"Unsustainable" Only Gets Used When Athletes Start Getting Paid - Jay Bilas

Jay Bilas and I challenge the claim that NIL and the transfer portal make college athletics “unsustainable,” and we point out how the industry keeps finding money for everything except athlete compensation. We argue for player choice, smarter support systems, and a path that looks more like contracts and collective bargaining than one sided restrictions. 
• why “unsustainable” gets used selectively when athletes get paid 
• facility spending, bloated staffs, and incentives to spend every dollar 
• what “guardrails” really means and why education beats restrictions 
• fairness comparisons to other students who can monetize talent 
• contracts as a way to balance stability and athlete choice 
• collective bargaining as a legal path to minimums, maximums, and conditions 
• why the NCAA’s preferred federal fixes raise antitrust concerns 
• transfer portal decisions, resilience, loyalty, and subjective “right reasons” 
Tune in next week. Check us out, athleticfortitude.com, download the pod, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Five stars only, baby. Appreciate you guys. 

Transcript

Is College Sports Sustainable Now

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Do you think the current landscape of of college athletics is sustainable with NIO and transfer portal?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Well, what does sustainable mean? Because the industry, the NCAA and all the member institutions have said unsustainable with regard to athletes for a long time. It's unsustainable with regard to facilities and costs and all this stuff. So they've said unsustainable for decades. And the money keeps going up. Administrators and coaches keep making more. The media rights contracts keep ballooning. And then now the athletes are getting paid and unsustainable comes in again. So do I think that the system right now is the way that I would run it? Of course not. Like I would sign the players to long-term contracts if you want them to stay. If you want to sign one-year deals with players, you can do that. It should be up to each school as to what they do. And uh because you could make the argument that, you know, coaching salaries now, coaches are making every bit as much in college as they do in the NBA. So is that unsustainable? It's just a word they use when the industry keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and their staffs keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So I don't, when they say unsustainable, it's like the princess bride when, you know, the guy says inconceivable. I don't think it means what they think it means.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

How would you describe

What “Sustainable” Really Means

SPEAKER_00 1:18

sustainable then? Like how do you view what sustainable means?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Well, I mean, sustainable, they they're not they've not had to compete for athletes in the past. You know, they competed, the way they competed for athletes, they didn't have to compete for them monetarily by paying them. They competed for them by in recruiting by creating a better environment. So they spent a whole bunch of money on facilities and all that stuff. And and I think a lot of observers argued that was unsustainable because look at how much money these facilities cost and debt service and all that. And I get it. Now they don't have to do that anymore. They don't have to build shiny new facilities. The players aren't looking for that. They would rather have than have a locker that lights up with all these bells and whistles. They would rather have the money. Just as I'm sure any coach would say, look, I don't need a Taj Mahal office. I would rather have the money. You know, you want a functional office and all that. Everybody wants a nice environment and they're always going to have that. But to me, sustainable, the issue of sustainability comes down to where they're spending the money. Like, if I were to use that term, I would say, I'm not sure it's sustainable for the enterprise to have staffs as big as they have. Like you go into these athletic departments and they're bigger than the Pentagon. You're like, you need to get you need to get more efficient. Like, you know, now college coaches have a chief of staff. Really? Like you really need that? So they're spending money and have spent money over the years because they can. So it's hard for me to imagine that some of these athletic programs that are making anywhere between a hundred their their revenue generation is anywhere from a hundred million dollars to two hundred million, that they can't run programs on that. When division two and the division three institutions don't have those same kind of revenue generation numbers and they have all the same sports. You know, like how is that possible? Now, they don't have the same sort of gold plating that they have. But, you know, if you were gonna invest in this, uh, if private equity were come in, I can't imagine that private equity would come in and they're taking, they're they're essentially putting in capital to take some of the revenue stream. They're not gonna say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you guys need to lean up here. You don't need all these people that's cutting into your profit margin. Because the schools, like, they don't have, they've never had an incentive to have anything left over. And so over the years, as revenues have shot way up and they have, magically expenses have riven risen to the same level as revenue. How does that happen? Well, they don't want to give the money back to the school, so they spend it. And a lot of the money that's that that are expenses for the athletic department, they pay to the school. Give away a scholarship. Where are you paying that money? You're not paying it to a third-party vendor, you're paying it to the school. Um, you know, rent, maintenance, all these other food service, all the at an inflated price, all those things are going to the school. So the school's not out a nickel for any of the scholarships that are given in sports. That's booked on the athletic department ledger. But the schools, if if they weren't making money at this, they wouldn't do it. If it weren't to their benefit, they wouldn't do it. You know, this is not a tail wagging the dog situation. They're doing this because it's in their interest to do it. But they didn't budget for the athletes to be valued appropriately. They had them at zero. All it costs them was the cost of the scholarship and then the cost to run the program. That's it. But nobody ever says unsustainable when LSU is paying $70 million in buyouts to their coaches. Funny how that word's not used. It might be used by a few academicians that follow college sports, but it's not used by the industry itself. Unsustainable only comes out when it has to do with athletes. This is, you know, it's unsustainable to pay the athletes the way we're paying them. They're not worth that. Well, clearly they are because you guys are competing for these athletes in the marketplace and you're paying it. So clearly it is sustainable, and clearly it is what they're worth.

