SBJ College: Sun Belt Plays Waiting Game

SBJ College goes on a one-week summer hiatus next week. Don’t let them cancel college football while I’m gone.

Here is what's cookin' on campus.

SUN BELT DELAYING FOOTBALL CALL UNTIL "LATEST POSSIBLE TIME"

• For the time being, the Sun Belt Conference still has its sights set on a 12-game football season. While the prospects for that plan appear to get more challenging by the day, Commissioner Keith Gill is not ready to make any fundamental adjustments, even if COVID-19 cases are trending the wrong way in much of the Sun Belt’s footprint. Gill: “We’re focused on a 12-game regular season; that’s what we’re talking about. … I try to be an optimist even though we certainly have some tough choices ahead. But right now, we’re not going to make any decisions that we don’t have to make.”
  
  
• Two Sun Belt schools -- Arkansas State and Appalachian State -- lost games when the Big Ten decided to go to a conference-only schedule. The implications for several more Sun Belt teams could be far greater if the SEC or ACC drop non-conference opponents. Until those Power Five conferences decide on a schedule in the next 2-3 weeks, it will be difficult for the Sun Belt to proceed. Gill: “We’ll be around that same timetable. Our philosophy has been to delay making any decisions until the latest possible time.”
  
  
• A few more reactions from Gill during our conversation:
  
  
  • On playing the 2020 season in the spring: “We really haven’t had many conversations about that. The spring is the last resort. Spring football is better than no football.”
    
    
  • On playing or not playing: “Everyone acts like it’s this binary choice. ‘If you play, people will get infected and if you don’t play, they won’t.’ It’s not like that. It’s a pandemic, so people are going to get infected. But you watch the data and you listen to health professionals. That’s what is really important. The virus is dynamic and ever-changing, so it’s not like you can say, ‘Do this and that will happen.’ You do your best to mitigate risk.”
    
    
  • On having athletes on campus vs. at home: “I would say, in a vacuum, you would rather have them in the collegiate environment working out with people who are hypersensitive to cleanliness, they’re inundated with medical personnel, and every day people are being educated about COVID vs. the local gym. I think there is a legitimate argument that it’s better to be on campus.”
    
    
• Gill acknowledged those factors could change when all students are back on campus.

Sun Belt commish Keith Gill recognizes his conference has "tough choices" ahead

ALFORD’S REVENUE BACKGROUND OPENED DOORS AT FSU

• Central Michigan AD Michael Alford lists Jerry Jones, Joe Castiglione, Ben Sutton and Greg Brown among the leaders who have influenced him the most. “I’ve been able to learn from icons,” Alford told me yesterday after being named CEO of Seminole Boosters, the fundraising arm of Florida State athletics. Alford is considered one of the brightest sales and marketing minds in college athletics and he’ll be joining one of the most prolific fundraising machines in the country. Seminole Boosters topped $60 million in gifts and pledges in 2018-19.
  
  
• Despite the organization’s well-chronicled fundraising success, Seminole Boosters was the source of some angst in Tallahassee because its unique structure, operating as a separate entity from the athletic department. But Florida State last year moved Seminole Boosters under the FSU athletics umbrella.
  
  
• Alford will report jointly to AD David Coburn and the organization’s board. His combination of experience in administration as well as NFL-level sales and marketing for the Cowboys and revenue generation at Oklahoma and Learfield IMG College, powered his ability to get the job. Alford: ”You’ve got your traditional fundraising, but it’s also a job that looks at different ways to generate revenue and that’s something I’ve done everywhere I’ve been.”

RUN-UP TO COLLEGE FOOTBALL STILL PRESENTS QUESTIONS

• The NCAA’s football oversight committee established the six-week schedule that serves as a run-up to the regular season in late August/early September. But with conferences like the Big Ten and Pac-12 going with conference games only and other leagues contemplating a later start in October, the committee’s conversations continue to evolve.
  
  
• West Virginia AD Shane Lyons, who chairs the committee, gave me three things he’s watching:
  
  
  • If you have teams with different start dates to the season, does that six-week run-up need to be altered? Lyons is looking at how to manage the calendar if one team or league starts the season in early September and another starts in early October.
    
    
  • What does the committee tell football athletes about their eligibility? If a season is canceled halfway through, do the players lose that year of eligibility? “I’ve gotten a lot of questions from student-athletes about that,” Lyons said. When COVID-19 first hit and the NCAA canceled spring sports in March, those athletes were given another season, but winter sport athletes who participated in a portion of the season were not.
    
