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S2E2 - Tommy Tuberville - Now It's Legal Podcast
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Tommy Tuberville is an Alabama Senator and former college athlete, head football coach and sports broadcaster. Before beginning his political career, Tommy was the head football coach at the University of Mississippi (1995-1998), Auburn University (1999-2008), Texas Tech University (2010-2012) and the University of Cincinnati (2013-2016). In 2004, after Auburn's 13-0 season, he won five national Coach of the Year Awards. In 2015, Tommy was the President of the American Football Coaches Association and in 2017, became an ESPN color analyst for college football coverage.
Tommy joins Now It's Legal to discuss his successful college athletic and head coaching career, as well as his transition into the world of politics.
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About Now It's Legal
In July 2021, NIL forever changed the trajectory of college athletics. It’s been a long time coming as the NCAA has long needed changes like NIL, the transfer portal, revenue sharing and other benefits for college athletes. We introduce to you the Now It’s Legal podcast. Join us as we discuss the industry that holds the hearts of millions of fans who want to understand where its trajectory is heading. We are talking to those who are invested in and affected by NIL including: Former and current college athletes, presidents and head coaches, broadcasters and media personalities, investors and more. This is just the beginning of NIL and what it means for the future of college athletics.
Host Jim Cavale is a former college athlete and entrepreneur who has become an advocate for young athletes across the country. In 2017, he created the INFLCR app that allowed athletes to build their brand on social media, and in 2021, evolved into the NIL management technology for more than 100,000 athletes across 200 college athletic programs. INFLCR has since been acquired by sports tech titan, Teamworks.
In 2023, Jim founded Athletes.org which which is the players association for college athletes to negotiate the best terms for their college athletics experience. AO provides its member athletes with a free membership, empowering them with a voice, on demand support, and group licensing income in the same ways that professional league associations do for their member athletes.
Tune in new episodes on Wednesday's this fall and join in on the conversation on Instagram with @nowitslegalpod and @jimcavale.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Now It's Legal' and Guest
00:00:09
Speaker
Love that track by 2 Chainz. Welcome to another episode of Now It's Legal. I'm your host, Jim Cavall. And listen, this is episode two of season two, and it's going to be jam packed with a lot of episodes with all different thought leaders.
00:00:27
Speaker
talking about the future of college athletics. And this episode is great because it's somebody with a really unique lens. Tommy Tuberville. He's a U.S. Senator who coached college football for decades at schools like Auburn, Texas Tech, Cincinnati. This guy recruited Patrick Mahomes to Texas Tech. He went undefeated in the SEC with Auburn. Before that, he was an Ole Miss. He even coached at Miami and recruited players like Ray Lewis.
00:00:54
Speaker
Tommy understands college football and understands where it needs to go. And he's understanding that all from the lens of being a U.S.
The Future of College Athletics with Tommy Tuberville
00:01:02
Speaker
Senator who's drafted in an NIO bill and had conversations about the future of college sports with both parties extensively. This interview is going to give you a real feel of where college athletics needs to go to have a sustainable future. We did it at his home in Santa Rosa Beach, which we are all very grateful for you to host us, Tommy. Let's go to the episode. Episode two, season two, now it's legal. It's Tommy Tubbers.
00:01:30
Speaker
Well, Coach Tuberville, first off, I really appreciate you making us a great setting here with your home in Santa Rosa Beach where neighbors didn't realize that. yeah um And you know also just really excited about this conversation because you have such a unique background.
From Coach to Senator: Tuberville's Journey
00:01:48
Speaker
Obviously, you coach for decades in college football. But where I want to start is your decision to make a transition from coaching to becoming a US senator.
00:01:59
Speaker
It is very different. People ask me, what which one do I like the most? i Obviously coaching, because that's a game. It's competitive, like politics. But politics is not a game, it's it's life. We change people's lives every day in Washington DC, for the good or for the worst. And unfortunately in this country right now, we have a lot of division. We got to get more back on the same page. If we don't, our country is really going to suffer from that. We got a huge election coming up. but
00:02:30
Speaker
ah I got in for mainly for this reason, education. Because as a coach, I've traveled all 50 states, recruited high schools and in all 50 states. I've looked at transcripts, I've talked to principals, administrators, counselors, looked at the transcripts. And I started seeing the last 15 years of what these young men and women were taking in schools. It wasn't as much about science or history or reading or writing.
