The Josh Innes Show - How Will Schools Allocate Funds For Athletes

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

First off, I have a Tick update. Second, schools can now pay players directly. How will they disperse the cash? I think the answer is obvious. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just a heads up to everybody. It is the second day since removing this tick from my skull and I'm still alive and I don't feel not dying. So hey, prayers up. Prayers up. Thanks to Jesus that I have not died yet or presumably I'm not dying. But it's only been a day and a half or so. I discovered the tick on my skull at like 11 o'clock on Tuesday night. So all day Wednesday, didn't really have any issues. and then so far today I have not had any issues. So that is great news. So far I am not dead. I did not want to end up like like Avril Lavigne or like Darryl Hall or probably a bunch of people back in like the 1800s. Like you wonder how those people handled this kind of stuff. Like when did they

discover like you know that people that lived out on the plains. Like when did they discover like, you know, that people that lived out on the plains or you know in the Wild West like or people that were you know, like yeah, I mean look people that live in fancy houses and you know the early 1800s or at least not, you know houses as we know them now, right? So like people probably got this kind of shit all the time like I like I'm fascinated by how people discovered what things are and like what diseases are, how they named them and how they discovered that they were transmitted, right?

Because they had like, like they did, they were always there, obviously, but someone had to have discovered it and then named it and then figured out how to treat it and everything else. I'm fascinated by those kind of things. But all I know is that presumably I don't have Lyme disease. I had Jilly look at my skull. There is like a mark from where this this tick was, but apparently it has to have a bullseye. There has to be a bullseye kind of marking for it to be Lyme disease. And as of right now, I do not have Lyme disease. So huge news. Hughes if true. Speaking of Avril Lavigne, she's in town today. Let me see if there's any tickets for that and how expensive they would be. If Avril tickets are cheap, I'd be very much tempted to go see Avril. God, I love her so much. Let's see Hollywood Casino.

Let's see. Oh, God, the cheapest ticket to go see Avril Lavigne is $140 and sitting in the lawn? Get out of here, man. Let me text my old boss. Not my ones in St. Louis. They're not the kind of people that would give me free shit, I don't think, but my old boss from Nashville runs a station here in St. Louis. Let me see. Let's see. Do you have any Avril? And see, here's the thing. Like two weeks ago, I asked him about this and I spun it as well. You know, Jilly kind of wants to go see Avril and he's like, don't lie to me, Josh. I'm like, yeah, I know. I want to go see Avril because I love her so much. I love her look. I love her vibe. She made love to Chad Kroger. So she's done some living. Anywho, so we'll see if I can score

some free Avril tickets because as of right now, 140 bucks to get into Seattle. That is a no bueno. But like, you know, 20 bucks to go see Avril I would do go sit out on the lawn, go drink a couple of beers, listen to a little girlfriend, look complicated. That kind of stuff. I'm with you. lawn, go drink a couple of beers, listen to a little girlfriend, a little complicated, that kind of stuff. I'm with you. God, that's a good jam. Anywho, let's play some commercials and let's talk about a story that I just saw that says college sports athletic departments face tough revenue sharing decisions. Do they? Let's do that after these words. The NBA Finals are finally here and after spending the playoffs

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eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick 6 not available everywhere including New York and Ontario. Voidware prohibited. Oneidware prohibited. One per new customer. Bonus awarded is non-withdrawable. Pick 6 bonus picks that expire in 14 days. Limited time offer. Terms at pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. See, I find it hard to believe that there should be a situation where there are tough decisions made revenue sharing wise because in most instances at most universities football and basketball are the only true revenue generators you're seeing like these 20 million or 22, however many million dollar budgets these schools are going to have to pay players. Once you start paying the important people

then all the lesser people that no one gives a shit about and that's not to insult those people, that's not to say that they're lesser humans, but on the totem pole on the scale here, football and basketball players at most schools are important and the tennis players are not the golfers are not the lacrosse players are not people don't care about them and they are not big to the bottom line. That's see that's always something that's bothered me about people. Like people live in this world where they're supposed to be this sort of equity and like everybody's kind of equal and like if this person's making this I play a sport too why don't I make this or like the WNBA

ladies bless their heart like in their minds they should be getting what LeBron gets or if you paint them into a corner they'll say things that sound smart like well we want a percentage of the revenue comparable to what a LeBron and the men's players would get. The problem is your league doesn't make any money, so therefore you're wanting a percentage of a negative number. You're dumb and that's okay, but like come on, like do better. So like that's the issue I run into in the world and maybe you can say that that's more of like a capitalist mindset and some people are more, you know, they

want it to be more of a socialist mindset but to me if you're at a college campus the one thing that it is guaranteed that everyone on that campus cares about especially if it's LSU, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Ohio State, Michigan, wherever it is they're going to care about football. So first things first, that money better be going to football and you better find a way to pay your important football players as much as you can. Like I'm sorry if a swimmer doesn't get paid. You know what that swimmer might be getting? A scholarship. They're like a swimmer, there is no pro swimming. It's not like you're going to swim for three years and go to like the

