College

I find Mercedes-Benz Superdome to be an ideal representation of New Orleans. No one would describe it as particularly nice, but the venue throws a great party. When it gets loud in this stadium, it’s as loud as anywhere I’ve been, which makes it a perfect site for this showdown.

Here is what's cooking in the Crescent City:

NEW ORLEANS FOR THE WIN

The Superdome was rocking early as fans filed in to watch LSU and Clemson warm up

• It’s gameday in the Big Easy. This is a special edition of SBJ College from New Orleans, where tonight the Tigers -- from either LSU or Clemson -- will be crowned the CFP national champions. As always, NOLA has been an ideal host for a major event, with its walkable downtown and easy proximity to all of the fan events -- a stark difference from last season when the game was in Santa Clara and fans were spread from San Francisco to San Jose. Overheard more than once this weekend: “I wish we could have the game here every year.”
  
  
• LSU’s homefield advantage has been a primary storyline leading up to tonight’s game. Not only do the Tigers benefit from close proximity to New Orleans, they also had the advantage of playing in the first of two semifinals on Dec. 28. By the time LSU’s rout of Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl was over, its fans had already started flooding the online CFP hospitality sales website. Packages were sold out in a matter of a few hours. Clemson won its semifinal against Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl later that night, but by then, all of the CFP’s Playoff Premium packages were sold out and all 153 suites were gone. Colonnade Group Director of VIP Experiences Lori Robertson said Clemson fans were shut out because of the timing of the two games. “There just wasn’t anything left for Clemson,” she said.
  
  
• LSU is expected to dominate regular tickets as well. Clemson sold all 20,000 tickets in its allotment, which means it will have at least 27% of the 74,295 capacity at Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Expect the other 70% and change to be drenched in LSU purple and gold. Too early to start thinking about next year's title game? Not really. CFP Senior Director of Marketing & Strategic Partnerships Alfred White said a waiting list already has been established for entertainment and hospitality products at the 2021 championship at Hard Rock Stadium outside Miami.

KEEPING THINGS IN GOOD HANDS

• Among the sponsors, the big winner of CFP weekend, based on my eyeball test, was Allstate. The insurance giant title-sponsored the CFP Championship Tailgate from Saturday through this afternoon and it became a huge gathering spot in the Jax Brewery lot next to Woldenberg Park on the New Orleans riverfront. ESPN’s main broadcast stage was on site there and Allstate benefited from tons of exposure in the background of those live shots. Allstate, like LSU, had a huge home field advantage in New Orleans, where the brand has title-sponsored the Sugar Bowl since 2006. The Jax Brewery lot has long been a favorite activation site for Pam Hollander, Dan Keats and the Allstate marketing team.
  
  
• Cheez-It and Mazda made their debut as CFP official sponsors this season, but Maui Jim was the hottest new sponsor of the CFP Fan Central space. The sunglasses brand definitely brought a cool factor to the football-centric fan fest. Disney ad sales manages the CFP sponsorship program.

Maui Jim brought a cool factor to CFP Fan Central

Dr Pepper used the CFP fan event to test out a new flavor

Fans were lining up for a Samsung activation involving the brand's QLED TV

Download the CFP sponsors

ESPN GOING ALL OUT FOR CFP FINALE

• ESPN has had the full blitz package in New Orleans for the CFP finale. More than 500 personnel have been in NOLA, including 60 analysts for radio and TV. The number grew tonight, when Nick Saban joined the pregame set at 6pm ET. ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro arrived in town today, joining other senior execs like Burke Magnus, Connor Schell, Tina Thornton, Norby Williamson, Stephanie Druley, Rosalyn Durant, Ryan Spoon and Laura Gentile. ESPN has had three set locations with five different sets while in town (Jax Brewery, Champions Square, Mercedes-Benz Superdome). 
  
  
• During the third break in the first quarter, Pitaro and CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock will be on the field to celebrate their partnership and the Extra Yard for Teachers Initiative. Hancock and Pitaro will be joined by teacher and student reps from New Orleans Public Schools and Jefferson Parish Schools to present them with an additional $100,000 in resources. The initiative has collectively invested approximately $30 million nationally.
  
  
• There will be four separate halftime shows tonight (ESPN, ESPN2, SEC Network, ACC Network). Part of what ESPN will be airing is a presentation around the 11 greatest players in college football history (part of ESPN's CFB 150 initiative). Nine of 11 players will be on hand or have family reps on hand for the ceremony, including the No. 1 player. Meanwhile, there is a nice homage to late ESPN college reporter Ed Aschoff in the intro for the game's telecast (around 7:57pm ET), which is narrated by Lil Wayne. In the video, the rapper is walking through a crowd and passes a man wearing a Florida Gators jersey with Aschoff's name (Aschoff was a UF alum). The idea for the jersey shoutout came from ESPN's Wright Thompson.

ESPN is paying homage to late reporter Ed Aschoff in tonight's CFP opening segment

CREATING A DESTINATION EVENT

• When the CFP launched, execs who work in college sports wondered if it might evolve into a major industry event like the Final Four. Most of the people I ran into over the weekend weren’t ready to rank it quite that high, but after six years it does border on being a must-attend event for business. That was evident last night at a 300-person event run by NACDA and sponsored by Learfield IMG College at The Jaxson. They followed that up this morning with a Leadership Summit that featured retiring UCLA AD Dan Guerrero. ESPN had its own industry party Saturday night at the Contemporary Arts Center with live music, heavy hors d’oeuvres, cigar rollers and, in true French Quarter fashion, palm readers.

Greg Brown (l) and Bob Vecchione hosted a dinner for around 300 guests last night

ROSTER SHAKEUP AT LEARFIELD IMG COLLEGE

• The biggest news circulating outside the Superdome was that Ray DeWeese has left Learfield IMG College. DeWeese, based in Columbus, formerly was GM of the Ohio State property before eventually running the Midwest region for IMG College as a Senior VP. Once Learfield and IMG College completed their merger a year ago, DeWeese was promoted again to Exec VP/Multimedia, where he oversaw the East, which accounts for about 50 schools. He was an SBJ "Forty Under 40" honoree in the 2015 class.
  
  
• DeWeese is planning to consult for the near future before determining his next move. Solly Fulp has replaced DeWeese and he now has oversight of the East region. Fulp, a veteran of the multimedia rights space, had been running point for the company’s Campus+ initiative that works with schools on campuswide marketing. Learfield IMG College is seeking someone to lead Campus+, the company said.

SPEED READS 

• Tonight’s game marks the first national championship for CFP Senior Director of Branding & Communications Brett Daniels. He's had previous stints with the Cowboys, Georgia Tech, the host committee for Super Bowl LIII and previous CFP games, so it’s hardly his first rodeo.

• A uniquely New Orleans run-in led to SEC Network’s Greg McElroy getting booked on The Athletic’s “Audible” podcast this weekend. The podcast, which Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman were recording live in NOLA on Saturday, had only landed McElroy the night before. So how did it all come about? Mandel: “Greg was booked, by me, at a blackjack table at Harrah’s last night.” McElroy responded: “The table heated up after he left.” Meanwhile, Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, Pete Thamel and SI’s Pat Forde took their podcast to the oldest psychic shop in the French Quarter to get a unique roundup of predictions.
  
  
• Over the past month, LSU QB Joe Burrow has been mentioned nearly 500,000 times on Twitter, led by a huge spike in conversation after his Heisman win on Dec. 14 (over 146,000 mentions), according to data from social media measurement outfit Fizziology. That tops Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence, who has been mentioned 105,000 times in the past month, as well as Alabama's Tua Tagovailoa, who has been mentioned less than 100,000 times in the past 30 days despite his NFL announcement. In the last 30 days, Burrow has earned over 33,000 new followers on Twitter, while his Instagram presence is growing even faster, with over 160,000 new followers in that time frame.
  
  
• What kind of viewership should ESPN expect tonight? Clemson has been in three of the five CFP title games, and none of those games have topped 27 million viewers. The other two -- Alabama over Georgia and Ohio State over Oregon -- each topped 28 million viewers.

Download the CFP Championship Viewers

• How did LSU land Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson for their last hype video posted to social this morning? Before Miami Hurricanes fans panic, know that the connection does indeed go back to Johnson's days as a defensive lineman in Coral Gables. His position coach at the time? None other than Ed Orgeron. Johnson wrote on Twitter this morning, "He taught me a lot -- lessons that I’d finally understand years later as a man."
  