00:02:59
Speaker
It was more things that it's not going to make them a better life. It's not going to make them a better person. It's not going to educate them. It's not not going to put something in their brain. It's going to help them be successful. I used to tell all my players this country owes you one thing. It's an opportunity. And if you don't take advantage of it through education, you're going to have a you might not have a ah bad experience in life, but it could be a lot better if you start with the basis of education.
00:03:29
Speaker
Well, you know, education was a big part, obviously, of your coaching experience because you coach college football. And for those who don't know, I mean, you were at Miami during the heyday. um Obviously, people know the success you had at Auburn. But talking about some of your your stops along the way, how did that message resonate with some athletes that now are older and leaders in the world.
Success Stories and Recruiting Challenges
00:03:53
Speaker
I mean, you've probably got a lot of stories of that message becoming one that's been realized by a lot of the players you coached.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, one of the the things that I really enjoyed in my 35 years that I actually coached was the ah success a lot of the players had. You know, coming from a small town, you got to remember this, college football or basketball or women's coach in any sport, you take players from different background backgrounds, whether it's urban or rural or rich or poor, all ah different nationalities. And so your job is to go out there and find the best talent and then bring them in and mesh them together because our job as to what is to win. You don't win, you get fired in college. And so ah it's it's a lot of fun to recruit
00:04:45
Speaker
it It is really, really hard, okay? Really hard to recruit. You have to have something to sell, but the number one thing you have to sell first is yourself. yeah You have to sell your program and the people around you and and how you can help that player become a better person and a better athlete to possibly you you know either play in the major leagues, whether it's NFL or whatever, or to get that degree and then go on and extend their education to help themselves in the business or med school or or or whatever. But I tell you, this's ah it's a great job of being ah a college football coach. Whether you're an assistant or a head coach, because you can see the improvement from high school,
00:05:25
Speaker
All the way through college, it's unbelievable. Most of them have never been a away from home for the first time. They've never had three meals a day. Nothing was structured. Most of the guys or girls that that go to major colleges are the best players.
00:05:41
Speaker
They've never really been pushed, you know, to ask to give more than what they have, that they've given and so it's a huge transition. ah Unfortunately, some don't make it, some can't grasp, hey, these coaches are trying to make me better. I tell you what, the ones that really grab a hold to the the structure, the discipline, the hard workouts that you have, it's really gratifying that to see what they can do.
Revenue Growth in College Sports
00:06:07
Speaker
College supports has changed a great deal over the past, especially the past decade, but really just in the 21st century. The revenues have exploded, billions more in revenue. And of course the advent of NIL in 2021.
00:06:23
Speaker
um For you, stepping away from coaching, getting into politics, surely you were still watching what was going on in college athletics. um how How much did you anticipate NIL happening as you were seeing it unfold and and happening with such an unstructured environment?
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, you knew something was going to happen, and you know, because you really have two different levels of sports at all universities. You have men's football, you have men's basketball and women's basketball, and then everything else is is is another step down. It's not that it's not as important, but the money doesn't come. um And so those are three of the revenue drivers that we have now and always have had, football being the the revenue ah machine that's gonna bring most of the money in. Some basketball programs do, but most of them lose money, to be honest with you. But big stadiums, the thing that's changed it and in my career was watching television. The emergence of cable, ESPN, then all the different major networks, noticing how important it was.
00:07:38
Speaker
how many people watched it, and ah then they started bidding, you know, year after year on more and more programming, because you know, you've got to have programming in them. And even the smaller schools have had an opportunity now of being on television. You used to, you didn't have it. I remember turning on TV growing up and and you'd have the game of the week and that pretty much was the it. One college football game, maybe two. There was nothing on Thursday or Friday or Sunday or Monday. It was just ah it just it you didn't have the the television to push it out there and so the money started getting big and it's gotten bigger and bigger and again yeah ESPN has been the
00:08:17
Speaker
the driver of that, which is fine, they made money off of it. But they themselves, theres there's going to be a reckoning of TV in the future, too. There's going to be a division. You're going to have things that are going to be streamed. ah You're going to have individual networks. I think you're going to see a fight. We're having a fight now in college sports, but you're going to see the same thing happening.
