Jamie Pollard preaches "Doomsday" about College Athletics and the NIL

[Clonefan94]

Am I the only one who doesn’t give a s**t if it all collapses? It’s all greed, and I really don’t care anymore.

I don't think I'm at the "I don't give a ****." level yet, but I am creeping that way more and more every day. I still love ISU and watching their games, but as far as college sports goes, that's pretty much all I watch anymore. The NCAA tournament, I used to never miss a minute of any round. This year, as soon as ISU lost, I didn't watch another game.

Saturdays in the Fall was always about college football. If I wasn't at an ISU game, all I did was watch college football all day. Similar situation there now. If ISU isn't playing, I'm not watching. This isn't out of any kind of spite, I still really enjoy watching ISU, but I just don't find myself caring about the rest anymore. Too many other things, as I get older, I realize I'd rather do than sit and watch TV all day.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Your periodic reminder that the NCAA only has the power that the member institutions are willing to grant them. They aren't an independent body.

 

[aeroclone]

If this were run like a business, most schools will only field 2 teams Football & Men's Basketball, but then they have to contend with Title IX.

I'm not sure how exactly, but I feel like there will be an angle here for these athletic departments to break free of Title IX. These are not just students participating in university sanctioned activities anymore. They are now employees of the school. Feels like that is an opportunity for the lawyers to argue this no longer applies. You also have things like Kentucky spinning off their AD into an LLC, or challenges to the 5 to play 4 rules that again make these people look more like employees than student athletes.

As the whole structure of these programs and relationship changes, that could also redefine how Title IX may or may not apply to these evolved organizations.

 

[MeanDean]

I don't think I'm at the "I don't give a ****." level yet, but I am creeping that way more and more every day. I still love ISU and watching their games, but as far as college sports goes, that's pretty much all I watch anymore. The NCAA tournament, I used to never miss a minute of any round. This year, as soon as ISU lost, I didn't watch another game.

Saturdays in the Fall was always about college football. If I wasn't at an ISU game, all I did was watch college football all day. Similar situation there now. If ISU isn't playing, I'm not watching. This isn't out of any kind of spite, I still really enjoy watching ISU, but I just don't find myself caring about the rest anymore. Too many other things, as I get older, I realize I'd rather do than sit and watch TV all day.

This is me pretty much. Except I'll watch a Big XII game. SEC and BIG can lick my hairy man-ass.

 

[Althetuna]

Yeah, i think this is the super tricky part. Of course we all know the positive impact to central Iowa on football game days in terms of sales, revenues, etc. I know it has been said that "good athletics boosts enrollment" and I am not sure I've seen hard data to justify that.

As you noted, if say the state was going to subsidize say $20 million for this, one could probably find a compelling argument to say "if that was spent on 40 top notch faculty/researchers each year, the amount of patents and the value of the ISU degree would go up (just an example, etc).

As it's been concluded in MANY threads, this just isn't working and there isn't a solid "plan" (in all college athletics) to figure it out instead each school, convergence, state, etc is winging it on the fly.

I definitely agree. Although I'm far from an expert in this area, what I've found in my line of work is that simply going through the exercise can be very fruitful regardless of the final result.

Assumptions challenged, orders of magnitude revealed, priorities highlighted, etc.

 

[CapnCy]

I definitely agree. Although I'm far from an expert in this area, what I've found in my line of work is that simply going through the exercise can be very fruitful regardless of the final result.

Assumptions challenged, orders of magnitude revealed, priorities highlighted, etc.

For sure....unfortunatly because there is/would be a "political" piece to it (either changing state law to allow funding to Ath Depts or just the nature of education funding) LOTS of ability for folks to fuss.

 

[danvillecyclone]

I recently had ISU Athletics Director Jamie Pollard on my podcast and he was super Doomsday about the state of athletics given the NIL. I was wondering how people felt about his takes, and if they think it's as bad as he says it is. I think this is the first permanent and public discussion he has had about it, so I'm hoping to get some conversation going about it.

Hmmmmmmm

Danville been saying this from the get go.

