It's Jim Herrmann on the issues in College Athletics, how BYU is doing NIL right + more

Jim Herman on the drive on a Thursday. Jim, Merry Christmas season. How are you, sir?

And so many teams that are still playing, including Brigham Young, have several players that are in the portal while the season is still going on.

their careers. Weirdly, that's trickled down to college football, but there just seems to be no rules for for sport that I grew up in and was around for years. My brother played college football, obviously, lots of friends of mine, and you know, as long as I can remember, until the you know, real, not too distant future, was the strict guidelines of the NCAAA. My gosh, you couldn't get

an ice cream cone. You couldn't you couldn't even think about transferring unless you've sat out a year, And there are all these rules and restrictions, and now it just seems to be a total free for all, which I don't really understand. I don't know why someone hasn't stepped

in there. There used to seem to be a governing body that would try to curtail some of these things, but now it just seems to Every year the rules change, and you know, maybe there's there's the Wizard of Oz out there that's making it all work in some chaotic form or fashion. But I'm with you, it seems to

absolutely be crazy. I mean, krewe wakeleet, who I think is you know, one of DA's best defensive backs is in the portal, not going to play in the game that hurts against an unbelievable Colorado team that throws the ball and has crazy skilled positions and and is really apt at testing defensive backfields all around the country. And now VAU is at a disadvantage. And it seems, weirdly,

it seems Colorado's kind of kept it all together. I'm not as informed as to the comings and goings over there on their team, but from the macro landscape of college football, it seems to be a mess. And I keep hoping. I really defer to you know, certainly I'm influenced by the NFL model one because I think it works.

I grew up in a state where the Green Bay Packers are in a tiny little town smaller than Logan, Utah, and they fill a stadium of ninety thousand people, and there's They're the only way that can survive is because their central leadership with a game plan to make sure that all the teams within the league played by the same rules and have the opportunity to compete whether you're in a big market, small market, big school, small school.

And they've done a really good job of putting what I think is a framework that, based on where college football is going, could could work at the college football level. But until their central leadership in college football, you know, getting back to the free agency question, I don't know how. I don't know how it changes because the Big Twelve kills about the Big Twelve, the Pac Ten. I'm sorry

that the SEC cares about the SEC. The Big ten cares about the Big Ten, and someone's supposed to be caring about you know, college football as a whole, and I don't know who that is because it just seems to be running crazy, crazy wild.

have to rebuild your program every single year if you know you have a player for two or three years or something like it.

you're a smart guy. What do you think is standing in the way now of college football just getting this done? Because I believe it would solve the majority of the issues that face the sport right now.

the NFL. I paid my union dues. We had representatives, We talked, we met, We discussed issues that were relevant to us as players, and we relied on our representatives to be union to you know, speak for us as a union voice to the owners when they got together and collectively bargained. I was injured right before the strike here, way back in maybe seven eighty eight. So I played

eighty five eighty six, then got injured. Then there was a strike here, and then I actually got a couple surgeries and then actually signed after the second collective bargaining agreement with the LA Raiders. And so I saw it and I live it now. We started an NFL alumni chapter here and it's it's amazing what's changed and what's

transpired for X players. But certainly from a current player standpoint and someone who's in the league, there's rules, there's representation, there's a there's a plan, but it only comes with central leadership. In my opinion, I just don't as of right now, the SEC is so powerful and the Big ten's not far behind, or vice versa. I'm not actually sure who generates more on a perching basis, but weirdly,

as a conference they kind of collectively bargain. So the way I understand that the Big Ten goes out and negotiates rights, media rights, and creates content, and that content's distributed and they're paid by the distributors of the content, and then that is equally divided amongst the schools in the Big Ten and the SEC. So they're doing it on a conference basis. But people need to understand. And I wasn't a member of the PAC twelve or part of the school that was a member of the PAC twelve,

but this is the nation's favorite sport. It spans from coast to coast, and I think it's a travesty. What happened on the Pact to the PAC twelve and on the West coast. But someone needs to look out for that. There should not be two teams in LA that get on a plane on a weekly basis and fly to Maryland or Happy Valley, Pennsylvania to participate. And it sounds

great for football because you're on a chartered flight. But there's some volleyball player, female volleyball player who's a scholar athlete who has to take a psyche test on Thursday, and she traveled to Rutgers on Tuesday, and she took the red Eye back with three connections on the way back to UCLA, studied, took a test on Thursday, and then got on a plane and flew to Minnesota. It's

