Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PATCH WARS: Jayhawks Add BIG $$$ with XRP Patch, QUESTIONABLE Monster Patch + Big 12 Media Takeaways

Starting point is 00:00:00 Brad Garlinghouse through a lifeboat for KU Athletics, big-time Jersey sponsor deal. We're going to break down on today's episode. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on, Derek Johnson here? This is another episode of Locked on Jayhawks. I am out and about on vacation, but some breaking news,

Starting point is 00:00:30 and it was KU Football Media Day, so wanted to get out to you. And on today's episode, we're going to break down. down a little bit of some of the latest news. We'll get to Lance Leipold, some of the big notable, important things he said at KU football, and their attendance at Big 12 football, or I guess Monster Football Media Days now. But we'll start right here with Patch Wars, and the first of those is about Monster, the other being in regards to Mr. Brad Garlinghouse. So let's start with the better end of the news, and that is about the Brad Garlinghouse factor in this, right? Kansas is a athletic program right now is

Starting point is 00:01:05 operating at a budget deficit, right? They need to find money any way they can. And that's obviously true for any college that's out there, right? You're looking at NIL, you're looking at RevShare, you're looking at still trying to build facilities, you're looking at trying to stay out of debt. Like, there's just a lot that you have to go into right now that you have to try to afford at this point in time. So every bit of money that you can get is an advantage on your opposition is just a boost to your own school. Well, it's especially true because Kansas is, operating at a budget deficit right now. Well, Brad Garlinghouse, who is a big-time KU donor, he's kind of struck it big in the business world. I guess, I don't know what the official

Starting point is 00:01:48 title is, if it's CEO or owner or whatever, creator, whatever, of the company Ripple, which I don't entirely know, I don't know, the understanding to me is kind of a crypto blockchain thing that can help, like, monitor or oversee different, like, uh, transaction. sectional things between me. See, I don't know what I'm talking about here, right? So I'm just going to leave it at that. But Brett Garlinghouse is a very rich man and his company is very successful. That's probably a better way for me to put it, right? And so his company, Ripple has this XRP, which is like a crypto, I don't know if it's a branch of the company or like a big part of the company again. This is out of my wheelhouse from the business side of things. But basically, Kansas is going to be getting a jersey patch in all of their different sports. So this applies to football applies to. you know, track and field. It applies to women's volleyball, all of these. That'll be a patch that's like XRP. And the cool part about this with it being Brad Garlinghouse, who's a KU guy, is that I know for a lot of people, they've been upset by, I mean, the monster energy thing, which we'll get into here in a second, kind of applies this with the FNBO, the first national bank, being on Allen Fieldhouse's

Starting point is 00:02:56 court, that it's like a green logo. And like green is obviously not a part of KU's color scheme. And so it makes it stand out more and stick out more like a sore thumb and people don't like that, right? The beauty of this is that it's going to be an adjustable color that, you know, blends in a little bit more. Plus it is coming from a KU guy where it feels, I don't know, a little better, I guess. And the rumors have it right now that it's going to be around $5 to $6 million per year for KU coming in. I mean, that is a real chunk of money that they can do some fun things with, whether it's getting, you know, out of the negative, whether it is continuing to fund the new stadium, whether it is building the indoor baseball facility,

Starting point is 00:03:35 whether it is just every year and everyday roster management from NIL to RevShare. That's important money to come in for KU. So that is a big deal, and I think that's good news overall for KU. Now, this is, I guess, semi-good news, semi-bad news, this next jersey patch,

Starting point is 00:03:49 which is the Monster Energy patch, which apparently it's going to be called the Monster Energy Big 12 or something. Like, I ain't calling it that. You ain't calling it that, like whatever, right? It also feels like a situation where, okay, on one hand, it's like, okay, that's more money for KU and these other Big 12 schools. Like, that's great. But given the market we saw for KU with XRP, getting like $5 to $6 million a year, the reports that these Big 12 schools are going to basically be getting a little over at like $1.25 somewhere in that range, million dollars per year.

Starting point is 00:04:19 Now, it's not every sport, but it's football, men's basketball, women's basketball. And it's not just on the patches. It's also that they're getting the, you know, whatever, the naming rights to the big, That feels like an undersell. That feels like Brett Yormark not doing a very good job selling the monster thing. And then you do have the aspect of it that like, well, that monster logo might not look too good on the Kansas jerseys. I know some people have thrown out that like there's a lot of different like monster

Starting point is 00:04:43 cans and colors you can use. It's kind of been announced that no, it's going to be the traditional logo. Now, the one positive of this, again, it is a little bit more money. But the other positive side is just the standpoint that I mean, I guess it's kind of nice that you don't have to sell it out. I don't know if it'll count to the two Jersey patches that you can have because if you're Kansas, like you'd rather, if you're getting $5 to $6 million from XRP,

Starting point is 00:05:08 you'd rather get $5 to $6 million from someone else than only get one from Monster. So we'll wait and see whether that is exclusive to the two or not. But I do find it very interesting with the Monster side. The one-to-one other positive for, I guess, the Big 12 as a whole in KU, is that it's not just Monster on Big 12 and KU stuff. it is Big 12 stuff on Monster, if that sort of makes sense. So like if you go buy a monster at your local convenience store, there's going to be some sort of Big 12 logo on it.

