:52
Speaker 2: I mean that that is essentially kind of in the
28:54
Speaker 2: NCAA's argument in a couple of cases. And it's not
28:58
Speaker 2: totally unfair if you turn college athletics into if in
29:05
Speaker 2: the eyes of consumers, viewers, fans, students, alumni, et cetera,
29:10
Speaker 2: you basically just turn college athletics into a less skilled
29:14
Speaker 2: version of professional sports. It loses its appeal. Everyone knows
29:20
Speaker 2: when they tune in to Ohio State Penn State on
29:23
Speaker 2: a Saturday night in October that they are not watching
29:28
Speaker 2: a game that will be played maybe even coached as
29:32
Speaker 2: well as you know, Jaguars cults the next day. Because
29:37
Speaker 2: the NFL is just going to have better players, and
29:40
Speaker 2: it's probably going to have better coaches, and things are
29:42
Speaker 2: going to be more advanced and more defined and polished.
29:47
Speaker 2: A big part of what gives college athletics its appeal
29:50
Speaker 2: is the idea that it's something different and that play
29:53
Speaker 2: you know, that athletes are amateurs, and that there is
29:56
Speaker 2: this tangible connection to your alma mater or to you know,
30:02
Speaker 2: the you know, the the school that culturally represents where
30:05
Speaker 2: you're from or whatever like that is a big part
30:09
Speaker 2: of college sports underlying appeal. And if you if you
30:14
Speaker 2: take that away, then you do run the risk of
30:17
Speaker 2: college sports just becoming something a lot less sort of
30:23
Speaker 2: marketable and appealing and therefore successful. I mean, like, you know,
30:26
Speaker 2: you think about the academy system in European sports, you know,
30:31
Speaker 2: playing sports for your university is not a thing there,
30:35
Speaker 2: Like there's you know, there's like there are some small
30:40
Speaker 2: exam like some very isolated examples like Cambridge and Oxford rowing,
30:44
Speaker 2: but like nobody wants to watch Cambridge and Oxford, I
30:47
Speaker 2: assume they both have like soccer teams in some form.
30:50
Speaker 2: Nobody nobody watched that. That's it's all professional, right, That's
30:55
Speaker 2: a philosophical and I rambled on a tangent here, but
30:59
Speaker 2: it is I think the one, you know, sort of
31:05
Speaker 2: specter looming over this conversation that is less technical, is
31:12
Speaker 2: less details and dollars and cents, And why don't we
31:15
Speaker 2: just sit down and hash this out and make it work?
31:19
Speaker 2: And a little bit more philosophical, how do we move
31:23
Speaker 2: college athletics to a place where all this stuff is
31:26
Speaker 2: better controlled and fairer and more even, and without either
31:32
Speaker 2: a just basically burning college athletics out from the inside
31:36
Speaker 2: by cutting all the sports. Because of college athletics behaved
31:40
Speaker 2: purely like a business, it would run two sports because
31:42
Speaker 2: it only two sports make money. How do we not
31:48
Speaker 2: allow that to happen but also retain as we move
31:53
Speaker 2: towards some sort of employment model, the the amateuristic, the
31:59
Speaker 2: amateur characteristics that do set historically college sports apart from
32:05
Speaker 2: professional sports. I don't know the answer to that, And
32:07
Speaker 2: that's that's a question that I think is difficult to.
32:10
Speaker 1: Wrangle with a few other things I want to get
32:13
Speaker 1: your your take on. Just in terms of I mentioned
32:17
Speaker 1: earlier the commitment of Restitch for next season's roster. What
32:22
Speaker 1: did you what did you make of that edition for
32:26
Speaker 1: next season? Does it seem like he's going to be
32:28
Speaker 1: more of a long term development piece, someone that could
32:31
Speaker 1: come in next season and make an impact. Really hard
32:33
Speaker 1: to tell. Based on the fact that you know, none
32:37
Speaker 1: of us have ever seen him play in person. There's
32:39
Speaker 1: probably four or five minutes of video out there that
32:41
Speaker 1: we can watch in terms of seeing him playing some
32:45
Speaker 1: excuse me, some of the FOBA overseas events. But I
32:49
Speaker 1: thought it was an interesting pickup, kind of came out
32:51
Speaker 1: of nowhere, but looks like a player that long term
32:55
Speaker 1: fits with what Indiana and Darren Derieze are trying to do.