  
• Facebook’s Nick Marquez and Instagram’s Will Yoder created the first IG TV Playmakers program, which highlights social media work done by college students for team Instagram accounts. The students, who represented Clemson, LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Oregon, were paired with mentors who already work in sports to help sharpen their skills in capturing content. The program culminated yesterday inside CFP Fan Central with a film festival. The students whose work was highlighted at the film festival also are creating content for the @CFBplayoff Instagram account.
  
  
• During a morning meeting I had with Oregon AD Rob Mullens, who also serves as chair of the CFP selection committee, we were joking about his newfound celebrity status from all of the TV appearances he made during ESPN’s weekly rankings shows. Just then, a young boy pointed at Mullens and told his father that he’s the selection committee guy. The boy, decked out in Clemson gear, recognized Mullens from those weekly rankings shows and got a picture with him.
  
  

Oregon AD Rob Mullens with a Clemson fan that recognized him in the Hyatt lobby

The deadline for nominations for the 13^th annual Sports Business Awards is Friday, Jan. 17. Nominations are being accepted in 17 categories. Please be specific possible in your nomination -- submissions that don’t answer the actual question or provide detailed specifics will not be closely considered. Submit your nomination today. For more information on Sports Business Awards nominations, please contact Awards Coordinator Tracey Allsbrook at tallsbrook@sportsbusinessjournal.com or call 704-973-1566.

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

I’ll be in New Orleans for the CFP Championship beginning Friday and look forward to interrupting my new diet for 2020 with plenty of beignets.

Here is what's cooking on campus:

NEW DEAL COULD SIGNAL EARLY KICKOFF FOR FSU-BOISE STATE

• Get ready for Bloody Marys in Boise next college football season. Fox Sports already has pegged Florida State-Boise State for the network’s “Big Noon Saturday” window on Sept. 19. That means a 10:00am MT kickoff on the signature blue turf. The move was contemplated as part of Fox’s new six-year media rights agreement with the Mountain West Conference. “We’re strongly considering that game for a unique 10am kickoff,” Fox Sports President Mark Silverman said today.
  
  
• Fox introduced “Big Noon Saturday” this season as its premier college football window, which led to discussions about a Pac-12 team playing in what would be a 9:00am PT kickoff. That might still happen, but now that Fox has the rights to all Boise State home football games, a 10:00am MT game appears more realistic next season.
  
  
• The Mountain West’s new agreements with incumbent CBS Sports and Fox, which takes over the package previously held by ESPN, will pay the conference $270M over six years. The $45M per year average is a 3x increase over what the MWC earned previously. Remaining MWC football and basketball games not picked up by CBS or Fox will be part of a third-tier package that the conference is currently marketing to streaming services. Wasserman consulted with the MWC on its media agreements, which John Ourand and I first reported on a month ago.

LSU, CLEMSON COMING PREPARED FOR CFP SOCIAL MEDIA

• LSU’s homefield advantage will extend beyond the CFP Championship on Monday night. The Tigers also will be utilizing their close proximity to New Orleans to provide extensive coverage on its website and social media channels. LSU Senior Associate AD/External Robert Munson described it as “all hands on deck,” saying that as many as 25 staffers and students will be capturing, editing and posting content through the weekend, from ancillary events and behind-the-scenes stories to the game itself. Munson said the social media team will produce a dozen or more videos on gameday alone, starting hours before kickoff.
  
  
• Athletic departments have invested heavily in social media content and production over the past five years, ranging from additional personnel to camera equipment and creative software. That evolution will be on full display this weekend when two of the best creative teams in the business from Clemson and LSU will be capturing and posting content from all of the CFP’s events. Clemson’s contingent, led by Associate AD/Creative Services Jonathan Gantt, won’t be nearly as large -- eight photographers, videographers and editors will be on the ground in NOLA. But Clemson, making its fourth title game in six years of the CFP, is well-prepared for the grind.
  
  
• Gantt, who has spearheaded Clemson’s coverage since 2013, said the evolution of these content teams is going well past the social posts that fans see. “Everybody gets the wrong idea and thinks we have a huge crowd of people who are solely focused on social media,” he said. “That's not the case.” Clemson’s content will feed the online store, posters, media guides, in-venue videoboards, interior designs (graphics that go on walls), sponsorship sales decks and much more. “The impact we make on digital is a significant value, but there are multiple destinations for the content in addition to social media.”
  
  
• LSU’s Munson: “What you're seeing is an evolution of the way that collegiate athletic programs are set up. There's kind of a traditional model that's existed for a very long time and then social media hit. All of your recruits are on social media and all of your fans are on social media, and the expectations for content changed. To adapt, we’re trying to be nimble, so that our content for Instagram is specific to our Instagram audiences. The content that we're producing for Twitter is specific for Twitter audiences.”
  
  

LSU Football's social team was on hand yesterday as Joe Burrow met with ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit

ALL TOGETHER NOW

• Learfield IMG College is consolidating several offices into one spot in Manhattan in a move designed to save money and bring staffers from different wholly-owned subsidiaries under one roof. About 60 employees have already begun moving into the 17th floor space on East 34th St. between Park Ave. and Madison Ave., which features three conference rooms and two outdoor spaces. Learfield IMG College has consolidated office space in Atlanta as well.
  
  
• Andrew Judelson, who oversees national sales, will have his staff in that office, along with employees from SME, Mogo Interactive and the St. John’s multimedia rights property. Employees from each of those companies previously worked in separate offices, some of which were temporary. “Having everyone together like this gives us a home,” Judelson said. “All of the other stick-and-ball sports have offices like this, so from that standpoint, it’s a reflection of who we’re up against. And we’re not paying three separate landlords.”
  
  
• Learfield IMG College’s new digs cover 10,000 square feet, according to the Commercial Observer in New York. 
  

SPEED READS

• Breaking late this afternoon: Dyehard Fan Supply has named Scott Killian as its new CEO, replacing Rex Hough, who ran the company since it essentially started from scratch in 2018. Hough will shift onto Ben Sutton’s leadership team at holding company Teall Capital. Killian previously was Senior VP/Private Label for Follett, a Fortune 200 company that operates more than 1,200 college and university bookstores.
  
  
• ESPN's Chris Fowler has adjusted to life after "College GameDay," but he told Kevin Negandhi that watching the first show with a new host in 2015 "was an out-of-body experience." Fowler: "It’s changed over time. Very emotional at first." As for what he thinks of the current "GameDay" setup, the only thing he'd change might be the length. Fowler: "Three hours is a damn long show. I don’t know anybody who wants or needs a three-hour pregame show. … The years that I did it."
  
  
• A 5-7 record in 2019 hasn't deterred Nebraska football fans from booking trips to Dublin in 2021. Anthony Travel CEO John Anthony told the Lincoln Journal Star that travel packages are selling "extremely well" for the Cornhuskers' matchup with Illinois at Aviva Stadium to start the 2021 season. Anthony: "Our package sales record for any game in Ireland is for this year's game between Notre Dame and Navy coming up this August. But at this point, compared to the same point 12 months ago, the Nebraska-Illinois game is about 10% ahead of that one."
  
  
• BBVA USA signed a new three-year marketing agreement with Alabama athletics, which is represented by Learfield IMG College. The bank’s sponsorship runs through 2023 and extends a deal that has run the last eight years. The Alabama-based bank previously title sponsored the Birmingham Bowl from 2011-2014.
  
  
• My office neighbor Austin Karp tells me college sports -- a combo of football and basketball -- accounted for 8 of the top 100 telecasts on all of TV in 2019. That's even with 2018, but only because the CFP was able to double dip in 2018 with four semifinal games instead of two. One sign to me that college football is gaining in popularity: LSU-Alabama cracked the top 100 in 2019. A CFP matchup on that list is commonplace, but a regular-season game on there is something new.
  
  
• Conference USA has a scheduling issue on its hands for its baseball tournament in May. Per the Biloxi Sun Herald, MGM Park, which has hosted the tournament the past three years, is double-booked on May 20, the opening day of the tournament. Overtime Sports, which organizes the event for C-USA, is being asked by MiLB's Biloxi Shuckers to pony up $27,500 to pay for a doubleheader the night before the tournament starts in order to free up the ballpark. 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

• An SBJ report cautioned that colleges had begun to out-build their ticket supply, meaning the arms race to construct bigger college football stadiums was having a negative impact on attendance. That was my story eight years ago this week and it showed that average FBS attendance for the 2011 season had declined to 45,523, the lowest number since 2004. The narrative around declining attendance hasn’t changed much.