just nuts. And until someone gets their act together and figures out that college football specifically, and I think maybe

college football needs to be its own thing. Not own thing in the sense that it's not a sport tied to college at you know, college and universities, but it might need to be its own revenue model and have its own representation, both from an ownership standpoint all of the universities and or private equity who has the opportunity to buy into some of these programs and then collectively bargain for the players, because it definitely is a goost. It's laying the golden egg, and it helps funds lots

of other sports. And until this is all figured out, sadly, what it's made college football so great in America is just starting to disintegrate before our very own eyes. We certainly love it. I'm tuning in, I'm watching it, but

it's it's hard as a fan. It's hard as a fan to feel something strongly about a team that there was a young man who represented your school and next year is going to represent another school, and next year is going to represent another school, which, by the way, I thought you could only transfer once, and it seems guys now are transferring two, three, four times. It's just

it just is absolutely crazy. But to answers question specifically, I think what's standing in its way is we need we need a Roger Goodell of college football to represent uh. I guess really the media or and or the universities collectively. And then we need to, you know, figure out a way to make sure the athletes are representative and representative.

And I don't know if it has to be at quite the level that the NFL is, and maybe I'm being naive on that, but players, look, you know, there's lots of coaches and universities making tons of money, and certainly with matter of time before some of those resources need to be directed to players because some of them are maimed for life. Some of them get great educations and they move on and it was an unbelievable experience.

And some of them are generating huge amounts of revenue for schools and coaches that are making millions and millions of dollars. So to get those guys a share of the pot, I don't think is necessarily a negative thing, but it's just now seems to be of the wild wild West with a system with no rules.

the sport. Is there a way that you could get enough you know, private equity venture capitalists in a room that all want to invest in this, and then because of the money there will willing to really give up front to programs and then say you can use this with nil, you can use this to upgrade facilities or pay your cut or whatever.

have lots of money under management. We are looking We have a thematic sourcing initiative within our firm to look for sports athletic sports centric businesses to invest in, right, It's something that is important to us as individuals and as a firm, and so we're trying to find ways to put money to work in professional athletics. All that

being said, the model in college athletics is unique. I'm with you kind of from a macro viewpoint, But how do you make that work when some of these teams are owned by states, either owned by state institutions, owned by the University of Utah takes a lot of state money, And I don't know how what the ownership looks like in the University of Utah, how that was set up, what the charter was when the University of Utah was established,

And I don't know what hurdles that impose on private equity, right. I mean, like you said, private equity is kind of is what it says. It is. It's taking private dollars investing in an asset, figuring out a way to create value in that asset and get a return for the shareholders. And that, to me, I think is going to be complicated based on the landscape of college football. But conceptually what you're saying do I agree with absolutely, And I'm not sure. I don't know if it's private equity. I

hate to say it. I'm a capitalist. I believe in the free enterprise and free market system. I don't I believe less government's better. I do think potentially one way to get control of this crazy monster is to have the federal government step in in one way, shape or form or the other, and then to act laws. Because some of these school like I said, these schools are

federally owned, state owned. Some of them are a hundred years old, one hundred and fifty, two hundred years old institutions that I'm not sure they would be willing to take private equity money. Although they take lots of private equity money and to fund endowments. I don't know if they're going to take private equity money to give up ownership in an asset that's some two hundred year old educational institution is owns. So I don't know, Spence, I

don't know how to divvy it up. But I do think what you're saying resonates and it has to happen. And whether it's d I saw Dion on a clip the other day on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or somewhere on a reel I saw Nick Saban. Everyone's saying the same same thing. Chip Kelly said the same thing, right. It's it's like, look, guys, we're generating a lot of money. Let's figure out how much money goes to the school. Let's figure out how much money goes to the players.

Let's divvy that up. Let's have some guardrails this money. You know, and I'm a believer that, you know, green Bay gets the same amount of Dallas, and Dallas gets the same amount as the New York Giants, and the New York Giants get the same amount as the LA Rams And that makes it work, right. Any given Sunday wasn't some crazy marketing, you know, Slovan. It was to create an even system. It was to create parody. And I think that's what we want in college football. We

certainly want it regionally. I don't think anyone at the at Oregon State wakes up on a Saturday and says, I wonder what's happening in at Georgia Tech today. I sure hope they win or I sure hope they lose. Right, I mean, what's made college football so great are regional and conference rivalries that are part of this global, you know, American landscape of college football. I mean, it's kind of all part of this giant quilt, but there's patches that