32:59
Speaker 1: Just in terms of his make up as a shooter
33:00
Speaker 1: and someone a little bit older, obviously going to be
33:03
Speaker 1: coming into college, I think, a little bit older than
33:05
Speaker 1: your your average freshman, has played some professional basketball, and
33:10
Speaker 1: you know, Serbian basketball obviously strong known for producing some
33:16
Speaker 1: really high level players. So it seems like it seemed
33:18
Speaker 1: like a savvy addition and someone that could maybe not
33:21
Speaker 1: step in right away and play a ton of minutes,
33:23
Speaker 1: but someone long term that that could maybe develop into
33:26
Speaker 1: a contributor down the line for the program.
33:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's what's Steph Kreshnik's excuse, Where's where's his basketball ability?
33:34
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm still I'm still waiting for him to
33:36
Speaker 2: show his hoop. I mean, I'm fascinated by just the
33:41
Speaker 2: expansion of like college recruiting into Europe, which has exploded
33:44
Speaker 2: in the last year. I think my assumption would be
33:48
Speaker 2: primarily because these kids can make money now that basically,
33:52
Speaker 2: you know, before you could play professionally over there. And
33:56
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think people realize, like quite how
33:59
Speaker 2: robust basketball leagues are over there. There are thousands of
34:04
Speaker 2: basketball players in Europe across all the different leagues in Serbia,
34:09
Speaker 2: in Italy, in Spain and Germany. You know. I mean,
34:13
Speaker 2: like I think I think Al Durham played in Scotland
34:15
Speaker 2: for a while, Like you know, it's I mean, there
34:17
Speaker 2: is so much basketball being played in Europe, obviously not
34:21
Speaker 2: always at the college level, and I think what appeals
34:24
Speaker 2: to kids who come over from Europe about playing in
34:27
Speaker 2: college is it probably gives them a more It gives
34:29
Speaker 2: them more direct access to NBA scouts, both because scouts
34:33
Speaker 2: there's just a greater scouting apparatus around college games and
34:36
Speaker 2: there is European games for the NBA, and also because
34:39
Speaker 2: that allows them, i think, to compete more directly with
34:42
Speaker 2: the other players scouts are evaluating, rather than you know,
34:45
Speaker 2: the sort of the question of you know our good
34:49
Speaker 2: friend Fran for Scillik and Fran give us some sense
34:52
Speaker 2: of what this players like. Fran, you know, for those
34:54
Speaker 2: who don't know, friend knows the European game very well.
34:57
Speaker 2: But you don't necessarily need that. If Alexa Restitch has
35:01
Speaker 2: played two years in the Big Ten, and you know
35:04
Speaker 2: what he looks like against I'm just pulling players from
35:08
Speaker 2: recent past, Terrence Shannon, you know what he looks like
35:10
Speaker 2: against Io Desum or against Braden Smith or whoever, and
35:14
Speaker 2: so you have a better frame of reference.
35:15
Speaker 4: But the flip side was I think a lot of
35:18
Speaker 4: these kids didn't want to come over because they could
35:21
Speaker 4: make money playing over there, and because I think in
35:24
Speaker 4: a lot of these cases, I don't know as much
35:25
Speaker 4: about basketball as they do soccer, but I know that
35:27
Speaker 4: the structure is somewhat similar, and a lot of these cases,
35:29
Speaker 4: these teams would still help pay for their education.
