SBJ College: UConn's Declaration Of Independence

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.

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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).