Jamie Pollard preaches "Doomsday" about College Athletics and the NIL
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Fun Fact:
The money that the state 'gives' UNI Athletics is actually an accounting trick where it's just transferred right back into the general fund to cover the cost of athletic scholarships. The money never actually existed.
It really hamstrings all 3 state universities that we have to play by different rules than literally every single one of our peers. It's frankly amazing that all 3 departments are as successful as they are when the state funds them at the levels they do.
The money that the state 'gives' UNI Athletics is actually an accounting trick where it's just transferred right back into the general fund to cover the cost of athletic scholarships. The money never actually existed.
It really hamstrings all 3 state universities that we have to play by different rules than literally every single one of our peers. It's frankly amazing that all 3 departments are as successful as they are when the state funds them at the levels they do.
We are talking about the Iowa BOR so it's possible
Thank you so much! As someone who isn't big into sports, im highly invested in this issue and I think other people ought to be too now.
Really great interview. If I could make a suggestion, a follow-up pod with @brentblum would be interesting I think.
I'd definitely consider it, but I'm not sure who that is! I am pretty sports illiterate, the only reason I was able to have this conversation is because the philosophy and politics of it interests me!
He’s the director of the We Will Collective. The NIL wing of ISU athletics. He knows the landscape better than anyone else I’ve listened to.
Part of the mission of community colleges is to keep the student costs low. The State of Arizona gives us $0. We get money from property taxes, federal grants (that are getting cut midstream btw, but I won't go into that in this thread), and some private funding. Those funds don't increase as our enrollment goes up. The additional cost to the college for instructors and supplies per student is less than the tuition paid by the student. In other words the marginal costs are greater than the marginal revenue. Not a great business model.
On top of that, we are part of a bigger district with 10 colleges. We are told what our budget is at the beginning of the year, and we don't get any of the tuition paid by the students. It goes to the district, so as a college last year our enrollment went up 10%, but we didn't get any extra funds for that 10%. We have to cut funds from somewhere else in order to hire adjunct faculty to teach those extra classes and for additional lab supplies, etc. The good news is our budget will be higher next year because of the enrollment increase, but still the colleges are penalized during the years when they increase their enrollment, which should be the goal.
Thank you for the explanation. That sounds like a tough environment to plan for.
You're talking about the state who is moving away from funding public education and is actively defunding higher ed? Yeah, that's not happening.
Which seems incredibly dumb, doesn’t it. If I was going g to convert college sports into a pro model, and I was looking at the various pro leagues as potential models, who the hell would pick MLB over the NFL? The NFL model is so much better at growing and maintaining fans, and the results are proven out over decades worth of data. A system rigged for the biggest and richest programs is not the best option for the overall product.
First, thank you for doing this! This is a great discussion that needs to be had.
My personal view is that it can be solved easily with the right decision makers doing the right things. I think Jamie is trying to start the right conversations. Also, I love JP being our AD and I think he is the right person to take us through these difficult times.
I disagree with his framing of the potential student fees as a solution. This is not "charge all the students so we can pay the players"... the reality is, we had about a $122M budget in 2024. Schools have over indexed their spending on Facilities / Administration / Coaches since they did not need to pay the players. They are now paying the players for the first time. It's a new expense but it is not wrong that these athletes should be paid - they bring significant value to the school. The issue is, they were not included in the budget so making room for them initially is difficult.
The "$20M" gap we need to close is technically due to this added expense, but the reality is, if we did a 0 based budget, players and coaches would be the first to be paid with the $122M in revenue we have, everything else would need to fit what ever was left. The reason we need $20M is because we can't just cut spending that is already committed.
The proper framing of a potential student fee is to say are D1 athletics worth $400 per year? if so, we could easily raise half the $20M with that fee. I think not having D1 athletics would have a more significant impact on enrollment long term than a $400 student fee.
Just to put some additional context around this (source links at bottom of post).
Iowa State: 1% of $122M from Student Fees/University Support ($1.8M)
Connecticut: 40% of their Athletics Budget from Student Fees/University Support ($42.9M); (I like to use Connecticut since they were one of the first Power conference schools to be left behind when the big east fell apart. To make up for gap in conference payouts UConn has increased funding significantly)
FBS: Overall FBS Avg is 16% of the budget comes from Student Fees / University Support ($1.7B); (For ISU, 16% of funding from these sources would be $23M, or about $21M more than we currently provide)
Finally, UCF is a good example of a new B12 member who has historically funded athletics due to lack of Conf Revenue. Now they will make just as much as ISU from a conference revenue standpoint, but they also receive $36.4M from University funding and Student fees (Student fees are $14.32 per credit hour or $1718.40 for 120 credits which is the minimum needed to graduate. Over 4 years, that's about $430/year).
UCF: 37% of their Athletics Budget from Student Fees/University Support ($36.4M);
Iowa State: https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/big-12/iowa-state-university
UConn: https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/big-east/university-connecticut
FBS: https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs
UCF: https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/big-12/university-central-florida
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true... but in the case of ISU (and toe), the scholarships are charged by the university to the athletic dept. So, ISU Athletics actually sends money to the university to pay for the student athlete scholarships, etc. So, the university is making money off of athletics at ISU/toe. This is the first opportunity to cut expenses. Athletics should not be subsidizing the university and giving free marketing. University should only charge marginal cost to the athletics dept and should also pay the dept for marketing.
Absolutely……but I fear what a minor league NFL could look like with 120ish teams. Really none of those models work at the scale of college athletics especially when you take into consideration all the non revenue generating sports that are along for the ride.
Why should Iowa State (or any university) have to pay for marketing? The only reason the athletic department exists and has the vast majority of its value is because of the university
If we’re going to take this mindset, spin off the athletic departments, sell them to investors, and have them pay a licensing fee to the universities