00:08:42
Speaker
in in these major ah stations trying to fight to find their way and foothold into keeping that programming. Absolutely. And I mean, you know, the reality is, is like you said, it used to be a big deal to be on TV. Now everybody can be on TV, but it comes down to tracking who people want to watch, right? And that's what's what's driving ah college athletics and certain conferences that are able to produce more media money than others and have an edge. And so NIL happens in 2021. You're in this unique position as a U.S. Senator that used to coach college football to get involved and help because it was so unstructured.
NIL's Impact on College Recruiting
00:09:23
Speaker
right We saw NIL really being used as a mechanism to attract athletes to the school through a financial amount that would make them want to go there.
00:09:33
Speaker
pay for play is what some call it. That's what I call it. It's what it was used for. It's what it still is used for. And the lack of structure combined of and NIL combined with the transfer portal has really created a very volatile, we'll call it, environment of of talent shift. Now, some people think it's great because you have more parity and athletes have a chance to move up as they get better. And there are some really great things about it, but some people, the purists, wanted to go back to where it was and it probably never will. The box has been opened up, Pandora's box, right? So you you found a way to start trying to get involved, but it wasn't it wasn't easy because it's it's hard to get support from both sides of the table.
00:10:17
Speaker
Exactly. I've been out seven years now and it has it just been flipped on its head. ah You know back in my day of recruiting and again just a few years ago you couldn't give a player a popsicle. ah You couldn't give them a drive and you couldn't put them in your card and take them to a class. I mean you the only thing you could give them was a scholarship.
00:10:40
Speaker
Now, one thing I do want to say as we're talking about this, the most important thing is education in this whole thing. And we can't forget about it. And I know people, ah you know, they love college sports. They love NFL. If you think NFL is, it NFL is the number one sport watched on television. A lot of that is because of gambling. You know, because people, you know, gamble on games. um yeah And I'm sure they gamble a lot on college games. Not sure. I know they do.
00:11:07
Speaker
ah But, you know, the big thing that we have to look back at here is the the total change and how it changed so quickly. I'll be the first to tell you I was never an NCAA fan because they couldn't get their ducks in a row. We're always asking for ah something, hey, you you got to look at this, you got to make a decision. They're scared of lawsuits, as we see today, and they've been in lawsuits and they've won some.
00:11:31
Speaker
They lost a big one not too long ago. ah There's gonna be some more come down the pipe. But you're dealing with kids, you're dealing with parents, you're dealing with money. ah But again, I just hope we don't remember the fact that it's all about education. But I will say this, when this first started, I started getting calls from all my buddies, all Coach Saban, Kirby Smart, ah coaches from all over the country. Coach, you gotta help us.
00:11:59
Speaker
we We got problems and they recognize it real quick. You know when you when you throw all that money out there at one time ah Then you're gonna people doing things different make it taking advantage and I will say this coaches as long as if you don't regulate them They're there to win. And so they're gonna ride that fence and they're gonna do as much as they possibly can without breaking that rule but come really close and and then because they want to win, they want to win championships and they want to keep their job. So, ah Joe Manchin, who's a good friend that grew up with Nick Saban, he's a senator from West Virginia, played football, played college football, ah got to be good friends and we started talking with coaches, Nick and Kirby and and coaches and in the other conferences, ADs, presidents, they started all started to come and see us.
00:12:51
Speaker
We really didn't want to get involved, because I told them this. Guys, I've been here for a couple of years, and one thing I want to tell you, you better really be needing something to happen if you want to get the federal government involved. Because when we get involved, it's not a rule, it's a law.
