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3 Guys Before The Game - Wren Baker Visits (Episode 561) · 3 Guys Before The Game

• 0:08
  Show time. Welcome in everybody. It's time for another episode of Three Guys
• 0:13
  before the Game. But we have four. Usually it's two or one.
• 0:18
  I know now I got four career here. This is the show that cannot
• 0:23
  count. It's three Guys before the Game with a very special guest, WVU
• 0:27
  Athletic Director and Vice President West Virginia University Wren Baker. We're going to get
• 0:32
  into a bunch of stuff. You know why, because there's a bunch of
• 0:34
  stuff going on, unprecedented stuff. I want to get into that. We
• 0:39
  all want to get into that. And hoppies here, which is kind of
• 0:42
  nice. I think. Three Guys Before the Game brought to us by Comac's
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  Business Systems, keeping West Virginia's business data safe, secure and efficient for twenty
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  an absolute windfall right in your pocket. Go to go Mark. Three Guys
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  also brought to us by lou Wendell Marine at Sales in Saint Albans. They've
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  been doing it for over forty years, which means they've stood the test of
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  time. What do they do? They do what everyone wants to do.
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  They sell family fun. Don't you like to have fun? Fun? So
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  better than not having fun? Visit lou Wendelmarne sales dot com. They sell
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  American boats made by the Avalon Boat Folks up in Michigan. Fantastic, three
• 1:32
  guys before the game. Thanks you for joining us, and away we go.
• 1:38
  How are you, buddy? I'm doing good. You know, people
• 1:41
  can thank me for all three guys being here because I refuse to come on
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  with a half shit. Listen, this is a true story. I told
• 1:49
  Tony I'm not coming on till Hofey's there, which gives us like three weeks
• 1:53
  a year. You said that, I mean, basically, he said,
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  listen. I I don't want to point any fingers or anything like that,
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  but till I get a full corum, I'm not in. So I get
• 2:02
  it. I have a very limited schedule. You know, Hey, listen,
• 2:07
  how about this round. I don't know if you're listening or not,
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  but we went so south on the last two shows ago. We went so
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  long two hours and ten minutes. Did you really Yeah, it was Brian
• 2:16
  Joe's we act visited Oh my gosh, but it wasn't all him. And
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  then we did textual healing, which we hadn't done in a month. And
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  so all of a sudden, we're sitting around and I look at the thing
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  and I goes like it was like two eight and counting. I went like,
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  it's become a telethon. And so what we did was on the fly,
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  we came back. We just stopped it, cut it and made two
• 2:39
  pieces out of it. So I say all of that because the last episode
• 2:43
  it was just Brad and me and textual healing for like an hour. But
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  now we're back to We're back to the the main shopping ingredients. We've got
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  a guest, We've got all three guys, got lots of trinkets and face
• 2:55
  creams and stuff you're peddling. Well, thank you for the opening. We
• 3:00
  do have new gear coming on the on you and Hoppy are wearing. Thanks
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  for bringing that out, Peril. Thank you. I appreciate that. By
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  the way, if we can get it, yeah, thank you. This
• 3:08
  is the new Peter Malar, which will be available on an episode eight hundred.
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  That actual shirt and Hoppy's actual shirt available in the coming days, efforting
• 3:17
  right now to get it up on the website. You're wearing Mallar today.
• 3:20
  I am MAC. Donors can get this, so I'll peddle something. See
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  this, we have the Mountaineer. I can't even tell. Yeah, that's
• 3:29
  nice one. That's hard to get. We'll go here on the side.
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  So yeah, you got that. You can get that for the right Yeah,
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  right, and that and donations now are more important than ever before.
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  Dude, I have been running this through my head and trying to figure this
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  out, and I cannot get it into my head what this thing is going
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  to look like one year from now, because I'm trying to do simple math,
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  and I know you and do public math. Right, you should at
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  least get a pencil lint. But in a year from now, you're you
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  and West Virginia University and all of us in this powerfol level thing will be
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  in a revenue share, so it could be as much as twenty two percent.
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  You don't necessarily have to get to twenty two percent day one. It's
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  you could scale it. I don't know exactly what you're going to do,
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  but I'm just doing simple math. Let's forget WV for Now, let's just
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  say an athletic department has one hundred million dollar budget, and let's say that
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  school X is saying we are going to revenue share twenty percent of our budget.
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  Right, so I'm at twenty million dollars. I'm going to share twenty
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  million dollars with my student athletes. So this is where I go, Like,
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  One, that's a lot of money. Two, how is it divided
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  among the sports? If you go back to the most recent settlement paying back
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  the guys and girls from twenty sixteen, at seventy five percent goes to football,
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  twenty percent goes to basketball, and five percent goes to the other sports.
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  Okay, so I'm still doing my round math. So if seventy five
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  percent of twenty million dollars is fifteen million dollars, so am I correct that?
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  A year from now you're figuring out how I'm going to take I'm sorry,
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  school exes figuring out a way of how to take fifteen million dollars and
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  say, okay, football players, here's fifteen million dollars. How do you
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  do that? I mean, no matter how you cut fifteen million dollars among
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  eighty five scholarships, the amount of money the guys are going to make is
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  going to be a whole Am I am I crazy? Or is a mine
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  in here there? Yeah? No, I think you you have definitely encapsulated
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  the challenge. And there's multiple challenges and multiple questions on a lot of different
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  fronts. One, where do you come up with that on the fly right,
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  because you're not working into this. If you knew you you had a
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  rev share of that amount and you had five years to ramp up to it,
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  that wouldn't be a problem. But you're talking about implementing that a year
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  from now. Two you have two competing forces, you have a Title nine
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  force. And there was an article today where you know, there was some
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  federal experts that weighed in saying they do think this Title Nino factor into this.
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  A lot of people don't think it will. But you got to figure
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  out of whatever you're able to share, how are you going to allocate that.
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  There's schools of thoughts that you do it along the same lines as the
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  back damage as will be allocated in the in the court decision. And so,
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  you know, I think there's more questions and answers right now. My
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  focus is it's just on getting as much money to share as we can get,
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  because I feel like we could. You know, I told our staff
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  we could sit in here for twelve fourteen hours a week talking about how we're
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  going to do ivy it up. Right now, we don't have the money
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  secured, so that's the first thing is to get the money, and then
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  we have a little runway here to figure out how that's going to be allocated.
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  But you know, at the end of the day, the courts have
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  consistently said that the model we have in place is not legal, and so
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  we can lament the days of the past. We can wish that things were
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  different, but you don't get to deal with the parameters as you would want
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  them to be. You get to deal with them as they are. And
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  that's that's where we're at. And so, you know, I think for
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  us right now, we just have to focus on growing our revenues so that
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  we have as much to share as possible. And we would like to be
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  at that max because we know there will be institutions at that max, and
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  we know that athletics is important to our campus, to our community. But
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  but I've said this a lot of times in this state, I believe that
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  Mountaineer sports, and probably particularly the football and basketball programs, are the number
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  one marketing tool for the state, and so we cannot afford to not be
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  competitive, and so there is great, great pressure. We were talking before
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  we come on. Usually towards the middle the end of football and basketball season,
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  I get fever blisters, and I haven't. I don't in the summer.
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  I never get them because there's no stress. But I haven't slept well
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  the last three or four weeks because I understand the magnitude of what we're facing.
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  I got a little fever blister coming up that I'm battling. But you
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  know, I think, but I do believe. There's a plan for us
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  to get there. You know, our the Mountaineer Nation has supported us.
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  So if you look at just a couple of metrics, I'll throw out fundraising.
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  We eclipsed thirty five million this past year. That's our second best year
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  since the MAC was formed and kept records in eighty two. Our season ticket
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  number is going to be up around ten percent. We got about five thousand
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  new season tickets. We're gonna have our best season ticket year since twenty sixteen.
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  We were up seven or eight percent. I believe last year, and
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  then we're gonna be up close to ten percent on top of that. And
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  so there's a lot of positive metrics, but we're have to keep that momentum
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  going and frankly even have greater momentum to ensure that we're poised to continue to
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  compete. Is there a hard number that you have to meet for distribution or
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  can you do a good faith like, wow, we didn't get to this,
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  but we got close. Yeah, I think right now my plan would
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  be to focus my energy and effort on hitting the max, just because I
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  know competitors will right and and you know, then we'll have to we'll have
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  to figure out if we fall less than that. But you know, we've
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  always fully participated and when Austin come along like that was a challenge. There's
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  a much smaller challenge than this. It felt big at the time, but
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  you know, it's too important for us to not give our coaches and our
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  student athletes the same opportunities that other people have. So if we're going,
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  you know, initially our plan would be to try to grow new revenue,
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  but we may have to come to a place where we have to look at
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  that expense line. Now If you look at expenses, and I've talked about
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  this publicly, take out travel, take out debt service, Our net operating
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  is about as low as anybody's in the Big twelve. And I saw a
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  chart the other day it was expense growth in operating over the last five years.
