The NCAA has introduced name, image, and likeness deals that allow college athletes to accept payment from sponsors and brands -- including anything from endorsement deals to TikTok sponsorships. In this episode, WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu sits down with Roy Wood Jr. to discuss what this means for college athletes, the future of player compensation, and how she is involved with navigating deals for students at her alma mater, the University of Oregon. Roy also sits with Daily Show correspondent, Michael Kosta, to discuss the potential drawbacks that may come with paying college athletes.
Originally aired: March 15, 2022
Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes. This is the Daily Show podcast that goes a little deeper into segments and topics that originally aired on the show. This is what this podcast is like, all right, Like you ever lose your remote control in the house, and then you go like looking at your couch cushion for the remote control, and then you find a twenty dollar bill and you're like, yah, I.
Got twenty dollars.
Now I only owe eighteen, nine hundred and eighty dollars and student loaned it. That's what this podcast is like. Today, we've got a topic that's come up on the show a few times, and it's about college athletes getting paid.
Please welcome Governor Gavin Newsom.
The coaches make millions and millions of dollars, advertisers make millions and millions of dollars in the likeness of these athletes that give up, in some cases, their bodies and their health for the sports. I guess that's one version of a romanticized system. That's the current system. And you know what, respect there's a racial component. Close to ninety percent of these coaches are white, and the majority of Division one basketball players are black. The plurality of Division one football players are black, and with all due respect this notion of student athlete. Give me a break. These guys are full time, expected, full time to sacrifice themselves for athletics. But when they're done, the next crew comes in and it's just this cycle, and at the end of the day, it perpetuates a cycle of inequality.
This is the right call, Costa, because now student athletes and rich kids pretending to be student athletes can get paid. It helps the families, it helps the players. It even helps the nerd to do their homework because you know they weren't getting a fair rate before.
I gotta disagree with Roy, this is a bad move. Now I admit it's wrong not to pay the athletes. That's why I think they should expand it and pay no one, not the students, not the athletic director, not even the coaches. Just give them all basic scholarships. Then you'd have an angry sixty eight year old man with a headset and you're Jane Austen Seminar.
There's a lot he could learn from Elizabeth Bennett.
And her sisters.
Roy, we already know the NCAA does not pay their student athletes. But over the summer they announced temporary rules that let their athletes cash in on their name, image, and likeness, which means endorsement deals, ad campaigns, being able to create personalized merch cryptocurrency, TikTok deals, making copywriter stupid dance, being able to build out your personal brand. This is going to be all sorts of new opportunities for student athletes. So helping me talk about this a little bit today. I gotta get ready for this. I gotta sit up for this because we got somebody very honorable in the build it today. She is the first basketball player in NCAA history with two thousand points, a thousand rebounds, and a thousand assists, the WNBA's number one draft pick in twenty twenty, and the youngest WNBA player in history to score a triple double. Formerly of the University of Oregon and now of the New York Liberty Sabrina your netschul, How are you doing today?
That was a great introduction. I'm doing great?
That I miss anything? Was there? Also? Forty eight blocks in two possessions? What else have you not done?
I don't know? That was amazing grand intro.
So these athletes, you know they can have these name and likeness deals. Just as you left perfect time in Mom and Dad are not having Saprina. A little later, talk to me a little bit about the corporate sponsors and the endorsement deals that are going on. Does this mean the NC DOUBLEA is paying their players now?
You know, indirectly, I would say, I don't think the NC Double A is a or the universities are. But you know, these brands now have an opportunity to invest in these student athletes, and these student athletes are able to build a brand for themselves at a really younger age than you know, wherever used to.
You know, I had to wait my four.
Years through college, and now they're able to, you know, coming in from high school, they're able to start navigating through agents, figuring out where they want to go, what schools are going to provide the best opportunity for them to be able to showcase that. So it's an exciting time in college sports, and I am truly happy for a lot of these student athletes who are able to, you know, build their brands and get paid for doing so.
So when you all were playing, did y'all ever just sit and think, Man, I need some money. Somebody need to be paying me for this shit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wouldn't you know if looking back now, I would have never signed any big deal, no matter how much money I needed. I would have done like a little one off thing, like oh, I'll post this for a couple of thousand dollars.
