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Sportico's JohnWallStreet gets this from a source "inside the room" on considerations of expanding March Madness: "There has been some talk about expanding the NCAA Tournament. Major expansion isn't happening. There's no additional money to be made in rights fees. Adding teams simply adds costs. But adding ~4 P5 teams that would otherwise be left out bc of auto bids remains a possibility. And remember... if you add teams on men's side, you have to add them on the women's side too. So, you're adding 2x costs and no additional revenue." (link)
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SBJ catches up with several college basketball stakeholders who weigh in on storylines to watch for this season. Intersport VP for Basketball Starsiak explains he’ll be “watching the entire nonconference season and its effects come Selection Sunday. With the NET being an important sorting tool, who teams play, where and how they perform all factor into building the tournament bracket. Beyond these high-profile non-league matchups being potential difference makers in March, they are great exposure opportunities for the sport that must continue to work for the spotlight in November and December to grow the game.” UTA Sports SVP Shell cites the “continuing professionalization of college basketball” and explains: “It’s not just NIL, but areas like staff sizes and basketball operations. Many programs are now operating like professional teams with general managers, support staff, player development, scouting, all of it. I don’t think it will necessarily be an arms race where those who spend the most money win. Many of these areas — like in the pros — can be done effectively by getting the right people in the right positions and focusing on what actually is important to recruit good players, develop them, and win.” More. (link)
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UCLA's future in the Pac-12 is now on the docket for action on the UC Regents' November 17th meeting agenda. (link); JohnCanzano.com's namesake on conditions around the Pac-12's potential addition of San Diego State: "I think San Diego State likely gets an invitation, regardless. Even if UCLA is forced to stay, San Diego State probably replaces the divot left by USC. And I don’t think SDSU turns down the Pac-12 if a reasonable offer is made." (link)
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New Bowling Green AD van der Merwe on his biggest challenge in leading the Falcons: "It's realizing that there's never enough to do what you need to do. There's always another hill, there's always another horizon. I think the biggest challenge is going to be — we will continue to grow resources, we will continue to improve investment in the department — but learning to be patient and learning to do things the right way so it's sustainable. That’s the challenge of everybody in our enterprise today." Further: "I think that we don't need to have the largest budget in the MAC in order to achieve those goals and objectives. If that was true, then the New York Yankees would win the World Series every year. [...] There are opportunities for institutions that are lean, they're innovative, they're creative, to achieve great heights." More. (link)
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SMU and Houston combined for 140 points yesterday, setting a new FBS record for total points in a regulation game (at least since 1936). The previous record was the 137 put up by Pitt and Syracuse in 2016. The overall FBS record is 146, but that was the 7OT thriller between Texas A&M and LSU. Combined offensive production in SMU's 77-63 win resulted in 1,352 yards, with Mustangs QB Mordecai racking up 379 yards and nine TDs and Cougars QB Tune throwing for 527 yards and seven TDs. (link)
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Visit Jackson officials estimate that the economic impact of Jackson State's Homecoming and BoomBox Classic football games in back-to-back weekends generated $8.9M and $4.4M, respectively, for the city. (link)
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If it is built by 2026, the proposed $2.1B enclosed Tennessee Titans stadium could play host to a College Football Playoff National Championship. TransPerfect Music City Bowl President/CEO Ramsey, who also serves as president/CEO of the Nashville Sports Council, plans to bid on the national championship game when the next bid cycle opens. (link)
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Coaches Wire...
+ Missouri football HC Drinkwitz gets a two-year contract extension that could keep him with the Tigers through the 2027 season. "The school did not announce the terms of the extension, though a university spokesman said Drinkwitz would receive an increase in guaranteed paid. His original six-year deal paid him $4 million annually before incentives." (link)
+ Football HC bonus updates from USA Today's Berkowitz. For bowl eligibility: South Carolina's Beamer ($100K), Florida State's Norvell ($100K), Louisville's Satterfield ($100K), Kansas' Leipold ($100K), Kentucky's Stoops ($100K), Mississippi State's Leach ($75K), Minnesota's Fleck ($75K), North Texas' Littrell ($35K) and Texas' Sarkisian ($25K). For seventh wins generating one-year contract extensions: South Alabama's Womack (added year is scheduled to be worth $738,500, guaranteed at $535,125) and Troy's Sumrall (guaranteed value of $925K). And finally, Clemson HC Swinney gets a $50K bonus as Syracuse's loss to Pitt yesterday secured the ACC Atlantic Division title for the Tigers. (link)
+ New Cal State Bakersfield AD Conder names Roadrunners Sports Information Director Sperl as the department's new Softball head coach. Sperl has coaching experience at Jacksonville, George Washington & Western Washington (DII). (link)
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Atlantic-10 Executive Senior Assoc. Commissioner Redmond was celebrated as part of SBJ's Game Changers class. She took a moment to talk to SBJ's Elrod about a variety of topics, leads off with the biggest issue in the sports industry. Redmond: "The greatest challenge are people outside of the industry that really are focused on what student-athletes should receive and that's really changing the financial model, or at least its straining it a great deal. ... NIL is fantastic... but there is a narrative that there should be more and it is really serving as a distraction to us being able to focus on student-athletes and their needs." Redmond says her focus is on NIL and health, specifically emotional health for student-athletes. Lots more. (link)
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D1.ticker/Connect's Eargle visits with VolleyballMag.com's Publisher/Editor Feinswog to discuss the rise of volleyball. Feinswog: "If you follow college basketball, every once and a while there are a couple of freshmen who can really help out. In our sport, it seems like all the kids coming out of high school and club are ready to go. They understand the game, they are physically ready to go, they are mature, and that's a credit to the high school and club systems throughout the country that are producing a ton of really good players." On the growth of the sport, Feinswog: "We've had attendance records set this year, but the smaller schools are packing it in and selling out. ... the two most popular and fastest growing sports in America are men's lacrosse and women's volleyball... our sport is fun. It's not like basketball or football where you feel like you have to wash your hands because of what it is." Feinswog also offers his thoughts on the coaching hot seat, biggest winners this season and more. (link)
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Also Noticed...