00:13:07
Speaker
and you gotta go buy it. And I don't know whether you want us to do it, but we said we'll try. So we started, we put all these things together with presidents and board members from the NCAA, the new NCAA president, ah athletic directors,
00:13:22
Speaker
ah that we had all kind of people involved. Players, coaches, ah parents, and we tried to do the best we could. And and it wasn't really Joe Manchin, Senator Manchin, and my bill. It was a bill put together basically from what they saw and what they needed. And we put it together. We didn't get the first base with it within Congress because right now it's just hard. You know, nobody sees, everybody sees it a ah different path.
00:13:50
Speaker
but it's it needs to be done and you and I talked about this before we turned the cameras on. When you do something with all these changes at one time and you don't Think about it and put it all together at one time and get a set of rules that's going to help everybody. Eventually it's not going to work and that's what's
Revenue Sharing and Legal Battles
00:14:09
Speaker
happening right now. It is what's happening right now and you know for for me, I really saw it unfold as as a partner of a lot of the institutions through my previous company, Influencer, which
00:14:23
Speaker
is now TeamWorks, but as a partner, software partner with the schools, watching NIL unfold, watching it be used as a pay for play mechanism for recruiting. um I also was watching new court cases like Hubbard and Carter and House versus the NCAA, which were really all about the schools directly sharing revenue with the athletes instead of n NIL being used as a workaround or in addition,
00:14:49
Speaker
to n NIL being used as a workaround, I guess. um And so you did a lot of work on that bill. Didn't get the first base. There's others who have tried and put some bills together. Hasn't got a lot of bipartisan traction. It's either in one direction or another, probably like a lot of issues in DC. yeah And so ah now a lot of that stuff, I don't want to say is irrelevant that was in those bills, but now there's a whole new set of structures that need to be put in place because schools are gonna be able to directly share revenue with athletes and there's a lot of questions that that need to be answered. Before I go into the settlement from my perspective, have you been following the settlement? Do you have any any thoughts on you know what's going on now that the NCAA has settled these lawsuits and and you know to the tune of 20 billion plus dollars are gonna start paying athletes directly?
00:15:41
Speaker
Yeah, only what I've heard from my fellow coaches that I work with over the years. Some work for me, I work with them, ah grown up with them in this business, and they are fatigued. They're worn out because there's no off time for a coach now. You know, they're you're recruiting, you're raising money. I know some coaches have called and said they're working deals with corporations, trying to figure out a way to generate that 20 to 30 million dollars that they're gonna be short every year if they don't raise it. It's just, it's not there. yeah So you're looking at a lot of things. You got the collectives and and now you've got you know these lawsuits where you have revenue sharing. I've always thought we needed to share revenue, because the money being brought in, but the problem was, back in a few years ago, only a few people were making money.
00:16:33
Speaker
i mean we can say, OK, we're going to share revenue that's coming in university. There's not many schools across this country that have a surplus of money. Most of them owe money because they borrow money, whether they buy bonds or whether they they bill in all these facilities, trying to keep up with the Joneses. And they just don't have the money. ah They might be bringing in 100 million, 120 million, but they might be spending 130, 140. So it's not an end game where everybody sees all these fans coming and all the money coming in. There's also bills to pay. but People don't realize. yeah every a Every school has to pay for those scholarships. It goes through the athletic department. They just don't say, the school doesn't say, okay, yeah, bring in these 600 athletes and we'll forgive your no you. No, you have to pay for it. So everything's having to be paid for.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, and it's kind of by design of the system, right? Some of it is, you know, we're we're a nonprofit, higher education institution, we're going to spend what we make. And if we make more, we can invest more into facilities, invest more into coaches, invest more into other benefits for athletes. So now it's going to be a structure where schools are going to have to rethink all their expenses to make revenue sharing work. um But if we take a step back,
00:17:49
Speaker
You said you were always a proponent for figuring out revenue sharing even before it got popular as it is today. Well, today with this settlement, starting next summer, about 70 schools or so are going to start sharing up to $22 million dollars a year with their athletes.
00:18:07
Speaker
And that's $1.5 billion dollars in year one. This is a 10-year deal. Year 10, it could be as high as $33 million dollars is the cap per school. So where does that money come from? It's a great question. And so for some schools, that money is coming from gross revenue because they do well enough that they can reconfigure their expense structure. Very few. Very few. Yeah.