35:33
Speaker 2: The flip side is and this is not I'm not
35:35
Speaker 2: trying to sound like, you know, American exceptionalism, you know,
35:38
Speaker 2: sort of cheerleader. American universities like Big ten universities would
35:44
Speaker 2: be considered among the best in Europe, you know, research
35:47
Speaker 2: universities with so many different degree opportunities and things like
35:52
Speaker 2: that like an IU degree, an Illinois degree, a Michigan degree,
35:59
Speaker 2: that is, you know, the schools that we're talking about
36:01
Speaker 2: that sometimes we say, oh, Indiana's top thirty, but Michigan's
36:04
Speaker 2: top fifteen, like they both be you know, top one
36:07
Speaker 2: hundred internationally. And so the educational opportunity is great. The
36:14
Speaker 2: NBA access or NBA you know, exposure opportunity is substantial.
36:19
Speaker 2: Now they can come make money playing and I don't
36:23
Speaker 2: I don't fully understand the mechanisms in revenue sharing because
36:27
Speaker 2: you know, like there was all the stuff around if
36:28
Speaker 2: you're if you're on a certain visas, you can't make
36:31
Speaker 2: money off nil. I mean, too many of these kids
36:34
Speaker 2: are coming over for me to think that they're all
36:36
Speaker 2: just like being sold a wing and a you know,
36:38
Speaker 2: being sold on a dream. So I think again, the
36:44
Speaker 2: you know, the the presumption is these kids can now
36:48
Speaker 2: make money playing in America the same way they could
36:51
Speaker 2: play them back home, and they get you know, greater
36:55
Speaker 2: exposure to the professional level, they get a you know,
36:58
Speaker 2: a really high class education. And I'm just fascinated in
37:02
Speaker 2: general to see how this unfolds, because I think, you know,
37:06
Speaker 2: I think you've already seen obviously there have been the
37:08
Speaker 2: jokes about, you know, just how sort of europe bending
37:10
Speaker 2: Illinois roster is going to be. Of course, last year,
37:15
Speaker 2: you know, Casparas Yakachonas was was kind of a revelation
37:20
Speaker 2: for the ALIGNI he's now, for the record, a wonderful
37:24
Speaker 2: second line point guard for the Atlanta Hawks. In one
37:27
Speaker 2: of my NBA two K sims. It's remarkable how easily
37:30
Speaker 2: he gets to the rim. But this does feel a
37:35
Speaker 2: little bit like one of those sort of things that
37:37
Speaker 2: if you don't have a plan for the next like
37:40
Speaker 2: three to five years for recruiting in Europe, then you
37:44
Speaker 2: are already behind the eight ball. And I mean, Indiana,
37:47
Speaker 2: you know, kicked the tires on some other European recruits,
37:49
Speaker 2: and I think wound up maybe passing on a couple
37:52
Speaker 2: of opportunities because they already had guys in other positions.
37:56
Speaker 2: But you know, I think whether one individual player is
38:02
Speaker 2: successful or not, it does feel like this is kind
38:04
Speaker 2: of a This is a widening recruiting pipeline that you,
38:12
Speaker 2: as a high major college basketball program, need to be
38:15
Speaker 2: prepared for this. You can't just be one of those like, oh,
38:17
Speaker 2: if we have an assistant that knows the European game
38:19
Speaker 2: a little bit, we'll go over there every once in
38:22
Speaker 2: a while for a player. I would not be shocked
38:25
Speaker 2: if in five years, you know, every Big ten roster's
38:28
Speaker 2: got at least one European born player on it. And
38:32
Speaker 2: I think that's that's at least I think I suspect
38:37
Speaker 2: a future that programs and coaching staffs with a plan
38:43
Speaker 2: for how to attack this new talent pool, this newly
38:46
Speaker 2: available talent pool, are going to be the ones that
38:49
Speaker 2: benefit from it. The most last thing.