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  We were the smallest at one point five percent. Now you talk about
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  what's happened with inflation and everything, our coaches are doing more with less,
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  and in essence, we haven't even come out of COVID cuts, right,
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  and so there's not a lot to trim before you start to really hurt the
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  student athlete experience. And so we won't immediately go to cutting expenses, although
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  we may get there, because this rev share is going to play very prominently
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  in recruitment and retention. Well, you have to look at coaching salaries moving
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  forward. Facility builds, I mean, the facilities upgrades have been so lightning
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  fast over the last decade and a half. Are those two areas that are
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  going to have to slow a little bit to help us? I know,
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  for us, I don't foresee us taking on any major facility projects that aren't
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  either one hundred percent donor funded. You know, you can't tell somebody what
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  to do with their with with their money. So we're building a baseball pitching
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  and heating lab. Well one donor funded about seventy five percent of that,
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  and then another one stepped forward into another six substantial chunks. We pretty much
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  had it done before we even got going. But I've told all of our
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  coaches we're going through a facility master planning process. Now we have architects in
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  and they're looking at everything, and they're sitting with every head coach, and
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  I think it's important to know what the challenges are. And so I'd rather
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  have that And and even though I have to play traffic cop later and decide
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  who gets to go and who's who's who's on hold, I'm willing to do
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  that to have the data in front of me. But if it doesn't pencil
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  and it's not a positive contributor to that budget, it's hard to see us
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  taking on anything additionally. And you know, in terms of coaching salaries,
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  I don't at this point for see us going through and cutting a bunch.
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  But will it slowed down what you do in terms of raises. I think
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  it will. And I think on the back end of this If this a
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  cap that truly holds as a cap, and everybody's meeting the rev share cap,
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  there's probably everybody's going to see a little bit of a lull and coaching
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  salaries. But on the backside of this, as those two conferences that have
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  the revenues growing faster the big ten sec, I suspect that their salaries will
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  be ramping up at it because once you hit the cap, if your revenues
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  continue to grow, you got to spend it somewhere. What are your fellow
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  athletic directors saying as you talk with one another as to where they're going to
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  go get the money? In other words, have you created a conversation where
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  you guys and ladies think this is the best way to access a tremendous amount
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  of dollars. Is it titles? Is it stadiums? Is it on the
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  field? Is it logos on the uniforms? Like is there a lottery somewhere
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  here where it's going to be easier to find? So it's all of those
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  things. And so like we had a staff meeting today and you know,
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  I give them some projections on some items I think we could we could do
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  that we're not doing and where I think they could land, and there's no
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  there's no coincidence between uniform patches all of a sudden being talked about and build
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  logos. And as we understand, we've got to grow revenues. Now,
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  everybody that grows those revenues that's going to contribute back to the revenues that are
• 13:22
  this cap is calculated on. So eventually that's going to cause the cap to
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  go up more. But I think all of those things are in play.
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  And so it's like building a puzzle piece. You know, you try to
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  get the corner pieces in place first, and then you start filling in the
• 13:39
  middle pieces. So today's conversation really center around, Okay, what are these
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  corner pieces, what's the range that we think they could be worth. How
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  quickly do we think we could sell them, because you don't want to get
• 13:48
  feel so much pressure that you undersell something that could have brought you two x
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  of what you took for as you felt like you had to rush. And
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  so so then we'll start to fill in those other pieces. And you know,
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  and so I feel like there's a path for us to get to where
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  we need to be is now going to be easy. It's going to require
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  a lot of thought, a lot of hard work, a lot of hitting
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  the road and making sure everybody understands it's gonna uh. We're going to need
• 14:16
  to continue to have developed relationship with country roads, trust, make sure that
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  that organization is very healthy. I could see there being a full merger.
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  I could be that see there being kind of a quasi merger. I could
• 14:28
  see us maintaining our separate lines. But that organization being healthy is very critical
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  for us as well. You've mentioned a couple of times now the timing of
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  it is what makes it so. I don't want to minimize having to go
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  find twenty million dollars, but the timing of it seems to be the most
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  difficult. Similar to what football and basketball have done through it seems like they've
• 14:48
  settled in nicely now to the NIL world and how to manage it and how
• 14:50
  to do it. Eventually, you're going to get to that point, right,
• 14:54
  Eventually, you guys are going to understand, all right, here's our
• 14:56
  money, here's how we're going to raise it, here's where it's coming from.
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  It's the newness of it right now that's causing the most problems. Fair,
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  that's exactly right, and not knowing how that allocation is going to happen.
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  And probably the the other big unknown is, you know, in this
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  Court UH ruling there is a proposed settlement, what you there is a regulator
• 15:28
  for NIL becoming more organic true in I L, but there's nothing. And
• 15:33
  because it's a court UH issue and non NCAA issue, there's much more teeth
• 15:37
  to there being real rules in place, but it's unknown as it's going to
• 15:43
  be a third party, Is it's gonna be the NCAA, What are those
• 15:45
  rules, what are those mechanisms for control? They're talking about having a clearing
• 15:48
  house. If true, if NIL becomes truly organic n I L, this
• 15:54
  could be a really positive thing. But that's such a huge piece of this
• 15:58
  because as you look at these collectives, being able to incorporate them into your
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  rev share is really critical. But if there's not a regulator that incorporates them
• 16:08
  and they're still stand alone, now you're kind of competing with each other like
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  it's a much more complicated puzzle in that case. And so I think that's
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  a huge, huge part of this, that is how is that regulated,
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  how can that be controlled? Who is doing it? And what does that
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  mean? Long term for the collectives and nil. And just to put that
• 16:30
  into context real quick. So what Ran is basically saying is these nil payments,
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  let's just say they're supposed to be a you do this and you get
• 16:40
  this. That's the way it's supposed to work. Another you provide a service
• 16:44
  and then you will be paid this. Well, the new AEA sports game
• 16:45
  that just came out Yeah this week is a great example that you're using a
• 16:48
  player's name image like this, then they get paid for that. Totally good.
• 16:52
  But what you're trying to stop is just here's six hundred thousand dollars and
• 16:56
  you don't do anything for it. So the question is can some form of
• 17:00
  entity oversee this so that actual things are being done to warrant the money that
• 17:06
  you're getting. That's right, ren One other thing I think maybe we should
• 17:08
  explain to people. You probably know it by now, But it's also it's
• 17:11
  not that there's a committee or a couple people making this decision that you can
• 17:15
  go get some guidance from. That's also one of the biggest hurdles you're getting
• 17:21
  over. You're not quite sure what the answer is going to be here,
• 17:23
  and there's nobody that can tell you what the answer is going to be.
• 17:26
  So that's part of the flying blind here, is that there's not a definitive
• 17:30
  answer coming that you can get info on. Yeah. So one of the
• 17:34
  Playoff's council, Jeffrey Kessler, who's well known in the legal world, especially
• 17:41
  sports law. I saw an article yesterday where he expressed some frustration that this
• 17:45
  is taking so long, and you know, and we're one of the big
• 17:51
  hang ups right now is on roster limits. So the next thing that would
• 17:59
  be greatly challenge, we feel like, is the scholarship limits. Those are
• 18:02
  put in place for cost containment a long time ago, and back to limiting
• 18:07
  nil, limiting what somebody would give in terms of a scholarship from some arbitrary
• 18:12
  process that no one even really knows. The formula of why baseball with forty
• 18:15
  players has eleven point seven scholarships, it was cost containment and a little bit
• 18:21
  Title nine compliance from a long time ago. So part of the settlement speaks
• 18:26
  to and the reason why it's in the settlement. I don't know that Kessler
• 18:29
  and them really care about roster limits is everything that's in the settlement will be
• 18:33
  codified and then should have a durability for some period of time, right,
• 18:38
  And so I think we were the ones wanting to put that in there,
• 18:44
  meaning the institutions and so. But there's great variance in what people think roster
• 18:49
  limits should be. So football generally has been running one hundred and twenty five
• 18:53
  to one hundred and thirty on the roster eighty five scholarships. So if you
• 18:57
  want to cut them back to a roster number and you don't want to increase
• 19:03
  scholarships because scholarship limits is going to go away, then that roster number is
• 19:07
  eighty five. Well, coaches are like, oh, we can never do
• 19:08
  this with eighty five. We could sit here in debate if they could do
• 19:11
  it with eighty five or not, but you know, they're coaches, and
• 19:15
  so you have some conferences and some coaches coalescing around a number like one twenty
• 19:19
  five, some that's coalescing around eighty five. So like, these commissioners have
• 19:25
  to kind of come to an agreement so that the NCAA can be involved and
• 19:26
  help set these roster limits, and they each have their own coaches groups lobbying
• 19:30
  them. So people talk about the NCAA as if it's like two guys behind,
• 19:36
  like it's a massive organization, and you're trying to get agreement with over
• 19:40
  a thousand institutions with completely and totally different backgrounds and resources, and so just
• 19:48
  the football roster limit. People would be shocked and amazed at the amount of
• 19:52
  debate that's going on and lobbying behind the scenes with this person and that person.
• 19:56
  My guess is we'll end up with a compromise. It'll be somewhere between.