00:18:27
Speaker
For another segment of the schools, they're going to borrow and figure out any way to get that money because it's the only way to remain Division I.
New Division I Standards and Athlete Scholarships
00:18:35
Speaker
Because now it's not a certain amount of scholarships that makes you Division I, it's being able to have scholarships and revshare that makes you Division I. And so halves are only going to get stronger, and have-nots are probably going to end up in a really tough spot. But The reality is, is that these 70 or so schools have four questions that they have to answer in the next less than 12 months. Number one, are they going to fund it? We already went through what that could look like. Some will be able to fund it easy, some will have a struggle. The second question is, how are we going to split it up for sport?
00:19:08
Speaker
Title IX, does it play into this? How do we get- Yes, I'll tell you that right now. Right. Yes. So so so so that's the second one is is how we split up the revenue per sport. The third one is how we split up the revenue per athlete. These athletic departments don't have a front office that can negotiate 500 different deals with 500 different athletes. So does your quarterback make more money than the then the safety? you know yeah Yeah, exactly. and then And then lastly, what are the terms in the contract? Because now the school's going to have paper between them and their athletes that has some binding to it. Is there exclusivity? Is it a multi-year deal that now starts to regulate the transfer portal? There's a lot to figure out here. And so my thought has always been, geez,
00:19:52
Speaker
There needs to be what we have in pro sports which has worked so well and that's a partnership between the athletes. in the schools. Right now, as it is, this is going to happen. The athletes need to understand this. They need to be informed. And they need to be able to sit at the table and actually ask questions and use some of these things that might be negotiating chips to their favor to get the very best deal for them. But the schools also need the athletes to agree so they don't get sued again or else we're just going to live in this era of litigation.
00:20:23
Speaker
What do you think about my theory? Yeah, I think as long as you have a representation obviously from different sports, ah you're going to have to there's going to have to be a buy-in from all athletes of saying, okay, I'll let this person represent me, make decisions for me as long as they come back and tell us what they're thinking about where we can help them make that decision. youre But you're going to have to come up with some kind of ah negotiation
00:20:56
Speaker
amongst the players, and then the players are gonna have to bring that to the table, as you said, ah to try to work this out. There's gonna have to be communication. Again, like I said, we started this whole thing, and there was no rules. I mean, when I was coaching, there was a rule book this thick about what you could and couldn't do for the NCAA. Now, it's been torn up, and now there are no rules. No rules. And we've gotta basically start from scratch.
00:21:27
Speaker
But then you get to the point, do we do we treat football different than we do basketball? Basketball different than track. Like you said, who is going to decide you know where all the money goes? Because a lot of players, ah the quarterback and a lot of these starting players bring in more money than the track, the non-revenue sports.
00:21:51
Speaker
You know with that question I think what's interesting is we've at athletes dot.org sat down with what we call player reps. So current college athletes from different teams that are leaders for the association athletes.org with their team and their job is to sign up their teammates but also educate them on key issues and eventually hopefully i have a vote for their team on what the student athlete body at that respective school agrees to with their school.
00:22:19
Speaker
And it was surprising to me that a lot of athletes really understood how much football pays for. And a lot of athletes right now seem to be scared that they might lose scholarships. They might lose their sport. So helping them understand that revenue sharing is commercial And the commercial producers, football mainly and some other sports, are gonna get more per athlete than some of the non-commercial producers. But the non-commercial sports are still gonna have these benefits like scholarships, facilities, et cetera, because it's gonna allow the school to get the very best football players to win and produce revenue. That's gonna be really important. And I think a lot of ADs are planning on
00:23:07
Speaker
going with the route of giving football the majority of the money, but I don't know that a lot of ADs are planning on educating all their athletes on that. And that's what's scary to me because I think you will have a flurry of lawsuits if you don't do that. Yeah, I think you're going to have to have representation from men and women and then from all sports. Everybody's got to have skin in the game, but it all goes back to what we talked about earlier, education and educating these young men and women on, okay, here's the deal. We bring in 120 million last year and we spent 135 million.