And in college that last few.
You know, all I needed in college was flights to get back home, flights to get my family to games, and some extra food if I wanted to eat out.
That was it.
I didn't need a car, I didn't need to buy an expensive car, jewelry. I really just needed the bare minimum. And so I think that's what I would have done. And so sometimes I was like, dang, you know, my jerseys are selling and the school is profiting a lot, and I'm over here and I can't even afford to go to Chipoloy myself a burrito. So there are certain times that I was like, yeah, I could use a couple extra bucks in my pocket, but it was never to the point where I would sacrifice basketball or school to do.
So you're playing for the New York Liberty, but you're also the chief athlete officer for a company called Division Street. Now break that down for me, what what is what is Division Street and what exactly are you working on over there.
Yeah, so I am a Chief Athlete Officer, and that's really just being the voice of the athlete for all five hundred plus twent athletes at the University of Worgan. So this company was you know, founded by Phil Knight, founder of Nike, and there's a lot of you know, ex Nike employees and people that worked in the business of branding and you know, figuring out how to best you know, put athletes and help them use their brand and you know, monetize that. And so in my position, you know, at this company, being so newly removed from being a student athlete at the University of Oregon, it's really just using my voice and listening to the athletes and what they want and trying to be able to help you know, them get that through this company.
And so Division Street is really just.
Us listening to them, putting them, you know, as athletes first, and really helping them kind of understand their brand and figuring that out and aligning the right partnerships with them.
Okay, so then you all kind of brainschild some of the partnerships. So like, let's just say I'm an athlete. Let's just say, hey, Sabraina, how you doing. I'm Roywood junior, stellar baseball player, fourteen home runs in one game. Listen. I think it's time that I start monetizing myself with the Pack ten. I want to come up with my well partner, the well it's about to be the PAC twenty, the way they emerging all these conferences, Sabrina, I want to I think the pack towy should I have. I want to create my own cryptocurrency coin. Is that something you all could help me with or is it just you go, you shouldn't do that, or that's a good idea, go figure it out.
No.
I mean the thing is a lot of these athletes still have agents, and so if you're in the top you know, division of in your sport on you know a lot of the high name, high profile athletes, you're still having your regular marketing agents that they're hiring now in college to help with that. But on a bigger you know, on a kind of a bigger level. This is also like team base so it's like division street helps you know, if there's a donor that wants to help with investments and not just donate money to the university, but actually see their money work in these athletes. It's like, Okay, let's partner with an investment company that will help teams at hole figure out how to invest the donor can you know, pay money towards all of these athletes being able to use their brand and investing. So it is also on an individual level, like athlete wanted to get involved in coinbase and they can.
Always reach out and we can see what we could do.
But it's also on a team base with a lot of these athletes that might not have the brand and the relationships as the one or two percent of the student athletes do. But it's also giving them an opportunity to make money while they're in college as well.
So what about fan interaction? Is there a way to I'm going to tell you a brief story and one that made me really sad, but it also kind of made me a little gratifying. So years ago, I did David Letterman. I did comedy on David Letterman. The couch guest that night was Pete Rose. Pete Rose was rude as shit, and I'll say that on the record. It is what it is great baseball player rude as shit to young comedians and like a couple of years later, I saw him in Vegas in front of a sports store at an autograph table and there was no one in line, and it just I don't know why that warmed my soul the way it did, but it did, Sabrina. So, how do you all build a bridge between the players and the fans, because I think now you know, when you look at social media, it's about accessibility. It's not just enough to root for your favorite guy, but you want to be able to touch them or interact with them some way. But that's also something that could lead to infraction. So how do y'all help the players navigate the relationships in terms of marketing themselves and the Oregon brand with the fans.
You know, well, a lot of that is team based, Like we were doing things with fans. Obviously this was pre COVID when I was there, but we signed autographs once a week and we're able to really engage with our fan base.
But I think there's also.