Guardrails Versus Real Athlete Support

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Do you think, or uh I guess like the whole premise of the conversation, right, is understanding, or at least for the people who genuinely care, not just your average fan, but what is the suitable and healthy way to put guardrails around this to where in the buzzword of development of athletes is still at the forefront and not just the, you know, the exceptions who are likely going to play professional or move on in some capacity, but the overall body of athletes. I think of like personal experience, and I don't like using anecdotal because that's not representative of the whole, but like some of the level, you know, I played division one football, and I just think back to that time, what if you had handed me a million dollars or you'd handed, I see some of my teammates who those types of guys are getting paid a ton right now. I think of the responsibility that they may not have earned when they get this type of money and they may make poor choices. And so, like my mind always just goes to well, how are we utilizing the right resources around athletes as they get this type of money and help them develop as young men and young women to where when this all ends, they are in a position of not only financial wealth, but social wealth and mental and mental wealth and, you know, just overall well-being and they're moving forward in society as opposed to being kind of, you know, just backhanded it as all of this changes and all of this goes

Why Only Athletes Get Restricted

SPEAKER_00 7:03

away.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

That's a lot. So what I would say is if you're concerned about that, are you equally concerned that we shouldn't allow young people of that age to drive a car? Because if they're allowed to drive a car, they may get in an accident, they may have a DUI, there may be negative consequences that come with driving a car. So I'm not sure they should be allowed to drive a car at that age. Doesn't that sound kind of ridiculous when you say it out loud? Because it does. And to your point, the overwhelming majority of people that drive at that age do just fine. And shouldn't we have guardrails for their relationships? Like, should they be allowed to get married at that age? Because there are players in college, athletes in college, that are married and have children. Should they be allowed to do that? What are the guardrails for that for their relationships? Because that could lead to problems. It sounds ridiculous when you say that out loud. And look, I'm older than you, but when I was in college, when we complained about not being compensated and being restricted in what we could earn or accept, the snarky response we got from administrators, you want to get paid? Go get a job. All right. If we went out and got a job, we'd have to pay taxes, we'd have to budget our time, we'd have to go to work, we'd have to do all these different things that they have to do now as athletes, uncompensated until recently. And where were the guardrails for that? Now, there are students that you and I both went to school with that had great abilities in different areas other than athletics. The star musician was not told that they could not perform while they were in school and make money doing it. The star English student could write a book and make money. The star actor, whether it's Natalie Portman at Yale, she was in movies making a lot of money while she was in school, and nobody said, you can't do that. And where were the guardrails for that? Because only, you know, in these programs other than athletics, nobody says to a star art student or a star musician or a star actor, student thespian, which they never call those people. They only use student with regard to an athlete for reasons we can talk about if you like. But nobody's telling them in their pursuit of this, hey, look, only a small percentage of people in your discipline ever really make money at that. That's what they tell to athletes. You know, it's only a small percentage when it's not true. Um, first of all, on the power five level, a lot of these play I played professional basketball. A lot of a lot of people play pro basketball and pro football. But also they spend their lives in that industry. They work as coaches, administrators, front office people and the like broadcasting in that area. So I think there's always been an issue in college sports where they view athletics as a contagion that can affect the rest of the university. But also it's something we're gonna make money on and we're gonna benefit on as a university when it suits us. But that's not done with the drama department or with the English department or the music department or the art department. Because my daughter was a professional artist while she was in college. Nobody told her she couldn't sell her art. But by the same token, nobody demeaned her by saying, now, this is not something you should study. Because, like, don't put your time into this, because so few artists really make it, make it big. And and is that a life? Like, what are you gonna do after art? Nobody says, what are you gonna do after art? But they say, what are you gonna do after basketball? Why is that up to you? And and if we need to worry about athletics so much, why are they doing it at this level? Like, has anybody ever asked that? Like, if it if it's something that's so deleterious to young people, why are we pouring so much money into this? And why and and if if the the athletes are so fragile, why are we selling them for billions of dollars in media rights? Why are we doing that? That doesn't seem to come up. These are all great conversations to have on each campus. Just like each campus should ask themselves, how much money do we want to pour into this enterprise? You know, how much do we feel it's appropriate to pay a