National Pro Swimmers League and 50 million people are going to watch the Super Bowl of professional swimming. You're going to school because you know how to swim and swimming's gotten you into school and you're probably going to use your degree for something important, right? And you know that going into it. Like most softball players know going into college that there's not a huge aftermarket life for softball players. There's no MLB equivalent of softball where you can make 50 million dollars a year to play

softball. So the quote-unquote student-athlete part of it does work for them because getting the free education and in most in some instances you don't like baseball players like some of the scholarships they give out for baseball players are like weird like well, well, you got a partial scholarship or a half scholarship. So but like dudes and gals who play in sports that do not have a shelf life after college, they will see a benefit in going to college. And if they can make a couple extra bucks in NIL deals, like

if you can be a Livy Dunn who built herself into a star in a sport that most people don't give a shit about and you can make money that way cool, but for the most part you're in college. If you're not playing football basketball and in some schools baseball to or it depends now there are occasional like some of the schools in the Northeast or like in the upper Midwest that are like hockey schools like you might go to play hockey at Boston University or like, know Michigan or wherever and there might be an afterlife for you as a professional

hockey player but very few instances like that really exist outside of football and basketball so you know you're going and you should be getting the bulk of the cash but now I'm curious college sports sports athletic departments face tough revenue sharing decisions. Let's see. They're playing a new game at college athletic departments. We'll call it Capology, a game play tasks athletic directors to be the banker. A legal settlement approved June 6th authorizes schools to directly pay athletes from athletic department coffers in the form of revenue sharing beginning July 1st. The revenue sharing

will be capped this year at about $20.5 million per school. Athletes separate NIL deals brokered with outside entities won't count against the school's revenue cap. How much capped revenue share money will each team within the athletic department receive? That's left to individual schools to decide so like if I'm LSU like bless your heart, you might have a great golfer and by the way a golfer might go on to become a professional golfer David Toms who won PGA tours David Toms

played golf at LSU and had a nice professional golf career. So there's something there, but if I'm a school I'd say listen come to my school. I'll give you a scholarship. If you want to go out and work out an NIL deal with somebody, you want the big lawyer in town to give you five grand a month, or you want to make $2,500 for a one-off deal to do an endorsement for Walmart or something, have at it. But I'm sorry, our $20.5 million that we're going into with this, that's going to go to our dudes. And also, by the way, I don't think schools truly want to dip into this. Also, I think that's an important factor in this. I think schools, if they could

avoid having to pay dudes out of their own revenue, they will. That's why they're going to continue to find ways around with the NIL deal, like we talked about with Brian Kelly a couple months ago where Brian Kelly donated a million dollars of his own money to the Tiger Athletic Foundation who then funnels that money into the Tiger Collective or whatever it is, the NIL thing, and then other fans match that money and then all of a sudden there's two million dollars to work with. These schools do not want to lose their revenue so it'll be interesting to see

how many of them actually use money. Like they might dip into that if they're desperate to get someone. But I think end of the day, a lot of these schools, and by the way, I don't know how much revenue each of these schools make either, right? So if it's coming from a revenue share, I'd be curious. But I also think that these teams and these schools are going to do everything they can to try to avoid paying out of their own money and still get some rich lawyer, some rich doctor, some rich alumni that owns big

company or is a big CEO or a board member of a big company to keep putting millions of dollars in so they do not have to do it. So that would be my guess. Commissioners from the Power 4 conferences plus the rebuilt PAC 12 confirmed their schools retain the authority to determine the percentage breakdown of how they'll distribute their capped allotment with their teams. And I think that's fair. I think the worst case scenario would have been had they been forced to take this 20 million dollar allotment and like six percent of it would have to be spent on golf or

five percent would have to be spent on swimming or 50 would have to be spent on women's sports. For instance, it's at least good that it was left in their hands here that they have the authority to spend it however they want. I mean otherwise that would be bullshit and you would just be giving people money who real talk do not deserve it. This is a meritocracy here. This is who deserves it, who earns it right? Like this is what we're dealing with here. We're not dealing with a well you know I mean they deserve it because they play and we're looking for equal rights and title nine and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That ain't what we're here for. What we're here for is getting key players and paying those key

players what they're worth. I would imagine you could throw that number out to guys when you're recruiting them. I know that that wasn't the initial point of NIL, but teams are doing it. We see it all the time now, so it's the Wild West. But I would imagine if you're a big school, you're Florida and you're trying to recruit a big quarterback, you're like, well, we're going to give you, you know, $5 million next year. Like you can do that now and they're right. And number two would be what's actually is the question. Sorry. Decisions, decisions for athletic directors tasked to dole out the dough. Quote, things get very political real quick on who gets resources, Mississippi

