The Josh Innes Show - Arkansas AD Crying Over NIL

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

The AD at Arkansas is telling Razorback fans that they need to pony up more cash for the program to compete. I find NIL to be weird. I'm all about players making cash. That said, it's becoming sort of gross. But, the world is gross and you have to figure out how to get in the mud or you'll be left behind. I don't think bullying your fans to give you money is the right play. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. Howdy, Jamokes! How the hell are you? Glad you guys have been consuming the pod. Tell your friends about it. Let them know that we're having a good time on here, enjoying ourselves. Things are going good. Thank you. Appreciate you. You're great. I saw something this morning on the twits, on the X, about college football and NIL. And it all kind of started with a story slash video I saw of Hunter Yurchak who is the

athletic director at Arkansas and in front of the touchdown club of Little Rock where a bunch of rich people and football people get together I guess and you know blow each other the AD of Arkansas was talking about how fans across the state of Arkansas, which by my calculations is a pretty poor state, if I had to guess, outside of like the Walmart people and the Tyson Chicken people. Like there are rich people in Arkansas, but I would imagine much like my state of Louisiana and other places, Mississippi, you're probably pretty poor and pretty dumb education wise. That's probably what the case is in Arkansas, if I had to guess. But the athletic director at Arkansas said that he needs fans to make donations, fans to donate a certain amount of money every month so it goes to this collective, and this collective can be used to pay players in this NIL era that we are in,

because that's what Ole Miss is doing and other places are able to make big strides in getting players. And he talks about how miserable it is to be an AD in this era. And one thing he said that I thought was interesting was that the initial idea of NIL has been bastardized. The initial thought with NIL, name, image, and likeness, is if your name has value, you can make money off of your name, which should have always been the case. It's like me. If I'm a radio guy and somebody wants me to endorse their product, I should be able to endorse their product, right? That's the way it works. They want my name, my brand to associate with their brand and it works. And I'm all for that. But it's gotten to a point now, and this was brought up by the Arkansas athletic director and I get where he's coming from, that what we've seen now is these schools have these collectives, right? And this collective is where they can just store all this money, money that comes in from donors and money that comes in from fans and whatever, and they can

use that to essentially buy players. The point of NIL was never to be able to buy players. The point of NIL was to get the guys on campus, and then when they're on campus and you offer them the idea that, hey, you're going to play at LSU, you're going to play at Alabama, you're going to be a big star here. Come to our school. You're a big star. You're going to be the quarterback at LSU or Alabama or Ole Miss or Oklahoma, and that alone is going to make you valuable. You are going to have worth.

You are going to be someone that people want to pay big bucks to. I mean, hell, go watch this NIL documentary on Amazon. If you haven't watched it, it's really interesting. I'm about three episodes in. I think there are six episodes. I think Shaq produced it, and it's all about NIL at LSU. And I've got a weird mixed feeling on NIL because I do believe players should be compensated

because they have a ton of value. I've said this for years and years that you mean to tell me that you fill up a football stadium with 110,000 people to watch Jaden Daniels play football yet Jaden Daniels doesn't get a dime of that. Jaden Daniels couldn't do a signing at Walmart again four or five years ago if that were the case. Jaden Daniels couldn't go to a Walmart and do an autograph signing because that would be breaking a rule. Yet, you know, anybody else can go work a job like it's bullshit or any just, you know, common jamoke on campus who has to work to pay for his education can go do a job and it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Right. So I thought that was bullshit. But I think what's happening now is we have gotten away from what the NIL should be.

I think Saban has talked about this and some other people. It's gone from, oh, make money based off of who you are to, oh, we're going to pay you to come here. And if that's the case, if it's truly just the highest bidder situation to get players now, now we're in a position where this is just pro sports. And I have nothing against pro sports. I have nothing against the idea of guys making millions of dollars to play the game. But as someone who enjoys college football, and arguably, depending on the year, I enjoy college football more than I enjoy the NFL. When I watch what it is, it makes me feel kind of icky, if that makes sense, to use a real professional term here.

I feel icky when I see what's becoming of this or what's become of this or what it is becoming. I feel icky watching it because all we're seeing is professional sports. And now it's just kind of out in the open. It's always been the case. I mean, highest bidder, go back and watch the Pony Excess documentary, the 30 for 30. Back when the 30 for 30s were good and were two hours and were actually awesome. Now they put out the 30 for 30. It mostly just sucks. It's been watered down. The content's not great. But back when the 30 for 30 documentaries on ESPN were first popping and you had the University of Miami one. You had the one about Marcus Dupree.