Starting point is 00:05:39 So it's not just like you are getting reverse branding, which is at least nice, but it does feel like you kind of got the raw end of the deal, so to speak, when you look at how much K you got from one versus what they're going to get for the other and feeling like you could have just got more if you would sold that other one yourself. So there's,

Starting point is 00:05:57 patch talk and let's get on to what Lance Leipold had to say at media days for the Big 12, I guess the Monster Energy Conference. We'll get to that next. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Odu. Running a business shouldn't feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other. That's where Odu comes in. Odu's an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together in one powerful platform. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, everything works in one place,

Starting point is 00:06:35 helping your team move faster, stay organized and focused on growing the business instead of just managing software. You know, the best organizations know that success isn't just about talent. It's about having everyone work toward the same goal. That's true in sports just like it is in business. And that's probably what we saw with this XRP deal for KU. It's probably a combination of business in sports, right? You get the sports side of Brad Garlinghouse wanting to support KU.

Starting point is 00:06:59 but he has a business aspect as well that he's trying to advertise his business. And for Kansas, they're getting money out of this. And I'd imagine for KU, there were a lot of people working in on this deal, right? You have Travis Koff at the top. You have probably some other associate athletic directors. Maybe you have like a lawyer or somebody in the building who's working on the paperwork in the contract, right? It's everybody coming together for a shared goal.

Starting point is 00:07:19 And great organizations win because operations matter. And that's why you should get O-D-D-O-D-O-D-com slash locked-on. that's O-D-O-O-O-com slash locked-on. Welcome back to Lockdown, Jayhawks. Derek Johnson with you here, and Lance Leipold spoke at Big 12 Media Days for Kague Football. And honestly, there wasn't like necessarily a ton there. I mean, kind of some, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:07:47 basic stuff on the quarterback competition, which I don't think really changed much for me, although it does seem like it is really been kind of closed at this point to Ballard v. Marshall, which is unfortunate for me, because if you've listened to the show, you would know that I am a Chase Jenkins guy after digging into some of his film. You know, in his time at Rice, like I became a Chase Jenkins guy. Unfortunately, he was hurt a bit during Springball.

Starting point is 00:08:09 And so, you know, he's probably going to get less reps in fall. And that's going to make it more difficult for him. So we'll see if at some point Chase Jenkins can get on the field. I am, like I said, a Chase Jenkins guy. Beyond that, he was also very complimentary of the two-back rotation of Willis and Edwards, which, again, that's not crazy because Corey McRie's a freshman. and Jalen Dupree was injured in the spring as well. So it did line up for those two to be the top two. But it's been multiple kind of comments now that makes it seem like, yeah,

Starting point is 00:08:35 that is for sure the top two for KU, right? And I do find it interesting with Yacine Willis, who's had maybe some injury issues throughout his career. It feels like KU can, if Willis gets hurt, can replace him more within a mockery or with a Dupre. Again, they're different, maybe not as powerful. But in the bigger back sense, if KU were to lose Edwards to an injury at some point,

Starting point is 00:08:56 you don't have that same explosion. So it'll be interesting how they kind of manage those two. Obviously, the big deal for KU this season is going to be how they do in one-score games. They haven't done well enough the last two years. And Lance Leipold was asked about that. He said, you know, we haven't found a way to close out some close ball games. We've had some opportunities, probably well documented, some close losses that easily put us that we could be sitting up here today, talking about four consecutive bowl games and yada, yada, yada, but we haven't done that.

Starting point is 00:09:23 And where does that fall? It falls on the head coach to do that. Our players embrace that. They understand that we're getting people better shots than we did a couple years ago as far as who the Kansas Jayhawks are and we have to embrace that. And I do appreciate he's continued to kind of had accountability here ever since really after the Arizona loss where, you know, that one was not the best decision making. And he did at least in the aftermath give a little bit of regret with some of that and he continues to kind of take blame for that. So I do appreciate that. But we'll see what is different here. One of the things that he kind of mentioned that could be different is having the better depth. And that that could help you in some of those close games. And I go back and forth on that because on one hand, yeah, if you're later in the season, you know, having good depth is going to probably help you in close games because if you have somebody injured, you're going to have somebody better as a backup filling in in those clutch moments later in the year, right?