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

My college football friends are upset that the CFP Championship wasn’t played last night when it should have been. Three NFL Sundays will have passed from the CFP semifinals on Dec. 28 to the finals on Monday night. But I keep thinking about what CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock says whenever I complain: “People are still watching.”

Here is what's cooking on campus:

CFP IMPACT SPREADS ACROSS CLEMSON’S CAMPUS

• Clemson knows its way around the CFP Championship Game. This Monday will mark the fourth time in six years that the Tigers have played for the title. Clemson Deputy AD Graham Neff has been with the school for all of them, so I talked to him today about the benefits of such high-profile exposure -- not just for athletics -- but for all of campus and how it has been the impetus to drive athletic donations from $14 million to $40 million over the past six years.
  
  
  • On the impact across the university: “Our leadership team, our deans, they’re really engaged and active over the CFP weekend. A lot of our colleges purchase suites and manage suites, like the College of Engineering. All of our deans, all of our president's cabinet, leadership team, is invited.”
    
    
  • On using the CFP to reward longtime donors vs. cultivating new ones: "What's changed is how the championship game has become a real big activation point for a lot of our alumni or donors that had been absent or just had not been engaged. So, in the first couple of years, there was a lot of, ‘Hey, this is my first time seeing the Tigers play since the '90s.’ That’s been really cool. We certainly continue to do that now, but there's probably less of those folks as compared to maybe the first couple of years.”
    
    
  • On success stories: “At our first national championship game in Phoenix in 2015, there was a donor we just had not connected with. He had lived in other regions of the country. We had him in a suite and began building that relationship. Four years later, he's one of our biggest donors to athletics and to campus. There are absolutely success stories that we're able to share based on some of those initial football successes. … Now our athletic academic building is named after the family. Football was the flash point for that re-engagement.”
    
    
  • On the longer-than-usual wait between this season's semifinals and championship: “It’s funny. We were wrapping up a meeting (Monday) and we were like, ‘In years past, we would have been playing today.’ Having this extra week has been really nice as far as logistics, but something will still pop up. There'll be some moving parts -- donor travel, changes in staffing, somebody in a suite can’t make it.”
    
    
  • On football influencing fundraising: “A phrase we use a lot is that football gives great buoyancy to those fundraising efforts throughout campus, certainly within athletics. That word -- buoyancy -- is something that we think about with football.”
    
    
  • On Clemson’s social-media team of 10+ that will work the game: “That’s one of the areas where the CFP has really grown. The first few years, we had a hard time getting credentials for video because they really didn’t distinguish between the coaches’ video as opposed to our creative services video. Now, there’s a lot more access for both of those functions.”

MULTIPLE BRANDS GET EXPOSURE AROUND TUA PRESS CONFERENCE

• Tua Tagovailoa’s heavily publicized press conference yesterday was an exposure bonanza for some of Alabama’s most-prolific sponsors. At the dais, a bottle of Coca-Cola and a bottle of Dasani water (a Coke brand) dominated the screen. Mercedes-Benz had some more subtle branding, with its logo on the microphone flag. Behind the dais was a digital backdrop with Alabama’s logo and rotating sponsors AT&T, Renasant Bank and Alfa Insurance. That’s six commercial brands in one screen as a student-athlete announced that he was turning pro.
  
  
• While the positioning in front of and behind Tagovailoa appeared opportunistic -- given that he was the national sports news of the day -- those brands have been there all season for Nick Saban’s weekly press conferences. The sponsors bought those positions at the press conference before the season as part of larger sponsorship and advertising buys with Learfield IMG College, the multimedia rights holder for the Crimson Tide. Another Learfield IMG College connection: The digital board that provides the rotating backdrop is provided by ANC, whose parent company is Learfield IMG College. Alabama basketball will have the same press conference setup.
  
  
• Meanwhile, Tagovailoa becomes the latest major football QB client in agent Leigh Steinberg's comeback, following his representation of recent first rounders Patrick Mahomes (2017) and Paxton Lynch (2016). MELT CEO Vince Thompson, appearing on the Paul Finebaum show, said, "If you look at how Mahomes is being marketed in the NFL, that’s the game plan that they’re going to follow with Tua. ... He’s from Hawaii, he’s playing the ukulele in bed right after his surgery, he throws this walk-off homerun against Georgia. He’s in the style of how the NFL wants to market to different demographics than maybe they did in the past." SBJ's Liz Mullen last year went inside Steinberg's recruitment of Mahomes, which included detailed plans to establish scholarships at both the QB's high school and university.
  
  

MORE PREDICTIONS FOR 2020

• SBJ College rang in the new year with predictions for 2020. I asked readers for their prognostications and here are two of the most interesting that came back.

• MELT CEO Vince Thompson:
  • Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence, who is not eligible for the NFL Draft until 2021, will decide to sit out the 2020 season in order to protect his draft status as a top pick.
    
    
• Oak View Group Coordinator for Global Partnerships Justin Bergman:
  • More colleges will dive into marketing partnerships with casinos and sports gambling entities (beyond just daily fantasy), especially in states where it is already legal. Another emerging category to watch: CBD, which will lose the negative connotation and become a "sponsorship category."

SPEED READS

• I didn’t think we’d ever see the day that Learfield IMG College would be locked out of the national championship game, given the merger that gave the company multimedia rights to more than 200 schools. Clemson’s rights are represented by JMI Sports, while LSU is with Outfront Media. Learfield IMG College isn’t without business this weekend, however. The company’s licensing arm, CLC, owns the trademark rights to the CFP, as well as both schools.

• Nothing like an NFL lead-in to boost viewership. Fox Sports on Sunday drew 2.3 million viewers for Xavier's 75-67 win over St. John's, making it the net's most-watched college hoops game on record. The 4:30pm ET tip followed the Vikings' upset of the Saints as part of NFL Wild Card weekend.
  
  
• The Washington Post's Robert Klemko cites a coaching agent who believes there will be a "small exodus of black assistants" from the NFL to college after Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy missed out on a couple of openings. Last week, a study conducted by Arizona State and UCF concluded African-Americans and other minority coaches "don't have the same opportunities" as Caucasians to "become head coaches in the NFL or get rehired after leaving a head coaching position." NFL Net’s Jim Trotter, appearing on Sportsnet radio, said, “Collegiate coaches are looking at what’s happening in the NFL. … [Clemson co-offensive coordinator] Tony Elliott was asked to interview for the Carolina job. He declined. … He knew he wasn’t going to get that job.” 
  
  
• The Intercollegiate obtained formal interpretation requests from 91 different D-I programs seeking clarity from the NCAA about possibly violating rules. Among the highlights: Hawaii asked if a luau is "considered a meal or entertainment" and Utah State requested to have a sponsored “bean night” promotion as an homage to sophomore forward Justin Bean. All of the requests can be found here.
  
  
• Oregon women's basketball coach Kelly Graves and his squad will travel across the country on Feb. 3 for a matchup with UConn -- right in the middle of Pac-12 play. Why then? Graves told the Oregonian's John Canzano: "ESPN wanted us to do it. But it’s important. We’re two of the best programs in the country, have been for a while. … I don’t like where they placed it, quite frankly. That’s not ideal. But it’s going to be a showcase event nationally."

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

Since we last published the newsletter on Dec. 19, CBS pulled out of SEC TV negotiations, Endeavor closed on its acquisition of On Location Experiences and a Congressional committee made plans to examine the NCAA. So much for a relaxing holiday.

Here is what's cooking on campus:

WHAT TO EXPECT FOR THE COMING YEAR

• In the spirit of my colleague John Ourand’s popular media predictions, here are my top five predictions for college athletics in 2020:
  
  
• Lame-duck CBS, whose current deal for SEC football goes through the 2023 season, will carry that package of games one more season before selling off the last three seasons of its deal to ESPN/ABC. The Disney networks will finalize its deal for the SEC’s marquee package of 15 football games this month. Considering that Fox and NBC were willing to pay close to $400 million annually, ESPN/ABC’s price will be breathtaking.
  
  
• Mark Emmert will leave his role atop the NCAA to take a university president job, returning to his roots in campus administration after a decade at the governing body. Emmert will be replaced by Robert Morris Univ. President Chris Howard, a Rhodes Scholar and a member of the CFP selection committee. The change in leadership, however, will not lead to a change in the NCAA’s stance against paying athletes.
  