• 19:59
  Hey, I don't know the number, but three ads from group of
• 20:03
  five friends of mine have texted me today asked me if I have any idea
• 20:07
  what the roster number would be. And so, because they assume the power
• 20:11
  power four knows more than they do, and so, uh, there's a
• 20:15
  lot of things to be figured out, and it just takes time to build
• 20:18
  consensus in an organization that's that's as large and complex as ours. Is you
• 20:25
  since you got here, my gosh, you know the nil stuff and now
• 20:29
  all this stuff we're talking about now Neil Brown was on the hot seat,
• 20:33
  that's been sorted out, the Huggins situation, women's basketball coach, volleyball coach,
• 20:37
  now all this stuff, I mean, baseball base are you is this
• 20:44
  what you signed up for what do you ask him? You ask him if
• 20:47
  he's tired. You know. Here's here's what I would tell you is it's
• 20:52
  not probably what you envision the start to be. But when you take these
• 20:56
  jobs, you know they're hard jobs. And my daughter's had a really good
• 21:00
  year in school, and they went through a lot of change. We lived
• 21:03
  apart for six months. They come through. I don't share the work stuff
• 21:06
  with them. They have their own challenges. One of them had to overcome
• 21:10
  some really poor assistant softball coaching. But you know, I I sent them
• 21:22
  a note. And I'm not somebody who writes my kids a lot of notes,
• 21:25
  but I sent them both a note at the end of the year when
• 21:26
  their grades come in, and just told them, you know, the older
• 21:30
  you get, the more that you'll understand that probably life's greatest blessing is to
• 21:36
  go through hard things, and it's it sucks in real time, but you
• 21:42
  grow so much from that and you appreciate the good times on the backside so
• 21:48
  much more. And so it has not been an easy, seamless, turbulence
• 21:56
  free start. But what is allowed me to do is I feel like I've
• 22:00
  gotten to know the people of West Virginia, I've gotten to know our board.
• 22:04
  I've been able to show who I am and what I'm about and what
• 22:07
  I believe in. I've been able to learn more about the people and the
• 22:11
  place. And so I really look back and see that as a blessing sitting
• 22:15
  here now, although it didn't always feel that way. So, but as
• 22:18
  you said about fever, blister and sleeping, but so you are lying awake
• 22:22
  at night thinking twenty million dollars. Absolutely, I'm a I have a hard
• 22:29
  time sleeping anyway, and so I've got different sleep aids that I'll use through
• 22:33
  different parts of the day. And but yes, absolutely, I mean it's
• 22:41
  an it's you know, listen, it's a challenge for everybody. Every ad
• 22:45
  is is. But when you're in a league, you're in the Power Conference,
• 22:48
  you're expected to do it. You're not in the Big ten or SEC
• 22:51
  that has more money. And within the Power Conference teams, you know our
• 22:56
  budget there's sixty depending on how you can to PAC twelve school sixty five sixty
• 23:02
  seven ish Power Conference teams, our budget is fifty eight fifty nine sixty.
• 23:06
  So you know, the challenge was already great for us. You add in
• 23:10
  this revenue share that's that's going to be a challenge, but I do believe
• 23:15
  that there's a path for us to do it, and so that's encouraging.
• 23:18
  But Bill, in that roadmap to get there is definitely something that keeps you
• 23:22
  up, especially when as you all were just talking about, there really isn't
• 23:26
  a map. It isn't like, Okay, here's what you do. Yeah,
• 23:29
  right, okay. You said earlier when you first started that West Virginia
• 23:34
  University Athletics is so special in the state that it has to do well because
• 23:38
  it helps the state as a whole. Do you think and this is more
• 23:45
  like a talk line question here, more political question here, if I could,
• 23:48
  if I could take hoppies tails, take my thing here. Talk line
• 23:52
  is a much less for lax show you. If you get a hard break
• 23:53
  on talk line, it's what are you saying? Right, heartbreak twn.
• 23:59
  I thought I thought your time was valuable. I said, I got Rent
• 24:02
  Baker for nine minutes and was wrin Baker. That's about two or three questions,
• 24:04
  and I just I knew your time was viable. You squeezed me and
• 24:07
  I appreciate it. It's a hard break. What can I do well?
• 24:10
  You cut him off? Hey, cut him off a hard cut off.
• 24:14
  You need to go, We need to like thanks for thanks. I went
• 24:18
  for He tried to interrupt me a couple of times, and I kept going
• 24:21
  through it. Yeah, that's right of the arm tackle. Yeah, we
• 24:22
  don't have heard breaks on this show or sports line. No on sports line.
• 24:29
  Do you think across the country that state governments potentially follow me her Hopey?
• 24:36
  Could state governments realizing the impact that university athletic departments have on their state
• 24:42
  and what it means to commerce. I mean, let's talk about the dollars.
• 24:47
  Would a state government ever have a little subsidy that they would give or
• 24:52
  a university cutting some slack to an athletic department when the cost that it charges
• 24:56
  you anything like that, Yeah, I think you will see UH schools think
• 25:03
  about investing in athletics different in states thinking about it investing in athletics differently,
• 25:08
  Not so much as a subsidy because that doesn't feel very good, but understanding
• 25:15
  that the power of athletics branding and marketing of institutions. When you think like,
• 25:23
  I didn't know much about West Virginia before taking this job, so you
• 25:27
  as an outsider in Texas, you you asked me what I know about West
• 25:30
  Virginia, I would have told you mountains, coal and the mountaineers. That's
• 25:37
  the three things that I knew before I took the job. Now moving here,
• 25:41
  I've loved being here. It's a great state, and my kids love
• 25:45
  it. Despite the softball coaching. Yes, but they've overcome, improvising,
• 25:49
  adapted and overcome. You don't need to jump into yeah, softball coach Brad.
• 25:53
  Just go ahead and let him talk. Brad was his daughter's coach.
• 25:56
  That's all I'm saying. Good if you have a radio guy's a lay coach,
• 26:03
  it's tough. Uh hopey, Maybe you could join the staff next year.
• 26:08
  I make all the kids used lip by the Lakers Doug Gottlieb Coaching Division
• 26:15
  one. That's the new path anyway. We'll so uh. But but I
• 26:22
  do. I do feel like when you look at our state and we're trying
• 26:26
  to diversify and grow our economy, we're trying. We have a great workforce
• 26:32
  with you know, and an education system that I feel like is underappreciated by
• 26:37
  by other people. The the you look at the healthcare system with w Medicine
• 26:41
  and the life changing work that they're doing you look and you look at what
• 26:45
  are ways that we can advance the brand and the reach of those things that
• 26:51
  we have to offer. I cannot name you anything that would be greater than
• 26:55
  than Mountaineer athletics. And so as we look at trying to grow rep News,
• 27:00
  would it makes sense for the state to partner with us on naming a
• 27:06
  field on patches, on the you know in West Virginia, tourism in those
• 27:10
  things. I absolutely think that that makes a ton of sense. And I
• 27:12
  think you'll see people around the country that start to explore that we haven't talked
• 27:18
  getting rid of cost of athlete scholarships for about fifteen eighteen years, probably bring
• 27:23
  that right back up again. University could absolutely aid in that regard. How's
• 27:27
  that work? Yeah, yeah, I mean you could very well see where
• 27:30
  it becomes a trade. Are you paying? Are you paying out of state
• 27:36
  tuition for all of your student athletes? So we pay full scholarship. Sometimes
• 27:41
  we get a little help with the out of state portion because it's substantial.
• 27:44
  We certainly did during COVID, So if we have budget challenges, sometimes we
• 27:48
  get a little help with that out of state portion, but we do pay
• 27:52
  the bill for our scholarships, and so you know when you look at the
• 27:56
  brand and reach and in this day and time where now you know people are
• 28:00
  looking at more with I tell people this all time. You take out football
• 28:03
  and men's basketball, look at the rest of our sports. This comes up
• 28:07
  when people push me sometimes about adding softball. They're like, oh, you'd
• 28:10
  make money. There's a difference between bringing in revenue and being profitable, right,
• 28:14
  so, yes, we would bring in revenue, we would be nowhere
• 28:17
  near profitable because there's not a profitable softball program in the country. So to
• 28:21
  assume that we would be, it would be a fallacy. All of our
• 28:23
  other sports. If the coaches were volunteering, we didn't pay them anything,
• 28:27
  would lose money. We do not generate enough to pay their scholarship bill,
• 28:32
  to travel and equipment costs for those other sports. A lot of people don't
• 28:34
  realize that we've been paying for that difference with revenues from football and basketball.
• 28:41
  So there is a value proposition for institutions, not just athletic departments, for
• 28:45
  institutions to consider, how are we going to provide those experiences and maintain those
• 28:52
  experiences if we're not allowed to do it with the revenues from football and basketball.
• 28:56
  What's your line item per year for tuition costs? Oh, I need
• 29:00
  to go look and see because it changes every year. You know, we
• 29:03
  just had a tuition increase. But but it's it's well over ten percent of
• 29:07
  our budget, that's what it's about. Over eight million dollars. Hop,
• 29:12
  you're just deferring to me right now. I'm just like, can you take
• 29:15
  care of some of this stuff? It's the climate for that right now at
• 29:19
  the university level, I don't know. I would just say the climate for
• 29:22
  that right now is pretty tough because you're coming off a period where WVU just
• 29:26
  you know, cut in number of classes and faculty members so that they're doing
• 29:30
  their own retooling as you well know right now, and the legislature is trying
• 29:37
  to hold the line on spending and cut taxes. So that's that's a tough
• 29:41
  road to ho. I get it. I believe that that w athletics are
• 29:44
  a major marketing tool for the university, But it's a tough road to hot
• 29:48
  at the state capital, especially when everybody is there trying to say we need
• 29:51
  more money too, So that that's tough. Oh, there's no question,
• 29:53
  and I'm very sensitive to kind of what happens on campus. You know,
• 29:57
  when you come from a non power five, power four institution like I was
• 30:02
  at that you are heavily subsidized, so that conversation about the value proposition happens
• 30:07
  all the time. I just athletics is not the most important thing that the
• 30:12
  institution does, nor the state. And I'm the first to say that I
• 30:15
  went to school on an academic scholarship, but you know, it is the
• 30:22
  most visible thing. And so if you look at the periods of time where
• 30:25
  enrollment was strong and growing, it almost always correlates with when our athletic programs
• 30:30
  were the strong. Did you just name drop you got an academic scholarship?