Being able to incorporate fan interaction into deals, like, for example, we just did this airbnb deal at the University of Oregon for particular athletes, and it's basically this airbnb that is all decorated with this particular player. This player right now is no school who plays on the football team and all inside division. Street has decorated it with his jersey, things that he likes, food, whatever, you know, whatever it is, it is all ducked out with cool things that you know, make Noah and Noah you get that fan interaction. And they're able to rent it out for the football games for the weekends for fans to come in and be able to stay in kind of Noah's house and kind of have that interaction with this is what he likes. He might stop buy and say hi. And I think these are all super important and they mean a lot to fans.
You know.
It's like we we signed autographs all the time. Little kids were crying so happy to meet us, and you really are an inspiration and their mentor, and so it really means a lot to give back to the community that they come watch you, support you at your highs and lows. So we're trying to do everything we can and keep integrating, you know, fans and the fan experience, keeping that as a priority.
This concept of paying college athletes is starting to bleed into paying high school athletes. And so you know, and I know you know about what over Time Elite is. But if it's incorrect me if I'm giving this summation wrong. But they're basically a paid amateur league for children that are not yet in college. And so there are a few high schoolers now that are quitting their high school team to go make money now playing travel ball. And they give the kids an education, and they give them tutors, and they give them everything they need schoolastically to get them through high school. But it's this paid pipeline into the NBA that seems like an express lane to get you around the rigamarole of college athletics. But there's part of me that I'm still trying to find where the downside is to it. And I wonder if this concept of money and trying to get money as soon as possible could be a bad thing for some athletes. What's your opinions on that.
Yeah, you know, I think money is the root of all evils, So I do think that, you know, if I have to look in the future, I do think that's where it's trending for younger amateurs. To start getting paid at a younger age because they want the money, they want the cars, they want the nice things. And that's kind of where social media has taken a lot of things too, with posting about it and comparing yourself to others.
And so I do think it's going to get to that level.
But you know, I do think it could do a lot of these athletes at disservice as well, because there is a lot to learn from high school basketball, there is a lot to learn from college basketball, and there's very you know, a very small select group of these athletes that are going to make it to the NBA. It's a statistic that you know, we're all told in college it's about one or two percent of us that end up going to play pro. And so I think having a degree and being able to be a part of a team and you're not really just doing it for the individual accolades and you know, the individual money, but being able to do it, you know, to learn and to grow as a person and player is really important. So it is going to be interesting to see, you know, where this goes and how it's going to affect a lot of development of a younger age.
Now to be the other thing that will A lot of these teams need, they need honest coaches. So I played high school baseball right and we had a coach shout out to Coach Loban. Coach Loban told us one day we wasn't even senior yet he looked at the whole team. He said, I'm looking at all of y'all and I see maybe two scholarships and maybe only one of you is going to get an invite to try out for minor league balling. You're gonna get cut. Nobody's specially on this team. Get to running.
Well. That's rare, especially in this day and age. Coaches want to keep.
Their jobs and everything's on social media. I feel like having conversations the other day, it's like everything's kind of gone a little soft, you know. It's like everything's about not offending, not being too hard, not being too strict, you know, not really you know, a coach. That's what a coach is supposed to do. Motivate you, challenge you to want to be better. And I think a lot of the times, and especially with the coaches that are new in coaching, it's like they don't really have identity, so they don't know what to say, and they want to please the players, so they stay and they don't transfer. They don't leave, and transferring and you know, leaving colleges and high schools is you know, seeing every single day now, so it's not really look down upon or frowned upon. So I think that's really what they're nervous about, and so they might not hold someone accountable because they want them to stay and not transfer.
Now you just opened up a whole nother can So you know, the NCAA already gives the players the option now of entering the transfer window, which I just like to call college free agency. I don't like my coach, so I'm transferring to another team and I won't have to sit out a year because I trans I'm going into the transfer window. All right, If we're giving players endorsement deals, do we eventually find ourselves in a world and just following this is all pie in the sky, But do we eventually find ourselves in a world where college teams get into bidding wars over players based on the types of endor horsements that they can offer the players. You know, of course, above the board per NCAA rules, But do you think that this concept of paying players could eventually lead to, you know, the types of deals that make players choose where they want to go to school based on how much money they're getting and not the type of education or not even the type of offense or where their style of play may best be suited.
