The Vision Quest Podcast
A podcast about life, sports, and life in sports! Enjoy!
The Vision Quest Podcast
#96 The Vision Quest Podcast With Zach The Wisconsin Grappler!
We touch on how recent NCAA roster changes are reshaping Division 1 wrestling teams and the financial landscape of college athletics. In our latest episode, we explore the contentious topic of fairness in retrospective athlete compensation, drawing comparisons to everyday scenarios where new benefits are often reserved for future participants.
Curious about how NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) agreements are transforming college sports? This episode uncovers the impact of NIL deals on recruitment, coach salaries, and the creation of new leagues. We highlight how inter-division championships could emerge and speculate on the evolving financial allure for young athletes. From NIL reporting requirements to the nitty-gritty of recruitment methods, we examine how future student-athletes and schools will navigate this dynamic new world.
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no-transcript, Because you're like hey man we forgot to do a show. I was like, well, you know, kind of letting things play out a little bit Because of this NCAA business. Yeah, right, so I mean, that's what obviously you saw. Oh yeah, so I think we've been talking about it, right. And nothing was official yet, but obviously we kind of heard down the pipeline.
Speaker 4:And we might bring another guest on to talk with us, mr Jamie Nelson.
Speaker 2:I talked to him about this quite a bit and actually he's he's more of a financial guru in my mind, just because he knows more than I do. Yeah, he is able to kind of break things down a little and simplify it a little bit, um, so I'll probably give him a call a little bit here and have him jump on. But so, essentially, what's going on and I sent you some information and things like that Essentially what's happening is the roster changes are happening. It's a thing Not 25 or 26, like I think we kind of talked. It sounded like it was solid. Thank God it's not 25 or 26. How many D1 schools are out there that have wrestling teams? So, 78 times the 5, that five, that well. You said the average. Well, let's bring that average per team. You did the math was 31.2, 31.4, 31.4 athletes per team. That's the average. Yeah, the highest one had how many? 50, and that's the arm. What's the play there with the army, though that's a little right, because they can't offer scholarships.
Speaker 4:I mean, I believe they can, can't they offer?
Speaker 2:scholarships, Maybe within, like a military, but I think that what they do is a little different, Kind of like you know how the Ivy League is they don't do scholarships, right? No, but they're still governed by the NCAA, so they'll still have to abide Correct, but they're still governed by the NCAA, so they'll still have to abide. Governing body correct. They didn't have to abide. So yeah, I mean they're probably going to want a king, unless they're something different because they're US government.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, Are they going to give them a pass? I?
Speaker 2:didn't see anything special in here about that. So maybe there's clauses already that maybe exempt those guys from some stuff. I don't know. But so those so those guys had 50, right, who was down below them Like the least? Yeah, who was just down below the Army?
Speaker 4:All the military, all the military Navy had 43.
Speaker 2:They got them lined up in the back right.
Speaker 4:Yes, navy had 43.
Speaker 2:Where are they going? Lehigh had 42. Okay, okay, 42.
Speaker 4:Oregon State had 44. Oh, sacred Heart had 45.
Speaker 2:Pennsylvania right.
Speaker 4:Or is that Jersey I?
Speaker 2:think it's Pennsylvania. Okay, so those schools like that, I don't think maybe a roster change is going to. You know the number change is going to affect them a lot but it's going to affect everybody, so let's talk about that. It's going to affect everybody in the fact that this money that has to get paid out because I think it was it wasn't 2.8, it was like 2.575 billion or whatever it was To athletes, I believe as far back as 2017. Why I?
Speaker 2:don't know my theory on it and I sat and kind of thought about it. It sounds really subtle. Maybe people are like you don't get it, you're not in sports, I'm sure I'll get that somewhere, but I don't think that it was necessarily something that we needed to do is pay these guys as far back as we did no.
Speaker 2:I don't know what all goes into it. I know that you and I were just talking about EA Sports. They didn't have a video game out since 2014. So there's no NIL there. No one had the EA Sports. The ones that curse the NFL, oh yeah that was the NFL.
Speaker 4:Nobody got injured.
Speaker 2:Right or not make the Super Bowl or something like that they didn't have that. Obviously there's some commercials and stuff that had some college athletes in it, but what else were they in?
Speaker 4:I have no clue.
Speaker 2:I don't know where they come from. The schools themselves obviously made money off of them. Not arguing that they went to the school. They're a big name, they probably won some awards and things like that In the long run. To me it seems a little far-reaching by the people who are saying we should have gotten paid.
Speaker 2:At that time you weren't allowed to, and that's just kind of part of the gig. I mean, when I left grade school and they had this crappy wooden playground, then the year after I left they had a nice new plastic one. Why don't I get to play on that Bummer?
Speaker 2:They probably should have got to, so I grew up and went to middle school at a different school and it's tough luck. I don't get to play with it. Just kind of like when these people complain about well, my kids are going to school. Why do I have to pay more for a school? Well, do you want senators? Do you want teachers? If you want a school to help kids, then you'll make sure they have good schools to go to. That's a besides point, it's a tangent. The argument is what's it worth? Why did we have to make this argument? But because, being made, these guys have to get paid and the schools have to be responsible. I guess the court doesn't care how they pay for it.
Speaker 2:The court's like ruling do what you got to do. Make sure you pay the money. So now these roster caps are going to come. Now these schools don't have to give that money to those roster spots. Those schools can decide where money goes to with whatever they got to pay. You know, because I mean, I don't know, let's say Iowa's got to pay a million or something, whatever it is, and we'll talk to Jamie about that too, but it's one of those things where each school is going to have a different responsibility. Now roster sizes drop. Now you have people that are swimming around in the air. You know wherever they wind up going because they're not going to have a team to go to because of roster sizes. On average it doesn't sound like it's a huge hit, but you guys, like Lehigh's, got 42.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it wound up being 111. Over what?