• 30:33
  Did you just name drop that in there real quick? Just like just solid?
• 30:36
  So I thought it was a solid and informative point. Tumble brag?
• 30:40
  Do you do you When you were on a popular public affair show recently that
• 30:45
  you got cut off of, we were break Yeah, Heartbreak, Heartbreak Copy.
• 30:48
  We were talking about the fact you're doing the survey to see what the
• 30:52
  fan interest is in expanding the fan experience that my own pushcard stadium more what
• 30:57
  I would call luxury boxes or play is where the fans can go, and
• 31:02
  all that is is to entice to bring into enhancement fansperis, but also bring
• 31:07
  in more money. So how much money is on it? How much money
• 31:10
  is still out there? I mean, do you have a dollar amount like
• 31:11
  that is out there that you can capitalize by making those improvements. Yeah,
• 31:15
  so that survey should help tell us. But you know there are people that
• 31:19
  will tell you, well, you know, we just don't. We are
• 31:22
  more of a blue collar fan base. We don't have a lot of and
• 31:25
  I don't believe that. You look at Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma
• 31:27
  State, the demographics of their alumni in their state is not much different than
• 31:32
  ours. There is an article in the Tulsa World Today by Bill Haston,
• 31:36
  who's a friend, and he's talking about Oklahoma State's finances. Oklahoma State has
• 31:40
  one hundred and twenty three suites, one hundred and twenty three most in I
• 31:45
  think it's number one in Power conference, and it's you know, Oklahoma has
• 31:48
  about four million people, but the you know, a lot of those loyalties
• 31:52
  are to the University of Oklahoma. So I would think their universe of fans,
• 31:56
  their average attendance is about like ours, and their demographic fix is pretty
• 32:00
  similar to ours, and they're making off of those suites right now, free
• 32:05
  and clear, twenty million dollars. Will you go and compare their budget to
• 32:07
  ours, what's the net difference? It's less than twenty million dollars. And
• 32:13
  so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy if you don't build these premium seats eventually.
• 32:17
  First of all, you want them that you hope you raise enough money
• 32:20
  and they pencil from the beginning, so they're additive to your budget, not
• 32:23
  not a dream. Then secondly, when they're paid for, it's all free
• 32:28
  and clear. You know what, if you're building apartment complexes, which ones
• 32:30
  are the most profitable, the one that you're charging the most for, the
• 32:35
  ones that are already paid for and so and then you know. And then
• 32:39
  it's also a great prospecting tool. We don't know how many sweet holders we're
• 32:45
  losing out on because we don't have any sweets to sell. I do know,
• 32:47
  I've probably had ten twelve people that have told me, without a doubt
• 32:51
  one hundred percent they would buy a suite if we had today. And these
• 32:52
  are people I know ken because I've seen their sponsorships with lear Field and other
• 32:58
  things, and so you know, I think, uh, the survey will
• 33:04
  tell us a lot. We've already had over sixteen hundred responses, which is
• 33:07
  pretty incredible because we didn't send it out to just everybody. You had to
• 33:09
  have purchased a single game or season ticket or been in our database as a
• 33:14
  ticket purchaser to get that and the emails you have to have one of those
• 33:19
  emails that we have in to be able to go in there. Not just
• 33:21
  anybody can create it. And you looked at them, if you looked at
• 33:23
  the results, not yet because they're they're cutting the data. We have a
• 33:27
  company that's that's accumulating those and we're actually going to send a reminder out and
• 33:30
  get people about another week. Current suite holders, we need you to fill
• 33:34
  them out because they have it segment segmented like that. So we're light on
• 33:37
  the response of current suite holders and we want their their responses too. But
• 33:44
  sixteen hundred's incredible. They were We had almost one thousand within forty eight hours.
• 33:47
  And so yeah, so for once, you can't say it's not it's
• 33:51
  anecdotal, not scientific. It is going to scientific, absolutely, and I'd
• 33:54
  like you to come back on my show's business seven minutes heartbreak. It's hard
• 34:00
  to go through that kind of data in seven min I'll give you a longer
• 34:04
  segment. But I will say this. I can be accused of a lot
• 34:07
  of things, and most of them I will admit to. Lack of analyzing
• 34:13
  data is not one of them. Love. I love data, and so
• 34:17
  if anything, I probably have too focused on that. If you took that
• 34:22
  survey, you got a little glimpse into end of that. It's a fairly
• 34:25
  lengthy survey. You know what this speaks to too, though, And we
• 34:28
  started this off and usually when we go down this road of oh no,
• 34:31
  you got to come up with twenty million, oh no conference ray linement,
• 34:34
  oh no you got to pay ath, it has that doom and gloom effect
• 34:37
  to it. But I do think it's important. I said this many times
• 34:38
  in the show. Mountaineer fans and the department at each step of the way
• 34:44
  have stepped up along the way. Every time more money's been needed to compete.
• 34:47
  What happens, there's more money found. Every time you need more of
• 34:51
  whatever it is to compete that's been found, you go back and we're older
• 34:55
  and older than you are. When I started here, the budget was seventeen
• 35:00
  million back in ninety six. It's now, what's over one hundred. We'll
• 35:02
  just take one hundred. That's a remarkable growth in less than three decades.
• 35:07
  So we say all that stuff and all the challenges, and I'm not minimizing
• 35:09
  the challenges. You've got to go fix that, not me. I get
• 35:10
  it easier for me to say this, but people have stepped up throughout time.
• 35:15
  Here. There's no question, and I think people I don't have to
• 35:19
  sell the importance of Mountain your athletics here like so when I was at North
• 35:22
  Texas, like I spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince people
• 35:25
  that was important. I don't have to do that here now where we allocate
• 35:30
  resources and money. There's discussion there and I get it, but no one
• 35:36
  questions how important WU athletics is to the institution, to this community, but
• 35:43
  really to the entire state. Like everywhere I go, before I can say
• 35:47
  that, other people say it. So that's one thing that we're really blessed
• 35:52
  with here. You and I have talked about this before the branding of the
• 35:58
  university, and this is philosophical. You and I are on the same page,
• 36:04
  like, be who you really are, so like, don't try like
• 36:07
  to pretend that you're something Like I think West Virginia is so unique that it
• 36:12
  probably needs to sell its uniqueness. I e. You know, I loved
• 36:15
  your idea there, and I hadn't heard that from you before. But like,
• 36:19
  let's just say State Tourism wants to become a main sponsor of West Virginia
• 36:22
  athletics, and they've got something on the field, and they've got a patch
• 36:27
  on there, and you start selling the New River you know, gorge as
• 36:30
  a national park and you start selling that thing. I mean, think about
• 36:34
  the millions of people that watch a Mountaineer football game to get direct. Hey,
• 36:38
  let's show you who we really are. And you're you're promoting that constantly.
• 36:44
  That could be a huge win win opportunity for the university. Say who
• 36:47
  you are, man, this is who we really are. Well, as
• 36:51
  part of the reason why probably a third of the you know, if you
• 36:53
  look at my post on social media, it's probably a third that are my
• 36:59
  kids, a fourth that are my kids fifty athletics, and the other fourth
• 37:04
  is West Virginia stuff. Because I want people to know all the great stuff
• 37:07
  I have to do here. And as just a side note, Hoppey,
• 37:09
  you can react to this later. You're you're a very important and influential person
• 37:13
  in this state. Can we get Bridge Day on a bye week? I
• 37:16
  would go down there and tandem jump if like like what that you would do
• 37:22
  that? Well, not by myself, but I'll do anything once. I
• 37:27
  don't care if there were six people with me. I'm not going down there.
• 37:30
  That's if you if you die on Bridge Day, like God was calling
• 37:35
  your number, like you know what I mean, like definitely no. I
• 37:38
  think maybe God would have sayd why are you jumping off the bridge? Might
• 37:42
  be a bigger question. But Bridge that's one of those one of those big
• 37:45
  events in West Virginia. But it's always on a game like on the wait,
• 37:47
  this is away weekend. A lot of times it's the same game.
• 37:51
  Last year is a home game, and I think this year is a home
• 37:52
  game. Well do they set it before the football schedule comes out? I
• 37:57
  think they may They may have to do that. Maybe ESPN needs to recognize
• 38:00
  importance of Bridge Day and yeah, Hoppy, can you get on that.
• 38:05
  I'll work on that. Get on their friend Pete family he works for ESPN
• 38:07
  nugget. I come armed this like last year I was a rookie. I
• 38:15
  didn't have armed. You just hit Hoppy with his kryptonite. Pete family.
• 38:21
  Ah, dear Old Meal. Now maybe out there breaking bridge day. He
• 38:27
  went right for the juggler right there. I'll tell you what he's I wish
• 38:31
  I had a blood pressure cuff on you right now. That thing just shot.
• 38:35
  I appreciate the fact that you came armed. I like that. How
• 38:38
  are you getting Hey, that's forty minutes here on one issue. I know
• 38:43
  you know what that is. It's ninety percent of the issue. Ninety percent
• 38:45
  of what's going on right now, right right. It's a big part.