00:23:36
Speaker
Now, because we didn't win in basketball, we didn't we didn't go to the playoffs in football. you know so there's goingnna have to be contracts written up ah about bonuses paid at the end of the year on merit of what you did. You just can't write a contract for you know a group of athletes saying, okay, this is how much you're going to get every year. You might do a base amount, but you're going to have to have something in there in terms of how well you played, what did you accomplish at the end of the year. ah you know You'll make more money than than what you might and might have made. So I think you got a good idea because you got the players involved. And again, if you educate them, let them know, hey, you think we're making $100 million dollars a year? That's not happening. That athletic billing that you're working out in, that weight room, the supplements you get, the travel that you get you know flying around and in chartered airlines, ah equipment that you, the best equipment
00:24:41
Speaker
ah You've got 10 people down in the training room that help you lift weights, or learn how to to to lift, do all those things. That costs money. yeah That costs money. So that money's going out the door fasteners coming in. What they're going to see, athletes, is they're going to get revenue sharing, but for an AD and the athletic department and coaches,
00:25:01
Speaker
to go all in on educating their athletes on how the business works at their school and then giving them enough information to be able to speak into what they decide to do and agree to it is is a good decision for the school. Yeah, I know one school that just built a hundred million dollar athletic facility a few years ago and and they just finished it and the problem is now players really don't care to come in and have recliners and big screen TVs and a barbershop and all those things, they want money in their pocket. So what's happened? Now the donors are giving money to players through collectives and it's not going to pay for that bill and that they
00:25:40
Speaker
they thought they were going to be able to pay through pay for through donations. So you're running into a lot of that. And so there's going to have to be some business decisions made down the way. And there's going to have to be some negotiation with players in terms of, okay, you know, how much do we spend on, you know, supplements? How many coaches can you have? I mean, would you rather have less coaches? Because right now when I was coaching, you had head coach and nine assistants and four graduate assistants.
00:26:05
Speaker
Now, you don't have a a room big enough to put all these coaches in that are making money, a lot of money. And a lot of that money is going in that direction. Yep. And I think the key thing you said there is there's going to have to be some discussions and negotiations with the players. That is the key here for the litigation era to end and for the schools to actually have a plan that their players understand, agreed to. That helps with recruiting. It helps with legal protection and it's efficient. They don't have a front office.
00:26:34
Speaker
um Who's going to pay for their insurance? Yeah, ah all these things. There's a lot of things that go along with that. And of course, every college has to pay for insurance for every athlete to get hurt and their hospitalization. I mean, i mean that's got to be in included. Absolutely. And then on the other side?
00:26:50
Speaker
You know, do they want to play three extra games in the CFP? And if they do, they make it that far, can they get a bonus for it? yeah You know what I mean? Like Merritt, you said it earlier, like that's a reality here. The NFL added a 17th game and it was an act of Congress, literally, for for the players to agree to it, even though they get 50% of all new revenue. Yeah, and one thing that's going to hurt college sports, and I saw it happen last year,
00:27:12
Speaker
is obviously in in college they think that all these college players think that they're going to go to the next level and make all this money, which very few do by the way. ah But I saw what Florida State last year, I don't think they had a starter go play Georgia in the Orange Bowl because they all set out.
00:27:28
Speaker
So there's gonna have to be something in there if you you start the year you're gonna finish it out You got to play all the way through the playoffs or you got to play through the bowl game we can't have it because what's gonna happen is is The people that are paying the bills or the people that watch television or buy
Comparing College Sports to the NFL
00:27:43
Speaker
the tickets go to the game And one thing that we've had in college sports is is is it's about winning for a university, for a school, ah for people that graduated, the alumni. And we get away from the difference of what
00:28:01
Speaker
College is, as compared to the NFL, I mean there's no allegiance there in the NFL. You go and hey, if you you can go to another another team and make more money after your contract, you're out of there. But if we start doing the same thing and in college sports, you're going to have a lot less people coming to the games, buying the tickets, buying the parking.