In its current form, NIL along with Portal activity is unsustainable.

 

[Althetuna]

For sure....unfortunatly because there is/would be a "political" piece to it (either changing state law to allow funding to Ath Depts or just the nature of education funding) LOTS of ability for folks to fuss.

I agree with this also which is why I'm pessimistic anything proactive is done.

(Plus there is a sizable contingent in the state who would like to see Iowa State relegated. They see colliegate sports in the state as a zero sum game.)

 

[CloneFan65]

A couple things. I don't have an issue with students getting paid with the revenue they bring to the college or make from a commercial for the local grocery store chain. What bothers me is the idea that fans are expected to donate money to pay the athletes six figure salaries. When the Dodger were negotiating with Ohtani, they didn't set up a Go Fund Me site to raise money. As someone who teaches in an inner city community college that struggles to keep it's funding, (We actually lose money every time another student enrolls in a class.) I'd love to see this money go to college students in need through scholarship funds or supporting underfunded programs that support students.

The second issue I have with the direction of NIL is that every player is a free agent every year. Can you imagine if in the NFL every players was a free agent at the end of every season? It would be chaos. That's where we're headed. Colleges are allowed to contact athletes who haven't even put their name in the transfer portal. There need to be contracts between the players and colleges, and for a player to transfer the school needs to allow them out of their contract. That way if a player like Nojus, for example, wants to transfer to a school for more playing time, they are allowed to.

If it could be enforced, the idea of a cap on the amount of revenue shared with athletes by a college will help, along with making sure students who receive extra NIL money are actually earning it and not getting paid to play. I just think monitoring the outside money will be next to impossible. (Although one could argue it's always been that way.)

 

[Sigmapolis]

I don't think I'm at the "I don't give a ****." level yet, but I am creeping that way more and more every day. I still love ISU and watching their games, but as far as college sports goes, that's pretty much all I watch anymore. The NCAA tournament, I used to never miss a minute of any round. This year, as soon as ISU lost, I didn't watch another game.

Saturdays in the Fall was always about college football. If I wasn't at an ISU game, all I did was watch college football all day. Similar situation there now. If ISU isn't playing, I'm not watching. This isn't out of any kind of spite, I still really enjoy watching ISU, but I just don't find myself caring about the rest anymore. Too many other things, as I get older, I realize I'd rather do than sit and watch TV all day.

I think it is an age/demographic thing, too.

A lot of us became college sports superfans as children, adolescents, or college students before adult responsibilities like full-time jobs, marriages, caring for young children, and owning a house came around and started to suck up nearly all our available time. I know I've trimmed my sports-watching and videogame time back tremendously from when I was 16 (37 now) onto the "core" of Iowa State-related things.

I remember watching random Pac-10 games with my friends in high school and having a great time. Or going over to a buddy's place when I was 24 to watch Alabama and Georgia in the SEC championship.

Now I don't watch those games at all. I might like to, but I don't have time.

I think fanbases are getting older on average, too. I don't think teenagers nowadays or young adults are being socialized into college sports fandom by their family and their friends the same way I was in the 90s and 00s. As usual, it is the phones. They're doomscrolling or watching somebody stream rather than having the interest and attention span to watch a three-hour football game (and that is with me DVRing and then skipping commercials, never mind the 4.5+ hours if you were to watch the game in real-time).

Older fans are going to age out and die without commensurate replacement from the young ones.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...fl-college-football-championship/72117123007/

 

[Marcelason78]

If this were run like a business, most schools will only field 2 teams Football & Men's Basketball, but then they have to contend with Title IX.

I doubt that he’ll ever think about cutting cross country, but Jamie does understand the overall business side. How he can justify men’s and women’s golf in this environment doesn’t make sense.

 

[intrepid27]

Didn’t know about Virginia Tech increasing student fees to pay student athletes. At what point will students become very bitter about paying a college player $1 million, Pollard asks. Good question.

He didn't say how much VA Tech is charging but if you are trying to raise $22M from 30K students that is $733 per student per year. Probably not going to go over very well since half the kids on campus probably don't give a crap about any athletic programs..