There were a lot of really good 30 for 30s that were in-depth two-hour documentaries. Now they're like 45-minute infomercials and they're a waste of time and you don't get any depth. Go watch the Pony Excess documentary about SMU if you haven't seen it. 80s SMU before they got put on the death penalty. Look, players were getting cars to go to college. Eric Dickerson got a gold Trans Am to go play at SMU. Like, look, I'm not telling you that I'm naive. This shit's been going on forever. They've been paid under the table. It's a dirty, disgusting world of the NCAA. It's awful. It's awful because they create so many bullshit, archaic rules that they're going to be

broken. Thus, when you're breaking rules and it's rampant, it just feels dirtier, right? But when you go back and you think about that era, dudes were getting paid just under the table. Now you're in an era where they have found a workaround. And this is kind of what Hunter Juracek was talking about with Arkansas. Schools like Ole Miss have found a workaround, and this is kind of what Hunter Urachek was talking about with Arkansas. Schools like Ole Miss have found a way to build these collectives where you can draw from that pool. It's like a charity type of thing, and they found the – look, and give them credit. Give these schools credit. Maybe we should be ripping Arkansas for not figuring out how to play the game.

Don't hate the player or don't hate the game. Hate the player. In this case, you're the player, and you haven't figured out a way to do what Ole Miss can do to get talent or LSU can do to get talent or Alabama can, but they have found a workaround where here's the rules and here's a way we can skirt the rules and they've all done it with these collectives, right? LSU's got one. They find ways to do this. And again, it feels dirty because you want to operate in the world of, oh, it's college sports and there's got to be some level of, oh, it's for the love of the game. Oh, there's some level of, oh, they're getting an education. But the reality is none

of that is real. What we are watching is professional sports. And you're either going to jump in with what's going on right now, or you're going to get left behind. Arkansas has got a doofus head coach that people make fun of. The team stinks. It's regressed in the time he's been there. And fans don't want to invest their money in that. That's the thing I don't like. If you want to go out and find a billion big money donors to fill your coffers to pay players, by all means, go to Walmart, go to Tyson Chicken, or down in Baton Rouge, go to Gordon, who is a big lawyer down there that spends a bunch of money. He'll be on my friend Matt's show today.

Do that. But don't make your fans feel like they're the reason why you can't get players. Fans invest a lot of cash. Fans buy tickets. Tickets are are expensive especially when your team is good they buy beers and sody pops and popcorn at the stadium which is expensive they go on road trips to see your football team which is expensive they buy your merch they consume your product which all costs money I don't like the fact that we're up here begging average joes to fill your coffers

to pay for players. Figure it the fuck out. That should be your job. It's like when you watch a professional team, and like I'm here in St. Louis, and the Cardinals, who were awful last year, and this year they're mediocre, they're not going to make the playoffs, they're up and down.

Last year they were 20 games under.500. And you've got the ownership of the St. Louis Cardinals in a radio interview talking about how, well, if fans don't come to games, you're only hurting yourselves because we won't have money to buy players. Stick that up your ass. Stop blaming your consumers for why you have issues. Tell me why LSU can figure it out,

an equally poor state to Arkansas, an equally less educated state to Arkansas. Explain to me why LSU can figure it out. And they're still kind of not even at the high end of that world, of the NIL world, the collective world, but figure out why they can do it. But stop asking people for money. And granted, LSU has been doing that too. Everybody does it. Some places are just more willing to do it. Ole Miss is more willing to do it. You know why Ole Miss is more willing to give money? Because their fans are seeing the best football they've seen at Ole Miss

and seemingly forever, and they feel like they've got a chance at the playoff. LSU feels like they have a chance at the playoff every year. Arkansas is a joke with a doofus head coach. So, like, if you're going to ask me for money, like I'm going to put myself in the position of being Arkansas football fan. Woo, pig suey, Razorbacks, okay? I'm going to put myself in that position. If I'm a fan of Arkansas football, then give me good fucking football that has a chance

to go to the college football playoff and not a team that struggles to win six fucking games and almost lost to UAB on Saturday. If you give me that, I'm willing to put more money into it, just like I'm willing to spend more money on tickets for a good product. Or I'm willing to, like, look at the Astros. I talked about this the other day. I went to the Astros game. Back in 2017, I didn't feel like beer was $20 a can for a 25-ounce can or 17 bucks. I feel like it was cheaper than that well since 2017 the astros have won multiple world series they become one of the great organizations in baseball thus you go to the

game and unfortunately beer costs more tickets cost more and that's just kind of the price of doing business but people are willing to do what the damn ballpark was sold out at the game i went to there were you couldn't find a seat and tickets were absurdly expensive why because the product is good and people are willing to spend more money on a good product. Your argument can't be, we need your money to make our product better. That can't be your message. Your message needs to be,