  
• Two of the biggest brands in college athletics -- Ohio State and Texas -- will roll out rich new multimedia rights contracts with Learfield IMG College, each exercising a different strategy. The Buckeyes will go from a guaranteed revenue deal to an 80/20 revenue share, while the Longhorns will exit their revenue-share model for a healthy guarantee. They’ll both make close to $25 million a year from those media and marketing rights, not including Texas’ deal with ESPN for the Longhorn Network.
  
  
• The Big South Conference, buoyed by its addition of Hampton in 2017, will add another HBCU this year -- football powerhouse North Carolina A&T. The Aggies will give the Big South its ninth football member and 12th basketball member, while further enhancing the mid-major league’s progressive reputation.
  
  
• Multiple companies will sprout up to represent college athletes for their name, image and likeness. A chaotic rush to market will create a fragmented and cumbersome landscape, forcing brands to shop around, like the early days of college sponsorships.
  
  
• BONUS ROUND:
  
  
  • UCLA will hire Utah’s Mark Harlan as its next AD
  • In a year of unparalleled parity, a men's basketball non-blueblood -- like Dayton or Gonzaga or San Diego State -- will win the NCAA Tournament
  • Fox will sell its multimedia rights business to JMI Sports
    
    
• What’s your prediction for 2020? Email me at msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com

SCHOOLS WANT OUT OF BOWL TICKET REQUIREMENTS

• College football teams are getting out of the bowl ticketing business. For years, bowls have required participating teams to buy a certain number of tickets -- typically 8,000 to 10,000 tickets per school -- as part of the arrangement between the events and the conferences. But some leagues, the SEC among them, have begun pushing back against those required purchases.
  
  
• When Kentucky played in the Belk Bowl this week, part of the agreement called for the Wildcats to buy 8,000 tickets for the game in Charlotte. UK sold about 4,000 and the conference paid for the unsold 4,000. The leftovers were returned to the bowl game, school officials said. It’s a convoluted system that has outlived its usefulness because so many fans are now accustomed to finding bargains on the secondary market.
  
  
• What’s going to happen, starting next season, is that SEC schools will pay for an allotment of tickets to cover the main travel party to the bowl -- say, 1,500 to 2,000 tickets. The participating schools and conferences will direct the general fanbase to buy tickets from the bowl’s website. The schools will no longer sell tickets or worry about prioritizing seat location based on donations. It’ll be far simpler.
  
  
• Minimum ticket allotments will not affect bowls in the CFP like the Sugar Bowl, but they will come into play for the next tier of games with SEC tie-ins, such as the Citrus Bowl. The conference has not said yet how the new ticket minimums will be determined, but schools are elated at the prospect of getting out of the bowl ticketing business.
  

ARE WE FEELING A CFP EFFECT ON BIG BOWL ATTENDANCE?

• There’s an ongoing argument that the 6-year-old CFP format is making other bowl games less important and less attractive because all of the nation’s attention is on the four teams in the playoff. It certainly feels like there’s an impact on attendance for some New Year’s Six games, and some alarming numbers back that up.

• The Rose Bowl remained above 90,000 fans (91,136) for Oregon-Wisconsin, but that’s the lowest attendance figure for the game since 2003. In New Orleans, only 55,211 came out to see Georgia-Baylor, which is the Sugar Bowl’s third-lowest figure since 1939. In Dallas, 54,828 fans attended the Cotton Bowl for Penn State and Memphis -- that game’s lowest figure since 1948. On the flip side, a CFP semifinal between LSU and Oklahoma did help the Peach Bowl to a record crowd -- for both the event and Mercedes-Benz Stadium (78,347).

SPEED READS

• A Frosted Flakes bath after beating Florida State in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, an HBO Sports special and a second straight winning season add up to a pretty prosperous fall for Herm Edwards and Arizona State.
  
  
• Caesars Sportsbook's Jeff Davis told ESPN that more money was bet on Ohio State-Clemson than has been bet on any NFL game this season. Davis estimated that the CFP semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl "attracted roughly 15% more than the most heavily bet NFL game."
  
  
• Viewership for regular-season college hoops across Fox and FS1 is down a tick as we start 2020, but don't blame Big East schools. The conference has put the college hoops world on notice this winter with a combined 101-25 record against non-conference opponents. Usual suspects like Villanova and Butler are pulling their weight, but it's schools like DePaul, St. John's, Creighton and Georgetown (predicted bottom-dwellers in preseason polls) who have given the conference a boost. CBS Sports' Gary Parrish said on his latest podcast, "You can make a reasonable argument that top to bottom the Big East is maybe the best in the country this season. I’m not sure they have a bad team."
  
  
• Nevada has struggled with declining season-ticket sales in recent years, and AD Doug Knuth responded to a tweet over the holiday asking him how he can entice fans back to Mackay Stadium. Among his ideas? Scheduling non-televised games to meet the preferred kickoff times that fans request (when possible,) improving post-game traffic flow and enhancing food/beverage options. Knuth: "Our challenge is to make the game-day experience more entertaining."
  

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

I’ve tried to keep brevity in mind with these newsletters, but because this is the last SBJ College of 2019, there’s a lot to cover. So, excuse the heft of the newsletter tonight. Brevity will return in 2020.

Here is what's cooking on campus:

DELANY’S LEGACY DEEPLY ROOTED IN MEDIA

• There are two things about retiring Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany that I especially admire. One, he made himself into a media expert and innovator without ever having worked in TV before. Two, he took over a conference dominated by the coaches -- think Bobby Knight and Bo Schembechler -- and guided the Big Ten into a new and more united era. Those are two incredible legacies.
  
  
• Delany’s close friend, Jon Barrett, has an easy explanation for how the commissioner developed into a crafty media trendsetter. He’s got that coveted combination of intelligence and natural curiosity, Barrett said, and perhaps most of all, he’s not afraid to take a chance. That was the case when Big Ten Network launched in 2007 and three decades earlier when, as a 31-year-old commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference, he created Friday late-night basketball as a way to get his mid-major league time on a new network -- ESPN. Barrett: “He absorbs everything. We send each other articles almost every day. Even now, at age 71, he’s incredibly curious.”
  
  
• When the Big Ten hired Delany in 1989, some big-time coaches in the conference carried more power and influence than even the commissioner. Barrett has an interesting way of describing the Big Ten back then: “It was a conference basically managed by its presence. … Jim came in and he was young -- some would have said untested. He was stepping into the big-kid role. He had to navigate all of that. It made for a huge cultural change. People outside the conference don't understand that.”
  
  
• I have no doubt Delany, who is retiring with his wife, Kitty, to Nashville, will remain active in college sports and out of it. I’ll leave you with one final, compelling thought from Barrett, who earned Delany’s friendship and trust when they were in school at North Carolina. All of those qualities he described about Delany still apply, which is why Barrett believes “there's still another chapter to be written.”
  
  
• We chatted with Delany last week at the Learfield IMG College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum. Check out the video below for the full interview.

OPENDORSE CEO: FULL FOCUS ON MAXIMIZING NIL RIGHTS

• Opendorse was created seven years ago to help college athletes maximize their value -- long before they had access to their name, image and likeness. Now that players might soon be able to monetize their NIL rights in college, Opendorse CEO & co-founder Blake Lawrence envisions a new era of athlete marketing. “It's a billion dollar-plus market that’s going to open up and there's going to be a lot of changes to the entire infrastructure,” Lawrence told me earlier this month. He was adamant that the NIL issue will transform the collegiate marketplace and that his company is positioned to capitalize. “This is where every bit of my being will be focused for the next 13 months,” Lawrence said.
  
  
• Opendorse, which works to help build brands on social media, provides its team, league and athlete clients with ready-made social posts that drive traffic and help build a following. For college players who couldn’t monetize their NIL rights on social, they had to hope that their following from college traveled with them to the pros. But if athletes are able to include sponsor branding or videos on their tweets, that opens up multitudes of new opportunities for college athletes and sponsors. “Since day one, we've been building a model that helps athletes leverage social media, but when we started working in college sports, we turned off the monetization engine,” Lawrence said. “Now we're in a position to turn it back on.”
  