00:28:21
Speaker
And it's going to be just minor league sports. And if we just can't get away from that because that's made it so special for alumni and the people that go to your schools to to fight and say, hey, you're part of our school and and, you know, you're going to be an alumni from our school and and we're going to be with you hell or high water.
00:28:40
Speaker
About a year and a half ago, May, 2023, right down the street at SEC media, SEC spring meetings, Nick Saban went on a rant. Well, I just think that, yeah, I have no problem with with that. I mean, unionize it, make it like the NFL. I mean, if it's going to be the same for everyone, I think that's better than what we have now, because what we have now is we have some states and some schools and some states that are investing a lot more money i in terms of managing their roster than other others and I think this is going to create a real competitive disadvantage for some in the future and it's also going to create an imbalance in competitive. As I watched that video and then I watched them retire less than a year later, I think what's interesting to me is when I look at some of the issues around coaches tampering, right, where they're
00:29:38
Speaker
the They're shaking hands after a game they're saying, and assistant coaches are talking to the players. They play it against saying, hey, next year you should come play for us. You did good tonight. you know We can get you a good n NIL deal, right? like Coach tampering. um You have the transfer portal where serial transferring is happening every year. Four years, you're playing for four different schools, kind of going to your example with that. um Bowl opt-outs.
00:30:00
Speaker
These things could all be addressed through a collective negotiation between the players in the school. You could have multi-year contracts that players agree to with certain guarantees and things they get.
00:30:11
Speaker
which make the transfer portal rules now get regulated. You could have the bowl game be tied to a game check. So now if you want to get your game check, you got to play in the bowl game. You could have a system where now the contracts between the schools and the players stop coaches from being able to tamper and steal players in an annual free agency called the transfer portal. There's a lot that could be structured. And so, you know, when you look at Saban's decision to retire other coaches who've gotten out,
00:30:39
Speaker
that rant that I mentioned he gave, like, do you feel like that is the direction we need to go? Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt. You have to have rules, okay? There's there's got to be some kind of ah basis for what you're doing and how you're going to do it as a group. One group can't do one thing, another, another. ah You know, look at some of the teams this year. I've i've just looked at and talked to some coaches, ah some in the SEC, some in the Big Ten, some have spent 25 million on their team this year, some have spent 10 million.
00:31:08
Speaker
Well, is that fair? That's not fair. no I mean, you you have you have a salary cap in the NFL. You're going to have to get to that to some point, ah probably ah in the long run. I don't know how you can do it in basketball or baseball. Some of that football is eventually going to go by itself. It's going to have to. I mean, because it's a different animal. And you got to treat it like that.
00:31:32
Speaker
yeah so So, yeah, I don't think there's any doubt, as we talked earlier, the cat's out of the bag. Problem is they didn't sit down and just structure this at the beginning and say, okay, this is how it's going to be. We got to give some of the players money. And I think the players would have been fine. But now that they see all this money coming out and some players are getting millions of dollars, some are getting Lamborghinis to drive around in.
00:31:55
Speaker
ah You're going to create a bigger problem in the long run if you don't get this, what you're talking about, and get representation from the players, let them help make the rules themselves, and then live with it. Absolutely. Unionization, you're in politics. Obviously, it's a very political thing. I feel like a lot of folks are scared of unionization because of the politics of it.
00:32:22
Speaker
But if if you separate unionization in sports and you look at the success that it's had, it's worked. right It's worked in the NFL. It's worked in the NBA. um How hard is it, because you're in it, like how hard is it for folks to separate the politics aspect of it and just look at the business example in sports that's associated with having players collectively bargain with the league?
Unionization in College Sports: Potential and Challenges
00:32:49
Speaker
yeah
00:32:52
Speaker
but That's a long ways from where we started just 10 years ago. It's probably going to have to come up to that point and we talked earlier about what you were talking about, about having ah having representation and association of of a group of people because again at the end of the day
00:33:11
Speaker
And the NFL players understand, they see salaries, they see salary caps, they see contracts, and they understand, you can understand that because it's pretty black and white. yep But there's nothing like that. And if you're going to get into the money game, like we're getting in with players, you're going to have to do something like that. You're going to have to get into some kind of form of representation, education. Everybody understands from media on down. I mean, media is going to have to be involved. If you look at the NFL, where they get
00:33:46
Speaker
around this time, se September of the first every year, each team gets like $300 million. dollars yep I mean, they know where they're getting their money from. yep You don't know that in in college college sports. So you don't know how many season tickets you're gonna sell. Now, media, you're gonna have to have a lot of representation from radio and television. And again, going down the road, Apple television, you know you know people are gonna get in and start taking Alabama's football games, Auburn's football games, just on one station.