we're going to get you a better fucking product, so you're willing to spend the money. If I'm at Arkansas and I'm watching doofus Sam Pittman and his crappy football team struggle to beat UAB at home on a Saturday. Why the fuck do I want to put my money into your product? And that's anything in the world, like quality control for anything. Like you might love a restaurant. It gets a new owner and the food starts to suck. You're not going to go spend money to go there. You might watch a movie that you love. You go see the sequel. The sequel sequel sucks you're probably not going to go see the second sequel but these people all have a handout now an argument that i saw a guy make

on twitter that i thought was a good solid argument was that these universities make all this fucking money yet it is against the nio rules for them to spend i believe this is the case to spend their own revenue their own profits on paying players. That would be unseemly. We can go out and get any booster to give us a billion dollars to fill a collective, but we can't spend our own money. Maybe start letting these universities spend their own money that they make on paying players. Because at this point, it's all bullshit.

The idea of NIL was to create a world where guys can make money off of their name, right? What it's become now is just typical free agency. When dudes hit the portal, they got these collectives and people are spitting money out at them, which fine, get what you're worth, but stop hiding behind the bullshit. Let the colleges that generate $100 million from football reinvest and spend that money on getting in more players. We got to get out of this world where it's like, well, reinvest and spend that money on getting in more players. We got to get out of this world where it's like, well, we can't do that. But if big time lawyer in town's got $20 million he wants to drop into a collective,

we're cool with that. It's bullshit. And I also think there's going to be a big, and I saw this one from Tennessee. Tennessee, they're raising their ticket prices and other things to help put money into this fund that is going to be kind of a rev share type of thing, which I think is a good idea too. But the fans in Tennessee are now having to pay 5% more for tickets or whatever it is. And that part sucks, but at least they're seeing a high point in Tennessee football. They beat Alabama a couple years ago. They're 3-0 this

year. They're scoring 71 points against Kent State. I think people are always going to be willing to pay for something if it's good. People always going to be willing to pay for something if it's good. People are going to be willing to pay for a steak if it's fucking delicious. If it's rubbery and shit and it came from dollars general, they're not going to pay for that. And it's the same thing for sports. It's the same thing for anything like this. But don't sit there and beg people for money when you fucking suck.

And maybe you're right. Maybe the argument you're making is fair that you don't have the money to go out and get good players. But there's a lot of schools that I think are well beneath you in that world that still find a way to get good players and are competitive. What you need to start acknowledging is you got a shitty head coach at Arkansas and your team stinks. Go get someone that gets the people motivated and people will spend their money. What I've learned about people, even people that don't head coach at Arkansas and your team stinks. Go get someone that gets the people motivated and people will spend their money. What I've learned about people, even people that don't have a ton of cash, is they're willing to spend money if they're into it. In particular, if it's for college sports. People are psychos over this shit. Like I lived in Louisiana. Trust me, there

aren't a ton of people with a ton of cash in Louisiana, yet the cash they have, they'll spend on LSU. But you can't be Arkansas and be bad at football, really bad at football, a joke at football, and then go out and say, well, we need to find 5,000 people to donate $100 a month to the collective so we can go out and buy players. I'm sorry that your life is difficult, Hunter Urchak. Look, it's tough. It's tough to be you, to be making millions of dollars, we can go out and buy players. I'm sorry that your life is difficult, Hunter, your check. I look, it's tough. It's tough to be you, to be making millions of dollars, to be an athletic director at Arkansas. Here's what you need to do. Fire your loser head coach and go find someone that's

going to get people revved up again. Like I'm in St. Louis right now. I was just watching highlights from like the 2010s, 20, the early 2000s when the Cardinals were great and the ballpark was filled. No one goes to the games anymore. There are days you can get in for 50 cents. The fees on the tickets are more expensive than the actual ticket on StubHub. It's absurd. No one's going to the games. There are days where you could shoot a cannon through it. It looks like the Astros games back in 2011, 2012 when they were tanking. It's awful. And people are not going to reinvest in you if you don't change. You must make a change. You must do something different.

You must fire your manager, fire your front office, get a new mindset. That's what they did here in 1995 when they got new ownership, hired a new general manager, and brought in Tony La Russa. And then they had 20-some-odd years of great success. But people don't want to invest in something that sucks. I'm in St. Louis. The Cardinals suck right now. Nobody's investing in it.

And people are fine not investing in it. But you've got to give people something they want to invest in. And it reminds me a lot of this Arkansas thing with here in St. Louis. When you've got the owner being interviewed saying, well, those fans are, I'm paraphrasing, but it's essentially what he said. You know, you're pretty fucking dumb if you don't spend your money with us, because if you don't spend your money, then how do we buy better players? You weren't buying better players anyway. You fucking suck. So anyway, there you go. All right. Appreciate you guys.