Latest / The Jake Wimberly Podcast / Ben Portnoy of Sports Business Journal joins us to talk about several college sports topics

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Ben Portnoy of Sports Business Journal joins us to talk about several college sports topics · The Jake Wimberly Podcast

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  Ben Portnoy, Great State of South Carolina formerly Mississippi, formerly of the South
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  Carolina Game Cocks covers now with the Sports Business Journal. You can find him
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  on X and over the SBJ as well. Ben. Welcome in, sir,
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  How are you well? What's going on? Jake? Appreciate you having
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  me, man, Man, I appreciate you. Hey Man, congratulations on
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  the move over to Sports Business Journal. How's that been for you so far?
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  Definitely good? You know, there there's always a challenge going from you
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  know, one school to every school, and lord knows there's enough going on
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  in college sports to keep me busy. So it's been been a fun transition
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  so far and definitely enjoying it, but certainly certainly a crazy time at the
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  very least. Let me get your thoughts on a couple of things going on
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  out there. One, and of course I know you guys hit every angle
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  with the Sports Business Journal. A lot of people read Sports Business Journal.
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  Everything going on at Capitol Hill gathering this week with Charlie Baker, the NCAA
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  president, this push for this project d one. You know a lot of
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  people saying, hey, this could be where the rubber meets the road.
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  The nc double A as far as what we know now versus is what could
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  be coming, you know, with maybe the split of the quote big two,
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  we're talking SEC, big ten looking into a crystal ball just ten thousand
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  foot fly over. I mean, I don't know that this this project division
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  one, everybody coming under this one subdivision. This feels like where this could
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  push the SEC and Big ten out to do their own thing. At least
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  that's my thoughts. Yeah, I think there's a couple of layers to it.
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  I mean, look like, for one, I think that Charlie Baker
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  at the NCAA, the new president, probably deserves some credit for you know,
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  frankly looking to accomplish something. And I think that that's probably more than
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  his predecessor, Mark Evert can say for a long time, or at least,
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  you know, being out forefront and trying to get out in front of
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  this. Now there's that that said. I think that you know, the
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  reality is is like the divide between these conferences has kind of already happened,
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  and we're seeing it with the you know, the money spent and the divide
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  in terms of revenue from from media rights deals and things like that. Now,
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  whether this is the thing that sort of pushes pushes everything over the edge.
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  I think there's certainly that and I think that that when you talk to
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  you know, a group of five ads and commissioners and things like that,
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  that is absolutely a concern they have, right, Like, are you making
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  it so that no one has access to the college Football Playoff? Are you
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  saying that only the Power five schools do? Is it only the whatever thirty
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  teams there are fifty teams that breakoff into major college football have access to that?
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  I think that's the biggest question that we all have. But that said
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  again, like I think this is probably another step towards that. But I
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  think that the reality is is that because of the growing divide and finances at
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  all of these schools and even within the Power five, not just between the
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  group of five and everyone else, that that I think is where you see
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  where it feels like this divide is coming sooner than later. Benportanoy on your
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  radio, make sure to find him on x also Sports Business Journal Wednesday edition
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  of the program. Not one hundred percent agree, And it's so many layers
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  to this thing. We'll see where that goes. Hey, your thoughts on
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  I know you guys did believe a piece on. You know, the four
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  team playoff era has ended. Now we head to the twelve team playoff.
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  This is this is fun because for me, at least when you look at
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  it, I mean, Ole miss and you know this, I mean,
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  look, expectations in this state have already hit you know, deftne type right
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  levels already, and we've got much before we even get to the kickoff.