Starting point is 00:10:11 And the same, I guess, can be said about a individual game, right? If you're getting worn down over the course of the game, if you don't have very good bench, those starters are going to continue to play bigger snaps and there's going to be diminishing returns on their level of performance. as they stay in the game, right? Whereas if you do have good depth and you can rotate those players a little bit more, maybe the starters are more fresh when it comes to the end of the game. And that has been something that KU has been continually working on, right?

Starting point is 00:10:36 As much as they have turned the program and gotten to a couple bowl games here and been competitive, the depth still is catching up. And it feels like this year maybe it has fully caught up, right? And that's something that he kind of talked about, Lance Leipold did. And he said, you know, through the new portal era, I always think it has to do a little bit with some of the additions that people don't talk about, that add depth and quality depth and sustainability to certain teams that allow them to compete. And I think one of the things that we feel good about our team this year is from the first guy that steps on the field to the next guy,

Starting point is 00:11:10 the gap there is the least it's ever been in our time. So that does have to make it feel good. And it's interesting because if I felt better about the quarterback position going to this year, I would feel good about Kansas making it back to a bowl game. But that is a big question at the most important position. agree that this is a much deeper team, maybe outside of the quarterback position for KU than they've had in a while. Do they have as much star power up front? Do they have the quarterback play? Like, that'll be kind of the big question to mesh with that. All right, we're going to finish up here with

Starting point is 00:11:39 some of the latest news, including a couple recent commits on the diamond for Kansas. Today's episode is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. The biggest stage in world soccer's here in every match feels like it has the potential for a memorable moment. One goal can completely change the energy of a game. I mean, we saw that in the Argentina-Egypt match, right? It can shift momentum. It can alter the outcome in an instant. That's what makes tournament soccer so exciting from the opening whistle to the final kick. Now, Fanduels given fans another reason to stay locked into every match with every goal pays, bet on a match and get bonus bets for every goal scored in that match. You can give it future on who you think's going to win it off. France looks like an absolute

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Starting point is 00:12:57 Lockdown Podcast Network. Thanks again for joining us here on Lockdown, Jayhawks, a little bit of the latest news before we let you go here. Some recent commits on the diamond for KU. Grady Hoke is another Juko transfer, where KU's had so much success with Dan Fitzgerald, John Coyne and Company. Comes over from Cali County Community College,

Starting point is 00:13:19 solid stuff, 8 and 5, 4.2 ERA. That's good at the collegiate level. 70 strikeouts and 62 innings pitch. You always like to see the more strikeouts than the more innings pitch. So you get a good one there if your KU. then you also go for Kansas to the high school ranks to get another commit and KU softball gets a commit.

Starting point is 00:13:38 I guess we'll stay in the transfer portal here. And Timber Hensley is the recent KU softball edition on the diamond. And Hensley will be a second year pitcher, right, going to the five and five now. So still four more years after she had a season at Texas Tech. And obviously Texas Tech was a really good team. Now, didn't have a ton of pitching and most of that was reliant on one place. in Naja Kennedy, but, you know, was at a really good school and now an opportunity to do some things that Kansas may be a little bit more playing time. The high school recruit that KU was

Starting point is 00:14:09 adding in baseball's Chase Rhodes. Apparently he can get up to 94 on his fastball. So, yeah, no, actually it looks like this. He was at John A. Logan College. I thought he was from high school. So I guess another transfer from a non-D-1, which KU has also had a lot of success with. So we'll see if that turns in something as well as KU continues to build out their debt. in the bullpen and the pitching staff. And then the last bit of news here comes from college basketball. Caching Nat, who is somebody that I know some people really were at some points in the season before the Melvin Council thing kind of, you know, finished with a little bit of a limp

Starting point is 00:14:47 to the finish line. You know, you'd see people being like, okay, you should go after Caching Nat. He's the next Melvin Council. And I actually got to see him play at the NAA tournament when I was broadcasting some of the NAA tournament games. incredible athlete and it was really cool to see him kind of blow up at Sam Houston State after transferring up from the NAA level this past year. Well, he ends up getting another year technically from like, again, just kind of a judge, getting the injunction and everything. But point

Starting point is 00:15:14 being, if he can get one, you would hope that you can do something similar with Malik Ewan, who he continued to wait word from as KU was looking for that one final edition. So you would think that's good news, but it's also not precedent because it's just kind of a specific judge getting something done for that specific case. But we will see if something can be done similar from Malik Ewan, because we certainly know that KU could use that one extra piece

Starting point is 00:15:38 to get them ready for the season. All right, that'll do for this episode of Lockdown, Jayhawks. You can find a show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Plenty more action coming at you this week on L.O.J. And we'll see you next time on the show.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PATCH WARS: Jayhawks Add BIG $$$ with XRP Patch, QUESTIONABLE Monster Patch + Big 12 Media Takeaways

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