basketball coach or a football coach? And, you know, because they never ask that. With an athlete, you know, they should we pay everybody the same? How do we pay the athletes? What do we do? Nobody ever says, do we pay all our coaches the same? Should the fencing coach make the same as the football coach at Alabama? Nobody asks that, but they ask it with athletes. And I think we need to stop doing that. The athletes are a part of this industry. They're the revenue drivers. I don't know any coach that wins without outstanding players. You can lose with them, but you're not going to win without them. And they have greater value than they're even realizing now. So I don't think we need guardrails with regard to players because we don't have any guard, nobody's asking for guardrails on coaching salaries or guardrails on facility spending. They're only asking for guardrails with regard to athletes because we had fully restricted athletes before, and we're still in the infancy stages of athletes receiving their fair market value.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Back in 2017, I actually took an American politics class and I actually cited you because the conversation of paying athletes came up in this conversation. And I use that exact reference of, hey, nobody talks about the musicians or the actors and actresses who are able to go make money off of their skill sets, but athletes aren't. And at the time, that was when the conversation just started, and it happened a couple of years after I had graduated and finished playing before kind of all the change happened, basically. And I always want to make sure I articulate my thoughts in a concise way because I'm I'm very novice. And that's part of the reason I wanted to have this conversation with you is because I don't know if there's anyone I've listened to more on the topic than you. I don't view the the guardrails more so as restricting in terms of you can only make this, or you know, you're only allowed to make this much during this time of college, or whatever those guardrails you want to talk about. I think more of how are we advising and guiding? Because I look at society as a whole and it doesn't matter what age you are, people are making poor decisions every single day. And I have a particular fondness for athletes because I think that the way that it is going, or the way that it has been going for years, is athletes have a target on their back. I think athletes are in a way taking it advantage of by people close to them as well. And I think of the importance of having the right advisors and right people around you to help you make better decisions. And what I don't like happening, or like what I see as I grow up and mature and work with athletes as well, is a lot of these guys and girls are getting bad advice in terms of how to sustainably build wealth in different areas of life. And again, that extends to people of all ages, but I care most about the athletes because that's the world I I came from. And that's a lot of the world that I live in now. And it is one of those things where I want to see them get the best resources because they're going to be put in a public eye. They're going to be scrutinized, they're going to have every reason possible to critique them. I want to give them as many solutions as possible. And so, like my mind, that's where my mind goes. It's like, well, how can we set them up to handle all the different pressures and things that are coming this way as we throw them millions of dollars and all the people that are going to try and manipulate and take advantage of them?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

And I think that's great, but that's not a guardrail in my mind. A guardrail is uh is a restriction. And that's what when the NCAA says guardrail, they're saying rules that limit and when there are no such rules and any other thing. Like I'm sure there are coaches out there that make bad decisions with their money. What are you gonna do? Like if we're worried about athletes making bad decisions, then at your school, put programs in that will educate them. And I'll give you an example of why I think this is a misplaced, it's a great thought and and it's in the right place. Um, but but let me give you an example of something that's similar. Uh athlete gets injured. University has medical facilities. So the athlete gets advice that says, okay, you need to have surgery. And the young person and his family, guardian, whatever, says, I want a second opinion, we're gonna seek out our own our own doctor for a second opinion. And they go to a doctor you don't think is very good. What are we gonna do about that? Like we're gonna put in guardrails that say you can't see another doctor? What's more important than uh a person's health? So what are we gonna do about that? We can we can certainly put in rules that say, here are the, you know, here are the registered agents that that the NCAA or whatever entity deems as the best. What if somebody decides to go with someone else or a player decides to go with a hourly fee lawyer, and you don't think the lawyer is good enough? That's a campus-by-campus, student by student, athlete by athlete issue, in my view. We can certainly put in programs that help educate. I think that's a wonderful thing. And that's why I think college is a great place for a young person to be and also to be compensated because there are resources all over the place that can help them. How do you make them take that advice? I don't know that you can or you should, but maybe reasonable minds can differ on that one. But but if we're talking about a guardrail, that's just another word. That's a that's a kinder word that the NCAA has for restrictive rules on athletes and athletes only. And and it's a it's an industry-wide rule. It would come from the NCAA and restrict everyone. And I don't, I don't see that as being the