38:51
Speaker 1: And it's a story that I keep hoping will go away,
38:54
Speaker 1: But I keep seeing updates periodically on my social various
38:59
Speaker 1: social media ounce NCAA tournament expansion. Where are you at
39:06
Speaker 1: on this is it? You know, I've I didn't like
39:09
Speaker 1: to move to sixty eight, to be honest with you,
39:11
Speaker 1: but it seems like there was probably people back in
39:14
Speaker 1: the day whenever the tournament expanded to sixty four didn't
39:17
Speaker 1: like it, And now we're talking about adding more teams.
39:21
Speaker 1: It seems almost inevitable based on, you know, maybe some
39:25
Speaker 1: of the reasons you talked about earlier, you know, the
39:27
Speaker 1: money aspect of it. The more inventory that they can
39:31
Speaker 1: give for this flagship event for college basketball, the more
39:35
Speaker 1: money is going to eventually end up in the hands
39:37
Speaker 1: of the school. So I understand it from that standpoint.
39:42
Speaker 1: But every year we go through a tournament selection process
39:46
Speaker 1: where we look at these schools that barely missed the
39:49
Speaker 1: tournament and say, you know, the X, Y and Z
39:53
Speaker 1: school didn't necessarily deserve to make it, and now we're
39:56
Speaker 1: talking about adding even more teams to the phrase, is
39:59
Speaker 1: this just is this just inevitable for college basketball that
40:04
Speaker 1: the expansion is going to happen. It seems like it's
40:07
Speaker 1: being slow played a little bit, but you know, just
40:10
Speaker 1: based on the tone and some of the things that
40:12
Speaker 1: I've read, and it seems like it's maybe not this year,
40:18
Speaker 1: but in future years, it's something that it's certainly going
40:20
Speaker 1: to happen.
40:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and I'm doing some googling and I
40:24
Speaker 2: can't find an answer to how many Division one teams
40:28
Speaker 2: there were in college basketball in nineteen eighty six, which
40:32
Speaker 2: was I think the I think eighty was eighty five,
40:34
Speaker 2: the first year that they expanded to sixty four teams, easy,
40:37
Speaker 2: either eighty five or eighty six.
40:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think somewhere around there.
40:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I certainly don't think there were three hundred
40:45
Speaker 2: and sixty four or anything approaching that.
40:48
Speaker 3: I think we're three sixty five now.
40:50
Speaker 2: Are well. The thing is that I think you are
40:52
Speaker 2: going to see a number of schools that drop Division
40:55
Speaker 2: one sports and go back to like Division three or
40:57
Speaker 2: even like at Naia level, because they just don't they
41:00
Speaker 2: know they're not going to be able to compete financially,
41:02
Speaker 2: and so they are just trying to pull back to
41:04
Speaker 2: something that looks more like what it was thirty forty
41:08
Speaker 2: years ago. And I think that's going to be down
41:09
Speaker 2: at the BOTO. I mean, that's gonna be like schools
41:11
Speaker 2: in like the you know, the the the MAAC or
41:15
Speaker 2: like the the NEEC that are going to contract in
41:20
Speaker 2: that way or not contract, but just like level down
41:23
Speaker 2: basically and not try to compete at a level they're
41:29
Speaker 2: not going to be able to afford. But the point is,
41:33
Speaker 2: you know, the last time we meaningfully expanded the NCAA tournament,
41:36
Speaker 2: and I understand we went from sixty four to sixty eight
41:38
Speaker 2: a few years, you know what, like probably about twenty
41:40
Speaker 2: years ago, but like the last time we went to
41:42
Speaker 2: a bigger round number, you know, I wish I could
41:47
Speaker 2: find this, but I'm guessing it was a lot fewer
41:49
Speaker 2: than three hundred and fifty three hundred and sixty Division
41:52
Speaker 2: one programs. And the argument for expanding the tournament, which
41:56
Speaker 2: is you know, very often made by coaches who I
41:59
Speaker 2: think wanted to be easier for them to keep their jobs,
42:02
Speaker 2: is not completely It's not totally unfair. I remember Bo
42:05
Speaker 2: Ryan making this argument years ago that, you know, because
42:10
Speaker 2: of the bowl system, more than half of college football
42:14
Speaker 2: gets access to the postseason at the Division IE level.