• 38:47
  And as we transition, let me say, three guys before the game is
• 38:51
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• 38:54
  secure and a fishing for twenty five years. You go into the Senator's house.
• 38:59
  He's got stuff from Comac's Business system he got a printer works great.
• 39:02
  He's got a printer prints two million sheets in five minutes, which is an
• 39:07
  amazing amount of paper, but it'll get it done. A lot of data
• 39:09
  out there, see, I like data too. You get a lot of
• 39:12
  data from that. They also offer digital phone systems from one digital line to
• 39:16
  one thousand lines and and remote monitoring for all your it needs. It's comas
• 39:22
  WUV dot com. That's COMAXWV dot com. When Reren looks out over seeing
• 39:27
  those beautiful sunsets, he sees Cheat Lake and the inside of Cheat Lake,
• 39:30
  every single boat on the water is from lou Wendell Marine Sales in Saint Albans.
• 39:35
  That parts on confirmed. Well, we're looking we're looking into that.
• 39:38
  But lou Wendell the premiere pontoon boat dealer that is true for over forty five
• 39:43
  years here in the state of West Virginia, located in Saint Albans. If
• 39:46
  you need it and it goes into the water, lou Wendell Marine Sales is
• 39:51
  the place you need to be. Check them out. And when Hoppy travels
• 39:53
  ladies and gentlemen up and down Interstate seventy nine, which he does with great
• 39:57
  frequency, he stops a Gomart every single one. Why because he's got a
• 40:01
  really bad bladder and he needs to use the bathroom. And then when he
• 40:05
  does, he has his go Maart rewards card. Right now you get triple
• 40:08
  points, double points name the points, food fuel, bingo, it's go
• 40:13
  Mart, check them out. So have you been invited out to cheat Lake
• 40:16
  on Brad's Never did get him invited on it? Don't have, don't done,
• 40:22
  but you need neither one of it. Nor have I been invited to
• 40:23
  Tony's house for dinner? We're getting close. I need furniture. I did
• 40:28
  a show Saturday in Wheeling with Doctor George's Oh yeah, Angelo, yeah and
• 40:34
  uh. He asked me if I had been invited to your house for for
• 40:37
  some of this fantastic cooking you proclaim, and I'd let him know I had
• 40:40
  not. Well, I'd say this. So I told Joan. I said,
• 40:45
  hey, John, you know, can so and so and so and
• 40:46
  so come over? And she goes, yeah, dude, great, Like
• 40:49
  where would they sit? We don't have no furniture. I got two barstools
• 40:52
  right now. That's it. It's aator senator did come over, made him
• 40:57
  some of our nice coffee. Haven't met him a Cappucci. Know. I
• 41:00
  thought nobody's a game day grind. I thought nobody could go to Tony's house
• 41:04
  until they finished. Like. That's the word I got. I had to
• 41:07
  I had to uber him the other day he had been hey by the way,
• 41:10
  and I wasn't just gonna go pick him up. I just march right
• 41:13
  in. So I thought, another Stefie, I can eat coffee here.
• 41:15
  I made him a coffee sales opportunity. Remember he said he uses sleep aids.
• 41:20
  That's a great episode. Eight hundred does not have like we sell shirts,
• 41:22
  we sell coffee, we sell we got a beer coming out the whole
• 41:27
  deal. We need sleep aids. And y'all get through those two hour shows
• 41:30
  that kind of isn't sleep Oh boy, then is on fire today? Fire?
• 41:37
  Why you had to break it up? I mean, hey, did
• 41:38
  you come see why? I go see why? Why went nine minutes?
• 41:42
  You see I went nine minutes. He's getting loose. Hey did you did
• 41:45
  you come to the food court at all last year? No? But I
• 41:49
  am so excited to hear that the food court's expanding to all year long tennis
• 41:57
  food court. That's now you're just like him. Now you're just saying and
• 42:00
  yeah, well he's kind of sort of right. I didn't make it,
• 42:02
  but I do want to get over something. Penn State Week. Penn State
• 42:06
  Week, We're starting on Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We're doing
• 42:12
  it Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and we're going to have a
• 42:15
  new We're gonna have a new barbecue truck that's two hundred feet long. Does
• 42:20
  Hoppies show up over there? Yes, he does. It's unbelievable. And
• 42:22
  he stays and people like, oh my gosh, he's actually here. It's
• 42:25
  like Howard Hughes coming out of his house. The barbecue is elite. Oh
• 42:30
  it is. It is really good. Red v Oh so you have still
• 42:32
  haven't had it? Had you haven't had it yet? No, And I
• 42:35
  need to because I will tell you I've been very impressed. I love the
• 42:38
  food in West Virginia, but so far the barbecue I get come from Texas.
• 42:45
  I'm just telling you. If I'm wrong, you can tell me.
• 42:49
  But I'm just saying you get one of his briskets when he becomes it is.
• 42:52
  He's a stickler for that too. His son went to North Texas.
• 42:57
  He spent a lot of time. I spent a lot of time in Texas.
• 43:00
  So he knows really good barbecue as well. And I'm telling you what,
• 43:01
  it's top shelf. So we're working on Wednesday. That is not confirmed.
• 43:06
  We're gonna do Wednesday Thursday, Friday Saturday. But then we're gonna have
• 43:08
  the food court every home game this year, and I don't care if there's
• 43:12
  nine feet of snow for the last game. We're doing it. Get back
• 43:14
  to you on that. So Rent fans get really amped up when people like
• 43:21
  Ross Dellinger float stories out there and say, Hey, Clemson Florida's stad da
• 43:25
  da da da da. What's your message to Mountaineer Nation when they see said
• 43:31
  stories about more tremors of movement? Well, it's kind of like. Remember
• 43:42
  I was flying with a donor one time, and this donor was talking about
• 43:46
  betting on games. Oh boy, And I said, listen, knowing everything
• 43:52
  I know, having watched our team practice, having asked scar coaches how we
• 44:00
  match up all of this information, maybe once or twice would I see a
• 44:06
  line over the course of a year, all sports combine and think something that
• 44:09
  look right there? Trying to talk this distinguished gentleman out of gambling. And
• 44:15
  the guy didn't bad, And I said, I need you to call me
• 44:19
  when those two lines come up. So you can never, in college athletics
• 44:23
  predict what would happen. But I would say, of the things that are
• 44:28
  out there in the universe, of consumption, and I see a lot of
• 44:30
  them too. Most of the time when I'm reading that, it's news to
• 44:35
  me. And if it's news to me, that probably means there's not a
• 44:37
  lot of accuracy to it. What we do know is that there are definitely
• 44:44
  institutions positioning in jockeying to try and put themselves in the best position. There
• 44:49
  is a lot of pressure to grow revenue. But you know, I would
• 44:54
  just caution people to realize that a lot of times what they're seeing is the
• 45:00
  tip of the iceberg, and the tip they're seeing is probably not the most
• 45:02
  accurate and real information. Did did you come away with a Big twelve from
• 45:07
  the Big twelve meeting? I mean, where do things stand on naming rights
• 45:10
  for the conference itself? Yeah, I think that that's of the different things
• 45:15
  that's been thrown out there, that one's probably progressing more than than others.
• 45:20
  I wouldn't say that it's done, But you know, Commissioner, your mark
• 45:23
  is is very bold in terms of wanting to try and explore new and different
• 45:30
  revenue streams. You know, I love the name and the brand of the
• 45:34
  Big Twelve, but when you're in this in this zero sum game and and
• 45:39
  your TV revenues are behind those other two conferences. Anything you can do that
• 45:44
  that helps cut into that difference, you need to you need to explore,
• 45:49
  and so I've been very supportive, and I know President Gee has as well.
• 45:52
  Our institution has of at least exploring the conference naming rights. And I
• 45:55
  wouldn't say it's anywhere near done, but I definitely think of the things that
• 46:00
  have been thrown out for consideration, that that's one that's probably got the most
• 46:05
  oxygen behind it. Do you think within the next twenty four months a school
• 46:10
  or one of the major conferences does some form of venture capital. I don't
• 46:20
  think a conference as a whole will, although you know they could. I
• 46:23
  mean, certainly that's something you have an obligation to explore it. But when
• 46:28
  you talk about a conference, you know you're talking about most of them would
• 46:32
  require three fourth vote. I think to do something like that because you're really
• 46:37
  you're selling a stake of the league, and so getting three fourths of a
• 46:44
  very like you look at our membership now, its just to you know,
• 46:46
  like that that's that might you know that that's going to require Could it happen?
• 46:52
  Yes? Do what I put a timeline as short as twenty four months
• 46:57
  on it, I'm not sure now. I do think an individual institution could
• 47:00
  certainly do that. When it comes to individual institutions, you really can't sell
• 47:06
  a part of your athletic program. What you could do is park some of
• 47:09
  your external revenues in a third party and sell ownership or have a partnership in
• 47:16
  that third party. We do that to a certain extent with our multimedia rights
• 47:20
  in Lairfield, and so you know that's something that could happen. But private
• 47:28
  equity venture capital only gets into businesses to make money. So you'd have to
• 47:31
  be convinced that the net of that would be enough that everybody wins to do
• 47:37
  that, and so there'd have to be a lot of legwork on. This
• 47:42
  time last year, when everybody was asking about Neil Brown and football, I
• 47:45
  think your consistential was we're going to evaluate the season, We're going to evaluate
• 47:49
  the program. You weren't going to go by wins and losses. You're going
• 47:51
  to go by where you thought the program was. Obviously that's settled itself,
• 47:54
  and Neil got a new contract, So going into this season, do you
• 47:59
  take that and go could just put that over here I don't have to worry
• 48:00
  about that now, or you are you in a constant state of evaluation.