Speaker 2:30 per team to be Was it yeah, Okay? So 13 to be Was it yeah, Okay? So I mean, to me it doesn't sound bad and it doesn't. I mean, hey, maybe there's more balance now.
Speaker 2:The NIL thing isn't the Wild Wild West kind of thing. Yeah, there are going to be some benefits, but in essence this is going to really take programs away. Yeah, it's really good, because now schools are really going to start cutting and finding the finance issues of wherever they do. You know they've got to make cuts, so some of these sports and wrestling is going to take a large hit.
Speaker 2:You know and here's another thing is these schools that are in like, let's say, SDSU I can't remember what conference it's Big 12, I think they're in the Big 12. They pay to be in that conference, yeah, and that costs them money that now is going to be dwindling. So is that paying for that team? Because not every team that they have for sports is in that conference. Right.
Speaker 2:So now are they going to pay that? Now, with them not paying to be in that conference, are they just going to be like, well then, we don't need the sport, right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know. And I've been talking to some college coaches recently about this and they said that, like you know how, everybody, you know you hear it right now we have 9.9. Yeah, what the yeah, but not everybody uses that 9.9, correct? So there's some schools only pay two full scholarships, you know. But with this they're talking about doing a mandatory minimum scholarships. Yeah, so which would mean that those schools that are taking two right now, if they have a mandatory of 10 full scholarships, then this 30 doesn't mean everybody that's on the team, like football, everybody has a full ride. I think that's what everybody thinks, because I've been reading some stuff on posts and stuff. Everybody's like oh, this is great, I'm like they don't get it, it's not great, it's not good. We're probably going to be down to 40, 50 schools on D1. Correct.
Speaker 2:The first year and you can see conferences going away. Yeah, there was speculation talking about the Big 12, because some of these schools may not be able to afford to do it. Not every single one is an Oklahoma State, you know. Not every single one of them, even South Dakota State's not really comes to wrestling. I don't know what their revenue is, man, and I don't have an individual one pulled up, right, I mean, it can't be that big with some of these numbers that you know that you show.
Speaker 2:As far as I have some graph, I have a bar graph that we're looking at here. It's NCAA, division I, public institutions. This is from 2020, but this still gives us kind of a breakdown of institutional government support, how much money they get from the state and things like that. Other revenue corporate sponsorship, advertising license donors and then students fees, stuff like that, and that's where the money comes from. Now, here's where money goes to, so that the division of some of this money that you can start seeing where issues are going to. You know, transfers back to the institution. That's part of expenses um, medical competency, competition guarantees. So, um, david taylor takes first place to win a championship.
Speaker 2:He gets a bonus for that yeah, like so now there's a chunk of money that gets paid out. How's that going to go Now? From what I understand is that DT had a little not DT, but Oklahoma State had a little help from donors to be able to kind of keep him around. So they're obviously they want him, they're investing in him. So the school still pays him, I'm sure, a fee. He's got a wage he earns, but they're the ones that are helping that along. So donors are still I mean they're still going to be a large portion of hopefully possibly trying to keep sports alive and I could be wishful thinking on that.
Speaker 2:If that's even a possibility, Right. Yeah, recruiting, that's another cost. Game expenses and travel for teams, right, I mean, that's now this. We talked about that in the last one these conferences. Now, we talked about that in the last one these conferences could be tightening up. We're over in Ohio. We're not going to go to California or Montana. Big Trump just added frickin' USC, yeah, oregon State, I think it was yeah.
Speaker 4:Oregon, yeah, ucla, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some crazy thing like that. It's not even the Big Ten. The Big Ten was Midwest, you know, and whatever. They're still good teams, but they're not the same Right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you've got to travel all the way up there, right?
Speaker 2:It's going to add so much to your budget, so that's going to add to the budget you know, with things like that, Support and admin compensation was severed, so I was hiring and firing, yeah, whatever. And then athletic student aid. So these are the things where money goes to and those expenses become extremely large when it comes to any team a hockey team, you talk about pads, and then you have a hockey team that maybe brings in 100 people a game. You can't maintain it. So unfortunately, like we talked about, there's going to be a lot of restructuring in some of the sports programs in schools. Unfortunately, if you have water polo, I don't want to see your water polo go away. I don't care what it is. I think if it's something that's instituted already and it's something that is somewhat marketable at some point, I would want to keep it. But that's me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have millions of dollars into something and things like that. But I do feel bad for some of the things coming up and I, like I said before, you know, liam's gonna have to make a decision a little, you know, faster than we think, possibly. Yeah, because how do you know? Yeah, you know, like, even if we do now, nothing's signed right you, right you know, what happens.
Speaker 2:Now you're floating in the breeze, you're stopped, right, right. It's definitely a weird situation. So, with what you found with money and stuff and how many rosters, roster sizes who was? The smallest roster size, no Presbyterian. And where are they out of?
Speaker 4:Is that Southern Mark Cody is their head coach? I remember that, the old Oklahoma coach. Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:I'm going to call. I'm going to see James. Okay, sure, call here, text him first. Yeah, surprise him. This will be so. I remember I did this the first time I did a show, I think, when I had Ted called in. I forgot his name was that you. The table was over there. Oh, yeah, called in. Ted showed it to Ted, skibble, so con, so con. Ok, so it's definitely selling. Yeah, it's definitely selling. Alright, so with the other factor, obviously, is that now, like I said, with the kits spreading out more because it's not affecting D2 or D3 yet you had talked to one that said not yet, but possibly down the line, yeah, I'm wondering what could the after effects be because of this follow, I guess not. Yeah, follow, I guess.
