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 āfix spendingā around NIL, payroll, and college athleticsā¦
ā¦while holding their summit at an exclusive luxury resort overlooking the California coast.
You canāt 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,
1:46
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?
2:08
We need expanded playoffs.
2:10
We need more postseason access.
2:14
We We need We need more teams to get
2:18
into this playoff system. Never mind
2:21
that we know we don't need 24 teams in
2:24
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
2:47
who cares what you think? Who cares what
2:49
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,
2:56
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?
3:19
Uh we know that you're the best
3:21
intention, D.A., but uh
3:23
all right, we'll give you your money
3:25
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
3:35
administrators don't do that. They hire
3:37
a guy who completely goes belly up and
3:40
they go, "Oops, we need money to buy him
3:43
out so we can buy the next guy."
3:45
Not my fault. That's your fault.
3:47
And here they are gathering on an ocean
3:50
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.
4:09
If you just wanted to slash a few of
4:11
your administrative staffs, you can have
4:13
recruiting guys work twice as hard. You
4:14
can have coaches work twice as hard. You
4:16
can have schedules schedule makers work
4:19
twice as hard. You Certainly there's
4:20
ways to cut cost if you want to.
4:23
But you don't want to cuz then what?
4:25
Your life becomes harder. How do we curb
4:27
spending?
4:29
Well, we then
4:30
have these opulent trophies with these
4:34
crazy
4:35
uh practice facilities and these insane
4:38
travel budgets. Hey,
4:40
nobody in at nobody at Ohio State or
4:45
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.
5:11
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
5:48
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,
5:58
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
6:10
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
6:32
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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