Williams & Blum: Recapping a crazy 10 days

[cyfanbr]

Knew we werent going to hit the 21M mark given all the discussions so far, but hearing we will nowhere close to it is concerning.

I’m guessing most may disagree with me on this one, but if we are not maxing out then our revenue share should only go towards football and MBB at this time. We can look at expending into other sports once we max out.

 

[SolterraCyclone]

I would rather see the NCAA/B12 cut requirements that all sports be in the same conference. Let the non-revenue sports compete in geographic leagues with minimal travel costs.

That would definitely help. And specifically help volleyball and wrestling for duals.

It wouldn’t help TF though as they don’t do head to head competitions. They travel all over the place for meets. Specifically in outdoor this year, thet go to North Carolina, California x2, Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc.

One problem I’m thinking of now though is cross country, indoor TF, and outdoor TF all considered separate sports? If so, then cutting those programs would drop us below the minimum required number of sponsored sports.

 

[PredominantISU]

Could he have been referring to the guy who chose Purdue over ISU (Cluff)?
Was it confirmed that he came back to campus after the Purdue visit?

Doubtful bc on a previous podcast he corrected CW and said the money wasn’t very different and wasn’t a major factor in his decision.

 

[isucy86]

Why is there no talk of adding an NIL $$$ cap per sport? I am worried that D1 teams without a football program (Creighton, Gonzaga, etc) would have a huge advantage in MBB and WBB NIL spending. Maybe they already do, so not much would change.

I think we need to stop calling all these payments NIL IMO the $20M revenue sharing required by schools is predominately going to be pay-for-play. No way is any athlete signing autographs or making personal appearances worth millions of $.

Legally, the NCAA, Conferences or Schools can't artificially limit an athletes "NIL" earnings. I am not saying they can't have a 3rd party like Deloitte validate player income is reasonable payments for what the free market calls for. But NCAA, Conference, Schools would get their butts sued for implementing an NIL cap. The NCAA lost a lawsuit over 25 years ago when they tried to restrict (cap) salaries paid to assistant coaches in some sports.

 

[Messi]

That would definitely help. And specifically help volleyball and wrestling for duals.

It wouldn’t help TF though as they don’t do head to head competitions. They travel all over the place for meets. Specifically in outdoor this year, thet go to North Carolina, California x2, Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc.

One problem I’m thinking of now though is cross country, indoor TF, and outdoor TF all considered separate sports? If so, then cutting those programs would drop us below the minimum required number of sponsored sports.

Yes. Essentially ISU counts 4 sports
Men’s track and field
Mens cross country
Women’s track and field
Women’s cross country

Some schools only have one or the other.

USC only has men’s and women’s Track. WVU only has women’s xc and track. No men’s anything

Sadly i could see a future where ISU is only xc. Both programs have won titles in xc but track success as a northern school is always going to be a challenge as a northern school

 

[isucy86]

Drop it to around 10. Sue us, NCAA

It's not the NCAA that would sue. It's the Federal Government

 

[alexssdean12]

Yes. Essentially ISU counts 4 sports
Men’s track and field
Mens cross country
Women’s track and field
Women’s cross country

Actually six sports: Track & Field is separated into indoor and outdoor as separate sports. Some teams only do outdoor track.

 

[isu81]

That would definitely help. And specifically help volleyball and wrestling for duals.

It wouldn’t help TF though as they don’t do head to head competitions. They travel all over the place for meets. Specifically in outdoor this year, thet go to North Carolina, California x2, Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc.

One problem I’m thinking of now though is cross country, indoor TF, and outdoor TF all considered separate sports? If so, then cutting those programs would drop us below the minimum required number of sponsored sports.

These sports would never be considered with Pollard our AD. Wrestling would go before.

 

[Messi]

Actually six sports: Track & Field is separated into indoor and outdoor as separate sports. Some teams only do outdoor track.

Yes sorry had a brain fart

 

[mkadl]

Let the big ten and sec play with themselves. If they want to play out of those two conferences they have to make the game a buy in game including expenses. Tell them to take their toys and go away. I believe all the other schools would make do. Would it make BIG XII TV revenues go down? I doubt it.

 

[nhclone]

You don’t cut the lowest sports, you cut the sports with the highest operational costs that don’t drive revenue.