I feel like I see it already in recruiting with kids not knowing what college to go to, and it's like, well, I can go to Kentucky and they've promised me this amount of dollars in endorsements, or I can go to Oregon and I always promised this amount. So I definitely think it's going to change the landscape of recruiting as well, because at the end of the day, that's what these student athletes are really enticed about. If they know that they're not going to go play pro and they know that that's not where they want to go, it's really about how they're going to be able to build their brand in college. And if they're able to partner with brands at a certain university and they're not at others, they're probably more enticed to go to that university to start building their brands and building a business for them. Elves in college instead of waiting until they're out of college. So it's really going to be interesting to see. But I definitely think, you know, with the transferring, and it's going to be interesting to see a lot of you know, what chances brands take as well in businesses, because it can be really good at one college and you're not happy and you want to transfer to different college, and what if you don't don't perform the same at that at that other college and you're tied to this long term deal. So it's going to be interesting to see what approach a lot of these businesses and brands take as well on.
Do they give these players long term deals?
Do they give them deals only at that College's interesting.
There's so many layers to this ship because now it's like you through eight interceptions, would you mind deleting those posts about how much you love driving our truck? Kind of want to get your back up who's now playing better than you and started.
I'm happy.
I'm happy for that student, but I am happy I didn't have to deal with a lot of these things while I was playing, because it's just a lot, Like you said, there's a lot of layers to it. There's a lot of added pressure to perform alongside the pressure that you have on yourself.
So it'll be interesting.
Do you think this will like breed jealousy in the locker room, like because it feels like I might not I might want to punt you in the face. You got the Gatorade deal and I didn't, but I got more points than you.
Yes. Absolutely.
I mean if it brings jealousy in the locker rooms at a professional level, it's going to bring it.
At a collegiate level.
So yeah, I mean it's gonna be pointing fingers comparing.
Why do you have this deal and I don't.
I want the ball war, And it's sometimes I think, you know it's not gonna be you want the ball war to be a better basketball player. It's like, well, I have to meet these requirements to get this deal.
I got to score this many points.
So it's going to be interesting to see if people can keep the main goal, the main goal, which is be the best in your be the best athlete, and not get carried away with the nuances of these deals.
We have to take a quick break, but I want to talk about the future of nil deals. On the other side of the break, because where are we going with this? Maybe I need to like endorse a college athlete. I got five hundred bucks. I could try to a kid make sure if you score a touchdown, make sure you say visit Roywood Junior dot com or something stupid. What does the future look like for student athletes when it comes to these name and likeness deals like you know, being paid and you know equity as a whold Like, do you think this is a net positive across the board?
I think it will be, But I think it's going to be telling on who the elite in their sports are and who are doing it for the wrong reasons. And I think that's going to come to like a little bit sooner than it normally does.
And I think it's going to be.
Really telling whether a lot of these kids in high school or college are you know, willing to sacrifice making a lot of money for posting things or for going to shoots and really focus on putting an extra work, going to the gym, having the right group of people around them too. That the agent business and all that stuff, can you know, can be really tricky and a lot of these times these agents want to get paid and they don't really care what's in the best in just of you as an athlete and seeing you succeed as a person. So it's going to be interesting to see who these athletes really trust. How the age of business is going to change as well. And you know, you are who your friends are, you are who's in your circles, So you know, maybe it'll make these you know, college kids and high school kids have to mature a lot faster because they're going to have to really trust those people that are making decisions around them.
For a lot of young athletes, right and we know money could be a deciding fact on whether or not they can continue playing, but you know they have the pay to play leagues, the travel leagues. Do you think that model would help kids keep playing sports? And if not, with that model be helpful.