• 48:04
  I think you're in a constant state of evaluation. But I'm very pleased with
• 48:07
  where the program is. The adjustments that Coach Brown has made in terms of
• 48:14
  managing the portal and n I L and and and managing his roster. You
• 48:19
  know, he's done a really really remarkable job. And really all of those
• 48:22
  coaches and players with it's hard to shut out the noise and as loud as
• 48:25
  it was as we headed into the early part of last year, and they
• 48:31
  did a really really good job. And I think everybody's feeling good. But
• 48:36
  you know, you you always know that you know you're an injury or two
• 48:39
  away from from major season changing shifts and momentum shifts and and so I think
• 48:46
  as an athletic director, you try and look at those things as analytically as
• 48:51
  you can, as thoughtfully as you can, and not let the emotions of
• 48:53
  fans from one game to another influence that that decision making process. But you
• 49:00
  know, I would say I'm always in evaluation mode, and I think each
• 49:05
  of our head coaches, including Coach Brown, are always evaluating the people in
• 49:08
  their programs, and you're you're always working together to try and build the best
• 49:14
  comprehensive program that you can. But I think people at home would be really
• 49:19
  impressed with how much Coach Brown cares and spends time thinking about, uh,
• 49:27
  the total development of young people. And I know the metric that people are
• 49:30
  going to focus on as soon as August thirty first gets here is that one
• 49:34
  that's in the end zone of those twelve Saturdays. But uh, that as
• 49:38
  an idea. A lot of times you spend a lot of time trying to
• 49:42
  convince your coaches to care about other things than the other things in the schematics
• 49:45
  of winning games. That is not the case with him. He has an
• 49:51
  intentionality about every aspect of that program, the mental health, the physical health,
• 49:57
  the academic development, the personal growth and develop element of every person that's
• 50:01
  in that program. And that's something I really admire in respect and have grown
• 50:06
  appreciates. I've had time to spend time with him and the student athletes and
• 50:09
  coaches and staff over in the Pushcar Center. Last week, you watched the
• 50:15
  Mountaineer basketball team practice, So that's got to be kind of interesting for you.
• 50:20
  You go through this process of basically you spent months. That was the
• 50:24
  same day I ran into a hard break that was yeah, that is a
• 50:29
  lot going on that day and you and you spoke to me right then and
• 50:31
  there after it happened, and he said, can you help me with something?
• 50:35
  I said, yeah, what is He goes I was just on Hoppy
• 50:36
  show and he used this term hard break. What does that mean? I
• 50:39
  said, he's blowing you off as basically what I was feeling. I got
• 50:43
  a phone call from the athletics director later that day. By the way,
• 50:45
  I was right next to him when he called, yea, you probably did
• 50:47
  you. I'm sure you said. Now, I wouldn't agg anything on Hoppy
• 50:51
  It's not my style. So when you you got through this process to find
• 50:55
  the coach, try to fit all of these different elements that you want in
• 51:00
  your next basketball coach. Okay, and you go through this transition, and
• 51:04
  then you got to get players, and you gotta get coaches, and you
• 51:05
  gotta go get everything happening. Finally you get them on the floor. So
• 51:08
  you come over and you watch. So what are you going through in your
• 51:15
  mind as you watch? And what did you see? What did you take
• 51:17
  away? One? I was just really impressed with the energy, Like there
• 51:28
  is tremendous, tremendous energy in the in the in that practices and and you
• 51:32
  know coach Devreeze brings it, but his staff is brings it. You know
• 51:37
  it. It's fun to watch a new coach come in regardless of sport and
• 51:42
  start to build the program around their philosophies. And so you can see he
• 51:47
  took his time in assembling the roster and being in practice you can see how
• 51:52
  those pieces fit together. They play very hard, they play very hard defensively,
• 51:58
  they have a lot of athletics. They have some good shooting shooters,
• 52:02
  and you can you can see where they're they're undersized. I mean, we
• 52:06
  talked about it there he he's talked about it and and you know, it
• 52:09
  just became so competitive for for experienced post players there in this in this recruiting
• 52:15
  cycle, and so you know, it's gonna be interesting to see how they
• 52:19
  attack the season. But I was very encouraged, you know. I I
• 52:23
  wished he would have had more sons because the one he brought, the one
• 52:28
  he brought us, he's gonna be a really good addition. Twins would have
• 52:30
  been Twins would have been good. Would that would have that would have been
• 52:34
  helpful. But uh yeah, you know, he's been a breath of fresh
• 52:39
  air, has been fun to be around. And and when I look at
• 52:44
  what I'm most proud of is when I look at the coaches that we brought
• 52:47
  in. Coach Devrees, you know, Coach Greeney, and on downline,
• 52:53
  Coach Kell Logg. You know, all of our coaches that have come in,
• 52:58
  Coach McDonald most recently, they've come in with a heart and a desire
• 53:04
  to really get to know West Virginia. So I mean, why I go
• 53:07
  places, somebody will say, hey, we saw coach dev Reese was here,
• 53:10
  We saw you know that coach Coach Greeney, Like what what great people?
• 53:15
  And so that kid tells me that they're getting into churches and schools and
• 53:21
  communities, they're getting in and around the state. And as you guys know,
• 53:23
  that's that's I mean, this whole show and concept and this empire that
• 53:28
  you've built is built on people's connection to to uh, to West Virginia and
• 53:32
  West Virginia things. And so I'm really appreciative of all of all of our
• 53:38
  coaches for doing that. But but I think Coach of Reeze has done a
• 53:42
  really good job trying to get out and about. There had to be an
• 53:44
  element to you of Darren once you once you saw the product on the floor
• 53:46
  and high coach, there had to be a part of you that went,
• 53:49
  Okay, that's exactly what I thought I was getting and that's what he is.
• 53:52
  Because yeah, that hiring process, I know this one you had some
• 53:54
  extra time, but it's such a speed dating process there there has to be
• 53:59
  some trepidation in each higher that you go just just please be who I thought
• 54:02
  you were. Yeah, so you know, I've had pretty good fortune hiring
• 54:06
  coaches, and That'll come up sometimes like oh you really hard great, And
• 54:08
  I'm always like it's like talking about a no hitter with a picture like I'm
• 54:12
  like, because eventually you're gonna have one that doesn't work right, like his
• 54:15
  law of averages and and and nobody. There is no full proof processes.
• 54:21
  If I could guarantee that I I had a process that would always get you
• 54:24
  the perfect coach who is gonna win, I wouldn't be here. I would
• 54:28
  just I'd be leading searches, all right, you know, and and and
• 54:30
  uh and making as much money as I wanted to make. There is no
• 54:34
  no guarantee. But to your point, you watch the values that he's coaching,
• 54:38
  the way that he's coaching, the gear that he hits when he's out
• 54:42
  there on the floor. Do you guys ever get onto him for leaving his
• 54:45
  phone ringer on? He's ridiculous, He's embarrassing and it hurts our brand when
• 54:49
  he goes to his phone. That was multitessk I help our producer Austin right
• 54:52
  just keeps stealing it. Look was family, family texting you like family,
• 54:59
  just broke a story of out the Republican National Convention. But I'll put that
• 55:04
  away. I'm sorry, No, you're fine. Thank you like you're the
• 55:07
  king, you know. Yeah, it's he's special for the man here.
• 55:10
  No, I'm just special, but showing up, you know, I am
• 55:15
  very, very pleased with what I've been able to see. And you know,
• 55:17
  listen, Rome wasn't built in a day like you always hope it goes
• 55:21
  like it did with women's basketball last year, but they don't always go that
• 55:24
  way. But I am confident that coach de Freeze is going to build a
• 55:28
  program there. But he can be proud of Will you play he a college
• 55:34
  football twenty four at all? Yes? You Will, So I wasn't like
• 55:37
  paying an extra thirty dollars to play it yesterday or anything like that. Fifty
• 55:43
  thousand people we had. We had the Esports coach from WV on last night
• 55:46
  and he said there were fifty thousand on the server. Then that was just
• 55:51
  the deluxe release and that's how many four or five hours it had been out.
• 55:53
  You know, there was a story. I'm sure it was a Wall
• 55:57
  Street Journal New York Times when those are somebody about when es Sports hit with
• 56:00
  the White and Slaton. Yeah, like two thousand and seven bread. Yeah,
• 56:05
  I mean we talked about you talk about helping the brand, right,
• 56:07
  I mean yeah, I mean we can joke about this and ha haa about
• 56:10
  the video game that was massive for the West Virginia brand. So many kids
• 56:15
  and so many people playing as White and Slaton and dominating and Noel Devine and
• 56:19
  that whole time. So, yeah, this game actually matters. It is
• 56:22
  super culturally relevant to college football. Yeah, I mean there's no question,
• 56:28
  And like I grew up playing those games, and like when I was in
• 56:30
  college, many many nights played till three, four five in the morning after
• 56:37
  you go back from the library, many controllers broken over you know, coverage
• 56:43
  and late in the game, and so yeah, I will play at some
• 56:47
  point. Now that here's the problem. I have two daughters in their gamers.