00:34:13
Speaker
That's what's going to happen. And so it's all going to have to be involved. So as we wind down, um i want to I want to lighten it a little bit. When you were at Auburn, you you had some really amazing years. um Obviously, you know there's there's the famous streak in the Iron Bowl that that you led with Auburn, the undefeated season. I still call it a national championship season. um you know I had just moved down to Alabama when that happened. If you win every game,
00:34:43
Speaker
all the way through your bowl game and win... In the SEC. In the SEC and win it. It's the only team that's ever been left out of a national championship game. But, you know, I was proud of those players. I mean, we we fought through it. But one thing you can do back then, you couldn't you couldn't control it because the media controlled it as they do today.
00:35:00
Speaker
Well, I just want to say I admired watching it. As I said, when I first moved down to Alabama from from New York to go to college, you guys were right in the middle of that dominance. And I'm buddies with a lot of your your former players now. And um you know congratulations on all the success you've had as a coach. and And then, of course, what what you're now doing as a U.S. Senator and and how you're trying to help college sports. You know, I think that this is only going to evolve. You and I talked about doing some some fun things that that could get people to get in a room and talk about this in a really serious manner so we can think about the structures that need to be in place. And so I just commend you for really paying attention to this issue because I know you have a lot of others.
00:35:42
Speaker
that come your way as a U.S. Senator? Well, this is important because, again, it's about young people.
The Role of Education in Sports Contracts
00:35:48
Speaker
Young people are our number one commodity. ah We're only going to be as good in this country as our young people are, getting back to education. We didn't talk much about transfer portal, but but we' we've got to make sure kids get a degree, but get a good degree.
00:36:03
Speaker
understand that you're gonna make that money, you're also gonna go to class. i mean and And if you don't go to class, and if you and if you don't make the grades, that contract you got is is void. I think if you're gonna put money involved, there's also gonna have to be some skin in the game from the athletes in terms of putting the effort, because it's hard. it's you know College sports is very hard, I'll tell you, but again, it's important.
00:36:27
Speaker
that, you know, when they get that contract, they understand, hey, I got to go to class and I got to get this degree because I've got a long life in front. I mean, just a little money that I'm getting here is not going to pave my way for the rest of my life. That's right. All right, Coach, thanks again for making time. Have a great Labor Day weekend. Thank you. Yeah, looking forward to it. It's great to be in your beautiful home and thanks for hosting us. Thank you.
00:36:51
Speaker
Great stuff from coach man. We so appreciate him taking the time to have that conversation. Look forward to more like it. He and I talked about maybe getting other US senators from both parties in a room to do maybe a second part of that interview, which would be kind of cool. But regardless, the biggest takeaway I had was the affirmation ah toward the the vision of athletes dot.org, which is there's there's only one sustainable future for college athletics.
Vision for a Sustainable Future
00:37:17
Speaker
And that's a future where there's a partnership between the athletes and their school that's collectively negotiated. And Tommy spoke to that in a lot of different ways in that interview. And so listen, we're going to have more episodes coming with a lot of exciting guests.
00:37:33
Speaker
athletes, leaders at college athletic programs. ah We're also going to have folks from the outside, former athletes and agents. And so as you tune into this show, make sure you're subscribed on Apple podcast, Spotify podcast, or YouTube to be able to listen and watch each new episode when it comes out. You can also watch teasers that tell you about the next episode coming out soon through our Instagram channel at Now It's Legal Pod. So make sure you're following us in all these places and subscribe so you can hear all the episodes coming soon. And for everybody at our team, I'm Jim Cavall, and you've been listening or watching Now It's Legal.