Contracts And Collective Bargaining Path

SPEAKER_01 17:31

right thing. First of all, I don't think it's legal, but if the NCAA wanted to say, we're gonna, we're gonna ask Congress for a federal pathway to collective bargaining, and we're gonna bargain for all the rules and guardrails with you. So if the players agree to be restricted and get have a salary cap and minimum salaries and work conditions like they do in the NFL or the NBA, fine. That way the players have agreed to it. But what the NCAA seems to be asking with is guardrails are unilateral rules imposed on the athletes with no say. Because look at all these different issues that are being dealt with, whether on Capitol Hill or otherwise, players are not represented and they're never heard from. And that's not going to work. Players have to have a say in their futures if they're gonna be in partnership with uh with the enterprise. So if we want minimum salaries, like if the NCAA wants players to stay, they don't like the transfer portal, which the NCAA put in. That was an NCAA creation, not foisted on them by some judge's order or something or from the government. They put it in. And if we don't like it, if we don't like players transferring as often as they they do right now in this period, then create a way where you can sign them to long-term contracts. But the NCAA doesn't want them to be employees, so they're they're they're not gonna do that right now. Maybe Congress can give some sort of pathway where you say, all right, the athl college athletes are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act, and they can sign independent contractor agreements that are multi-year. That way, that way, if you lock yourself into a school, an athlete does, it's the athlete's choice to do that. And it's an arm's length negotiation for the appropriate compensation in that athlete's mind and the school's mind for that deal, just like they do with a coach. Coaches have multi-year contracts that have buyouts in them. And one last thing on that point, and I know I've rambled a little bit here, but you know, I I find it contradictory to the point of hypocrisy that we're worried about players transferring when they're not signed to multi-year contracts here. And we think that's a problem. And and coaches that are under contract are are taken from school to school, and we don't call that tampering. Like it's not tampering for LSU to fire Brian Kelly, who had a multi-year contract. They got to pay his buyout to fire him. And then they go to Ole Miss and they take a coach, they take Lane Kiffin away from Ole Miss, who's under contract and they pay his buyout. It's, you know, like that would never happen in the NFL or the NBA. You're under contract with a with another team in your league. You're not doing that without perm without permission from the other team. And that doesn't have to happen in college. And I think it's strong to, you know, look at this one area and say, okay, the athletes have to be locked in. We got a problem here, but the coaches are jumping whenever they feel like it. I think that's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

For the collective bargaining, for now I'm not astute to exactly how they do it in the NFL, but I think of in college, obviously, usually guys are in four years and out, obviously that has changed with redshirts, medical red shirts, COVID years. Would you have new people assigned to take on roles that lead the negotiation, or do you have a panel of former players combined with current? How would you go about setting up the proper way to have a CBA so that players can negotiate minimums, maximums, you know, contract lengths and things of that nature?

How A CBA Could Actually Work

SPEAKER_01 20:55

That's the that's the difficult part because you've got, at least in basketball, 360 Division I institutions. And uh in football, it's more in the 130 range, something like that. So you would have to have all of those players in either a union or a trade association or some entity, maybe that Congress can can help with in order to negotiate with the NCAA and or the conferences, however, they want this to shake out. Like if you did a conference by conference and each conference negotiated a collective bargaining agreement, I mean, I'm sure that could be accomplished, but that's what competition is. Like if what if the Big Ten says we're gonna have a maximum salary and a minimum salary, then why wouldn't the SEC say we're gonna have a higher maximum salary and minimum salary? Um, you could certainly, you know, all those things could happen. But if you wanted to do it as a as one entity through the NCAA, you know, the players could choose their own representation in that regard. Just like the the NBA players have an executive director, there's a There's a board that has players on it, things like that. I mean, it's really not that difficult, and the entire union could vote on it. It's doable. I realize it's different, but it's the smart way to go about it if you want these guardrails and maximum and minimum. Like I do think there's a sweet spot here where the players would say, look, this is in our interest for this to be healthy, and it's certainly in the school's interest for this to be healthy in the best possible way. So there's a sweet spot where we can negotiate numbers that make sense for the enterprise and make sense for the players, like they do in the NFL or the NBA. And you would renegotiate it every once in a while, whatever the parties agree on, so that you can adjust it based on increased revenues or say revenues go down, you would need to adjust it. That's just business in America. And I don't see how we think that whether it's the film industry or the record industry or any other multi-billion dollar entertainment industry, that somehow, you know, the college sports can make billions of dollars and sign media rights contracts that are identical to the contracts that the NBA, Major League Baseball, and the NFL sign, and we can't do it. Like it, of course, they can operate on that level because they've been doing it. So they just have had the luxury for all these decades of not having to pay their employees and their revenue drivers. Now they have to. So they're going to have to get serious about figuring out the best way to do it, but that works for everyone. And they've chosen not to do it. Like the NCAA has chosen not to do this because they would rather ask Congress to bail them out with an antitrust exemption or some other federal law that preempts state laws that they've found difficult. And I don't mean this as snarky, but it's going to sound that way. I mean, the NCAA complains about all the lawsuits they're getting on the antitrust side. Best way to avoid those is to stop violating federal antitrust law, and you won't get sued that much. You know, that that's it's snarky, but it's true. You've been violating federal antitrust law for a hundred years now. Stop doing it. The rest of these industries and businesses are not being sued under the Sherman Act. And if you don't like the Sherman Act, then maybe we should all talk to Congress and do something about it. The NFL is getting sued right now. They're dealing with the federal inquiry with regard to how they sell their games to the public. You know, everybody has to deal with it. And the NCAA wants to be exempt from that. I just can't imagine that's