Yeah, I mean my parents had to bend over backwards to you know, keep me in my a team. You know, it's like you play all summer long, and you travel across the country, games every tournaments, every single weekend. I had siblings as well, and so it gets really expensive. So it's definitely not easy to do. And there's only kind of a certain percentage of people that are able to do so. But I definitely think it's up to me, and it's up to a lot of you know, the other athletes and people of influence that have kind of walked that path to be able to do what we can to give back, whether that's sponsored teams, help with uniforms and gear bawls, you know, everything adds up. And I just remember every year it's like uniforms, three hundred dollars for a uniform. It's like that's expensive for some families. And so just trying to use my platform and the resources that I have, you know, with my brands at nikear or wherever it is, to be like this will help families a lot. Let's donate uniforms, Let's fund this tournament, whatever it is to just you know, keep having kids play but not have to have their parents sacrifice as much as they do.
We talk about gender pay inequity. How has the name and likeness deals, like, how does that affected student athletes? More specifically, has it affected the earning potential for female athletes? Because I really think, you know what preaching to the choir here, but like, how do we make sure that in this space of money already being allocated unevenly. How do we make sure that these names and likeness deals, can you know, kind of stay above the board, you know, for women athletes to see.
Yeah, I think it's more beneficial than harmful.
And I think so because you're really given an opportunity to use your platform to the best of your ability, and sometimes that isn't even tied with performance. So I know that there's some athletes at the University of Oregon and other universities.
They could be D two D three athletes.
And they're not known for their sport, but they're on TikTok or they're on Instagram, social media and their influencers for whatever they're doing, and they're getting paid more than some of the men and male athletes in sport that are average or above average, that don't have an image or don't use their social media platform. So I really do think that it gives everyone this opportunity to be uniquely themselves and if that is able to provide a steady income and to you know, to help you, I think great. If you're not great at basketball, but you're great at dancing on TikTok and you can make a good amount of money, then good for you.
Here's an ignorant question. Here's a question that I'm very ignorant too. So like when you look at, like, all right, March Maddness, the twenty twenty one March Madness tournament, which was during the shutdown, still a lot of COVID happening, and the way that they handled the women's training area during March Madness versus what the men had.
Oregon Sedona Prince gave us a glimpse of the weight room differences in a social media video last Thursday.
So, for the NCAA March Madness, the biggest tournament in college basketball for women, this is our weight room.
Make show you all the men's weight room.
As you can see, the men were provided with a lot more equipment than the women.
Damn, that's ice cold, because that's not a weight room. That's just the wreck of weights that you buy in the beginning of quarantine and then never use. And honestly, this is surprising because usually the nc DOUBLEA treats male and female athletes equally. I mean, they definitely pay them both the same amounts.
Let's just say I'm an auto manufacturer and I want to give male athlete a thousand dollars to say drive this truck. And then I turn around and I give a woman athlete five hundred dollars to say drive this truck. Is there any type of regulations on that for where the NC DOUBLEA or anyone can say, hey, no, you have to pay them the same amount of money or is it solely up to the third parties who are hiring.
The athletes as of now, I think it's solely, you know, up to whatever they want to decide. But I think that's a really cool thing that I've been able to see and anointnance that being a part of Divisions Street is, especially at Oregon is a lot of these donors love the teams, regardless if they're women's teams, you know, men's teams, and I think they're so willing to help us as athletes. I'm not even an athlete anymore. I forgot them as athletes at the University of Oregon that you know, they want equality. They want to pay a men's basketball player the same as a women's basketball player. So I think it does really start with who's donating the money and what they stand for. But hopefully, at you know, one point, there will be a regulation on even teams right like acro and tumbling at Oregon doesn't get the notoriety that women's basketball does. But how can we help them also be able to make a living and you know, make more money than just their scholarship checks or even you know, there's a lot of players that are walk ons on these teams and they don't get money from the university at all, and they pay their way and they still put in the same amount of practice time and you know, the same amount of work in the classrooms. So it's like, how are we also able to give money to those to those people to not have to work second jobs. And so it's all really new and fresh. But I think with the right people that are in charge, it will be good.
Now for everything that you all are doing right now with your company there for the University of Oregon. Have other schools reached out at all with regards to how they could create the same type of relationship with their players, between players and the schools.