    
  • Will the NCAA’s new testing protocols and health guidelines provide uniformity across all sports and institutions?

SPEED READS

• The NCAA issued an updated “resocialization” policy that includes protocols for testing in advance of competition. Essentially what you need to know is that athletes should be tested within 72 hours of competition for high-contact sports like football and basketball. If testing cannot be performed, “the competition should be postponed or canceled, or an alternative plan for testing should be developed and agreed upon.”
  
  
• The Big Ten'sdecision to go conference-only in football has a big effect on the MAC, whose commissioner, Jon Steinbrecher, told SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum: “They are our most common non-conference opponent in football,” he said. “We love that relationship.” But with MAC schools potentially losing out on big paydays, Steinbrecher said: “The Big Ten made a decision to prioritize their conference championship. … In terms of what that means from a financial point of view, we don’t know yet. Just because that decision gets made doesn’t unwind the business part of this.” Steinbrecher also told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he takes Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren “at his word that the league will do right by its non-conference opponents.”
  
  

Big Ten and MAC schools matched up 10 times in football in 2019

• If there is football this fall, expect “College GameDay” to still be aired on Saturday mornings. But ESPN VP/Production Lee Fitting told the AP: “We’re still determining what ‘GameDay’ would look like this season and, frankly, it could be different every week. ... It could be potentially on the sidelines of an early game. It could be on the concourse in a stadium. It could even still be on campus."
  
  
• Esports continues to make inroads in the college space -- despite the NCAA in May 2019 deciding to table indefinitely whether it should govern the space. The Big 12 this weekend, in conjunction with Learfield IMG College, event organizer Mainline.gg, ESPN+ and Twitch, will see the culmination of the inaugural Madden Summer Challenge, which was aimed at engaging  students who were no longer on campus. Meanwhile, game publisher Ubisoft has created a collegiate league for its flagship esports title, Rainbow Six Siege, which will operate in partnership with online gaming platform and tournament organizer FACEIT.
  
  
• UTEP is another school playing the waiting game -- particularly with the Big 12. The El Paso Times noted the Miners were "counting on two games this year, a home opener against Texas Tech that in normal circumstances would draw a big Sun Bowl crowd and a money game at Texas with a guarantee of $1.4 million." Texas Tech drew 35,422 fans to the Sun Bowl in its last trip in 2014, "about double the Miners' normal crowd." UTEP AD Jim Senter was blunt in his assessment of losing the Texas game: "Quite frankly I don't know that there is a way to make that up. We have it in our budget. I don't know how you make it up. Bottom line, you lose that revenue, I'm not sure what we do."

THROWBACK THURSDAY

• Next week will mark 10 years since IMG College acquired ISP Sports from Ben Sutton for $100 million to create a collegiate marketing and media giant.

2020 SBJ THOUGHT LEADERS RETREAT (VIRTUAL)

• Aug. 13, 2:00-7:00pm ET (by invitation only)
  
  
• The road ahead has never been more challenging -- and it has never been more important for executive leadership to pause, learn, reflect and relax in order to prepare themselves to step up and navigate what the future holds. This year, we are continuing the tradition of Thought Leaders, creating the industry’s most intimate, senior-level event with a virtual program.
  
  
• Content will include:
  
  
  • Mindful Leadership with Pandit Dasa
  • The C-Suite Imperative: Corporate Responsibility & Social Impact
  • The New Fan Experience: A 360-degree approach; a 365-day Journey
  • Reinvented: A Conversation with Agent Leigh Steinberg
  • Supporting Social Justice Reform: Backing Words with Action
  • Navigating the Road Ahead: Fundamental Shifts We Can Expect in the Sports Business (group discussions)
    
    
• In addition to the compelling content, we will have plenty of time for some of the best virtual networking activities of the year, including:
  
  
  • Jack Daniel’s whiskey tasting
    • Aquimo golf (live challenge)
    • Aquimo cornhole (live challenge)
    • Cooking demo with "Iron Chef" Marc Forgione
    • A private set from John Popper and Brian Wilson of Blues Traveler
    
    
• For more information please visit,www.Thought-Leaders-Retreat.com.

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand and SBJ Esports with Adam Stern and Trent Murray. Also check out the SBJ Unpacks newsletter every Monday-Friday night, as we look at how the sports industry is being impacted by COVID-19.

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).