Congress, The SCORE Act, NCAA Plans

SPEAKER_01 24:37

going to happen.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah, I was going to say, is there any legs to the current uh federal legislation or the five for five that may be or that it's being proposed?

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Those are two different things. So the federal legislation, whether it's a score act or other, there have been a number of different proposed uh federal federal legislation that haven't really gone anywhere yet. Uh and the NCAA is behind the Score Act because it requires, you know, it provides them the restrictions on athletes that they want. Now, I I can't sit here and tell you that I've read the Score Act start to finish to see whether it addresses should coach's salaries be limited. Because if we think this is just a fun little extracurricular activity or like intramural sports, it's not. It's making billions of dollars. So should the coaches keep making millions, maybe we should adjust that or look at that. I don't know that the Score Act does that and don't think it does, because I certainly haven't read anything about that. But the the five and five thing is that's the NCAA's proposal. And the NCAA can certainly make its own rules. They've just been reluctant to do that because they say, well, whatever we do, we're going to get sued. Well, do something that doesn't violate the law and you won't get sued. But there's never been an age restriction in college. You know, you've had older players playing in college forever. Maybe they started late, maybe they served in the military, maybe they had an injury, whatever, or financial issues that meant they started their clock later. So if they want to do it that way, I don't, you know, I haven't really examined it. But say they do this five and five thing. So five years from your high school graduation or when you turn 19 or whatever, and then you got to play four years in those five, no matter what. You get injured, too bad. Um, there have always been waivers for injuries and red shirts and things like that. But what about BYU? BYU might say, and I think could say, uh, wait a minute, we have we have our students and our athletes take missions and their two-year missions, and that's going to impact these players and their ability to realize their dreams and all that stuff because of faith-based based reasons. We need a waiver for that. Like right now, they don't play in the NCAA tournament on Sundays. They make accommodations for that. What if someone says, wait a minute, I I chose to serve in the military after high school. So I did a four-year student in the military. Now I want to go to college. I've served my country, and you're going to say, no, I can only play one year now because I served in the military. So maybe we need a waiver for that. And then the waivers, as we have now, kind of overtake the rule. I don't know the answer to that, but we've never had any rules quite like this. And I understand some people say, well, this guy's 26 years old. That's not fair. You know, if we didn't tell you he was 26, you wouldn't know. And there was a coach we had on television recently during the Final Four that said, it's unsafe to have an 18-year-old playing against a 25-year-old. No, it's not. Because we've never had an age restriction. Like, stop it. Stop it. Some of these things are silly. They're just silly. And we need to stop. We need to stop with this rhetoric. I get it that some coaches don't like it, especially the ones that are older, because they knew a gentler time where when you said my way of the highway, there was no highway, and you didn't have to mess with your roster year to year like they do now. But a lot of these guys are making five, six, seven, eight million dollars a year. They can take some of their April and set their rosters. It's not that big of a deal.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

I did see that clip. And my honestly, my immediate thought is I'm pretty tied into the college wrestling world too. My my brother was a five-time All-American, brother-in-law was a five-time All-American. And the in a combat sport, a lot of the 17 and 18-year-olds are actually doing better than the 24 and 25-year-olds. And so I just think about that from a basketball standpoint where basketball is not the most physical, like it's not a combat sport. And so I immediately kind of just like disagreed with that point. Also, I thought of guys like Brandon Wheedon, who was a quarterback for Oklahoma State, who was, I think, like 25 or 26. And there was no genuine competitive advantage there. Now, from a solution standpoint, to just make this the best product, is the best way to just go to a pro model and system since it's been essentially operating as a pro system minus paying the athletes for a long period of time?