• 56:51
  They love to play, but they don't like like sports games. Like
• 56:53
  you know, they're in there playing Minecraft and so you know, I'm like,
• 56:58
  yeah, I don't get it when blocks are yeah you got roos and
• 57:00
  what like, all this kind of stuff. Ang Hong was a good Brad
• 57:06
  was talking last night. He had a Wii, remember the weih Yeah,
• 57:08
  yeah, he had a Wetari back in the day. My Wi is my
• 57:13
  current one. Yeah. Back in the day, yeah was big jungle Hunt,
• 57:16
  all kinds of well bought racers. Yeah. Yeah. It truly is
• 57:22
  amazing to me how much content is generated over the college players ratings. And
• 57:29
  it's only going to explode here in the next several days and then it'll just
• 57:31
  go on and on during the course of the season. It's just an amazing
• 57:35
  thing. And the significance of it that it's been gone for ten years.
• 57:38
  Why well, it's gone for ten years because of ni L And this is
• 57:42
  what spurred Nil to be what it is today. If if here's where I'd
• 57:46
  like, you know, Brad's big stats guy. Oh you want to task
• 57:50
  him with something here? Oh, this is good Tony and me. If
• 57:52
  you were giving us an overall rating in this game, I mean, you
• 57:55
  know from one to one hundred as a player, which what would you give
• 58:00
  our ratings is far the highest you've played it already. You're still in the
• 58:04
  demographic of playing that, so you'd be in that, you'd be a ninety
• 58:07
  rating. These two, they would be I wouldn't know how to turn it
• 58:08
  on that Yeah, they would really struggle with the mechanics of the game,
• 58:13
  never mind the intricacies of the game. That's fair. That's fair. It's
• 58:19
  complicated games. This is no I can't yeah, fair, that's I couldn't
• 58:22
  do it. Yeah. What Hopey would like, though, is you know
• 58:25
  when the time expires on the clock, it's it's over. Because he's a
• 58:30
  hard break guys. Games over, it doesn't I don't know. I don't
• 58:36
  know. I had I don't know much about it, Okay, I don't.
• 58:37
  I don't play it, so I don't know much. I'm interested,
• 58:39
  Like if you could play tennis or the boxing thing you showed me, Well,
• 58:44
  that was that was for real. We play that was cool. We
• 58:45
  put the Oculus Virtual reality like that. We had them downstairs box and it
• 58:51
  was wonderful. Do you ever get knocked out virtually? Oh? Yeah,
• 58:52
  absolutely, everything goes dark, everything goes completely black. Oh yeah, it
• 58:57
  does. It's pretty wild, just like everything just goes completely lead darkyill.
• 59:00
  Yeah, I guess I just went down there. Hey, yeah, are
• 59:05
  you? I guess. It's a personal question. Do you all get back
• 59:07
  home this summer? Did you get back home? Uh? We have not.
• 59:13
  Heather had and the girls did. They went back for Easter and then
• 59:16
  Addison goes to a camp in Texas. So I've talked about this some and
• 59:22
  other sayings, but my oldest daughter is a Type one diabetic, and so
• 59:25
  there's a three week camp in Texas. There's a great camp here in West
• 59:28
  Virginia. But she was already going to this camp and established friends, and
• 59:31
  so she goes back. And so when they went back, they spend a
• 59:35
  few days. Then I haven't got to go home. So we're gonna leave
• 59:37
  on Saturday and we're going to Duston for a week. So I would love
• 59:42
  to go to other places, and my girls will go to other places,
• 59:45
  so long as that's in addition to Deston. But having been in the SEC,
• 59:49
  and the commers just say they do league meetings there. And so my
• 59:51
  girls got in the habit of going every year I was working because I was
• 59:53
  in meetings, but they thought that was like a vacation. Then one year
• 59:57
  we didn't go, and it was like, you know, problem had just
• 1:00:00
  really ripped their hearts out, and so and then, uh, we want
• 1:00:05
  to take advantage of being this part of the country. So I think a
• 1:00:07
  couple of weeks after that, we're gonna go to New York City for three
• 1:00:10
  or four days, watch a couple of shows on Broadway. And uh,
• 1:00:15
  but my my mom and stepdad and then my brother and his two girls.
• 1:00:19
  So I have two nieces. The oldest is six months younger than my oldest
• 1:00:23
  daughter, and the youngest two or ten days apart. So it's almost like
• 1:00:27
  two sets of twins and in some ways, and so they come, uh,
• 1:00:30
  they come in for a few days around the fourth and they so they
• 1:00:35
  were, Yeah, they paddleboarded on Cheat Lake we went to at Louis,
• 1:00:39
  West, Virginia. Well, yeah, I thought Brad would offer them a
• 1:00:43
  ride, but I guess I may have to visit lou Wendell and just buy
• 1:00:46
  my own left them in the wake and uh but uh they went to uh
• 1:00:52
  zipline uh at the Adventure West Virginia, which was awesome. There's four ziplines
• 1:00:58
  out there. The longest is almost a thousand feet. It's incredible. We
• 1:01:01
  had great time and took him to eat and watch sunset at the one.
• 1:01:06
  I saw you that I saw that picture you had them out the wonderbar.
• 1:01:08
  Yeah, so do you do you? And again you made note that I
• 1:01:13
  was on my phone and that was a fair criticism. But so when you
• 1:01:15
  when you got that family time, is it you're painted? Is this still
• 1:01:19
  going to so? Uh here, here's something that I changed a few years
• 1:01:22
  ago. So my wife and Brad and Tony have got a chance to spend
• 1:01:28
  time with her. She's about the calmest, like easy going person ever.
• 1:01:32
  And we were young, and we'd been married maybe three or four years,
• 1:01:36
  and I was doing a coach in search on I was at Roger State and
• 1:01:38
  I was in the garage on the phone about eight or nine o'clock one night,
• 1:01:43
  and I hear a racket in the house. Actually, I'll take you
• 1:01:46
  back. I was in the kitchen. I heard a racket in the garage,
• 1:01:49
  and so I go in there and Heather had kicked some stuff over and
• 1:01:52
  I'm like, what are you doing? She was like, I haven't talked
• 1:01:55
  to you in like five days. Like you come home and you're on the
• 1:01:59
  phone and man searching for a coach. And she said, you know,
• 1:02:02
  I understand the demands of this job, she said, but the most frustrating
• 1:02:07
  thing and I had never thought about this. I thought getting home and being
• 1:02:08
  physically there was being there. She was like, so much I can handle
• 1:02:13
  when you're at the office, but when you come home, she said,
• 1:02:16
  you know, like I'm thinking, okay, and now's my time, and
• 1:02:19
  then when you're on the phone for three or four you're not present, And
• 1:02:22
  so I can't control the enough. Like I probably am at events two hundred
• 1:02:25
  days a year, but that one hundred and fifty that i'm home. Once
• 1:02:30
  i'm home, it has to be a fairly urgent call for me to take
• 1:02:34
  it. So you know, it's a heartbreak if you will now I get
• 1:02:37
  it. But so I when I give advice, you know, if i've
• 1:02:43
  emverer on panels and stuff to young aspiring misters, I always tell them,
• 1:02:46
  you can't control the amount of time you're physically there. But when you're physically
• 1:02:51
  there, you can control, like are you mentally and emotionally there and available?
• 1:02:54
  And and I really focus hard to do that and not not mess with
• 1:03:00
  this phone. And so I you know, like if a lot of times
• 1:03:04
  I'll put it on, do not disturb, you know, And and so
• 1:03:08
  I really don't. When I'm away, I try to really be away.
• 1:03:12
  That's a really good answer. And this is what Brad and I kind of
• 1:03:15
  experienced with Hoppy, like if sometimes when it he physically is here, emotionally
• 1:03:20
  he's not. And that's been hurting Brad and me, and it's taken away
• 1:03:24
  from the show. It's very similar to what happened to the Beatles. I
• 1:03:28
  mean, basically, Hoppy has become our Yoko Ono and just continues to pull
• 1:03:32
  the thing apart from what it used to be. I would have lost all
• 1:03:36
  the money in the world if I was betting on a hop Yo reference.
• 1:03:42
  Yeah, that's what it is, you know I do. If you guys
• 1:03:45
  are on social media price all this. I do have bears at my house.
• 1:03:47
  Dude, Oh fill us in. Oh you didn't see the picture.
• 1:03:51
  You haven't seen this. I got a video. No, I saw it.
• 1:03:52
  I saw it. You're getting all. I hope you have a great
• 1:03:55
  zoom. You're not that close. No, I was that close really on
• 1:04:00
  you. You've got a big problem. I look like I'm afraid of a
• 1:04:02
  bear. He's afraid mount here man, he's got in a heartbeat. I
• 1:04:10
  think went very far from you. That's right up on your patio there.
