Up next in 10
The games are still great.
The leadership? A disaster.
D.A. reacts to the latest Big Ten Conference meetings and says the current power brokers running college sports have completely lost the plot.
These are the same decision-makers claiming they need to “fix spending” around NIL, payroll, and college athletics…
…while holding their summit at an exclusive luxury resort overlooking the California coast.
You can’t make this up.
All while pushing massive changes nobody asked for:
Historic rivalries destroyed.
Traditional alliances shattered.
And now a bloated 24-team playoff circus designed to create more TV inventory and more money.
The irony is staggering.
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0:00
College football's leadership
0:03
doesn't really lead.
0:05
They protect themselves first and let
0:09
everybody else deal with
0:11
all the consequences afterwards. I don't
0:13
know if you saw this, but there are
0:16
college football leaders getting
0:19
together this week to supposedly
0:23
try to fix the problems with college
0:26
football, these inequities, this NIL
0:30
what is going on wild wild west. They
0:33
are supposedly getting together
0:35
specifically Big Ten folks gathering to
0:37
discuss unsustainable spending, okay,
0:40
this kind of runaway train of spending
0:43
with NIL, player salaries, coaches
0:48
salaries, dead money, buyouts, etc.
0:57
They are worried about 80 to 90 million
1:00
dollar football rosters in a couple of
1:02
years according to ESPN's Pete Thamel.
1:05
And Stuart Mandel tweeted out, "If
1:07
you're wondering where the Big Ten folks
1:10
have gathered this week to discuss their
1:12
unsustainable spending, here it is. It
1:15
is a massive, gorgeous
1:18
resort overlooking
1:21
the ocean on a rocky shore in Palos
1:25
Verdes, California.
1:27
This, by the way, is where the Big Ten
1:31
folks, a bunch of Midwestern athletic
1:34
directors,
1:35
representing Midwestern schools, largely
1:39
decided to go to say, "Hey, don't you
1:42
think this is unsustainable?" They went
1:44
to Los Angeles,
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where yes, UCLA and USC both reside in
1:49
their conference, but they picked that
1:51
outpost and said, "And let's go get the
1:54
place overlooking the ocean to decide on
1:58
this.
1:59
They They live in such a protective
2:04
bubble. And what do they do?
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We need expanded playoffs.
2:10
We need more postseason access.
2:14
We We need We need more teams to get
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into this playoff system. Never mind
2:21
that we know we don't need 24 teams in
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the playoffs and nobody is clamoring for
2:26
this. There's no fan clamoring for this.
2:29
We're adding teams to college
2:30
basketball's NCAA tournament. Again, no
2:33
fans want more teams in the tournament.
2:37
These solutions are simply, "Hey, we We
2:41
are the power brokers and we want more
2:43
access to all the good stuff for us. Uh
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who cares what you think? Who cares what
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the fans think? We want more access for
2:51
us." And at the same time they're going,
2:52
"And how do we curb spending?" Well,
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here's one way. Stop spending all of
2:59
your money on coaches. And if you do,
3:02
stop spending all that money on buyouts.
3:06
If you make a bad hire and your guy goes
3:08
south and your team is bad, you made the
3:11
wrong bet.
3:12
I don't get my DraftKings money back
3:14
when I make a bad bet.
3:16
They don't say, "Ah, you know what?
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Uh we know that you're the best
3:21
intention, D.A., but uh
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all right, we'll give you your money
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back on that parlay since it didn't
3:26
hit." No, no, no, no. I staked my I
3:29
staked my pot to that. It didn't work
3:31
out. I lose. I eat it. These
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administrators don't do that. They hire
3:37
a guy who completely goes belly up and
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they go, "Oops, we need money to buy him
3:43
out so we can buy the next guy."
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Not my fault. That's your fault.
3:47
And here they are gathering on an ocean
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side resort saying, "How do we curb
3:52
spending here?"
3:54
Well, you don't have to spend $7 million
3:58
on a quarterback.
3:59
You don't have to. You You can certainly
4:02
slash some of your department if you'd
4:04
like. You can work twice as hard as the
4:06
AD. You can work twice as hard.
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If you just wanted to slash a few of
4:11
your administrative staffs, you can have
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recruiting guys work twice as hard. You
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can have coaches work twice as hard. You
4:16
can have schedules schedule makers work
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twice as hard. You Certainly there's
4:20
ways to cut cost if you want to.
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But you don't want to cuz then what?
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Your life becomes harder. How do we curb
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spending?
4:29
Well, we then
4:30
have these opulent trophies with these
4:34
crazy
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uh practice facilities and these insane
4:38
travel budgets. Hey,
4:40
nobody in at nobody at Ohio State or
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Purdue or Penn State was like, "You know
4:48
what we need? More California teams
4:50
here. That's what we really want."
4:52
You know, nobody in Madison, Wisconsin
4:54
wakes up on a Saturday to go tailgate
4:56
and thought, "What I'd really want is to
4:59
play Maryland today. That's what I'm
5:01
really dying for."
5:03
We didn't choose this. You chose that.
5:06
You chose your travel budget to go crazy
5:07
because you chose the television
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inventory for the television executives.
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That was not our decision.
5:13
Was not our decision.
5:15
It's amazing and then they get together
5:17
and go, "Well, how do we curb spending?"
5:19
Uh yeah, I'll have another glass of
5:21
champagne, please and uh could I get
5:23
another foot massage after this one? I
5:25
just want to double up.
5:28
And and do you have the hot stones later
5:31
on today? I'll probably need that. Uh
5:34
another lobster tail?
5:35
Bruce, you good?
5:38
Another bottle of the $300 wine, please.
5:40
Now, how do we curb spending?
5:43
Now, how do we stop this runaway freight
5:45
train? These people
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it's amazing how much they are in it for
5:50
themselves, but this is what happens
5:51
when you do not have a league trying to
5:54
organize everybody. All right? When you
5:57
have professional sports leagues,
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everybody has to be on the same
5:59
umbrella, operating by the same rules.
6:02
And so you're really vested in 32 32
6:06
others. In some cases it these bylaws
6:08
within, you know, leagues happen when
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there was 12 teams or 18 teams or 24
6:13
teams. You're not looking out for 100
6:15
teams. In this way, it's it's ridiculous
6:18
because you have this mass of humanity
6:22
trying to make decisions for everybody
6:23
when they're really only trying to
6:25
protect their 18 people in their league.
6:28
That's it. That's all they want to do.
6:29
Their 16 18 people it's all that matters
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to them. And really what all that
6:33
matters to them is themselves because
6:35
they operate under their own umbrella.
6:37
It's pathetic. The college football
6:39
college basketball decision makers are
6:41
truly pathetic individuals. Really truly
6:45
small pathetic individuals running an
6:48
entire operation
6:50
which is a sham. It's a complete sham.
6:53
They're going to a resort overlooking
6:57
the ocean in California. I'm sure that's
6:59
cheap.
7:01
To ask the question
7:02
how do we curb spending?
7:05
You couldn't make it up.
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