Speaker 4:Because of this, follow, yeah, what could D2 or D3 see down the line I wouldn't see them getting a lot of NIL deals, you know, at the 73 level, and there's been crazier stuff happening.
Speaker 2:You brought up an interesting fact about.
Speaker 4:NAIA. Yeah. I think NAIA should be able to flourish in this Right.
Speaker 2:So, with that being kind of the thing you brought up, freestyle Maybe. So you know, with Ben talking about me, we started our own, you know, league because of the Olympics and stuff like that. Yeah, weird shit's going on there, but swimming in poop rivers Did you hear about that? Did we talk about that? No, poop sign river, oh my God. But so, anyways, this league stuff, so NAIA, you know, being freestyle. Yeah, this league stuff so NAIA being freestyle, capitalize, let's bring a little different, something different, but I mean it's college.
Speaker 4:They've got to focus out forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be cool though, if they could take a leap. Yeah, for sure. So now, with these kids, like you said, going to these other schools D2s, d3s, naia do you think that we could see inter-division championships?
Speaker 4:They used to do it, obviously, but it'd be really cool to bring it back.
Speaker 2:Even if it's the champions of each one or the top three, or whatever.
Speaker 4:You could be losing a lot of good guys. That could be late bloomers Just come out and tear it up in D2.
Speaker 2:The after effects could also be where it brings some of these schools out of oblivion. Yeah, that we're going to suffer, and now these other kids need places to go. Right, but they already didn't have money in the first place. It's like. So it's so hard to say that, no matter which direction you go, you know, yeah, there's something, but they're really it's not good, Right? So unfortunately, NIL kind of ruined the CAA. For wrestling for sure, yeah, for wrestling for sure. The way that things just exploded. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and it was a money grab. Hey, I just talked to Liam about this. Today You're 18. You're getting millions thrown at you.
Speaker 4:You're going to say no, no, but I want to think about the guys later. Yeah, you know Right, think how this has got to affect them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, these guys are instantly going to be like I want to make money. Yeah, I want to do my thing. This is what I've been dreaming of. If I get hurt, I'm not going to be able to do shit.
Speaker 4:So for the guys that, were able to capitalize.
Speaker 2:I'm fine. Yeah, Because better run with it because you can't get it anymore. Now the cap it looked like on donations there was a. I'm going to see if I can pull that up on Twitter here quick. I don't need my camera, since I can tell that what we're doing is fine on camera.
Speaker 2:The cap of like an NIL donation to an athlete or something like that is like $600 at a time before it has to be reported. Where is that? Let me see Changes to roster. Okay, all Division I student-athletes will be required to report to a or the member institution in which they are enrolled under. So probably the university, the designated reporting entity, any and all third-party NIL contracts. So anything outside Anything, obviously. Yeah, that third party, right. So Taco Bell, doesn't matter who, it is, right. Anybody outside contracts or payments with total value of $600 or more.
Speaker 2:So, like I said, I think we're going to start seeing a lot of $599 contracts.
Speaker 4:Like when you're at the casino and you go up to the thing and you cash in $1,100. Take taxes out of it.
Speaker 2:Take that one out to your car and come in and get another level. He's not responding. He thought that I needed him to like unpack all this. Oh, yeah, not at all. There's a way to do it.
Speaker 2:There's all we're talking about yeah, what we're talking about is what essentially is affecting, I guess, wrestling. There's a lot more, you know there's there's a lot more verbiage in here that explains to, because there's football involved, I mean there's just every sport's involved. Every school is involved. It's not just about what sport, it's about the school. But the breakdown of the matter is NIL affects us the most and then also these salaries. As far as coaches Are they going?
Speaker 2:to have to take pay cuts because of this. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they should, they won't. Is that camera moving? Nope, it's not.
Speaker 4:I'm going to have my hand up.
Speaker 2:Anyways the amount of kids now that are going to get recruited. So I think with 20, liam's going to be the first class out that this affects, because it's not going to affect next year. What are your ideas if you're a kid looking to go to school? What are your thoughts about going? How do you think you view it? As far as I'm looking at the school, I know it waits because obviously as a wrestler, you've got to see what guys, they've got on the roster.
Speaker 2:If you don't know that, can you ask a coach who's?
Speaker 4:on your roster. Yeah, I mean you, obviously you're already looking at that. Before you get, like you're getting recruited, you go and look who they have at your around your weight. But now, like, I mean 30 people, that's an average of three per weight, right, yep, yep? So if they already have three, are they going to? Do four.
Speaker 2:But can you call up and say can I wrestle off? I know you've got the three guys there, but I think I can beat so-and-so or so-and-so both of them.
Speaker 4:I want to do that. You're going to do that in the summer, though? Yeah, like the RTC.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, there's got to be one other rule. How is that going to work out, whether it's wrestling or football, because football is dropping down to 100.
Speaker 4:They're only getting 10% of their whole lineup at a time and those get all 100% scholarships 10 times the amount of people that are on the field already. 100% of scholarships.
Speaker 2:And the school will give those, because 9 chance out of 10, football makes more money than sports at school.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I understand that whole part, but it's just like I don't. Like I know they make the most money. I'm not stupid. Yeah. Like fuck, share the wealth a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but look how they are Once they come out of high school into college football. They're waiting to just hang out for a year or two and be NFL stars, because they want to make that money?
Speaker 4:Yeah, but they already have that as an option. Let the wrestlers get some money. We have no option at that. Hopefully we can get WWE or UFC.
Speaker 2:What the hell? Well, I'm kind of curious as to why this cut off with the NIL people. $600 anyways, Once it's over $600, what brought that monetary value up? I have no clue. Why couldn't it be like $3,000 or just before taxable in that state? I don't know. $5,000 in that state? I don't know.