 

[intrepid27]

Good podcast. Didn’t know that the next two years of ’revenue sharing’ will be paid in full by an AD slush fund.

I think he said it "could be" if needed. Hopefully it will last longer with other donations continuing..

 

[NWICY]

A couple things. I don't have an issue with students getting paid with the revenue they bring to the college or make from a commercial for the local grocery store chain. What bothers me is the idea that fans are expected to donate money to pay the athletes six figure salaries. When the Dodger were negotiating with Ohtani, they didn't set up a Go Fund Me site to raise money. As someone who teaches in an inner city community college that struggles to keep it's funding, (We actually lose money every time another student enrolls in a class.) I'd love to see this money go to college students in need through scholarship funds or supporting underfunded programs that support students.

The second issue I have with the direction of NIL is that every player is a free agent every year. Can you imagine if in the NFL every players was a free agent at the end of every season? It would be chaos. That's where we're headed. Colleges are allowed to contact athletes who haven't even put their name in the transfer portal. There need to be contracts between the players and colleges, and for a player to transfer the school needs to allow them out of their contract. That way if a player like Nojus, for example, wants to transfer to a school for more playing time, they are allowed to.

If it could be enforced, the idea of a cap on the amount of revenue shared with athletes by a college will help, along with making sure students who receive extra NIL money are actually earning it and not getting paid to play. I just think monitoring the outside money will be next to impossible. (Although one could argue it's always been that way.)

Can you explain how your college loses money as your enrollment goes up?

 

[theshadow]

I know it has been said that "good athletics boosts enrollment" and I am not sure I've seen hard data to justify that.

Applications to Butler went up over 50% after they made the Final Four.

Applications to FGCU went up 40% after they made the Sweet 16.

Applications to VCU went up 20% after they made the Final Four.

Applications to Gonzaga went up 12% after their first Elite Eight (1999).

Applications to Boston College went up 30% after Flutie's Heisman season.

Applications to Florida went up 10% after their back-to-back MBB championships.

Out-of-state applications to George Mason went up over 50% after they made the Final Four.

 

[CapnCy]

Applications to Butler went up over 50% after they made the Final Four.

Applications to FGCU went up 40% after they made the Sweet 16.

Applications to VCU went up 20% after they made the Final Four.

Applications to Gonzaga went up 12% after their first Elite Eight (1999).

Applications to Boston College went up 30% after Flutie's Heisman season.

Applications to Florida went up 10% after their back-to-back MBB championships.

Out-of-state applications to George Mason went up over 50% after they made the Final Four.

Not trying to be contrarian, but several of those are "blips" on the success radar of sports. And applications doesn't equal enrollment growth (usually a small percentage). If I had more time could go to the all websites and check enrollment pre and post those years to see true growth (and again that all wouldn't necessarily be supportive of it was due to the sport success). I did a quick check using FGCU's data (https://www.fgcu.edu/planning/institutionalresearch/datareports) and I looked at some data from 2012 and then compared to 2014 and 2015. While applications went up (and so did acceptances), the yield to actual enrollment was only 7-8% increase (and again, not sure if that is JUST sports or other factors).

Certainly national attention that could drive out-of-state students/tuition would be beneficial...but in the case of what we are discussing now, ISU needs the extra $20 million each year moving forward and that's to be "competitive"

 

[ElijahMoore]

Can you explain how your college loses money as your enrollment goes up?

Having to pay 20 million dollars a year for players definitely doesn't help

 

[NWICY]

Having to pay 20 million dollars a year for players definitely doesn't help

He teaches at a community college.
But yeah the 20 million at ISU isn't helping our AD budget out.

 

[cytor]

ISU has hit the NIL iceberg.... now, how long can it stay above water?

 

[nfrine]

Am I the only one who doesn’t give a s**t if it all collapses? It’s all greed, and I really don’t care anymore.

Season ticket holder and donor for FB and MBB for well over 30 years. I am getting to the point of checking out of college sports.