Pro Model Logic And Budget Reality

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yes. The answer is yes. So, and I agree with you. Like this has been pro sports for 40 years. They just illegally, they had an illegal wage ceiling on the players. You know, and remember we heard uh, you know, scholarships enough. Well, says who? Like in and what what other person are you telling in America, let alone in college sports, college, uh, the college industry, not just college sports, but the entire college industry, what other student do they say, all right, you're getting a scholarship, therefore you can't do anything else. You can't make money in any other area. Um, you have to do this and this alone. And if you take a free meal somewhere, um you're you're ineligible to do what you stated you wanted to do. Nobody did that. And it's kind of stupid when you think about it. But the NCAA had their thumb on these athletes for all this time, and nobody, you know, including the courts, gave them a lot of deference, they were allowed to do it. I don't think it's that difficult for them to say now. Now, the difficulty is they've budgeted for them keeping all the money. So now they're gonna have to shift some of their budgets. And if I'm an administrator in college, you know, and I've been working my whole life in that industry, I'm going, whoa, if the players get paid their value, I'm gonna make less money, or maybe I'm not gonna have a job in the future. You know, that that's that's probably going to happen. That they're gonna say, wait a minute, why are we paying all these people this amount of money when the real value is on the floor or on the field? They're gonna say that. And then we're gonna hear the doomsday. You know, we're already hearing the doomsday predictions. Oh, we start paying the athletes, all these other sports are gonna go away. No, they're not. They haven't yet, and they're not going to. Uh, schools are always gonna offer the sports that are that benefit them the most. And when I was in college, I think Duke had 13 varsity sports. Now they've got close to 30. Is that too many? Is it just enough? Were they underserving the population back when I played when nobody complained that we had 13? What's it gonna be? Like, they're gonna do what they're what what's in their best interest to do. I don't know whether Stanford should have a synchronized swimming program or not. That's up to them. I didn't know they had one, but that's up to them. Yeah I have no problem with all this stuff. But but what I do know is you're gonna make this kind of money and you're gonna compete for talent on the floor. That talent deserves to be compensated to its value. And if you don't want to pay that much, just like you do with coaches, Central Michigan is not paying their basketball coach what Michigan is paying Dusty May. And nobody seems to have a problem with that. You know, nobody's out picketing the NCAA saying, this is not fair, this is not fair. If if the NCAA institutions really wanted fairness, they would share revenues across the board, but they're not doing that. Like, like they would take all the money that's made and they would put it in a pile and they would say, all right, everybody gets X. We've divvied this up, every school in the membership gets the same amount, and then we'll see who does a better job with it. They're not doing that. And they're not going to. The SEC's not sharing its money with anyone else, neither's the Big Ten or the ACC. They're gonna they're gonna compete, they're gonna make their money and they're gonna spend it and compete with it. So it's kind of more like baseball in that regard, uh, rather than the NFL or the NBA.

Transfer Portal Choice And Player Growth

SPEAKER_00 32:44

I want to take a step back and talk about development because I know that you have a relative expertise in like, you know, developing mental resilience, mental toughness. You've lived it as a player, you've written about it, and you've watched sports transpire for a long period of time. And I think about like we'll talk about the portal here specifically. Is it your belief that the portal has no effect on like the development of resilience and mental toughness and maturity as athletes? Or do you think that it impacts it in a negative light? I was just really curious to kind of hear your opinion on how it affects the development of athletes in becoming you know better men and women.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