• 1:04:13
  Let me tell you something. So I got a fire pit back side and
• 1:04:15
  takes pro paying tanks, and so I keep a big, big channel lock
• 1:04:19
  wrench out there. So that bear come out, just pick it up,
• 1:04:24
  handle it, laies. I mean, I know you can't talk odds,
• 1:04:29
  but I'd like to lay some odds there on that you play that play that
• 1:04:31
  game, ran the next search. It's gonna be going on for ad This
• 1:04:36
  cutting edge information is gonna make my wife and I sound to be like probably
• 1:04:42
  somewhat ignorant Oklahomans, but so we uh, I love bears, and so
• 1:04:49
  when we were in Texas and Oklahoma, we would always visit Colorado two three
• 1:04:54
  times a year, and everywhere you go in Colorado it's like beware of the
• 1:04:58
  bears, and we would never sea bears. I'm like, these must be
• 1:05:00
  invisible freaking bears to see a bear around the right like. And so when
• 1:05:06
  we moved into our neighborhood, people were like, hey, you gotta watch
• 1:05:10
  out, we have bears. I'm like, yeah, I've heard this before,
• 1:05:13
  right like and so no bears, no bears, And they're like,
• 1:05:16
  don't put out a bird feeder. I'm like, I'm going to test fate
• 1:05:19
  here. I put out a bird feeder, you know, like, why
• 1:05:21
  not, Like, we'll put out some seed. No bears. I mean,
• 1:05:26
  I would have raccoons, I put up a game camera. I would
• 1:05:29
  have squirrels, deer, deer where you are, But no bears. Devreze
• 1:05:34
  moves into my neighborhood. He's down the street. He asked me if that
• 1:05:38
  was okay. I said, as long as you win, it'd be great.
• 1:05:41
  And so he first day in the neighborhood suit me a video of a
• 1:05:46
  of a cub. He's like, you didn't tell me we had bears.
• 1:05:49
  And I'm like, dude, you must have brought that in a U haul.
• 1:05:51
  From my eyes, I'm telling you right now, I've lived here every
• 1:05:56
  day. I hadn't seen a bear. No bear. So then the night
• 1:06:01
  of the so I flew with a donor to chapel Hill for the first round
• 1:06:05
  of the Super of Super Regional. Come back Home. I get home at
• 1:06:10
  midnight and I think as my lights hit the end of my driveway into the
• 1:06:14
  woods, I think I see a bear run off. I'm like bear.
• 1:06:18
  So I go out there and this cedar bird feeder is completely destroyed. So
• 1:06:25
  I'm like, holy cow, man, is the a bear of them?
• 1:06:27
  Off? Man? Yeah? So and you know behind me, So I
• 1:06:30
  back up to thousands of acres of Snake Hill wildlife and and then uh,
• 1:06:35
  Cooper's Rock State Forest over the hill. So there's tens and hundreds of thousands
• 1:06:41
  of acres like all the way way past Pennsylvania just woods. So so I'm
• 1:06:47
  like, all right, well, let me get this game camera installed.
• 1:06:49
  Now I'm gonna keep feeding, keep putting, bird feeding. They had to
• 1:06:53
  buy a new bird feed. I got a metal one this time, thinking
• 1:06:57
  this bear can't he won't be able to destroy this and that was wrong.
• 1:07:01
  Uh, And so come back and so I get the bear on the on
• 1:07:06
  there like on the game camera. So you successfully baited them, Okay,
• 1:07:11
  keep going. Probably should have stopped. Yeah, he baited him, baited
• 1:07:13
  them, but you didn't, and he destroyed that bird feed in fact,
• 1:07:15
  it was gone. I couldn't even find the rent took it, took it,
• 1:07:18
  took it over, took it over to the breeze's house, lined up,
• 1:07:21
  took it ran away. So so we ordered pizza one and my girls
• 1:07:28
  didn't. I'm a classic over orderer. I'm gonna always order two acts of
• 1:07:31
  right to hear that, and then no one order. No one left overs
• 1:07:34
  at our house but me, you know, like and so and so like,
• 1:07:39
  I thought, you know what, this pizza has been here two or
• 1:07:41
  three days. I'm just gonna throw it over there where I was putting that
• 1:07:43
  bird feet. Oh lord, you know, why didn't you just make a
• 1:07:46
  big jug of honey out there, just make up the guest room. Just
• 1:07:49
  let the bear come right on in the house here. So the next day,
• 1:07:51
  Heather and I are on the back course. We spent a lot of
• 1:07:54
  time. We have a beautiful view. We spent a lot of time back
• 1:07:56
  there. It's about six o'clock. I'd just gotten home and we're sitting there
• 1:08:00
  and I look look up. I would not have heard them, Like they're
• 1:08:05
  very stealth bears, incredibly quiet for big animals, like credibly card I look
• 1:08:11
  out there, I'm like like, Heather, don't move, nobody move,
• 1:08:17
  but look there's a bear over there. And sure enough, like and so
• 1:08:21
  we'd watched for a few minutes and then I thought, okay, I'm gonna
• 1:08:24
  try and capture this on my phone. But it was twenty yards twenty yards.
• 1:08:29
  I need to measure it. But yeah, it never really looked at
• 1:08:33
  me. But it did grab a slice of pizza and carry it into the
• 1:08:36
  woods. That's a true story. Grab pizza, put in his mouth,
• 1:08:41
  just gave it. Just give it one of these, just put it in
• 1:08:43
  there, and it took off. So we're done feeding the bears. There's
• 1:08:46
  no bird. No you think you're done, They're coming back. They're coming
• 1:08:49
  back, dude. Yeah, so just stay light on your feet next time
• 1:08:53
  you see one. Yeah, so we're done. I'm getting lots of advice
• 1:08:56
  I've had. I've had people, Thank you Mountaineer Nation, for there have
• 1:09:00
  been people d m me and threatened to come and do bodily harm to the
• 1:09:02
  bear. They'll take care of this bear for him. Like, No,
• 1:09:04
  we're fine. I I I enticed, that's on me. I got to
• 1:09:10
  see the bear. I confirm that we have a bear. Now I'm backing
• 1:09:14
  out I'm like, you know, source is gone, the Bear is gonna
• 1:09:17
  We'll see, we'll see. That's well, I understand. I mean,
• 1:09:24
  but you're not supposed to I know, and I haven't admitted that until today.
• 1:09:30
  This is an admission on this show. Appreciate. I'm not looking for
• 1:09:32
  judgment. I'm trying to I know it was a mistake. I'm trying to
• 1:09:38
  clear my conscience. This is like a confession, you know, well enough,
• 1:09:44
  He says that enough family went with it last night as we were in
• 1:09:48
  here, family breaking Baker. Baker admits baiting Bear had it first. That's
• 1:09:57
  what the director mulled by Bear. All right, So it's been a good
• 1:10:03
  chat. Yeah, we appreciate it. Fair to say this is the most
• 1:10:06
  unprecedented time in college sports history. Thought in an industry that over the last
• 1:10:12
  ten to fifteen years has seen unprecedented change. It is on speed rail of
• 1:10:17
  change. But you know, like we what I would tell people is college
• 1:10:25
  athletics has been through change. Every industry goes through change. But I am
• 1:10:31
  confident in our ability. But you look at this last year across the board,
• 1:10:36
  we had one of the most successful years that we've ever had, and
• 1:10:42
  I think you look at not just in terms of wins and losses, but
• 1:10:46
  several sports broke attendance records, lots of sellouts. I mentioned the fundraising numbers
• 1:10:53
  and the ticket numbers. We can and we'll meet this challenge, and I'm
• 1:10:58
  excited for it, excited to be at West Virginia. Have loved it here.
• 1:11:01
  People have been great to us and certainly understand how important it is that
• 1:11:06
  that we continue to compete at a high level. So thank you to the
• 1:11:11
  Mountaineer nation out there, and thanks to you guys for having me. And
• 1:11:15
  you know, graphic came out yesterday. The sixteen schools now in the Big
• 1:11:18
  twelve. West Virginia University is the most football wins of all of the sixteen
• 1:11:23
  schools and that's something to bang your chest over and to say that to your
• 1:11:27
  point, you know, through the years, things happened things. West Virginia's
• 1:11:31
  continuous and grind and grind and grind and grind. All right, and before
• 1:11:38
  we break, yeah, make sure that you get your three guys face cream.
• 1:11:42
  It takes away wrinkles. It's miracle plus sleeping device. We have this
• 1:11:49
  new product called which Hazel, which will have an episode. Your shirt will
• 1:11:55
  be on their sin that exact shirt and hobbies exact shirt episode eight. Very
• 1:12:00
  nice, very nice, Sure appreciate it. Thanks Buddy. Thanks to Michael
• 1:12:03
  for Gail for coming with you from the from the Department's good to see him
• 1:12:06
  talk about a bear. You see him about his off and you see a
• 1:12:10
  bear and he lays low has seen him. He's another person. When we
• 1:12:14
  do those short videos, Tony and I will do for Gail. Will stand
• 1:12:16
  like behind the camera there and like start rapping. Oh yeah, he'll give
• 1:12:21
  Yeah. He's a hard right, Yeah, he want for Gail, wants
• 1:12:25
  you out too, Yeah, And I'll call him out on it like on
• 1:12:29
  a Yeah, Michael, you I'll handle this like like I've seen our or
• 1:12:33
  chart. I know who reports to who you don't, just like Hoffey and
• 1:12:38
  I like, there's no org chart here. He can wrap me and I'll
• 1:12:41
  wrap him when he comes into my domain. But like Michael's just wrapping me
• 1:12:44
  for no reason. This is the moral of the story. Life is a
• 1:12:46
  hard break. Three guys before the game brought to us by Comac's Business Systems,
• 1:12:53
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• 1:13:23
  Thanks to our producer Austin Wright, bren Baker, Hoppy and Brad We
• 1:13:28
  Be Gone Episode five sixty one, three Guys before the Game is complete. See if