+ Here's a great example of why the SEC is taking a fresh look at safety around field storming as a member of the Alabama staff needed a police escort to get off the field last night due to a LSU fans who wouldn't get out of his face. (link)
+ Nevada announces a "Wolf Pack Throwback" merchandise collection, in collaboration with CLC. (link)
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In Today's Total Campus Report... (subscribe for free HERE)
+ Duke President Price announced plans to launch a fundraising campaign following the university's centennial celebration in December 2025 as part of its strategic framework: “We're not in terrible shape. Our budgets are not looking great. But we're not hemorrhaging. We’re basically operating pretty close to balanced operating budgets on the University side. The Health System has me concerned. In other respects, I think we’re in pretty good shape. ... We are grossly underendowed relative to our peer institutions, especially with faculty chairs." (link)
+ Vanderbilt Chancellor Diermeier discussed the public pressure for CEOs and top executives in all industries to respond to hot-button cultural and political issues. Diermeier, who is an academic expert of corporate reputations, compares the care executives take in producing, packaging and marketing a product with their proclivity to share quick reactions regarding social or political problems. Diermeier: "It’s an interesting and pretty profound desire, for companies to take the lead in solving social problems. That doesn’t mean you need to take polarizing positions. There’s so much that companies can do voluntarily that has a social impact. But a statement that fundamentally changes nothing and creates lots of controversy, among your own workforce and your political environment? Supporting your community is very different than commenting on a specific law or issue of the day. People are not making that distinction." (link)
+ Power 5 institutions included among the top 100 of the QS Sustainability Rankings 2023 are: Cal (1), USC (22), Arizona State (24), Stanford (26), Colorado (30), Penn State (38), Florida (38), Duke (40), North Carolina (46), UCLA (49), Rutgers (52), Washington (62), Minnesota (72), Michigan (75), Illinois (84), Wisconsin (87), Maryland (93) and Texas (98). Full list. (link)
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In case you missed Saturday's email...
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CollegeAD reports Ball State will use TurnkeyZRG for its AD search. No indication of timeline yet. (link)
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UAB AD Ingram speaks about his FB HC search, notes the tight timeline on which many FB HC hires have to be made, believes his longer horizon allows for deeper relationship-building & research of candidates. Further: "People say you should have this list in your desk drawer. You might have that list. That doesn’t mean you have a relationship with everybody on that list. It doesn’t mean that everybody on that list would like to leave the job they’re in. This is a list of people that you think in your mind, if our job came available, I’d like to talk to these people because of the reputation they have or the job they’ve done. They might not be very happy where they’re at and not want to come here. You can’t just assume, just because you called them, they’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, definitely I’m in.’ You go through that list, but you’re trying to build a working relationship before you make that hire. [...] The flaw is you’re trying to hire the highest profile individual with an incredibly small amount of time and a small amount of interaction, which is why you run into personality conflicts down the road. There are things that come up that wouldn’t be a standard interview question." (link)
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Georgia Southern AD Benko also chimes in on FB HC searches & the benefits of being a first mover, like new Georgia Tech AD Batt is currently experiencing: "You get extremely hyper-focused. I have the ability to do that, which is good and bad, where I get tunnel vision, and I’m locked in on it. [...] The prevalent thought that comes back to mind is, the more time you have, in my opinion, the better chance you have to mitigate additional risk or make a rushed decision. [...] What you end up doing is trying to really compile a 360 (degree) evaluation, or a viewpoint, on each coach. And you can only do that with time. Otherwise, it’s tough." (link)
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Monday is the final town hall meeting to discuss potentially adding football and handful of other sports at New Orleans. At that point, a 48-hour referendum opens for students to vote. The digital voting period ends Tuesday night. Privateers AD Duncan: "I’m excited. I’m excited about the opportunity our students have to determine the destiny and change the trajectory of the university. ... We’ve done a ton of work to get here. I believe we're ready for the moment." (link)
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Kansas generated a $1M surplus for FY22, per Executive Assoc. AD/CFO Kaufman, who notes MBB's National Championship was a net win, but not as big of a financial windfall due to the Jayhawks already maxing out revenue lines items like ticket sales, donations, etc connected to hoops. KU AD Goff indicates the FY23 ledger is millions of dollars ahead of projections thanks to football's surge. (link)