  
• I’ve spoken to Lawrence, a former football player at Nebraska, several times this year and he’s consistently been reluctant to weigh in on NIL. That changed the last time we talked because there’s such momentum behind college athletes controlling their own rights. Here are a few more nuggets from my conversation with him:
  
  
  • The college athlete marketing model will follow the pro model to an extent, but Lawrence doesn’t expect college athletes to have nearly as many handlers. “There are 1,200 sports agents, talent agents and sports marketing reps that use Opendorse to help manage the social media presence of their pro athlete clients. … I do not believe that the agent and marketing rep community will exist in college sports on day one.”
    
    
  • On gauging an athlete’s value: “The best way is through tangible metrics tied to their social digital presence. The numbers tell you that when this athlete talks, people listen, they engage, they watch videos, they consume content differently."
    
    
  • Social media is preferable for college athletes compared to other forms of endorsements, Lawrence said. Why? It’s completely transparent. “A post on social media is out there for everyone to see and it’s trackable,” Lawrence said. “And if we’re talking about aligning the athletes with the student body, allowing them to start a YouTube page makes them look a lot more like their fellow students.”

   

THE PATH TO THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR CHAIR

• The evolving AD profession has changed significantly since the start of this decade. No one has covered that evolution more closely than SBJ Research Director David Broughton. Here’s what he came up with when he looked at how the path to the 345 D-I AD chairs has changed:
  
  
  • 73 D-I ADs are still in charge of the same department as when the decade began. Four of them recently announced that they will retire at the end of this school year, creating openings at UCLA, Indiana, Tennessee State and Harvard.
    
    
  • 79% of those ADs earned a postgraduate degree, including three each from Ohio Univ. and UMass.
    
    
  • 272 ADs began their present job after Dec. 31, 2009. The top undergrad spots for those ADs? Notre Dame and Wake Forest with six (6) ADs each, following by five (5) from Michigan and North Carolina. Illinois, Kansas State and N.C. State have each seen four (4) alums take AD roles in that time.
    
    
  • 76% of them earned a postgraduate degree, the most coming from Ohio Univ. (18).
    
    
  • Most ADs in 2009 earned an undergraduate degree in physical education/kinesiology (23%), business/marketing (22%), political science (8%), communications (7%) or sport management/administration (5%).
    
    
  • The ADs in 2019 and their undergrad degrees: business/marketing (19%); PE/kinesiology (13%); political science (10%); communications and sport management/administration (7% each).
    
    
  • The top postgraduate degree for ADs in 2009 was sport management/administration (32%). It’s the same in 2019 at 30%. Those with a law degree increased from 7% to 11%.

SPEED READS

• I had dinner with former ADs Mike Thomas and Jeff Hathaway last night and it was fun to see how excited they are to be helping Bill Carr grow his college consulting business. Carr, the former Florida AD, was one of the first into the consulting and search business close to 30 years ago. Bringing on vets like Thomas and Hathaway provide an injection of new energy and even broader experience against what is becoming a highly competitive space with the likes of Todd Turner, Jeff Schemmel and others.
  
  
• Dabo Swinney once again landed a top recruiting class yesterday, and Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel said Clemson's program has been “way ahead of the curve on social media in the recruiting department.” Thamel: “They used the energy of their students, workers and young people and they’ve become an incubator ... That’s really become a tens-of-millions-of-dollars industry.” Arkansas Assistant AD Cody Vincent told SI, "You have to have some type of presence on social media and someone that’s able to visually get your brand out there. It’s eye-catching." Three years ago, I wrote about how Clemson's creative team under Jonathan Gantt was already becoming the digital group everyone was talking about.
  
  
• AL.com's Michael Casagrande has a piece that's worth a click on how upgrades to Bryant-Denny Stadium are pricing out many longtime Alabama football fans. Casagrande wrote, "For the most part, the displaced season ticket holders who spoke with AL.com weren’t angry as much as they were just sad."
  
  
• LSU games were popular in bars, restaurants and other non-home settings this season. According to Tunity Analytics, which measures out-of-home viewer impressions, Tigers games accounted for three of the top five games this season. Leading the way was LSU-Alabama on Nov. 9, which Tunity says had 5.95 million out-of-home viewers. LSU-Georgia was No. 3 (4.49 million) and LSU-Texas was No. 5 (3.04 million). Coming in at No. 2 overall was Ohio State-Michigan (4.62 million), while Miami-Florida was No. 4 (3.7 million).
  
  
• SBJ ran its end-of-year awards this week in the final print edition of 2019. Among the winners where college was involved were "best hire" going to the Big Ten for bringing on soon-to-be Commissioner Kevin Warren and "biggest turning point" going to California for its new NIL law.
  
  
• That brings SBJ College to a close for 2019. We started this venture in March as a more immediate way for us to connect with you, and your response kept us energized all year. Happy holidays, and keep the story ideas and feedback coming in 2020.
  

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

It was a busy day for NCAA President Mark Emmert on the name, image and likeness front. He made two appearances to talk NIL today in D.C., which is becoming his second home.

Here is what's cooking on campus:

IS NCAA STILL IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT ON NIL?

• The NCAA appears to be slowly losing its grip on college athletics and never was it more evident than today. Everyone from Congress to the Knight Commission to Congresswoman Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) is looking into or proposing new collegiate models that will reform the current system and likely introduce some form of athlete compensation. With every step taken by these entities into the college space, the NCAA, which says it has a control on the narrative, seemingly becomes a little less critical to the process.
  
  
• NCAA President Mark Emmert met this morning with Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who are heading up a bipartisan working group to study name, image and likeness. Murphy, an outspoken NCAA critic, made it clear that revenue generated by NIL is just one way to look at athlete compensation. He’d like to consider some broader compensation models as well that extend beyond NIL.
  
  
• During a panel discussion at the Aspen Institute this afternoon, panelist Donna Lopiano said that Shalala, the former Univ. of Miami president, will propose a bill that creates a two-year advisory committee to reform college athletics and review the NCAA’s “failure to govern.” Shalala feuded with the NCAA during its investigation into Hurricanes’ athletics in 2013.
  
  
• A day earlier, an NCAA watchdog group, the Knight Commission, said it will propose a new college sports structure better suited for this “highly commercialized environment.” Arne Duncan, the former U.S. Secretary of Education who co-chairs the Knight Commission, said in a letter to Emmert that he’d favor a model that enables high-revenue schools to operate under a different system. Duncan talked about an alternative model last week at our Learfield IMG College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum.

WINNERS/LOSERS IN NEW MOUNTAIN WEST MEDIA DEAL

• With the Mountain West Conference shifting a package from ESPN to Fox Sports, I reached out to some industry experts to determine the winners and losers from this deal. Here’s what came back:
  
  
• A clear winner is MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson, who deftly managed a process that balanced revenue with more control over kickoff times and still managed to create competition between ESPN and Fox. All of the details haven’t emerged yet, but by the time the contract gets signed, the MWC can expect to triple its revenue. That doesn’t include the streaming portion of the league’s media deals, which is expected to deliver even more revenue.
  
  
• Fox, another winner, is now in business with five major conferences -- the Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, MWC and Pac-12. That’s a strong portfolio that hits all of the time zones and looks significantly different than it did just five years ago.
  
  
• The Pac-12 was not involved, but several sources wondered if the conference could be a loser even though it is the bigger and more valuable league. Consider the possibility that Fox cut this deal as replacement programming if its upcoming negotiations with the Pac-12 don’t go as planned. The Pac-12’s marquee brands, like USC and UCLA, are down, and the conference has produced just two teams (Oregon, Washington) in the CFP’s six years. Fox could get the MWC for pennies on the dollar compared to the Pac-12 and still cover the Mountain and Pacific time zones, which provide live content for the late-night windows. Fox would lose half of the Pac-12 package, but save a lot of money.
        

SPEED READS

• SBJ's Austin Karp noted the Heisman Trophy ceremony on Saturday night drew 2.54 million viewers, which is likely ESPN's second-lowest figure since it started airing the event in 1994. LSU QB Joe Burrow was a runaway winner this year. That was the same scenario in 2017, when ESPN had its low mark of 2.18 million viewers for Baker Mayfield's Heisman win. The high mark over the last decade remains 2012, when Johnny Manziel's win drew 4.9 million viewers (first freshman to ever win).
  
  
• Memphis fans are jazzed about playing in the school’s biggest bowl game since the 1956 Burley Bowl. Ticketmaster told SBJ's David Broughton today that 30% of the tickets sold for the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic -- where the Tigers will play Penn State -- have gone to a Tennessee address. That’s more than double the orders from Pennsylvania (14%) and just ahead of Texas (27%). Meanwhile, two programs with huge alumni bases are certainly not living up to their reputations for traveling well. For Alabama-Michigan in the VRBO Citrus Bowl, 55% of the tickets sold have originated from a Florida-based address. Just 9% have come from the Wolverine State and 7% from the Yellowhammer State.
  