are more relevant to certain people. And Oregon State cares about Oregon and Washington and and you know, cal down the road, at least they used to. And Michigan is always going to care about Ohio State. No status State is always gonna care about Michigan because they border each other. And b is always gonna care about Utah, and Utah is always gonna care about BYU. And the se schools are the same. And so let's figure out a way to get the University of Tennessee the same amount of

money as Oregon State. And some people roll their eyes at that, but I think that's what makes to work. I mean, right now, the big ten schools, they all make the same. No one seems to roll their eyes at Rutgers, who is not great at anything, is getting the same cash payout that Ohio State's getting, right, I mean, they make that work because they all need each other. They need each other in that conference. And it's the

same with the SEC. Vanderbilt has been getting their share, the same share that Alabama, and George has been getting in the SEC since they've been divving up those cash, those funds for media rites, and so I just don't understand why we can't do that on a global landscape. And maybe it's shrinks. Maybe it's instead of one hundred and thirty teams or one hundred and thirty five teams or whatever it is. Maybe there's a group of five

and there's a different group. And whether that's eighty or ninety, or sixty or or one hundred, I don't know what the number is. But right now, there's a lot of money generated for the schools in the Big ten. There's a lot of money generated for the schools in the SEC. There's a lot of money generated for the schools in the Big twelve. And there used to be a lot

of money generated for the Pack twelve. And the pat twelve just had horrible leadership and people lost their minds and they said, look for an extra ten million dollars. I'm willing to forego our unbelievable history as a conference, and I'm going to join a conference that means nothing to us. And then we have to travel all across the country for a few extra dollars, So why not find a way to make the pie bigger? And that's what the NFL has done. Everyone gets their slice and

they're unified. They want to put the best product forward. I mean, there's a great acquired podcast if you're a podcast cast or spence about how they did it and why they did it, and it was entertainment and it was a way to create a product. And the product was the NFL. And our product is college football and people love it and let's not kill it. And we're freaking killing it because we don't have someone driving the bus. And it just bums me out a lot.

maybe it's a panel. Maybe it's him and Nick Saban and a few other players. I mean, people that have been around and experienced what they needed to experience to understand how to protect a really strong American asset that the that you know, a lot of people that live in this country care about. And before we go too far down the path, we we get it back and headed in the right direction. And I'm hopeful that's going

to happen. I mean, I just hear Nick Saban now on game day and and he's a voice, he's got a platform now and he talks about it. And you know, social media, if any thing, has created a platform and an opportunity for people to share their opinions. And most of the people that I see share their opinions kind of are saying the same thing you're saying, sence. You know, they want to fix this before it gets too late.

were kind of looking for a home. Then the Big Twelve invite happens, and you know, Killani year two in the Big Twelve wins ten games and nearly wins the whole thing. And you know, down at Steve's golf tournament, I caught up with Brian Santiago. We talked about all of the really cool initiatives they have in place, and right now it feels like BYU's collective or whatever they're calling it, is in a really healthy spot in a way that Utah's isn't. As of now, they lock in

Aj Debantsa and Jim. I don't know if you've seen this kid play my Goodness like he is for real.

I had an unbelievable experience. I was part of a fraternity that was pretty diverse and and so you know, it was I mean, it was still part of the greater BYU community, which which actually I am embraced and figured out, this is going to be really cool. Like it's something I don't know about and I'm willing to learn and I'm excited to kind of, you know, expand my horizons and be part of a community that I

didn't grow up in. And I think do as doing the same thing kind of on a broader landscape, which is college athletics, right, They're they're looking to bring people in from other universities and other places. I mean, my goodness, they have a you know, they're starting quarterbacks, a Jewish young man who's embraced being a Jew at BYU and what that means, all the positives around that whole scenario.

And I think I have not had a chance to see an age, but my goodness, I just hear unbelievable things. I have a lot of friends certainly involved at BYU and the basketball community, both collegiately and otherwise. It's just just tell me, this kid is just unbelievable. And I think this is where NIL really paid off. And I'm not talking about by U Nil because the way I understand it, and it could be mistaken, but I've got some pretty deep sources, and I got a cut some

pretty good information. He was going to get a vast majority of the money that everyone sees that dollar figure, whether it's seven million or eight million, or six and a half or eight and a half or whatever the number is, the vast majority of that is coming from true NIL, right, which is what it was supposed to be, right,