Speaker 4:Why was it $600?
Speaker 2:I don't know A bastard not using a model $600? Seriously, you can't let a kid get paid over $600 off of him being good. I don't know. Let me see if it says $600 or more, on a schedule to be determined by defendants if a student athlete enters into multiple NIL agreements or receives multiple NIL payments from the same or substantially the same third parties, including, by way of example, any affiliates or parties with common ownership such as activities, must be disclosed if the aggregate value is above $600.
Speaker 2:So a member institution will be required to report each NIL contract or payment reported to the conference defendant member institution will be required to report each NIL contract or payment reported to the conference defendant member institution, obviously to the school, I believe, pursuant to Section 4 of this article, to the designated reporting entity, on a schedule to be determined by defendants with class counsel also to receive a copy of such reports. In addition, each conference defendant member institution also will be required to report to the designated uh reporting entity pursuant to section four. And they said on here if you don't meet, if if you don't report it, either the athlete could be suspended uh from the sport or the school could be fine yeah, that's, I don't 600.
Speaker 2:yeah, and let's understand where they came up. That looks.
Speaker 4:I don't understand where they came up with that. It's like I don't understand how they came up with the amount that is owed, yeah 2.8.
Speaker 2:So let's look at part of that, because I thought I had that pulled up. It's part of the verbiage that they said the amount that they could pay here. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:So they break.
Speaker 2:It's up on the top page I'm obviously going to do this very quickly but it breaks down how much they make per what they should have been paid. You know, it's kind of crazy. So planets have secured a revolutionary settlement agreement with the NCAA and its five major conferences that will have a profoundly positive impact on the tens of thousands of college athletes at the hundreds of colleges and universities that play Division. I sports each year, Division. I okay.
Speaker 2:The settlement, negotiated at arm's length before one of the nation's preeminent mediators, professor Eric Green Good job, eric. Secures $2.576 billion in damages for college athletes who have been denied compensation for the use of their names, images and likenesses and for the athletic performance. So here's a little bit In Exhibit A to the Dispotion Plank. This provides approximate settlement recovery information by class and type of plane damages, which shows that, among other things, the thousands of members of the football and men's basketball Football and men's basketball I don't think wrestling the word is brought up once a year. No, maybe down towards the end.
Speaker 2:A class will receive an average of $91,000 for back NIL claims and $40,000 for their athletic compensation claims and a recovery range for their video game NIL claims Like seriously NIL claim up to $4,000 over a 10 year period where there was no gains, exactly. So $91,000 plus $41,000, that's $130,000. So $135,000 in a 10 year period, right? So what do you need? A little over $10,000 a year. And some of these guys, like I said, if some of these guys are already professional athletes, they better not be getting a dime. If anything, go after those are already professional athletes. They better not be getting a dime on us. If anything. Go after those guys and pay shit back.
Speaker 4:They better be donating that shit. That's ridiculous $20.576 billion. Didn't they already get paid for their athletic performance when they went?
Speaker 2:to the pros yeah, when they got that piece of paper at the end, when they graduated or possibly could have graduated.
Speaker 4:They had somebody go to their classes for them.
Speaker 2:I got that degree that would, yeah, that would be a requirement for me. Did you graduate right? I'll pay you. I did graduate. I'm not paying you to die, right? How about that? He's coming here and gathered money up, but I just 2017. I think I could grasp onto 2020. You know, with, with, with the whole coven thing, you know that I could grasp onto 2020. With the whole COVID thing, I could grasp onto that. Maybe that sounds petty, but 2017, come on. James is not responding. I think he thinks I'm going to have him break down the whole thing, but he'll talk to me about numbers for hours. No man talked about this stuff for hours and broke it down. So that's the kind of monetary value numbers for hours.
Speaker 2:Hit it. No man talked about this stuff for hours and broke it down.
Speaker 2:That's the kind of monetary value, lost opportunity, in NIL damages depending on when they played and NIL deals, they have made up to as much as $300,000, as well as averages of $23,014 for their back NIL and athletic compensation money respectively. Obviously, not everybody's going to stand alone, not every person's going to get, because they're going to somehow, I guess, gauge their value. Now here's what I picture. I picture a couple guys in the back room watching old tape of these guys and putting down their value.
Speaker 2:He's more of a 14 grand guy he's sitting in a dark room, two nerds watching tape with some statistics like, oh yeah, these stats are right. Oh, so that's three grand for that game.
Speaker 4:Let me sharpen my pen. That only says his name three times on the broadcast.
Speaker 2:Five times. That's all he gets 599. I'm 600. That's the thing that I'm getting kind of lost on. It's like how are you gauging the value of these people that are supposed to be getting this money, this back in the hell? Yeah, I don't get it. Is there a form Coaches fill out for this stuff? Well, at this point, there's like four times he's asked me. He's like, hey, you should have me on, we'll talk about this, like okay, cool. And then all this shit comes up. It's like, hey, let's talk Crickets, crickets. Well, I think that the $600 value is again. I think we're going to see some 599 contracts.
Speaker 2:I think we're going to see some guys holding up a check for $599.
Speaker 4:Do it and a stack of them for them to do it every day.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start a hashtag of hashtag 599. The NCAA could mess up a wet dream. I could have said that way more vulgar than that. They could screw something up. Seriously, I and honestly with with money that got paid out or that should be paid up with some of these guys, I understand where they're coming from. I understand the athlete side too, that hey, we put work into, I was good, I brought money in for the school. I totally get. I just don't understand where we have the righteousness to turn around and be like, hey, I'm worth something, so are these other guys, but unfortunately you didn't have the rule then, you didn't have it Sorry.