I’m honestly not sure what those are. But I think people might want to buckle up if one of them is wrestling. If it’s a matter of getting to the max of the cap or wrestling, that’s a tough choice that needs to be made.

Also, freakin start selling alcohol at the games. That one isn’t even a tough decision.

I worded that poorly, but that's what I meant, the 2 worst performing. Caveat to that though, the worst performing is Women's basketball (-$4.4M in 2023) and that's not going away. Beyond that it's basically a tossup between Volleyball, Wrestling, Gymnastics, and Soccer. Cutting 2 of those saves about $4m total.

 

[clonehenge]

There's a reason NFL facilities are less impressive than NCAA P5.

When you have to pay the players for their labor, you don't spend so much on dumb ****

It all depends on ownership in the NFL. If the owner is willing to spend the money, the team has great facilities.

Look at the NFLPA team report cards every year, in most cases there's a direct correlation between the grades the owners get and the grades for locker rooms, training rooms, weight rooms, etc.

 

[isucy86]

Part of me wonders if the solution is to just give up competing with the B1G and SEC. Just let them break off and have a semipro football league. I don't know. Hard to see a way forward from a recruiting standpoint when every big 10 school around us will have 23 million to throw around and we won't.

It the gap continues to widen, I think it could happen. Notre Dame's former AD Jack Swarbrick (believe he retired spring 2024) predicted there would be two levels of college sport:

1. Semi-pro model where athletes were paid and earned NIL. If I recall correctly, he thought athletes might not even have to go to school.
2. Traditional model where athletes received full cost of education, plus they could independently earn NIL monies (not through school or boosters). More of an Ivy league model where the money & time spent is scaled back.

People with a vested interest in the current model say it would hurt schools. Athletics is the front door for universities. That is true, because that has been the model 90% of universities have adopted. Ivy League and other universities like Chicago, Washington (STL), Cal-Tech, etc have all thrived without expensive sport programs. Or even look at most Big East schools with just power conference basketball.

 

[Jkclone15]

I worded that poorly, but that's what I meant, the 2 worst performing. Caveat to that though, the worst performing is Women's basketball (-$4.4M in 2023) and that's not going away. Beyond that it's basically a tossup between Volleyball, Wrestling, Gymnastics, and Soccer. Cutting 2 of those saves about $4m total.

B12 Wrestling has 14 members, 5 of which are affiliates out west. Would dropping those have a meaningful reduction on travel costs?

 

[PredominantISU]

So if amounts less than $600 will not be policed, how hard would it be to set up large amounts of deals at $599? Signing books or recording personalized videos or whatever?

Man, I would think adding any significant extra to a players compensation in the form of $599 chunks would be an enormous pain in the ass. We’re not talking about the old days where 10k is going to make a player feel like a stud. It would take 800+ NIL deals to get a player an extra 500k. Seems much more likely you play by the rules or straight up cheat the system.

 

[mwwbbfan]

With the conversation about dropping sports etc and the inability to come close to the cap for pay-to-play - thought it was interesting timing for this winter giving TJ $1.5MM additional per year and Matt probably close to that. Wonder if that was a preemptive move so they would not complain about our funding for SA since they likely just took about another $3MM out of the budget. Not that it is not likely close to fair market was just interesting timing to do it this year to that level.

 

[Cyclonsin]

Let the big ten and sec play with themselves. If they want to play out of those two conferences they have to make the game a buy in game including expenses. Tell them to take their toys and go away. I believe all the other schools would make do. Would it make BIG XII TV revenues go down? I doubt it.

I 100% guarantee it would hurt TV revenues at the next round of negotiations. Having "access" to the playoff, even if it's mostly symbolic, is hugely important for the Big XII's relevance. Officially being completely separate from the sport's biggest brands would destroy interest over time.

 

[Cyched]

Blum is Jesus.

Jesus wishes

 

[CloneJD]

We’re going to have our rosters gutted if we don’t get to the max soon. I wonder if we end up funding less fb and bb spots compared to sec/big10 for a little bit to close the gap in pay. This could be a disaster. Very disheartening to hear this.

 

[ClubCy]

For anyone who wants us to voluntarily “separate” from the Big 10/SEC, take a moment to think if you want the current landscape or to be UNI/Drake.

Because that is what would happen.