42:18
Speaker 2: But with the with basketball, because there are so many
42:22
Speaker 2: more teams, it's only a fraction. It's like twenty percent.
42:25
Speaker 2: You know, it's like maybe not even that. If you
42:28
Speaker 2: know what, I don't know what sixty eight times five is,
42:31
Speaker 2: it's probably it's probably right around there. It's probably right
42:34
Speaker 2: around twenty percent as opposed to fifty five fifty eight
42:37
Speaker 2: percent you know in football, And I don't you know,
42:39
Speaker 2: Bo wasn't suggesting we expand to one hundred and sixty
42:41
Speaker 2: four teams. He was just saying. And honestly, like when
42:46
Speaker 2: I think now, even just as I'm speaking out loud,
42:49
Speaker 2: when I think now about nca tournament expansion and how
42:54
Speaker 2: long these different entities have been lobbying for it, I'm
42:58
Speaker 2: kind of surprised it hasn't happened already. To be honest
43:00
Speaker 2: with you, it doesn't. It is not something consumers are
43:04
Speaker 2: asking for. I do think. You know, my good friend
43:07
Speaker 2: Greg Doyle, our columnist, wrote a column where he basically said,
43:11
Speaker 2: I bet you'll still watch, and he's right, we all will.
43:15
Speaker 2: That's not necessarily, you know, a reason for this. Listen
43:19
Speaker 2: it just because the consumer will consume doesn't mean that
43:23
Speaker 2: something needs to be done. But while I don't like
43:29
Speaker 2: the idea of expansion and in general, I think it
43:32
Speaker 2: will start to water down meaningfully and to its detriment,
43:38
Speaker 2: the popularity of the NCAA tournament in the same way
43:42
Speaker 2: that we're probably heading for a negative return in football
43:45
Speaker 2: somewhere in the not terribly distant future. I do kind
43:49
Speaker 2: of understand some of the arguments for it. It does
43:53
Speaker 2: feel like an answer searching for a problem, if you
43:56
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. But as you said, it's what
43:59
Speaker 2: it really is is it's money, it's inventory. It creates
44:03
Speaker 2: more NCA tournament games, which again people will watch, which
44:07
Speaker 2: means that Turner or somebody else when the contract runs
44:10
Speaker 2: up in twenty thirty two or whatever it is, twenty
44:13
Speaker 2: thirty one, whatever it is, we'll pay more money to
44:16
Speaker 2: the schools. Of course, more of that will go to
44:18
Speaker 2: the power conferences. Yes, it might create some access, you know,
44:24
Speaker 2: for smaller schools. I've seen some small school conference commissioners
44:29
Speaker 2: express support for it. I'm sure there will be a
44:33
Speaker 2: little bit of expanded access for small schools, but it's
44:37
Speaker 2: gonna favor the major conferences. We all know that. You know,
44:39
Speaker 2: it's a little bit like England enacting the Magna Carta
44:42
Speaker 2: and then pretending that those rights barely existed for four
44:44
Speaker 2: hundred years. You know, it's not it's I would be
44:49
Speaker 2: shocked if it's much more than like a token gesture. Again, like,
44:54
Speaker 2: on the one hand, it does feel inevitable, on the
44:57
Speaker 2: other hand, and I say this just from a completely neutral,
45:02
Speaker 2: you know sort of position. The other hand, I'm kind
45:05
Speaker 2: of surprised it hasn't happened already because prominent figures in
45:10
Speaker 2: the sport have been pushing for it for ten years,
45:16
Speaker 2: fifteen years, and some of their arguments are valid. Number One,
45:21
Speaker 2: if there's more money to be made, what's the worst
45:26
Speaker 2: you know, what's the harm in going to make it?