I don't know the answer to that because I don't know that it does affect their ability to be more resilient or tougher or whatever you want to call it. I don't know whether it affects it positively, negatively, or it has no effect at all. One of the things I often think about is if you just take a recruiting a player out of high school, how can we trust them to make the right decision out of high school when they have no college experience? We can't. Well, but we do. Like, how do we trust that decision? So we trust them to make that decision out of high school. But you but we don't trust them after they had experience at that school to decide whether they want to stay or go. Doesn't that sound kind of stupid? Yeah, it does. And and look, like the players I think by and large know what's good for them. Like, so they say the grass isn't always greener when a player transfers. Look, there are some that that decide to go into the portal that don't find a landing spot. Like, so what are we gonna do? Like everybody's got, they're always consequentious to a decision. So you try as best you can to educate the player and and all that, but they have decisions to make. And it it why should Jaxel Lindeborg have to stay at UAB because he was undervalued or underdeveloped out of high school or just one year of junior college? You know, last year there were two players in the country that led their team in scoring, rebounding, assists, steals, and blocks. Cooper Flag at Duke, whom everybody knew, and Yaksel Lendeborg at UAB, who very people out uh very few people outside of the basketball nerds like me knew who he was. And and is he not allowed to better himself and go to Michigan and play on that stage where now he's a household name uh and is valued at a much higher level? I mean, in what world does that seem right or fair when Dusty May did a great job at Florida Atlantic and he jumped to Michigan? And one of the interesting things about that is so Dusty and Florida Atlantic went to the Final Four in 2023, I think it was. All of the players on his roster came back the next year, as did he. They all came back. So none of them cashed in, and this was the NIL era, none of them cashed in, none of them left, and they came back and had a great year the next year, but they didn't go to the Final Four again. Elijah Martin went to Florida, won a national championship of Florida, you saw, you know, Vlad Golden went with them to Michigan, had a great year. They all stayed. So the idea that loyalty is dead in college sports is not true. And what I would offer is were we really loyal back when I played and when you played when we weren't allowed to transfer without giving up a year of our lives? Or did we just have no limited choice? You know, I I prefer the players to have choice. And if you want to lock them in, then sign them to a contract where they have the choice to lock themselves in. I think that's the way business in America should work. But your point about it's a fair point about, you know, their resiliency and their mental health and all that stuff, but that's for each school to deal with, and and certainly the NCAA to be cognizant of, but I'm not sure I want a single entity passing a rule that says I can't do something because I may have a challenge. I'm not I'm not smart enough to make my own decisions. When I was smart enough to decide to jump in the pool, I'm not smart enough to decide which end of the pool I want to swim in. I don't I I have a problem with that sort of theory.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

I like the idea of contracts because where where my mind goes, uh again, in probably an unsolvable problem because it's contingent, uh it's consistent throughout society as a whole, is people just getting bad advice and not looking at things. And some of the benefits of staying, you know, working through adversity, a lot of the coach speak, is you do prove to yourself the type of person that you can become, and you do prove the type of things that you can overcome and how they serve a purpose later in life. A lot of those things are really hard to construe to younger athletes and younger people in general. It's also really hard to show people that as they mature as well. So it's I don't know if there's a good answer. My problem is, uh, and again, I'm gonna style it to the portal. I don't have too much problem with NIL. The portals, what what bothers me is because I think what I witness is athletes are doing it for the wrong reason. I watched it happen anecdotally with my younger brother. And the messaging that I think is portrayed to some of the younger athletes, I don't particularly love. And I don't know how to correct that. I don't know what that solution is other than what I try and do, you know, with athletes on my own in my own practice. And that is my like that is my concern is I I just think about athletes developing into young men and women because I know how hard it is on your identity to transition out of sport. And for me, sports, you know, theoretically, now it's not that because it is all across the world, multi-billion dollar sports, multi-trillion dollar, depending on the the levels at which we're looking at, is like sports are used to me to develop characteristics and values that are going to serve you in different domains of life and to give you a better sense of fulfillment, a better chance to do things that you're interested in and utilize skill sets. And because at some point the sport does end for everybody. And I don't want that to get lost in the conversation either is the identity of these young men and women and how they become a better version of themselves and utilizing sport to do that. Now, of course, I want them to get paid. I want them to get what they earn. And I like the idea of contracts. You know, obviously each school or however they want to do it negotiates their own contracts. My biggest concern is I just think about what gets lost in the shuffle because I know the mental health resources, the statistics are hard to know, but all the resources at these universities and maybe seven to 20% actually utilize the resources there. So I don't know what the solution is. And that's why I'm constantly like in utilize the podcast as an outlet for that. How do I find the solutions for the athletes so that they don't endure a lot of the things that I've endured and my teammates have endured? And how do they get better at becoming who they're meant to be or who they're supposed to be?

