How’s everyone’s weekend going? Thanks for spending a portion of it with the Six.
This week in Indianapolis, the Big Ten Conference held its annual college football media days junket.
The event serves as a milestone for the impending arrival of the 2023 football season…Oh Joy!
While there was plenty of conversation about the games and matchups, the 800-pound gorilla inside Lucas Oil Stadium (site of the event) was not about the Buckeyes vs. the Wolverines or Hawkeyes vs Badgers.
Rather, it was the following: how the heck are universities going to pay all those Johnnys and Joes to play football?
This year, the Big Ten starts the first year of a seven-year media rights deal reportedly worth $7 billion. Each school will receive an annual payout that starts at $60 million, with annual increases over the lifetime of the contract (in 2024, USC and UCLA join the conference and will immediately get a full share of the pot).
Here’s the rub––no one can figure out how to distribute this financial windfall to the labor providing the entertainment; the players.
Since 2021, athletes are receiving compensation off of their name, image and likeness (NIL). Unclear is just how many athletes are making real money off NIL. We know there are a few making millions. The majority are not earning that much more than the cost-of-attendance stipend allotted to each scholarship athlete. The system is fluid and non-transparent, which is normal with any new venture. Welcome to capitalism. No one knew at first exactly what Rockefeller was doing with those tall wooden rigs that sprung up all over Ohio in the mid-to-late 19th century. Regulation eventually came to the oil industry and companies that created the most value in the marketplace, survived.
At BIG10 Media Days, new commissioner Tony Petitti said this to BTN anchor Dave Revsine about the state of NIL:
True NIL is the ability of a student-athlete to use their name, their likeness, their performance on the field, the exposure they receive from our institutions, to use that to create value for third party companies, local businesses, national businesses, using the power of social media, whatever that may be. The key is that third party relationship, where they are being rewarded for their reach and they are really promoting something valuable. That is a great thing.
Petitti went on to say how there should be some regulation as it relates to “true” NIL––agent registration is one––to protect athletes and provide guidance. He went on to say how the current unregulated climate is not producing “true” NIL all of the time, instead, allowing for recruiting inducements—basically pay-to-play––and that reality is far from what the concept was intended for.
He added: “There are ways to provide additional benefits inside the system. I think there’s where we’re headed. What can we do to potentially give student-athletes more?”
Well, Mr. Petitti, you and your fellow million-dollar salaried commissioners are going to have to pay the players with the billions of dollars of television money coming in. There’s your additional benefit.
The question next becomes, how. How can you distribute the money with so many disparate parties and interests?
After much lobbying, Congress appears poised to act on NIL. Two senators co-sponsored a bill made public this week. It covers the broad strokes—no play-for-play, health and safety, oversight, etc. By failing to act before individual states enacted their own legislation, the NCAA lost all governing authority. Congressional lawmakers approving a sweeping, nationwide bill is the Hail Mary colleges are banking on.
But none of it addresses the television money. No one wants to touch that topic with a seven-billion foot pole. Much like with NIL, a few pro-union pockets around the country are not waiting for permission to act, greasing the wheels for athletes to become employees of the state. They see a political opportunity. It’s going to happen somewhere.
For most 20-year-old college athletes, a free education, meal plan and pocket change is plenty.
But when there’s billions of dollars being spent directly as a result of their labor and output?
Find a way to pay them.
Let’s proceed with the Six.
Election cycles start earlier than ever before and I find it hard to take much polling seriously until Labor Day. The legal sagas of former president Donald Trump reduce the amount of actual GOP primary campaign content as there’s only so many reporters and outlets that can cover this stuff. This personal essay via Real Clear Politics comes from an Illinois Republican big wig who confesses how it’s time for the party to break away from the Vulcan mind grip that is Trump. The writer of the piece is Richard Porter, a Chicago attorney and Republican national committeeman, and he endorses Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president—and speaks out about why Donald Trump could lose in a general election.
2. The Persuaders.
A fascinating piece on the work of "persuaders”––consultants hired by companies to dissuade employees from unionizing. These "mysterious men" infiltrate the workforce, sowing doubt about what a union can achieve. It's big business for these consultants: "Employers are now paying upwards of $3,000 a day, plus expenses, for each persuader. Amazon alone dished out more than $14 million to consultants last year." So that guy sweating it out in an Amazon warehouse making $17.50 an hour griping how unions diminish job security and the ability to earn a competitive wage? Likely a corporate plant.
3. Dinnertime In America, By State.
Dinner time in America peaks at 6:19 p.m., according to a new analysis of the American Time Use Survey, with most households eating dinner between 5:07 p.m. and 8:19 p.m. According to the data from 2018 to 2022, the states that ate the earliest were Pennsylvania (5:37 p.m. peak) and Maine (5:40 p.m. peak) while the states that ate the latest were Texas and Mississippi (both a 7:02 p.m. peak) and Washington, D.C., which ate at 7:10 p.m. peak (OBTW…Illinois peak time is 6:19 pm, about middle of the pack). The author of the piece raises a good question about the data asking “Do people really eat that much earlier in Pennsylvania and Maine? Is it an age thing? A sunlight thing?” A deeper dive would be the regional and cultural habits/behaviors that help explain why folks in Texas eat after 7 pm while Kentuckians eat just after 6 pm. Does brisket taste better at sunset?
Nothing beats a deeply reported story on corporate media intrigue and conflict. We witnessed the latest Fox News scandal earlier this year that led to the departure of popular host Tucker Carlson. About a month ago, CNN ousted its broadcast chief only a year into the job. According to this riveting article from Variety, the previous CNN chief, Jeff Zucker, is attempting to buy the cable news network with private equity funds behind the scenes. “Any allegation or insinuation that Jeff has made any effort to purchase CNN is unequivocally false,” reads a quote from the article from Zucker’s media hack. All of the denials to the press leads to the conclusion how all of the speculation is more than certain to be at least partly true.
5. Who Walks Beside You? A Disappearance In Arkansas.
A bunch of good narrative storytelling pieces this week. This one might be the best read of them all––in 2001, the writer’s cousin gets lost in the Arkansas woods, resulting in a massive search and rescue mission. From the story’s lede paragraph: “Her disappearance would eventually connect my family to another story, a dark and bizarre one involving kidnapping, brainwashing, murder, and a cult that believed in the imminent end of the world, laced with the kind of eerie coincidences or near-coincidences that cause perfectly rational people to question what they think they know about reality.” Hooked? Pour an extra cup of coffee.
6. Florida Man Pulled Into Water By Shark.
It’s shark attack season across America…providing endless streams of content for television news outlets. As a nation, our fascination with sharks never subsides, and any b-roll of man vs shark is easy filler for 30-90 second local news holes. This clip from a Los Angeles news outlet shows a man getting yanked out of a boat after getting jawed by a small shark in the Everglades. The guy was OK; it’s the anchor voice-over banter that is just as entertaining as the “shark attack.” Listen to the Ron Burgandy-esque quips from the doltish news readers. How now, brown cow.
Thanks for reading everybody and have a great rest of your weekend.
Have a suggestion for The Sunday Six? Send email to jonjkerr@gmail.com.