Speaker 4:You signed a contract that you were fine with just getting this guy With what you had. If you guys wanted something, maybe you should have fought for it then If you guys wanted something, maybe you should have fought for it then Maybe take a fucking stand and don't play, and then maybe if you're that good, they'll fucking pay you.
Speaker 2:And who's the one that was the spark of all this NIL stuff? Johnny, was it Johnny? Not Manziel, Was it Johnny?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think there was something about him I believe it was that whole turbulent stuff that they had back in the day when he was in college, grabbing a button and actually getting paid or something like that. I think there was a court thing and someone was like are you stupid? You don't know the story, I don't know the whole story, but that was the spark of the NIL thing. Now we're in a place where now some kids are going to lose out because kids went crazy and donors and everybody else went crazy with money. We thought it was cool, right, money is the root of all evil. It seemed like it was a good plan until it wasn't, until now. It's hurting, you know, and I think I may have even made an argument for it. I was like, hey, let the kids make money man.
Speaker 2:And I guess more power to the kids that did it. Now it's like holy shh Nikes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what the fuck are we doing? Like the little programs that don't make anything, Like it's just like.
Speaker 2:So there's 78 programs, you said.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:D1. Yeah, but should we go down to 40? Yeah.
Speaker 4:I could see 50 at least.
Speaker 2:Like it went down, I could probably see I could see SEC sticking around, big Ten sticking around, or ACC, sorry, acc, acc sticking around. You did yeah, disease.
Speaker 2:This is the acronym disease, big Ten sticking around. This is the acronym disease, big Ten sticking around. And maybe the what's that Western Conference with get UCLA and Oregon. State on a Big Ten Like Big 12, you mean, well, big 12,. No, is that SOCON? No, that's Southern Conference. What's the Pacific Sun Coast? Is that that conference over there? What's the PacSun? Pacific Suncoast? That's that conference over there.
Speaker 2:There was a Pac-10, but I don't think they had wrestling. I don't remember what the conference is. Keep a Western one, you keep a Big Ten and then you keep the ACC, yeah. For wrestling, I'm thinking wrestling folks. I'm not. They're a bigger picture, obviously, but in my mind because it sounds like a lot of the schools that are in the Big 12 pay to be in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the craziest shit on the planet. I thought it was kind of like high school, it's like wherever you live, but then that doesn't make sense to UCLA and those guys, the Big 10.
Speaker 4:Maybe 10 years ago or whatever, they had that Big 12 football channel, and that's what started all this shit too, like why you had to pay because you got money from that TV. Yes, so that's enough.
Speaker 2:I think that if I'm I didn't read into it, but I think this is that has something to do with this too. No, really TV deals and shit like that. Like why? Yeah, so it's murky, and that's why I told Jamie you don't have to break the whole thing down, because obviously they're not just dealing with wrestling. This is all sports and all colleges in general, and so they have to have a big gigantic umbrella.
Speaker 4:Yeah, people used to get so pissed at Notre Dame for football because they didn't have a conference so they could go play every fucking conference they wanted to and they didn't have to pay. They didn't have to pay the dues and shit. Obviously they wanted to and they didn't have to pay. They didn't have to pay the dues and shit. Obviously they had to pay for the game to get there. People were bitching like why do we get to play all these good teams and we don't you?
Speaker 4:paid to be in that conference. You can float.
Speaker 2:You can try If you're governed by nothing. They have to insure themselves Because that's the NCAA. It's kind of like USA Wrestling insuring and stuff like that. So there's a larger conglomerate of things that really go on To break all that down. We'd be here until the end of next week, yeah, because there's a lot of filler words, legal mumbo-jumbo, but essentially it's the big programs with the big sports, those big sports that stick around. Yeah, we discussed Penn State's revenue for their women's hockey team. Probably not going to hang around.
Speaker 2:Unless they have donors that are like we love women's hockey and they want to throw some money at it. It ain't hanging around. That was the other question I kind of asked you With donors and that's why I wanted Jamie to come on. He knows a little bit more about this side than I do With donors. When he knows a little bit more about this side, than I do With donors.
Speaker 4:when they give the money, do they?
Speaker 2:have the say yeah, do they get the say where it's allocated? Right, and I'm sure people want answers for that and I don't have that for you right now. I don't know if these donors have a say of I'm giving you $500,000. This is for the wrestling program. If you don't give it to the wrestling program, you don't get $500,000. Is that going to be a fact? Is this going to be a little more streamlined for these guys? Because I said before, these guys would rather give to the school than do an RTC, because then they get their name on a bench or on the wall, they get their name on a plaque. So does that open the door for them? If it does, it impacts in a good way where that these colleges do the right thing I understand that they have to make the financial decisions that they have to.
Speaker 2:I understand and it sucks that some of these sports are going to go away and we're definitely going to see wrestling dwindle in d1 um I.
Speaker 2:It would be nice to be able to see that these, these schools will. If these donors are saying we want it here, that they're able to do it, and they do it, yeah, and not just get money flowing in and they're like, yeah, we're going to throw a little bit over here instead, and then we're going to throw a little bit over here, then here's that tiny chunk for what it's supposed to go to. Yeah so.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's some kind of an accountability type thing, board or whatnot that they use for that. But this is not going to be a fast transition, though, either. This isn't something that, once 2026 hits, like 20 teams fall off the map. Right, it's still going to be slow progress. It's still going to be like, you know, one year this team did great, but they spent all their money and the school's not giving them any more and they're going to be done now. So that'll be one, and then it might be another one the next year. So it's going to be once you start seeing some programs close, whether it's wrestling or not, you can start expecting the rest of it to kind of the dominoes will fall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how this will affect high school sports. You know what's the trickle-down effect here? Do kids stop playing sports as much because they know that the opportunities are going to be less? Because there are some of these. There are kids that that's what they're going to school for, right to be able to go to college to play sports, so they can go to school and not have to pay for fucking school. Oh, yeah, you know. So, like some of them, that's the the key thing in mind. You know, do they want to go to college now and be in debt. You know, because I could. I could make the team. But now they're only offering me 5% because they're going to give the other 95% to some other dudes. Yeah, that's not enough for me, right.