SPEAKER_01 39:50

There's a lot in there. But what one I would say if if there is so much concern about the negative effects of athletics on young people, why are we doing it this to this level? You know, if we're worried about, hey, if we keep doing this, when they quit, they're gonna have a problem. But why are we doing this then? You know, the players didn't the players didn't negotiate all these multi-billion dollar contracts to put them on television all the time and rake in all this money and pay coaches millions and athletic directors millions and all that stuff. Players didn't do any of this. You know, so so if this is such a problem, and then I want to ask you another question, but if this is such a problem, why are we doing it to this level? I think that's a fair question that should be asked. The second thing is, and I I take your point and I understand what you're saying, but what are the wrong reasons to transfer and who determines what right or wrong reasons are?

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah. Hey, so two points, because I know we got to get you out of here. Because I'm with you. I I that's why I said I don't know if there's a solution, because what's right or wrong reasons is subjectivity. What I think is a right reason to transfer, you may completely disagree with. And so that's where it's all nuanced, right? And that's why I said I don't know if there is like a practical solution to it. And the other point, I don't think people actually care about the negative effects. I think a lot of it's rhetoric. I think a lot of it is for show. I don't know how many people out there genuinely care about the athlete. Now, obviously, there's a lot of people that do, but I think about the decision makers, I don't, I don't know how much they actually care.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Well, I think they do. I think they absolutely care. But um, this enterprise is so big, they're not gonna stop playing in 75,000 seat arenas for the Final Four because somebody may get nervous or they may have a problem when they stop playing. That's not gonna happen. Right. Um, this is too big. You know, the right reasons thing is intriguing to me because or or or some are transferring for the wrong reasons. Like, I don't think it's a wrong reason to say, I'm making, I'm making X here, and I can make two X at this other place. I I'd like to do that. I don't think it's the wrong reason to say, you know what, I'm not playing here right now, and I don't see that next year is going to be any different. I'm not willing to stay here and risk sitting on the bench for another year when I could play somewhere else. I did this to play, not to sit. And and I don't think it was the wrong reason for Jalen Hurts to leave Alabama when Tua Tungavailoa was the selection as the starting quarterback. So he he left. Now, did he want did he not want to go through adversity? Like he stayed for a year and actually took him to an SEC title, won the title game for him when uh Tua got hurt, but he went to Oklahoma and he was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy. So she is he supposed to stay under those circumstances? And what what if there are other reasons? They say, you know what, I don't like my coach, or my coach left, or that there are a million reasons to transfer. And and talk about subjective. And how can we put in rules that say, like, we're not asking what their mental health results would be if they're they have to stay. So I prefer choice unless there are reasons to have limits on athletes. And uh and the best way to have choice is contracts.

Better Advice, Real Examples, Closing

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Last thing, and I'll I'll let you go here. I just I think my solution in my mind, what I say is I want these guys and girls to have better counsel, where people are asking them better questions. I was, you know, a saying from Justin Sewa I got is if you want better answers, ask better questions. And I want people to be asked better questions, you know, when they go to make these decisions.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

And that's what the schools are there for. You know, that the all these schools have amazing resources at their fingertips that they can make available to the athletes. And these athletes are smarter. I'm not saying you, but they're smarter than people give them credit for. Uh, you know, Seth Trimble at North Carolina. Bought a Ben and Jerry's franchise. He's an owner operator of a Ben and Jerry's franchise at age 21. Is that a bad thing? You know, Blake Coram had a real estate portfolio that he stayed an extra year in college in order to build up before he went into the NFL. Not a bad thing. Now, I'm sure we can point to a player or players that blew a bunch of money on a car that we don't agree with. But I know a bunch of adults that do that. And I promise you this the bankruptcy courts, which I used to practice in when I first started practicing law, were not full of athletes. They were full of regular people that found themselves with money problems and whatever business they may have been in. And that's going to happen. We can't, you know, we can't stop any negative effect. But uh uh these players deserve, and I I think we agree on this point, these players deserve to reach their fair market value. And if we're that worried about it, then we we should restrict every student to make sure that they don't do anything that we don't think is in their interest. Like they shouldn't be allowed to make money in other areas while they're in school because they're supposed to be there to learn. We don't do that. We're only raising those issues with regard to athletes, and I don't I don't agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

I'm with you. Hey, man, I appreciate you you're coming on. Thank you so much, Jay, for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Thank you for having me. It was my honor.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah. If uh if if you have anything to promote, if you're working on anything, please share what you're working on.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

I don't have anything to promote. I'm I'm all good.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

All right, my friend. All right. Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Good luck with everything.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Thank you. Have a good one. You too. All right, listeners. Thank you for tuning in. Tune in next week. Check us out, athleticfortitude.com, download the pod, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Five stars only, baby. Appreciate you guys.