  
• Navy's blowout of Army on Saturday delivered 7.7 million viewers for CBS, marking the game's lowest audience since 2015. Last year's game drew 8.1 million. But the results and TV audience for the game have been overshadowed by a controversy surrounding some Army cadets, who some say flashed white power signs during ESPN's "College GameDay." The incident was picked up by major national news outlets like ABC's "Good Morning America," NBC's Today" and "CBS Evening News."
  
  
• Reports say Cincinnati is going to name John Cunningham AD tomorrow. He'll replace Mike Bohn, who left for USC last month. Cunningham is currently a deputy AD at Minnesota and has had stints at Syracuse, TCU, Maryland and Boise State. Looking across FBS, this hire would leave only Indiana and UCLA as schools looking fill their AD positions, with Fred Glass and Dan Guerrero set to retire soon. 
  
  
• Fox Sports' Tim Brando was on Paul Finebaum's program yesterday, and he doesn't seem to be a fan of the current four-team CFP setup. "The bowl games and the New Year's Six that are left, I mean, you talk about ruining it. Who cares about watching the Orange Bowl or the Sugar Bowl?"

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

I’m in New York this week for SBJ’s annual Learfield IMG College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, which kicks off tomorrow morning. With seven commissioners, 18 ADs and other major industry stakeholders taking the stage, I anticipate some compelling headlines.

With the conference in full swing in the coming days, the SBJ College newsletter will take a break on Thursday. Be on the lookout for our SBJ All-Access newsletters from the event. The college newsletter will back next Tuesday as we head toward bowl season.

NAME/IMAGE/LIKENESS REMAINS A HOT TOPIC

• All of my conversations in New York this week are dominated by two things: Appalachian State’s departed football coach and the issue of name, image and likeness (NIL) in the college space. When the Learfield IMG College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum begins tomorrow morning, I expect NIL to be prevalent in just about every panel session. The three biggest topics I think we'll hear about the most:
  
  
• NIL
  • NCAA President Mark Emmert, the commissioners and ADs will opine on the matter. But I’m more interested in hearing what our panel of four athletes think about the ability to monetize their rights.
    
    
• Media
  • The Mountain West is in the home stretch of finalizing a new round of media rights, the SEC’s deal with CBS has taken on hot-button status and the Big Ten’s current contract with ESPN and Fox is up in 2022-23.
    
    
• Fan experience
  • Texas AD Chris Del Conte rewrote the playbook for creating unique fan events on game day. He takes the stage Thursday.
    
    

DINERS CLUB

• I don’t know what surprised me more -- that Ben Sutton invited Learfield IMG College's Greg Brown to his Teall Capital dinner last night or that Brown showed up. Brown and Sutton had been good friends and fierce business rivals for 25 years, but it hasn’t been the same since Sutton left IMG College nearly four years ago to go in a different direction with his investment fund. They haven’t been seen in the same circles nearly as often since then, so seeing them together at last night’s event made for a fun evening.
  
  
• The Teall Capital dinner, co-hosted by Bruin Sports Capital, drew a distinguished guest list from college sports media at Aureole on West 42nd Street in Manhattan. Sutton was joined at his table by Brown, CBS Sports Chair Sean McManus, ESPN Exec VP/Programming & Scheduling Burke Magnus, NBC Sports President of Programming Jon Miller and SBJ Publisher & Executive Editor Abe Madkour. But it was Sutton and Brown, who had Wake Forest President Nathan Hatch sitting between them, grabbing everyone’s attention.
  
  
• Last night also was when most of the big social activities happen during the week of the National Football Foundation’s annual gala. A black-tie dinner is tonight, followed by SBJ's conference tomorrow and Thursday. The ACC and Pac-12 also hosted functions at the Hilton Midtown last night, while JMI Sports held a dinner for clients at Del Frisco's in Midtown.
        

SPEED READS

• Texas AD Chris Del Conte this week hit the two-year mark in Austin. In fact, it was this week in 2017 that UT President Greg Fenves invited Del Conte to dinner and laid out his vision for the Longhorns. Del Conte told me about that dinner: “That was part of what inspired me. That meeting was quiet, it was clean, there wasn’t a bunch of speculation." In September, I wrote about how he has been the jolt of energy the Longhorns needed, transforming football game days with fan fests at Bevo Blvd. and Smokey’s Midway and booking top musical acts at Longhorn City Limits.
  
  
• Charlie Hussey’s promotion to deputy commissioner of the SEC comes as no surprise. Hussey, previously the conference’s COO and an SBJ "Forty Under 40" honoree in 2016, has essentially been filling the deputy role for the last few years. He has managed network relations with ESPN ever since SEC Network was formed and he’ll play a large part in determining the league’s media future.
  
  
• Duke Creative Director for Men's Basketball David Bradley knew the program had lightning in a bottle with Zion Williamson, and he made sure the Blue Devils made the most of his presence on social media. He told SBD's Joe Perez, "Off the court, he was as willing as anyone to get involved in what we were doing. He checked every box at a level I never thought was possible. There is never going to be another Zion. When that opportunity comes along, you want to be ready for it. It was shocking early on how much he moved the needle."
  
  
• The MLB Draft in June will move to Omaha and precede the College World Series, according to D1Baseball.com's Kendall Rogers. This has been discussed for years because of the awkward timing of the draft, when many top college players were still playing in the NCAA baseball tournament. With top college players now being able to attend, it could improve the visibility of the draft.
  
  
• Pac-12 schools could be kicking off at 9:00am PT as soon as the 2021 season, according to Fox Sports President Mark Silverman. While the conference is not likely to try the radical kickoff time in 2020, some schools have raised their hand for the following season. My colleague John Ourand talked to Silverman, who believes something can get done in the next 2-3 years. The Oregonian’s John Canzano says it won’t be the Ducks. “Oregon is not interested,” he wrote. “Athletic director Rob Mullens said earlier this season that he took the temperature with his coaching staff and fan base and a 9 a.m. kickoff is a no-go at Autzen Stadium.” He added: “Given that it’s not part of the current Fox contract, I can’t see why any Pac-12 university would sign on for this unless a seven-figure financial kicker was involved.”
  
  
• Boise State will bring back its baseball program in 2020, and when a new ballpark opens in 2021, the baseball field might be the same blue color as the school’s football field, coach Gary Van Tol said on the Baseball America podcast. “The biggest decision for me right now is what color is going to match with that for the infield dirt and mound and home plate,” he said.
  
  
• Hawaiian shirts, PS4 consoles, GoPro cameras, cowboy hats, watches, a fanny-pack (you read that right) and, of course, shopping sprees through suites packed with gifts for everyone on your holiday list: Per SBJ Research Director David Broughton, those are just a few of the goodies that bowl-bound football players will receive over the next few weeks from the committees that run the games, according to our 14th annual look at the postseason gift packages.

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

Next week’s Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in Manhattan will be my 14th straight year attending SBJ's annual event, and I can’t remember a time when there was more to debate.

GREG BROWN READY TO TACKLE NAME, IMAGE, LIKENESS

• Greg Brown is getting Learfield IMG College ready for a brave new name, image and likeness world -- one where school and college athlete marketing rights are sold side-by-side. That’s how Brown, the president & CEO of Learfield IMG College, sees the future of college marketing if athletes control their NIL rights. “They need to work together to be the most successful, so the use of school marks can be a part of what is included with the student-athlete representation,” Brown said. “There’s likely a place for that.”
  
  
• Brown and I talked about the NIL debate for the first time today. I told him that all eyes are watching Learfield IMG College to see how the biggest marketing force in college sports would react to a monumental shift in the collegiate model. He doesn’t see why athletes would go anywhere else. “We’ve got a 35-year head start on these types of commercial relationships,” Brown said. “I do think that there's going to be a path where we can be helpful to student athletes, whether that’s in group licensing with CLC or more broadly at the school level.”
  
  
• Learfield IMG College provides its 200+ college clients with an array of services, ranging from sponsorship sales to radio/TV ads and all kinds of content. That positions Brown and his company to be at the crux of NIL. With the agency engaged with more than 15,000 sponsors and advertisers across all of its college properties, “that would seem to be an incredible missed opportunity if student athletes don’t tap into that ready-made ecosystem.”
  