Yeah, I mean, of course, you always aspire to be the best, and I mean Phil Knight is the absolute best and what he you know, has done at Nike and everything that he's done for us at Oregon and continues to do at Oregon. And so he's also kind of evolved with the time of all right, analyze now a thing, what are we going to do to help the to the Oregon student athletes, And you know, he came up with something really fast, got the right people on board, and so I know that there's a bunch of other schools that you know, are trying to figure out what we do and how they can do it because it is, you know, a competitive advantage and it is benefiting a lot of the student athletes actually ever seen one of them, and so it'll be exciting to see if a lot of the other schools do it. And I'm excited to see what we're going to continue to do better than all the other ones.
So go Ducks. It's interesting because it's like we're Division Street and we're helping be a bridge and help the athletes monetize themselves, and we want everyone to do this, but we also don't want you stealing the way that we help our athletes because you may recruit the same athlete as us. But yay, everybody, Sabrina, best of luck to you in the WNBA season to come. Thank you so much for taking us Beyond the Scenes, we heard from w NBA stars Sabrina I and Escu on how the NCAA's name and image likeness deals are changing college sports. In this bonus episode of Beyond the Scenes, I wanted to sit down with my friend, fellow correspondent and co host of the sports segment we do on the show. I apologize for talking while you're talking, Michael Costa. Costa, how you doing, man, Welcome to Beyond the Scenes.
Thanks Roy, It's great to be here.
Man.
We wanted you here today, Costa because we want you to bring a professional tennis plane expertise to this program. You know you are a professional, former professional ad are you still professional? I don't know. Bottom line, you got a check from the World Tennis. Was it Major League Tennis?
What's it called Major League Tennis Association of Tennis Professionals.
Yeah. I also got some fines, Roy.
So one time in Montreal, I threw a ball at my opponent and hit him in the neck, and then they wrote up the fine as.
Mister Costa, which I loved.
They had to say, like, all fancy deliberately threw a ball at his opponent and I got fined two hundred and fifty dollars and my check that week was one hundred dollars, so I was negative one fifty that week.
Tennis to me is different because it's an individual sport. Also, I can see your face, so I feel like from a marketing standpoint, if you're a popular tennis player, or you're an playing for a school with tennis as popular, you have an advantage over the backup left offensive lineman, guard guy who no one knows. Like with these names and likeness deals, do you think there's going to be a difference in playing an individual versus the team sport or is it just all the same pot.
Well, excellent question, and think about some of the highest paid professional athletes. Tennis is always in there, especially on the women's side. You can see the face.
You see a.
Lot of the face, and as an affluent sport, the brands it attracts. It's Lexus, it's Heineken, it's Mercedes. I mean these are expensive brands.
So yes. Historically this is also.
Why tennis was protected from a lot of the cuts that athletic departments make because their alumni have money. The wrestling teams would get cut more often because there's not as many wealthy alumn who used to wrestle. I'm generalizing, but I do think the sport will matter. I think basketball players can market themselves better than football players. Most of the face is covered on football. Some teams don't even say the last name on the jersey in football, so.
You got to like, yeah, Google, who is that? Who's the quarterback? And Notre Dame?
You know, Yeah, it's like like there on top of that, like the with football, personality is what you have to use to transcend having the helmet on. But then the NCAA, God forbid. You're more than happy that you made a good catch, it's a fifteen yard penalty. You can't even it's taunting. They'll bring back a touchdown if you're too happy on the way to the end zone. Yeah, So how do you overcome the rules and regulations of the sport and the masking of your face? That means you just got to be showboating on the sideline.
Yeah, you got Johnny Manzela, and you see how well you know he was flagged every time he showed her personality.
He was going like this, he was going like this before there was the money, the cash.
Yeah, so you know, I don't love name image likeness promotion. I think it does promote individuality. I think it does promote focusing on your brand.
I would just love it. I've said it before.
If the team the end of you know, they pooled the money and they split the money up and freshmen got this and sophomores got this, and it was based on the TV deal. But again, the NCAA, they fought name image likeness pretty hard. They are not going to want to approve any revenue sharing.
From tickets or TV. But I think that is the most fair.
Solution because it would be like Roy if we got rewarded for being more selfish at the Daily Show, if we were given more money. And now I'm fighting you and Ronnie and DESI get and it's just that's not a team environment.
So it's a good question.