Speaker 2:Or they're not Now, they're just saying you know walk-ons, but we can't pay enough. Right. So now it's going to be a choice kind of further down. The other thing I saw is this going to be dangerous to clubs? You know.
Speaker 4:How so.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean in my mind same kind of thing. You're saying like RPC, well that. And clubs, club sports, oh, okay, yeah, club sports. I mean not to say that maybe Aspen or anybody like that would fall through. I mean obviously, oh, you're saying broad, not to say that maybe aspirin or anybody like that would fall through, just broad things. So baseball, club sports in general, because now the opportunities for these kids to be able to be put out there, I thought in my mind before it happened it would help. Club sports, like it would bolster them a little bit more, because now the school thing doesn't matter as much anymore, but I want to do it on my own time. So I'm going to go to these practices and I don't. It's not going to matter. I'm probably not going to make it onto a college team, right? Do the kids opt out for that? Maybe that's a dumb reason, I don't know, but it sounds like an excuse. Not an excuse, but a reason for me to. I'll just do it over here.
Speaker 4:I know a lot of people have already been doing this, like specializing for sports, but I think it's just going to be worse now too, Like I mean, there was never a possibility for you to make money in wrestling.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 4:Right. That was very slim. Yep, they tried. So yeah, it's like I don't, it won't affect the amount of wrestlers I think we have, but I mean it'll definitely affect the amount of wrestlers that get a scholarship. That's the thing I keep seeing it on Facebook. I already touched on the comments and people being like this is great and everything.
Speaker 2:There's still going to be walk-ons.
Speaker 4:Not everybody's going to be on a scholarship. For sure Just because, you have 30 kids doesn't mean they're all getting scholarships.
Speaker 2:That's the thing. That's because, like I said, the school can handle that money how they want.
Speaker 4:If they do this mandatory minimum of 10, I guarantee there'll be 20 dropout Sure.
Speaker 2:The thing is, too, there's going to be tough calls that have to be made yeah, in 2026, right, and some guys are. You know, people are still grads, not like nobody's graduating. So, yeah, some people leave a team, but how many you know? And the average of 31.4 like I said sounds way more.
Speaker 2:you know, I guess feasible with what the change is going to be, but listening to some of the amounts of these schools, what about a school that never had 30? Does that open the doors up then? For them to just bump up 30 and then only?
Speaker 4:do five scholarships. They're just going to be able to rake in the transfer portal. There's going to be sitting there going. Oh my god, look at this guy.
Speaker 2:Guys are going to be like well, they have the program I want to graduate with and they have a wrestling team yeah. And the spots. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:Are people just going to keep four spots open, just in case?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know yeah, because I mean I was never especially with football, I was never a fan of new rosters, yeah. And I know you've got to have backups, soccer teams. We have backups. We don't have one or two, we have three, four backups per position. So with the backup thing, I think having one or two, how many weights are in wrestling? 13? 10.
Speaker 4:College.
Speaker 2:So 10, right. So now you have three guys. You've got two backups. You've got three guys each weight. I'm all right with one backup.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're probably only going to have one at heavyweight for sure, because the 97 can come up and you might have four at 25 then because they can bump up to 33. Yeah, and then it should be an average out of middle.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I can see guys like on Twitter like how could you say that there's more guys not able to wrestle? I get it. I'm just saying just for the the balance of it all. Yeah, I'm saying just that just to be able to know that, okay, if you guys are number one, from what I've seen so far is the guys work harder. You know they're bigger dudes, are older guys, they gotta wrestle harder, yeah, but they're also able to take care of themselves a little bit better. Yeah, yeah, you know, when it comes to that and like Spencer Lee, for example, doubled the injury If I get a goal, I'm putting the shoes in the middle. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm out right, oh yeah. But some of these guys don't get hurt. You know, some of these guys, it could just be, you know, like luck that they didn't get hurt their wrestling career don't To be able to know that you have at least one backup. I just think some of these 42 guys A lot of guys, man, at least they get a lot of guys that want to go to their team.
Speaker 2:What happens to these guys that are there and the coaches all of a sudden pull them in the room and be like this will be your last year.
Speaker 2:I know you're only a redshirt freshman when it makes cuts and you have budgets and things like that. Now the transfer portal only so many teams are allowed, so many guys. Now places are full. We see guys going to cricket All of a sudden, they can't wrestle. That's where the club thing comes up to me. Do they say, screw it, there's not a spot on the wrestling team, and I stay and I wrestle with the RTC anyways, and Then I just train for freestyle and do international competition, like you're talking about specializing.
Speaker 4:To me that's a great idea oh yeah, but you're not going to get any money obviously.
Speaker 2:No, but the likelihood that you'll get stipends from that is more than it is for. You know what I'm saying. If you're competing, I'm saying If you're competing plus, I'm telling you. I'm telling you, anybody who gets that first, $599, nil, you'll put that check up, hashtag 599. I think it's going to be. I'm really worried about those athletes and those guys that are going to have to deal with that. Even right now, hearing it, how many guys are going to the dorm room and they're freshmen, you know, or whatever, and that could be their junior year. It's like I better pick up my shit here and pick up what I got to do, because if I'm not doing good, they're probably going to cut me. Maybe if you're doing good, they still cut you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know what the fuck you want to cut me.
