Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.
I was on the road a bit over the past few days (in Columbus, to speak at Ohio State and talk to folks at SPJ), and since we have a few other reported stories that need juuuuust one more day or two before they’re ready, now is a perfect time for a mailbag.
I take mailbag questions on a rolling basis, via Bluesky, email, Twitter and our Extra Points Community function. Let’s start here, from EP reader Scouse in the House. (Questions have been lightly edited for grammar and style.)
How are ADs eyeing flag football?
Nebraska the only major program to add it. Seems to be gaining steam in the lower levels. Seems like costs could be low (equipment, facilities). Do medical, insurance and unseen costs create concerns?
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I’d agree, there’s substantially more momentum right now in adding flag football programs at the Division II, Division III and NAIA levels than there is among Division I schools. That isn’t to say D-I programs aren’t interested (they are), but the biggest benefits of adding the sport tend to line up with the priorities of much smaller colleges. Women’s flag football does not require expensive facilities, capital projects (it can be played on a soccer, lacrosse or recreational field) or massive travel costs (teams can play multiple games on one day) — and it provides a low-cost method to improve student recruitment, retention and Title IX compliance.
Throw in the support of the NFL, rapidly growing participation at the high school level and the fact that flag football probably has more short-term consumer interest potential than, say, stunt or triathlon, and you have a very compelling argument to launch the sport.
I know there are multiple institutions in the Big Ten and Big 12, along with several other mid-major leagues across the country, that are very interested in launching programs in the near future. I also know that both the Big Ten and Big 12 are interested in sponsoring the sport, rather their members potentially competing as affiliates in the MEAC or Big South or another conference that announces flag football first.
So what’s the hold-up? Why is Nebraska the only large athletic department to go public? My understanding is that it’s a combination of not wanting to be the first major school in a region to announce (nobody wants to risk playing all of their games in a different time zone), the NFL being slower to actually deliver on some of the promised infrastructure support and the administrative time crunch that comes with the start of the fall athletic season.
Based on what I’ve heard around the industry, I think it’s quite possible, if not probable, for there to be 70-ish D-I women’s flag football programs by 2027. But rather than announcements trickling out one by one, I’m starting to think it’s more likely that large groups of schools will make announcements at the same time.
Reader Joseph asks:
Have you ever sent a FOIA request to a state-related or private school for something harmlessm just to see if they'll respond? Something like, "Who participated in the Secret Santa gift exchange last year?"
Yeah, lol.
So for the non-open records nerds among us, “state-related” is a term I think is unique to some public universities in Pennsylvania. Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln are public universities but are, for the purposes of the PA Right To Know law, considered independent agencies. Penn State, at least, releases its annual MFRS report to the public, but you can’t file conventional open records requests to those schools. Delaware and Delaware State also get wide latitude to reject athletics-related requests, thanks to state law.
Like many reporters, I accidentally sent those four schools a variety of records requests, including a few sillier ones, before I really began to understand the specifics of how the state law worked.
For private schools, I’ve reached out a few times to friend or trusted sources within departments and just asked some of those kinds of questions, without sending an email to university lawyers. When I wrote about how many units of alcohol various public schools sold, for example, an unnamed BYU athletics staffer told me roughly how much chocolate milk the school sells on a football game day, since BYU very famously does not sell booze.
I think I can admit to FOIAing this without blowing my potential story or getting in huge trouble: I sent out about a dozen requests a week or so ago to public schools in an attempt to specifically quantify how much caffeine is requited to run a college football coaching staff (with receipts for coffee purchases, energy drinks, etc.).
For my pals reading this at private schools: You can, of course, always leak that sort of thing to me: [email protected].
What does it cost to build a winning D-I softball program?
We dug into the financial data from across the country. Which programs spend the most? Where are budgets growing? What spending actually correlates with winning?
Reader No Purpose Flour asks:
The Vols are building an entertainment district to help fund revenue sharing and NIL. LSU is turning the athletic department into a PE firm to help fund revenue sharing and NIL. Which model do you think prevails, and what are the pros and cons of each?
Well, first, I wouldn’t exactly describe what LSU is attempting to do as turning its athletic department into a private equity firm, although there are some similarities. I hope the school releases more details in the near future … just like I hope Utah finally shares some numbers and contract terms with the public and taxpayers in the state. To the best of my knowledge, it has yet to do so re: its arrangement with Otro Capital.
I don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all solution to bringing in new athletic department revenues via unique projects. Real estate developments will make sense for many institutions that have land that could be affordably redeveloped surrounding their stadiums — but lots of schools don’t.
The biggest risk, I think, is that it does’t work. Commercial real estate development is a different skill set from running an athletic department or public university, and it’s entirely possible a school could pick the wrong partner and risk giving away a valuable asset for a song, or perhaps get stuck with a lot of debt and an underperforming development.
Everybody should want to avoid the Chicago parking meter disaster. Stuff like that is always a risk with public/private partnerships and sales of public assets.
Very broadly speaking, I think institutions should look at strategies that allow them to take advantage of their best assets and advantages. I’d trust a technical school (Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Louisiana Tech, Utah Tech, etc.) to try to buy equity stakes in student or local startup ventures more than I might some other institutions. An urban school may have better real estate development opportunities than, I dunno, Michigan Tech.
The biggest risk for any of these would be saddling an athletic department with debt it can’t repay, forcing a death spiral of job cuts, raised ticket prices and worse experiences, all while the institutional investor gets paid. That could happen in a lot of different investment vehicles.
And finally, reader Michael asks,
How long do you think the escalation of athletic budgets will balloon at their current rates? And do you think there would be warning signs of a downturn?
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think we’re at the breaking point yet. I imagine this current cost structure will continue until spending to win feels worse than losing.
Every incentive right now for university leadership still points towards increasing spending in the name of being competitive, even if it might not be the most efficient or mission-focused use of resources. Donors want athletic results and are willing to pay for them (often in a way they aren’t for stuff like library books), athletic directors are fired for failing to win or fundraise far more than they are for overspending, and the political penalties for not being relevant are massive for leadership.
Plus, there are lots of factors besides simply paying athletes that push spending up. Gas is way more expensive. Imported goods, which departments regularly rely on for athletic equipment and construction materials, have become way more expensive. Labor costs beyond athletics (for specialized employees like athletic trainers and front office quants) have increased, and it’s become more expensive to borrow money. All of that stuff is still happening, even if NIL and the House settlement were to vanish tomorrow.
I don’t know a good solution. I know enough about economics to know that somewhere there is a breaking point where everything begins to contract, but we’ve blown past where Serious Academic Types thought that breaking point would be for the past 150 years.
While I’m confident we’re closer to that point than we were in 1929, I don’t think it will happen next year or the year after. Nobody builds you a statue for fiscal responsibility. You get a statue if you win.
And that, I’m told, usually doesn’t come cheap.
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