45:27
Speaker 2: Number two, you are still talking about a postseason that
45:32
Speaker 2: is dramatically more what is the word, substantially more selective
45:40
Speaker 2: than its football counterpart. I know people don't care about
45:44
Speaker 2: six and six bowl games between a MAC team and
45:47
Speaker 2: a you know, a Sun Belt team, but like enough
45:55
Speaker 2: people do or else, that bowl game wouldn't exist, right,
45:59
Speaker 2: you know it. I don't like it, and I don't
46:03
Speaker 2: it all fits on the same sort of self destructive track.
46:07
Speaker 2: It feels like college football has set itself on here
46:10
Speaker 2: for a while. But on the other hand, what I
46:14
Speaker 2: will say is I do understand kind of some of
46:18
Speaker 2: the arguments for it, even if I don't necessarily agree
46:21
Speaker 2: with all of them, and more than anything else as
46:23
Speaker 2: a set a minute ago, I'm mostly just surprised it
46:27
Speaker 2: hasn't happened yet, because it seems like we do this
46:30
Speaker 2: every two or three years, and it always seems inevitable
46:34
Speaker 2: because it always seems like, well, this is all just
46:36
Speaker 2: driven by money and opportunity, and the big conferences want more,
46:40
Speaker 2: so we got to give them more or else, and
46:43
Speaker 2: then you know it. I mean, I think ESPN reported
46:49
Speaker 2: yesterday that the Division I Basketball Committee basically came away
46:53
Speaker 2: without a consensus decision on what to do about expansions. So,
46:58
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's it's uh. I keep assuming it's
47:04
Speaker 2: gonna happen at some point. I don't necessarily think it's
47:07
Speaker 2: gonna be great for the sport. I also don't think
47:08
Speaker 2: it's gonna be cataclysmic for the sport either. I think,
47:12
Speaker 2: you know, four years down the line, whatever number they
47:16
Speaker 2: settle on, seventy six or seventy eight or whatever, we'll
47:19
Speaker 2: be like, well, yeah, that's the size of the tournament.
47:21
Speaker 2: That why wouldn't that be how many teams make it?
47:23
Speaker 2: You know, right, and then and then we'll start talking
47:27
Speaker 2: about expanding in ninety six or one hundred and twenty eight,
47:30
Speaker 2: you know, and we'll and we'll just we will just
47:32
Speaker 2: restart the dance, because that's what we do.
47:37
Speaker 1: I guess I've kind of accepted the fact that it's
47:40
Speaker 1: it's coming, but still like to complain until it's actually not.
47:45
Speaker 1: Maybe it's one of those things that they're gonna just
47:48
Speaker 1: slide into the news cycle on a Saturday three or
47:52
Speaker 1: four weeks into college football season and hope that it
47:56
Speaker 1: doesn't grab as many headlines as it would right now.
47:58
Speaker 1: So we'll see how it all goes down. Zach, stay
48:02
Speaker 1: cool going out there to to cut your grass. I
48:07
Speaker 1: know we've got the what the Puerto Rico trips? What
48:10
Speaker 1: about a month away coming up for I know you're
48:12
Speaker 1: going down there. That'll be an interesting experience to get
48:19
Speaker 1: a chance to watch this new India team. So looking
48:22
Speaker 1: forward to bring your observations for that. But thanks for
48:26
Speaker 1: carving out the time for us on this Friday in July.
48:29
Speaker 2: No, thanks for inviting me. It's always always enjoyed me
48:32
Speaker 2: on podcast on the Brink. Everyone should listen and subscribe.
48:35
Speaker 2: Probably should have send the top of the show, but
48:37
Speaker 2: you know they made it this far, they already.
48:39
Speaker 3: Subscribe, h for sure. Yeah, as Zach said, if you
48:42
Speaker 3: do enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and
48:45
Speaker 3: a review over on Apple Podcasts.
48:46
Speaker 1: Leave us a five star rating over on Spotify, and
48:50
Speaker 1: we'll be back soon with another episode of Podcast on
48:52
Speaker 1: the Brink.