Spoke to someone last night who said that there are a number of reasons why BYU won’t be able to duplicate what Utah has done that have nothing to do with money available. Their thinking was basically that the LDS Church would not want to take on that sort of risk, particularly being responsible for $500M if this all fails. They also speculated that taking such actions would impact their tax-exempt status, too, and, not being a research-based institution, it would be hard to start doing a spin-off sort of business where they haven’t done that before.
How valid that is, I don’t know, other than the risk-averse nature is very real.
On another note, I am seeing lots of church employees being vocal about the amount of money flowing into and through BYU athletics. I heard from somebody that recently they were informed that there would be some layoffs and hiring freezes, and so, in light of that, it is particularly tough for them.
I heard from the HS football coaching ranks that the founders of Vivant paid a few kids to transfer to Orem. It got the Tigers the 5A title this year. Why on earth anyone would do that with money that could actually go for more meaningful causes escapes me.
I have to be honest, if I had 800k to throw around, I can’t imagine under any circumstances spending it on building a high school football team. I can think of many, many other uses for that cash. Good grief.
More rumors from my source: Ficklin got $1M to stay. The offer to Dampier was as high as $4M but he said he’d take $2.5M so they’d have money for a WR or two.
This is insane and I can’t believe it’s sustainable. How long until the half the squad that works just as hard but isn’t getting that kind of dough and instead just wants a degree to serve them the rest of their lives says, “F this, it’s not worth it,” and walks?
At least with a college kid you might expect some nominal ROI through appearances or promotions, The only rationale I can think of for a high schooler is directing him to the college of your choice when he graduates.
Any nitwit can introduce a bill. Is this guy a pissed off Washington State fan? His bill isn’t going anywhere. Here’s what’s going on: Universities have quietly decided that big-time athletics is no longer core to the academic mission (if it ever was)—it’s a volatile side business. Presidents and boards don’t want athletic deficits touching general funds, don’t want reputational risk, and don’t want to manage NIL, transfers, or payroll drama. So the emerging model is to wall it off: license the brand, impose guardrails, and let a professionally run entity handle the business. From the university’s perspective, athletics is a small business enterprise with thin margins (think about it; in the overall scheme of things the revenues are at small business level), while the real institution is a multibillion-dollar research and healthcare brand.
Oh boy, this doesn’t sound good. I saw that RedBird expects to cash in with new TV deal or something similar. How much return are they expecting from the Big XII?
Vampire Capitalists don’t fund things out of the goodness of their hearts. The reality is they see an obscene profit margin possible in college football and basketball if they can remove the non revenue sports from the money train.
The problem: The moves they are scheming would likely violate federal equity rules, landing the Universities in lawsuits.
There is the devil scenario here where these vultures suck all the money out of college sports and bankrupt it. We should be worried.
As an ex-PE guy, this is sad. It was not supposed to be like this. Of course, I did leave my previous PE firm because the founder started behaving in a similar way – not my cup of tea and left. In early days with the firm, the founder told me “you are as honest as the day is long,” and I was grateful for that comment. Just can’t be a vampire. Maybe that’s why my net worth has not increased as much. haha