Speaker 2:I've got 10 tools for you. I'm like 10 and 3. What are you doing? So I'm really kind of worried for those guys and I'm worried for the young guys that aren't even in it yet. What they're going to have to you know what the landscape's going to feel like once they get their feet wet. I just told Liam. I was like, hey, now's the time where we've got to kind of, you know, really do some research and really really figure out exactly all these. You know, the 10, 12 schools that have contacted you. We might want to sit down and, kind of, you know, take a hard look at the top five.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, really break it down, because things look like they're going to get weird. Yeah, you know, and I don't know what the spots are going to look like once you start talking to these schools. You know, but everybody's got 30, there's no exceptions. So I wonder what happens? Do you keep? Do you have donors, and will donors give to? Like, let's say, you have a guy that's not necessarily on a team but you want him there because a guy's graduating right. He comes, transfers their trains at the RTC is still going to treat it like that, where you're an RTC athlete and they give you $500 a month to live or whatever it is and you're still going to get a part-time job at.
Speaker 2:You know, Jimmy John's, just to make sure you can pay the rent or whatever it is this is going to be weird, it's going to get weird. So do you have anything else weird? So you have anything else that I wanted to bring this to guys. I know I had some questions on Twitter. Got them answered. I got a lot of the graphics I sent to you. We got from Nomad. He's on Twitter a lot.
Speaker 4:Man, that guy does some deep guys, holy cow.
Speaker 2:I thought I was doing a lot by doing that Holy cow. And again I asked him. I was like, do you mind if I use this? He's like, yeah, go ahead. I was going to see if we could get him on to kind of. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Again the financial analytics I'm not good at. Just like remembering a lot of stuff I'm not good at. I'm an in-the-moment guy, yeah. So reading a lot of the stuff and kind of being what I feel for the guys like I said that are getting it. They argued for it, they got the money, they're getting paid. I get it. I understand where they stand on it. I totally get it. But my stance is the rules were the way they were when you were there.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I loved watching you. You were awesome. No one's trying to take away anything you did you made millions of money. Millions of dollars after you. Some, maybe some didn't. Those are the guys I want to know who's getting paid, who's getting these deals, who's getting the cutoff, who's getting this $300,000? That'd be interesting. Would it have to become public eventually? Is that something that becomes public knowledge?
Speaker 4:I have to think so, you would think they're saying they got to pay it, so you got to pay someone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep them you know, honest, right, right, right. So the end I wonder if the ncaa is going to put up like a weekly report sent and checked or so, and so there's a week yeah and now we'll get that in depth of an explanation.
Speaker 4:But it's just that.
Speaker 2:So it's only D2 and D3 that are left out, and then NAI D1 is the only one affected by this. Yeah, and we're going to see some changes, all right.
Speaker 4:Well I mean, hey, yeah, because I was curious, like right away I was like, oh shit, is this going to make scholarships available in D3? You know, because I just you know you're the NCAA. Yeah. You don't just think, oh, it's just for.
Speaker 2:D1. Maybe that's one of the after effects. Yeah, you got, you got. So if you're, if you're evening the playing field. So what are the roster sizes? You know what roster sizes are for D2 or D3? No, I don't think I saw that discussed by the gentleman. It was a good conversation.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously some people were concerned, but the people that were like this is awesome. I don't think you read the whole thing. I don't think you really got it. I previously lost the opportunity in the campaign. So approximately $1.8 million oh, His dollars and cents hurt.
Speaker 4:It looks like Parkside had 28.
Speaker 2:So most of those are probably around the 30 as well. I wonder if they'll wind up capping them. That's kind of the after effects too. They'll get a cap and maybe they'll be allowed to do scholarships.
Speaker 4:Parkside's D2. So they do D2 does yeah, d2 is still scholarships D3.
Speaker 2:That's a school that hasn't reached out to leave me. That's Parkside. Yeah. Did they? No, he just put a bunch of logos on because he knows it's all calm. Yeah, is that down to like 38 schools? Yeah, I can't I can't not know if it's everything flow reports. Yeah, it's both assets everything.
Speaker 4:Every week news alert.
Speaker 2:Another one one and a half schools he's still on the phone with the half one.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Might still have a deal in that forum. So I think I wonder too, with the sports changes and with maybe getting rid of some, like I said, I wonder if this will affect pay with coaches and administration and how it's going to change the dynamics of who does recruiting and how recruiting goes. Are they going to be like, hey, we used to do all that and now things are tight?
Speaker 4:Maybe we can do a video conference. Yeah, covid, all over again. You can't travel out there. You can't travel out there, but we'll do an in-home Zoom call. You can take us around your whole house, so it feels like up there.
Speaker 2:I wonder how that's going to change. I mean, just the things that could be affected are limitless right now, just because it's at the discrepancy of these schools. Yeah. If Harvard hated wrestling, they could get rid of it. No, maybe they'll just keep squash. You know, maybe that's their thing and that's what draws the money in. Yeah, Harvard 32. They're already in the cap.
Speaker 4:They're already right around there, brown had 22 and Columbia had 34. I was like, oh, but then Cornell had 43. I was surprised by that. Whoa. Oh my God, that was kind of a. I would figure they would have been Ivy League, that's a trip, we're Huh 43?. Yeah, they're getting rid of fucking 13 people. Yeah, they are. You see You're shuffling down the road down to like go to Penn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get down here. Go over to Penn. Yeah, in Ithaca here. But I feel bad. I feel bad for these guys that are sitting in places where they hopefully are going to stay. Now you've got to wonder how our coach is going to handle us. How are they going to handle these roster cuts, roster changes, if they have them? Some of the schools are so small or whatever, their rosters are small. Yeah, I think a lot of these guys aren't. I talked to a dude about Minnesota a little bit. I was like what's the deal with them about Minnesota? A little bit I was like you know what's the deal with them, what's going on? He was like right now they're just trying to figure it out, just trying to. Yeah, it was just. Obviously, everything was just announced.