You ask. You played tennis in University of Illinois, yep, in your time when you were in college. Just just talk because you know this is I'm bringing this up because we love to talk about whatever. Athletes don't need to get paid. They getting enough money. Don't talk to me about how much work goes into how much commitment it takes to be a sement athlete, give me, give me a schedule, your training schedule.
Well, you know, I played tennis at University of Illinois and then I coached two years at University of Michigan. And I'll start as I'll start with my perspective as a coach, because as the assistant coach of men's tennis University of Michigan, half of my job was an Excel sheet where I kept track of the hours of my athletes to make sure they weren't spending in the on season more than twenty hours a week on tennis. In the offseason it was less, but every single hour is accounted for when you are, as the NCAA likes to say, a student athlete.
But when I played, I.
Don't even know where I could have found the time to promote my likeness, my brand. It's been to me be very interesting to me to see how these athletes going forward do this, because Broy, you're also trying to get a degree.
You're also trying to do what your coaches are asking you.
If you have aspirations to be a professional, you have to also do above what your coach is asking you. You got to continue to improve your actual skills in the sport.
So I might be more old school on this, but I.
Just I don't know how many athletes are really gonna be able to successfully pull this off.
When you all were playing, did y'all ever just sit and think, Man, I need some money. Somebody need to be paying me for this shit. Dude.
The Illinois tennis team was popular, We were successful. Our tickets were free and and yo we had people show up.
That was amazing.
But no, there was you know, for me, this isn't getting my education paid for was what was enough. But I wasn't walking around campus seeing people wearing Costa jerseys, even though that would have been awesome.
Do you see any drawbacks to name and likeness deals? You know, so you know, to to kind of to dovetail off of what Sabrino is just talking about about how it could breed some level of jealousy in the locker room amongst players. Do you agree with that costume?
I do.
I mean, especially it's individual name, image, and likeness is very individual. And on the ultimate team sport football, you know that guy has to block so three things work in order so this guy can score a touchdown.
I mean, it's the ultimate team sport.
It's you're you're only as strong as your weakest link.
It's gonna be tough.
It's gonna be another thing the coaches have to manage too. I mean I was a coach. These are competitive, somewhat irrational, extraordinarily hard working.
Young men, spoiled sometimes spoiled.
In tennis especially, And you're gonna throw in this guy's making money for a tweet. This guy isn't hey, can you introduce me to your agent?
Oh?
Sorry, you didn't win your match yesterday. It's complicated. It's very, very complicated.
So then do you think as buy and large as a whole? Is this name enlighteness stuff? Is this a good thing by the NCUBA or is it a smoke screen?
I think it's a very small step, and I think they're trying to give a little bit to the athlete to say, see, we are adapting.
But I believe.
It's not something to easily execute because there's no time for the athlete to really focus on this. I, if I want to be pessimistic, I think it's a smoke screen. So they try to avoid sharing TV revenue with these athletes. I think the NCAA is terrified of splitting TV revenue with athletes, which is why they almost kind of gave them this name image likeness thing because Sabrina's just saying sometimes she wouldn't even eat, she was practicing so hard. I want to see the athletes get money from the TV deals, then they don't have to promote or brand or retweet.
Just give them some of the money from the money.
With the putt. Yes, with the pot for a lot of young athletes, right, and we know money could be a deciding factor on whether or not they can continue playing, but you know they have to pay to play leagues, the travel leagues. Do you think that model would help kids keep playing sports? And if not, with that model be helpful.
I only know from this perspective of tennis and tennis is primarily an affluent sport, But there are families that don't have as much money that graduate kids that become great tennis players.
Great.
You know the King Richard movies.
Out now about Richard Williams with what he did to help Serena and Venus.
But families, it is expensive raising a kid.
It's even more expensive preparing a kid to become world class out of sport. In my opinion, anything you could do to help the families, whether it be money or resources to keep these kids on track athletically, would benefit.