  
• While most of Brown’s conversations take place in an AD’s office, plenty more strategy sessions are exploring the marketing of college athletes inside the walls of the Learfield IMG College's HQ in Plano, Texas. ”I'm constantly having the conversation, but it's not just to our team huddled up in Plano every day, it’s me speaking to the practitioners,” he said. “We do have a group of people focused on it to develop our best thinking on what role we should play in all this. It's probably more how are we going to support the institutions.”

U.S. SENATORS LOOK TO STUDY NIL ISSUE

• Late this afternoon came word from Capitol Hill that a bipartisan working group has been assembled to study college athlete compensation and related topics. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) jointly announced the initiative, which will seek discussions with athletes, administrators and other experts in the college space. The Senate working group includes Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
  
  
• This working group could be the key to establishing a set of national legislation around NIL rights -- perhaps avoiding headaches and confusion that would come with a state-by-state approach. “Having 50 different state laws for compensating student athletes on their name, image, likeness would result in chaos and endless litigation,” Rubio said. “It is clear Congress must address this important issue.”
  
  
• While there is a long way to go on the issue, and probably many lawsuits to come, this step by the upper house of Congress seems to solidify that athletes will one day have access to their own rights. Why else would a working group be formed unless they plan on creating a structure for athlete compensation?
  
  
  

DOWN & DISTANCE

• SBJ's David Broughton reports the 20 teams competing in this weekend's 10 FBS conference championship games will travel a combined total of 8,600 miles and occupy approximately 2,100 hotel room nights. Utah will travel approximately 1,530 miles roundtrip to play Oregon in Santa Clara,, the most of any of the 12 schools travelling to a neutral-site game (P5 and MAC). The Utes booked 134 hotel rooms for one night -- the Pac-12 covers 132 room nights for official team travel party -- and will head home after the game. Georgia will head around an hour or so south to Atlanta for the SEC title game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Download the FBS title game travel

• Tomorrow is the last Pac-12 title game at Levi's Stadium before a move to Las Vegas next year, and the Portland Oregonian's John Canzano believes that if ABC "pulls back and gives its audience a wide shot of the stadium, what you’ll see are tens of thousands of empty seats." The 68,500-seat venue, which has drawn over 50,000 fans only once since getting the game in 2014, is "expected to be about half filled." Canzano: "The hope is that the allure of The Strip and a new NFL stadium will help sell tickets." 

SPEED READS

• The NFLPA's Ahmad Nassar, who will lead the OneTeam joint venture with the MLBPA and RedBird Capital, was a panelist at our Dealmakers in Sports conference yesterday and talked about how the movement around NIL was a big impetus for starting the new venture: "You've seen big unions like the NBPA take back their rights from the NBA. You've seen the U.S. Women's National Team take back their marketing rights from U.S. Soccer. ... If we had tried to do this 5-10 years ago, it wouldn't have worked. So this really is the perfect time for it."
  
  
• LSU may have to give some credit to MIT for its return to the top of the football food chain this season. The Wall Street Journal's Laine Higgins writes the Tigers' success in 2019 may be "partly owed to a technological advance in the weight room arms race that has gripped college football in recent years." The school partnered with Perch, an "unknown fitness startup founded by a trio of 20-somethings" from Cambridge, Mass., who collect data in the area of “velocity-based training."
  
  
• USF is a little over halfway to its $40 million funding goal for a new football center with $21 million pledged, but with the recent dismissal of coach Charlie Strong, progress is "expected to slow" on the project. AD Michael Kelly also said that the next coach "will be expected to engage more with donors and the alumni community."
  
  
• It's that time of year again. CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock appeared on Paul Finebaum's program to give his annual defense against the perception that TV networks push for the usual suspects: "TV wouldn’t want to be a part of it. And even if they did, we would say ‘No, you don’t have anything to do with this. Get out of here.’” 
  
  
• USA Today's Dan Wolken writes under the header, "Time Is Right For An SEC Team To Hop On The Lane Kiffin Train." That comes as sources put Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek in Boca Raton this past weekend looking to woo Kiffin away from FAU. SI's Pat Forde had fun with the speculation on the Yahoo College Football podcast: “The only thing that we would be missing with Lane Kiffin back in the SEC is the late Mike Slive. … He hated Lane Kiffin. I mean he couldn’t stand Kiffin. Slive was all about decorum and collegiality. …. And Greg Sankey didn’t fall far from the Mike Slive tree."

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

I keep expecting Larry Culpepper to show up in Dr Pepper’s “Fansville” to take credit for the State-Tech rivalry.

FUTURE OF CONFERENCE CHAMP GAMES SECURE, EXPERTS SAY

• College football’s championship weekend has grown from one conference playing a title game -- the SEC in 1992 -- to all 10 FBS leagues determining a champion on the field. These games also represent a significant revenue driver, with media rights annually fetching $20 million to $30 million in the Power 5. But do they still serve a competitive purpose or do they hurt a conference’s ability to get a regular-season champ in the playoff? I reached out to three industry experts today -- one from media, one from marketing and a former AD -- to see what they think about the future of champ games.
  
  
• Wasserman's Dean Jordan, who serves as a media consultant for the ACC and CFP:
  
  
  • "It’s hard to imagine champ games going away. ... If future CFP leadership changes course and decides to expand the playoff, additional revenue will be split in some format among the members, but 100% of champ game revenue stays with the individual leagues. The value of conference championship games may even increase in an expanded playoff. Additionally, champ games are the largest sponsorship marketing assets and merchandising opportunities for most conferences, and they create one of the few real fan engagement opportunities at the conference level."
    
    

• MELT Chair & CEO Vince Thompson, whose marketing clients include Coca-Cola and Aflac:
  
  
  • "Conference championships were considered groundbreaking in 1992. But with the four-team playoff, conference championships have outlived their usefulness. In fact, it’s almost punitive to some teams in the selection process. ... If they survive long-term, it will be based on expanding the playoffs to eight teams, with the winners of all five conference championships gaining automatic berths."
    
    
• Barnes & Thornburg LLP Sports Advisor Steve Pederson, a former AD at Nebraska and Pitt:
  
  
  • "Large conferences (where every team doesn’t play every other team) make a championship game an essential competitive component. Long before the CFP, the positives and negatives of conference championship games have been debated. However, that debate is what makes them so intriguing and relevant. In the current format, they remain an important access point to the playoff. Millions will be watching this weekend, which is a sign of their continuing importance."

TAILGATE GUYS' BANDWIDTH ON DISPLAY AT IRON BOWL 

• The Tailgate Guys business was founded a decade ago at Auburn and it’s no coincidence that the gameday company’s biggest revenue-generating days are on the Plains. Parker Duffey, one of the co-founders, shared some numbers with me from their Iron Bowl sales on Saturday. Tailgate Guys:
  
  
  • Hosted 485 tailgate groups
  • Set up 76,000 square feet of tents
  • Ran nearly 8 miles of cable for tailgate packages that included TVs
  • Distributed 22,000 pounds of ice
  • Picked up 47,000 gallons of trash
    
    
• The customizable tailgate company is still tallying its sales revenue from the day, but Duffey said it will be comparable to the Georgia-Auburn game last month. Duffey said that game “broke every record we had.” Odd-numbered years, when Auburn has its two biggest rivals, Georgia and Alabama, at home, look promising for years to come.
  
  
  

NIL TO BE TOP OF ISSUE IN THE COMING YEAR

• The year 2020 promises to be full of legal fireworks on the name, image and likeness front, which is why SBJ dedicated nine pages to covering the most recent developments and what’s next. In all, 19 states have jumped into the NIL swimming pool with both feet. One, California, already has established that it’s illegal to make college athletes ineligible for monetizing their own rights. Six states have introduced similar bills that likely will be voted on in 2020 -- Michigan and Florida bills could go into effect this summer. Ten states have proposed NIL legislation that will become bills next year.
  
  
• Remember when Ohio State AD Gene Smith and others said they wouldn’t schedule teams in California earlier this year if the new law stayed on the books? What will administrators say if several more states adopt similar laws? The NCAA will sue, but this issue seems to be moving faster than anyone expected. Lots more to come in the new year.

SPEED READS

• Chris Petersen's decision to step down at Washington sent waves through the college football community yesterday. SI's Pat Forde wrote Petersen, 55, was "very slow to leave the improbable empire he built at Boise State, putting family and mid-major comfort ahead of naked ambition." The San Jose Mercury News' Jon Wilner: "Petersen’s legacy cannot be limited to his six seasons in Seattle. ... It’s the totality -- not only what he did for the Broncos and the Huskies but for the Mountain West and the Pac-12."
  