Speaker 4:They don't get 30.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they don't get 30 on their roster Right.
Speaker 2:And Jamie said that I mean they know that they're going to have to make some changes either way. Yeah, Correct. So what happens? How many are they graduating next year? That's the factor. There's a lot of guys that aren't graduating. So I mean, some of these rosters could just be in something. Cut any of this because those guys are leaving. It's going to be an interesting shakeup. Kids are going to get paid a certain amount by these schools, which is almost going to make them employees, like we talked about.
Speaker 2:Because it's a contract with the school. It's not with a donor, it's with the school. What about with women's wrestling? It's really that much different.
Speaker 4:Women's sports. No with women's wrestling. Weren't they in that emerging sport?
Speaker 2:They're going to make it a sport soon. They are, but that's the only thing that's probably saved men's wrestling from women's wrestling. That's the last fucking thing you're going to be getting rid of or wrestling.
Speaker 4:That's the last fucking thing you're going to be getting rid of or hurting. That's what I'm saying. Are we going to see a boom of women's sports come in or women's wrestling, because they try and save it and then it just waters it down and it's not ready to go? I don't think it's just going to be because of this.
Speaker 2:I think if Title IX becomes an issue with it, that's going to be the main reason why schools don't want it. They're going to drop it. So it's like if some of these schools like if they're wrestling, that's part of the issue too. Like if some of these schools already had a small wrestling program to begin with it is not going to be financially feasible for them to bring in a women's program.
Speaker 2:You might get more support behind it, maybe than the women's program, than you would the men's program, but you already have to spend that money now just to bring that program in, to put it into a conference. So you're already what? $40,000, $50,000 in the hole. That's not even counting the coach's fees. That's just getting into a conference, right? So if you're a team that only has $150,000, you just spent $40,000 getting into a conference. You're left with $110,000.
Speaker 4:You're going to give that to a women's team. David Taylor's not coaching the women's team.
Speaker 2:You're giving them another million In fact, you're probably going to spend $100,000 and the school's going to tell you to kick rocks after that.
Speaker 4:That's the worst part.
Speaker 2:That's how cutthroat some of these schools could be with some of this shit, just because they've been waiting for something like this. You know like finally they thought the NIL was going to save them. Now just kill them, you know like now. So well, hopefully that's important to people a little bit more, because it is a thing it wasn't just something we're kind of speculating on. This happened. It's out there, it's a legal document. It doesn't name names. It just tells things that schools are required to do. Again, the court doesn't give a shit. They don't care how you pay it.
Speaker 2:It's paying money, so each school is going to be responsible for a chunk. Each school is going to have a separate amount that their percentage, that they have to pay, based on what their revenue is, I believe. But some of these guys are what their revenue is, I believe. But somebody's going to suffer. So hopefully this helps you guys make a decision down the road, because I know we had to sit down and kind of look at some things because that's Liam's graduating class, so we had to definitely put you know some pen to paper and do some math.
Speaker 2:You know the schools that he's looking at aren't necessarily cheap, but they're not necessarily getting rid of wrestling either. So we had to do research on who's where and what weights they have. Talk to the coaches A lot of the coaches and schools he's interested in.
Speaker 2:they have space for so we'll see, but, like I said, I think it's going to force people to have to make a decision sooner rather than later, instead of sitting around waiting until your senior year and now you make a decision. I wonder if that so. Because of the urgency of having to get on, you've got to make a decision. Are you going to change the signing date? Are kids signing? Earlier now to be able to secure a spot. We see a lot of scrambling.
Speaker 4:I bet too with people late People signing later, and then they're like, oh, we can't pass this guy, this guy's got to go now, right, yeah. And then this is going to be crazy.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm seeing, the decisions of these coaches. I don't envy them either. Yeah, the decisions that they're going to have to make coming down the road. It's not going to be fun.
Speaker 4:Oh shit, go back to the stadium, come here. Yeah, you're gone.
Speaker 2:Fuck out of here. I need both of you. I only need one of you.
Speaker 4:That means we're getting Keegan three years later.
Speaker 2:He's coming. It's a package deal or something. We'll find out how it plays out. We're probably going to let the folks go. That's a lot of information. Hopefully we didn't make you more dumb, because of it. We are now dumber information. Hopefully we didn't make you more dumb because of it. You know we weren't that very mad as we chose to.
Speaker 2:We are now, dumber, having listened to what you said, you get nothing. May God have mercy on you. So, yeah, I'll get to the banners here, but it's crazy just to think that how this is all just flying out at once, yeah, and nobody gives a shit, except for the people that are going to be affected by it, because there are going to be some people that are going to be pissed. Yeah, football's just like oh well, ah, it's 30 guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so 30 guys think that's right out between seven, eight teams? Yeah, probably more than that, right In football. Yeah, probably more than that In football. Holy shit, how many kids are not going to be on a team? What's that team that has the blue football field? Is that Utah Well Boise? You see teams like that with all these crazy awesome high school kids now that could have been backups on teams that now they have to put their roster. Holy shit, appalachia State just won a national title in football. What's going to happen? What's going roster? It's like, holy shit, appalachia State just won a national title in football. Like, what's going to happen? Yeah, what's going to happen. So hopefully everybody's just interested in where we are because shit's getting better. All right, peace guys, thanks, thanks. Thanks, thanks, thank you.