Okay, if there were leagues in place, and if the NBA G League starts paying a little bit more, they probably won't because the NBA, I think, is in bed with NC Double A. But if you have these AAU and these paid travel ball programs that are promising players one hundred thousand dollars whether they get drafted or not, to go to college, then if I'm a good athlete coming out of high school and I'm Duke or I'm whatever blue U n C or whatever blue blood basketball program Kentucky, if I'm Kentucky, I'm not only competing against other colleges. I'm now competing against a league that's gonna put money in this kid's pocket right now. And he may not get enough money from his Snapchat deal or his stupid Hey everybody, like like in Birmingham right now, a bunch of the Alabama players, they're all on TV telling you where to go eat barbecue, and shit, It's like I know where to get barbecue. Do you think the NC DOUBLEA, because of the pressure is created by outside paid amateur organizations will have we have to consider sharing that pot.
They absolutely will, because you can't tell an eighteen year old kid whose family doesn't have enough money or has spent a lot of their money helping this kid become a great basketball player or whatever, baseball player, whatever the sport is. You can't keep this narrative of they're getting paid with the education. I'm not saying education isn't important. It is, but money pays the rent. It's going to be a problem, and I think the NCAA knows it. They're fighting, but I do think, and this might be pessimistic to say, I do think the players are going to follow the money, especially if you're talking like it's like it's big enough money. One hundred thousand dollars is a lot now. As a tennis player, I just didn't have that opportunity. I don't think we ever will because college tennis is not raking in the money. So for me, it was an added benefit to get the education. But in Sabrina's case, I mean, people are making real dollars off of her and she can't get a burrito at Chipotle.
What here's my doomsday scenario. So you have a league like overtime elite. Right, Like, if the question is where are we going? Where's where's all of this going? You know, where are we going with this issue and name and like, and I tell you where I think we're going, Costa. I think we're going to a spot where college athletics, if they are not careful, becomes the new minor leagues of athletics. So if you have and I think it all if we just let me take that back just basketball. Let's just talk basketball. This all boils down to which horse the NBA bets on. So if I'm a high school kid, I just had this high school kid on my podcast, Roy's Job Fair, part of the iHeartMedia podcast. At this kid's mom on the podcast, he quit his high school team to make money for a pro am team. He plays pro am while still enrolled in high school with the bet with the guarantee that he gets one hundred thous for college, whether he goes overseas, whether he goes to the G League, or whether he gets drafted hundred thout guarantee. Now, if that kid, if those kids start, enough of those kids make that leap from pro am straight to the NBA or into the G League. Why would the NBA still bother drafting college. You draft a college kid or too, But if you're a college kid worth your weight, why would you still go to college? If this is now the proven route, So if that starts working out for more and more people, I think that's the way all of the five star athletes are gonna go. I'd sound like a crazy sports round, I'm sorry, but like I think, if the NBA up the pay in the G League to compete with the pro am leagues, then the G League becomes the new college. That becomes a new place to go and try it.
Look, if they're gonna pay the athlete a per DM stipend and seventy five hundred a year, then it's not going to happen. But one hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. And yeah, Kentucky has cool shorts, and yeah the Duke has great student fans, but nobody's gonna give a shit for one hundred thousand dollars. They're going to follow the money and we'll see. We are at a pivotal time in collegiate sport. I think the fans don't want to admit it. The real diehard fans, But everybody else is now doing the economics of ticket sales. Dude, CBS just renewed March Madness for eight years for nine billion dollars b billion. Anybody who's reluctant to hearing about revenue sharing, you don't realize how much money is being made off of these athletes. So they got to adjust because you're right, if the G League or whomever, the Pro aram League is offering one hundred grand, two hundred grand, bye Kentucky by Duke.
Yeah, and so then who are you left with playing for Kentucky.
It's gonna be like me. Also, you know what else is crazy?
Roy the coach of Duke makes fourteen million, fifteen million, sixteen million. Yeah, it's like everybody around is making all this money.
So I bet you.
I bet you're a pretty good ball handler.
Though no baseball was my thing. Okay, okay, My issue with basketball is just I just don't like people in my face. And that's you get away from me.
That's my job of the defender.
I would have loved tennis. That's a nice, spacious sport, excellent sport, excellent hell away from me.
Yeah, you're like seventy eight feet from each other. Dude, it's great.
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