  
• Washington defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake, who will take over for Petersen after the Huskies' bowl game, becomes the fifth black head coach in the Pac-12. There are only 13 black FBS coaches currently, meaning the conference now accounts for over 38%, according to data from The Athletic's Florida State beat reporter Tashan Reed.
  
  
• USC may have a new school president and new AD, but the Trojans' dysfunction was again on display over the weekend as the university stayed silent in the face of conflicting Sports Illustrated reports concerning the future of its football coach. ESPN Radio L.A.'s Travis Rodgers: “I just can’t come up with a scenario where you would let this happen to Clay Helton and actually plan on keeping him. You’re doing him a terrible disservice -- you’re doing the program a terrible disservice -- by saying nothing." The L.A. Times' Arash Markazi wrote the Trojans “need to hire a new football coach." Markazi: "The question is whether it’s as clear to them as it is to a disgruntled fan base they’re still getting to know."
  
  
• Pat Hobbs recently hit his five-year anniversary as Rutgers AD, but the situation in New Jersey is far from stable. The tempest that was the program’s search for a new football coach finally landed back on the name that most fans and influential alumni wanted. But, as the Newark Star-Ledger's Steve Politi reported, it is "widely believed around Rutgers” that Greg Schiano didn’t want to work for Hobbs -- and "that was before the AD couldn’t lock down the deal after original negotiations were abruptly halted."

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

SBJ College will take Thanksgiving off on Thursday and return Dec. 3. Enjoy the turkey and football!

Here is what's cooking on campus:

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES FOR UCONN FOOTBALL SCHEDULING

• Soon-to-be independent UConn has a football schedule for the 2020 season, and it was easier than AD David Benedict expected. In fact, he discovered benefits to scheduling as an independent. The Huskies can set game times now and they can get a head start on lining up charter travel before other schools that must wait on their conference offices to finalize schedule dates, he told me earlier today.
  
  
• Three of UConn’s 2020 opponents -- UMass, Liberty and Army -- are also FBS independents. Benedict said other schools -- which he wouldn’t name -- have inquired about going independent. Benedict attended a meeting of independents and some conference members last summer to talk about making such a move. “They were looking at different options for the same reason that we did,” Benedict said. “This is becoming something that more and more people are thinking about.”
  
  
• Benedict also mentioned an independent scheduling alliance with the potential of bowl tie-ins for FBS schools without a conference. “If that can come about, I think there's going to be more people willing to make the kind of change we did.”
  
  
• A school admittedly would need a compelling reason to leave the security of a conference, like UConn did in returning to the Big East in non-football sports last June. But the resumption of rivalries in basketball and the proximity to other Big East members was enough for the Huskies. “To get back to a regional conference that makes sense from a travel perspective. ... It brings you back to having rivalries with regional folks that you used to play all the time."

SOCIAL MEDIA OUTFITS STAND TO BENEFIT FROM NIL CHANGES

• One of the questions I’m asked most often is which companies stand to benefit the most from any new name, image and likeness laws. Two immediately come to mind -- Blake Lawrence’s Opendorse and INFLCR, the business recently acquired by Teamworks. These agencies help athletes -- including some in college -- share personalized content on social media and, to an extent, build their brands.
  
  
• Matthew Kelly is a Charlotte sports and entertainment attorney who works with schools, coaches and ADs on their contracts. He sees social media as a prime space where college athletes could use their NIL rights to make money -- perhaps as much as six figures -- depending on their following. “It’s going to be a free-for-all to see who can monetize this space,” Kelly said.
  
  
• INFLCR and Opendorse have positioned themselves to be able to keep doing what they’re doing by supplying content to the athletes for their social feeds. The surge in revenue could come from sponsored posts or endorsing brands. “The professional model probably sheds some light on who could benefit,” Kelly said. “There’s already a market like that for social influencers and it’s only going to grow.”

COLLEGE FOOTBALL RIVALRY WEEK MEANS TROPHIES GALORE

• As my colleague Bret McCormick has reported, nothing goes together like a good rivalry and a crazy-looking trophy. That’s especially true this week as college football’s regular season wraps up with a slew of trophies at stake. Here are my superlatives for the upcoming long weekend of football.
  
  
  • Best trophy: The winner of UNLV-Nevada will take home the Fremont Cannon -- a replica of the one used by John C. Fremont during his 1843 exploration of what became Nevada.
  • Most-dangerous trophy: Minnesota and Wisconsin will scrap for Paul Bunyan’s axe, which has gone to the winner since 1948. The axe replaced the Slab of Bacon. No, really, that’s what it was called. It’s in the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
  • Lame award: Washington State and Washington annually vie for the Apple Cup trophy. It’s the most basic-looking trophy -- and there’s no apple.

The winner of UNLV-Nevada gets to personalize the Fremont Cannon each year

SPEED READS

• Utah AD Mark Harlan on his latest podcast shed light on Mitt Romney’s recent roundtable with nearly a dozen college ADs about name, image and likeness compensation. Harlan: “None of us are interested in a pay-for-play option right now. … [Romney] wants to make sure that those that are in a socio-economic situation that is less than others are perhaps more thought of in our process. That’s really brought him to the issue. … He’ll remain a partner in this because I think where this might go is some type of federal legislation. We’re going to need a champion like him.”
  
  
• Former Alabama QB Greg McElroy has been sharing his football insights across ESPN’s platforms since 2014. SBJ’s Bret McCormick caught up with McElroy on a number of topics. On social media: “When I was a player and I had a good game or a bad game, the reaction was so incredibly strong that it became poisonous for me.” On next-gen sports fans: “I’ve noticed with younger audiences that sports is not as do-or-die as it is with people my age or older.” On his favorite non-SEC settings: “I like Washington State, which is awesome. BYU in Provo is awesome. I like Appalachian State in Boone. Really, really cool. I gravitate to those because they were unexpected.”
  
  
• EngageMint, the firm that consults with schools on improving their fan experience, has signed to work with Penn State. The school is developing a way to collect feedback in real time as opposed to sending out surveys. EngageMint has established “listening posts” where fans can voice their opinions on how they interact with the Nittany Lions’ brand and their gameday experience. Fishbait Marketing’s Rick Jones and David Millay, a former Disney Institute exec, started EngageMint in 2017.
  
  
• Your opinion on a college athlete’s right to make money from NIL may have a lot to do with where you live. That was one of the findings from a recent Horizon Media poll of 622 consumers from around the country. When asked if athletes should be allowed to make money above their scholarship, as a new California law allows, 38% said no state or school should be allowing this (the top response). But 33% said every state should have a law like California does and 15% think each school should be able to decide. In the Northeast, 42% say every state should have a law protecting athletes who want to make extra money, compared to 32% in the West, 30% in the South and 29% in the Midwest. Those over the age of 65 were twice as likely to oppose NIL rights than those 18-34. Men were more likely to be in favor of NIL rights than women.
  
  
• Georgia Tech has teamed up with tech outfit OrderNext to support increased mobile concession ordering during hoops games at McCamish Pavilion. It's an expansion of a trial program used late last season. GT Senior Associate AD Ayo Taylor-Dixon tells SBJ that the ordering will be available via a mobile site for now, but full integration into the athletic department's app wouldn't be difficult if they choose to down that road. OrderNext has done work with the Hornets, Magic, Yankee Stadium, Camping World Stadium and Churchill Downs.
  
  
• Minnesota Director of Social Media Michelle Voss talked to SBD’s Joe Perez about the steep learning curve that came with her position, which she has held for six years now. “The pace was nothing new to me, but learning on the fly that it wasn’t just about getting touchdowns, but what happened before the touchdown,” she said. “Also, having to learn wrestling and swim and dive and all the stats and information.”

THROWBACK TUESDAY

• Sometimes, conference realignment does make sense. It was this week, in 2016, that I proposed another round of conference realignment in an SBJ story. This one would take the 24 schools in Conference USA and the Sun Belt and split them into two new conferences based on geographic common sense. Both of these Group of 5 conferences currently extend from the Mid-Atlantic to Texas and travel is a huge stress on their budgets. In the three years since that story, there has been a lot of discussion about alternatives to the current structure, but there remains no one among the university presidents who has taken the lead on this issue.

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).