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Stanford President Tessier-Lavigne touches on conference realignment challenges in his presentation to the Faculty Senate: "We’re very proud of the student-athlete model that we have at Stanford that functions at the highest level, where we pair academic excellence with excellence on the playing field. These students are really quite extraordinary, and to have them in your classes, it is really one of the jewels in the crown of Stanford, and it’s something that we should cherish, and that we wish to preserve. And we worry about how these external developments may affect our ability to continue to do this. So that’s really the starting point for all of this – the students come first, and they come first as students, but also extraordinary athletes." A bit more feedback from faculty members and AD Muir addresses the high number of sports offered for scholarships relative to the school's student population: "We’re trying to balance both. We’re doing academics at a high level, similar to the Ivies, but we’re trying to compete at the highest level [athletically], and that’s where we’re unique, and that’s part of the fabric of the place. That’s the challenge that we’re facing." (link)
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George Washington partners with Ticketmaster for all games, concerts and ticketed external events at the Charles E. Smith Center. (link)
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New Mexico State adds "Aggie Roast" as its latest Pistol Pete-themed product, thanks to a deal with Beck's Roasting House & Creamery. The athletic department will receive 12% of the wholesale price for all Aggie-licensed consumables, which in addition to the coffee, includes beer, whiskey, salsa and candles. NMSU AD Moccia estimates the cumulative effect of that at $100K in new dollars for the department, a number he says ranks fifth in the nation regarding revenue from collegiate-licenses consumables. (link)
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ESPN's Olivieri reports: "The Mississippi Department of Human Services [MDHS] on Thursday rejected a proposal from the University of Southern Mississippi to make campus facilities, including a volleyball facility at the heart of the state's ongoing welfare investigation, available to the government agency, which serves the state's poor. The university announced the proposal earlier in the day in response to an investigation into millions of dollars of misspent welfare funds that has involved the school and its former quarterback, Pro Football Hall of Famer Brett Favre." MDHS says it cannot accept the offer. The statement from Southern Miss, according to Olivieri: "Southern Miss said it has provided hundreds of pages of public records about the Wellness Center and would continue to do so. It also said it would fully cooperate with ongoing investigations." (link)
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Army West Point FB HC Monken is this week’s guest on HeadCoachU with former BYU/Virginia FB HC Mendenhall and D1.ticker/Connect’s Fischer. Monken notes that West Point is one of the most diverse campuses in the country. “A lot of our cadets are either interested in the military, interested in West Point, very high-achieving students. So, their choices are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, West Point, and they end up at West Point because there is no cost in terms of monetary cost. Some end up here because they want a world-class degree and they frankly can’t afford to go to Harvard. And then a lot of our athletes had never heard of West Point or never considered West Point and didn’t think West Point was a place that anybody could go to school.” Full podcast. (link)
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Vanderbilt FB AC Jackson has apologized for comments he made in support of Kanye West on Facebook, which included saying the entertainer was "two steps ahead of everyone." Jackson called his own wording "careless" and "To be clear, antisemitism has no place in our society. and I reject all forms of hate." On the same topic, Nike has suspended its relationship with NBA star Irving. Per ESPN, the company "will no longer launch Irving's new shoe, the Kyrie 8 [...] slated for a November 8 release." (link, link)
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A New York arbitrator issued a decision yesterday in the ongoing legal battle between Fox Corp. and Flutter, one which Sportico's Novy-Williams says could have "significant ramifications for the future of U.S. sportsbooks FanDuel and Fox Bet." The ruling affirms Fox's 10-year right to buy FanDuel, starting at a $20B valuation, which is higher than Fox's original proposal, but lower than Flutter's. Additionally, the arbitrator ruled that FanDuel cannot IPO without agreement from Fox, and Flutter does not have to dedicate equal resources to the two brands. In their respective statements, both Fox and Flutter said they are "happy" with the ruling. FanDuel declined to comment. More on the overall impact to the industry. (link)
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DraftKings generated $502M in revenue in Q3, a 136% increase YOY thanks to "strong customer acquisition and retention, launches in new markets, high hold rates largely from NFL wagering, and reduced spending on promotions." CFO Park believes that the sports betting business seems unaffected by recent economic uncertainty. The company has raised its full-year revenue to range between $2.16B-$2.19B (previously $2B-$2.18B), but it projects an adjusted EBITDA loss of between $780M-$800M in FY22, "an improvement from an estimated loss of between $756M-$835M last quarter." Shares of DraftKings slumped as much as 25% on Friday. More analysis from FOS. (link)
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