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  Tennessee feels like they got a shot. You know, you look at Texas,
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  Alabama, Georgia, they feel like they all got a shot. You
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  go to the Big Ten, several teams that everybody at least you know,
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  half of these conferences feel like they got a shot, which kind of makes
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  to me at least makes the sport even more interesting as we head into that
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  twelve team playoff. Yeah, I think that, you know, that's the
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  reality is that I think that this was a good This year I think was
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  a good example of this. Right. You had a year where there was
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  a lot of parody in the sport. You had a lot of teams that
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  were kind of toward the top of the toward the top of the sport,
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  you know, had chances to make the four team playoffs. As a pretty
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  wide open race. You know, you didn't have the dominant team like we've
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  had in past years. And I think that you know, yes, it
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  was a four team playoff obviously this year, but I think it's a good
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  pre to what we're going to see in the in the twelve team era in
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  that you're going to have a lot more fan bases and a lot more programs
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  invested in what's going on and late in the season. Now, does that
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  dilute the ball system and all of that? Certainly, like there are probably
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  longer standing ramifications on other levels that happen outside of the twelve team playoffs,
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  But I do think that kind of like I said, you know, you're
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  going to see more teams and more fans invested in all of that, and
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  I think that that, you know, generally speaking, is a good thing
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  for the state of the sport to have more teams that feel like they've got
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  a shot. When you look at what happened, How surprised were you when
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  Nick Saban announced he had retired or was retiring And then you know, man
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  talking about being the guy behind the guy for Kallen to bore, that's a
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  heck of a job. Yeah, you know, I'll tell you a funny
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  story and that you know, I was sitting in Phoenix with a couple of
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  my of my media friend folks at the NCAA convention and we were sitting in
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  one of the media rooms and all of a sudden, you know, Chris
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  Low's for mescn's report comes that you know, Nick Saban is retiring, and
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  we all kind of look up and everyone's like what And you know, a
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  few words that I'm probably not allowed to say on there were said, for
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  sure, and everyone kind of scrambled and thought, oh man, here we
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  go. And you know, I will certainly remember that for the rest of
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  my life. But I think that, you know, definitely surprising. I
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  think look like that was something that had been thrown out a lot, that
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  there was thoughts that maybe Saban was nearing the end. But I think that,
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  you know, frankly, we've had this conversation for five years, right
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  like, when is Nick Saban or retire? When is that going to happen?
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  And obviously it happened this year, but I think this year was a
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  little bit different. You felt like even in just the tone, I think,
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  you know, Hindsight's twenty twenty. But I think just looking at,
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  you know, the way Saban was this year and the way he interacted with
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  folks, whatever, the way he was in interviews, things like that,
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  like it felt a little bit different. And I think that that, you
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  know, again, in hindsight, that makes it seem like, oh,
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  yeah, of course we all knew this. You know, how many people
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  actually knew this? I don't know. But to get to the second part
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  of your question, I think, you know, when you look at Klein
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  Debor and what he's done, I mean, it's such an interesting spot because
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  you know, like we've all played this game for however many years, Who's
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  going to be the guy to replace Saban? And you know, I mean
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  if you're talking like what three weeks ago, four weeks ago, like how
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  many Alabama fans would have told you either a who Kaylen Debor was or B
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  that he was going to be the guy to replace Staban? I think is
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  an interesting dynamics on a lot of levels. But I think it's an unenviable
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  position. But I think you also look at it and Alabama had, you
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  know, basically had their list, right, Dan Lanning, Steve Sarkisian,
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  you know, Mike Norvel and Kaylendbor were kind of the guys that you know,
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  you felt like we're probably in the mix. Obviously it kind of went
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  on down the list and he ended up with Debor. And I think that,
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  you know, look like the guy who's coming off going to a national
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  championship game and start getting Washington into a national championship game two years after inheriting
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  a complete dumpster fire, like that's not nothing. And I think that it's
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  easy to forget that, and you look at you know, he's been a
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  head coach for a long time, like it's funny. I was having the
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  conversation the Power five Athletic director the other day of you look at guys who
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  have won and won recently, and I think, you know, Kaylen de
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  Boor is a good example. I think Lance life holds a good example,
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  like winning travels. And I think that you know, there's certainly there's always
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  a tendency to hire the sort of hot shot offensive coordinator or whoever that is
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  right. And I think that you know, when you look at some of
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  these guys and in the past they've maybe even passed over for jobs like this
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  or even at Washington, right, they've been passed over for jobs like that,
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  and the reality is is like there's something to be said for people who
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  either a don't have to grow into the job in it being a first head
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  coaching job, or b have had long runs of success elsewhere and know how
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  to build that. I think certainly the landscape has changed and shifted a lot,
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  and that's, you know, part of it, and that's going to
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  be part of the game. But I do think that you know the fact
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  that a guy like Kaylen Debores has won basically everywhere he's been, you know,
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  I say this as an Indiana grad watching what he did in one year
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  at Indiana's frankly nothing short of a miracle on a lot of levels. And
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  I think that you know, certainly there are challenges and different challenges of a
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  place like Alabama, but I think that you know, of the guys that
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  you could hire like you didn't really have a bad option. I think that
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  Alabama ended up in a good spot, you know, even though it might
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  be it might take some time to getting used to. You know, someone
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  that's not mix sab and controlling the sideline. Make sure to grab him a
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  follow on x at b Portnoy fifteen also at SBJ. That's the Sports Business
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  Journal, college sports supporter for SBJ. Ben, I appreciate your time.
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  Man Hey, look great to catch up with you again. Congratulations on the
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  Sports Business Journal gig. Fantastic spot. Look, we'll catch up and do
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  it again very soon. Definitely, thanks so much for having me Jake. Always fun