A big chunk coming from Nike. And oh, by the way, you know, when he was on HISPN and he made the announcement, he had a little red Bull logo on the side of his boy you had a big chunk is coming from red Bull. Now he's got a big water pop money in his pocket, right, and so now he's going to go get a chunk of money from other schools, whether it be Kentucky or Duke or Kansas or BYU. And he got a chunk of money from BYU. But that chunk of money from BYU, I don't think

necessarily carried the day. It just made it competitive, right. They didn't have to write that whole number. They could write a percentage of that number coupled with true nil money. And he's like, you know what, I'm gonna make the same money here if I if I make it at Kansas, I'm not going to make a whole lot more there. I'm not going to make a whole lot more at

North Carolina. And by the way, I went to high school here and my parents really liked the environment at BUYU, and I've made some friends in the community in Utah, and I liked their coaching staff, and so it gave byu a chance, and I think that's where nil can be and you know, it can level the playing field to a certain extent. And it's not really just outbidding someone like by You didn't go and outbid other people. They just were competitive and they offered things that were

important to him and his family. So I think that's the positive side of it. And you're right when they said, you know, let's and I hate to even say nil because look, there's a professional sports team to tea here the email very well, you know, the Utah Jazz, and I don't know about you. I don't see it's on the Utah Jazz. Guys getting nil money in the local market,

and usually they're the non starters. They're the guys that are doing the used car dealership for Larry Miller, so they get the use of a car and they get an extra fifty K, or they're on a credit Union commercial. But people that are in the business world, like myself and other people, you need an ROI on those dollars. And people just aren't scratching checks to both collegiate players or NBA players in the market unless somehow they feel

it's going to make their business thrive. And there's going to be a return on that dollar investment, and Nike certainly can do that. Right, they're betting on this kid being the next Michael Jordan or the likes thereof right and red Bull is you're wanting to affiliate with this guy because he's just an unbelievable talent. And then you've got a university that can throw in some dollars to say, hey, oh, and by the way, we really like you too, and

we want you to come and we use them. And I had NL dollars and we have a collective I shouldn't say n al. You know, I get a little miffed sometimes when people throw nil around and it's really not nil. It's just pay to play. But we've got a pool of funds that we can pay you to come play for us, and it's all going to work out.

And to kudos to b YU, because I think, you know, obviously the ownership of BYU is unique and they care about what people think about that institution and then as a as a as a culture, and I think they said, you know what, hey, look, we can do a lot of good by being competitive on the field, and yes, we're willing to back this to a certain extent. I think if it gets crazy, you know, you might feel that change. But right now, they're like saying, yeah, let's

go along, let's be really mindful. They hired a GM, which you know, basically is a lawyer to come make sure they're doing everything dot in the eyes and crossing the t's and doing everything by the book, and it seems to be working. So I'm grateful that. You know, my school that I went to school played at with

by the way, call Whittingham was my teammate. So I get the same thing at buy at DU and I'm friends with Kyle and I'm friends with Freddie, and I talked to these guys, those guys about these same issues, and you know, they're they're important to their program, just like it's important to BUYU and it's important to them as fans of the of the sport. So I don't know if I answered the question, but yes, it's it's

it's crazy what's happening down there. And I think it's really good, you know, I think the portal has been a real benefit for him. They're just in this last week a couple of kids that I've coached in high school that you know, I coached to Cilia Kanna, who was a you know, top forty recruit in the country.

I mean, he had one hundred offers. Then he went to Texas and you know, some good, some not ideal, and thought it might be good to come closer to where he went, you know, grew up and from from a high school standpoint, and came back here and made the rounds and and he's going to go to BUYU. I'm thrilled because I coached him in high school and

now I can see him playing person. He's an awesome human being and he's a phenomenal talent, and so I you know, I see some of those things kind of work out in our favor, just like it's working out at Utah. You know, it's sad to see some guys go, but it's also exciting to get some talent. But it can't be a revolving door. It's like, my goodness, come and play for us. And like you said earlier, if you're gonna send a contract, a contract means something usually

has a term. It's usually not you know, three months, it's usually a year or two years, or there's gonna be something that triggers another opportunity for you to leave. But if you're gonna take cash and you're gonna come play for my school, I'm gonna say you're gonna play in all the games, including the Bowl game. That's where I give Dionn a ton of credit, and you're gonna stick around because we're gonna we're gonna come up with

some resources. And that's, you know, quid pro quo. You play for us, you get cash, and it's it's got to be some sort of commitment. So yeah, all those things, all those things Spence you and I could talk about for hours because I'm passionate about it and it sounds like you care as well, and so yeah, it's interesting.