State athletic director Zach Selman said, but I think you've got to continue to invest in programs that generate the revenue. That's number one. Exactly. Fuck the politics. I get that politics go around things and I know that you're going to get women's coaches that are pissed that they're trying to land a big player and they can't get them because the money is going to the football program or a bat. It could do it in a school like LSU where basketball is not as important as football. There

could be a situation where Matt McMahon, I think is his name, the coach of LSU in basketball. If he comes out and says, I really need X amount of dollars and I can land this guy and they're like, sorry, we got it all wrapped up but too much of it wrapped up in football. You know, tough shit. Like, I don't think it's just going to be like, oh, a women's sport gets screwed. I think it's going to be a bigger issue of lesser sports get screwed. And again, don't forget that NIL still plays a giant

factor in all of this. So while you might have 20 million of your own resources, like to me, I think they view that money as like an emergency fund, like shit, we don't have enough money in the NIL coffers, we're gonna have to swing an extra million, two million here, so let's go. They would prefer to keep spending somebody else's money so they can continue to generate revenue and keep the revenue for themselves. There's no doubt about that. And number two would be what's the fabric of your

school? For us, Mississippi State baseball is a huge deal. See, that's the point I'm trying to make. Like there are schools like Mississippi State where winning in baseball is important. Winning in baseball is becoming more important at a lot of schools, but it's still not a huge deal. Like Missouri, I think, would like to be good at baseball, but Missouri is not like dying to be good at baseball because they're not even really good at football yet. They would rather get very good at like dying to be good at baseball because they're not even really good at football

yet. They would rather get very good at football and get consistently good at basketball and then say, you know what, let's throw a couple bucks here and there and try to make our baseball team relevant. Maybe we can make a trip to Omaha and make some money. Selman's assessment holds true to the way athletic directors view this. The top revenue generating sports of football and men's basketball will get the lion's share of the revenue share dollars about 90% combined across the two

sports with a smaller fraction going to women's basketball and other bedrock sports that help form the school's identity and will will receive the leftover dollars within the SEC. At least it's widely believed many schools will use a baseline distribution model that uses the settlement's back pay formula as a guide. Using this model, about 75% of a school's revenue sharing cap will go to the football program, 15 going to men's basketball,

5% to women's basketball, and 5% to other sports. Women's basketball has become a bigger deal at LSU. But if I could give 10% if I'm LSU, I'd rather give 10% of what I got to baseball, which is a huge deal in Omaha versus basketball. Now, again, I don't know the revenue basketball generates, so I couldn't tell you, but like it just depends. Those 75, 15, 55 percentages though are not mandated either within the SEC or beyond. The breakdown could vary as an institution sees fit. Quote,

conference to conference, school to school, sport revenue share allocations will vary based on several factors. Oklahoma State has a very high percentage of people who are The breakdown could vary as an institution sees fit. Quote, conference to conference, school to school, sport revenue share allocations will vary based on several factors. Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione said, schools autonomy opens the door for some outside the box thinkers to emerge within capology. This too is an opportunity for schools to identify

and spend on the sports that matter most to their fans and where they think they can win big. Okay, so this story is pretty obvious. Like, I mean, that's cut and dry. Like, I appreciate the story and laying that out there, but anybody with a brain knows how this would work. You will dedicate the resources. Like, there's return on investment, right? That's a term I had never heard until I went to Delta Downs in Vinton, Louisiana on Derby Day one year we did a remote an appearance there like I did a bunch of commercials for Delta Downs saying come out to Delta Downs and Vinton and watch the Kentucky Derby and while you're

here bet on a bunch of the little races here and I'd never bet on horses before and I don't really like to bet on horses because I don't know a fucking thing about them and it just feels like wasted money but when I was super degenerate, I would do that online. But when I would do these kind of events, it was always fun to go do a little win play show that type of shit and try to cash a ticket and it was fun. And they put me up in a big suite at Delta Downs, which is not an overly impressive place. It's a casino hotel.

The casino has just slot machines. At least last I checked that was a while ago. That is the first venue in which I ever saw Night Ranger, so it holds a very special place in my heart for that. But when they would bring me out for these events, when I worked in Houston and in Vinton, Louisiana is kind of it's a little bit between like Lake Charles and Beaumont is where Vinton is. So anyway, so I'm at Delta Downs and the first time

I ever see the term return on investment, I'm reading like the sheet, like the bet sheets and everything and like, hey, this is the horse and this is his odds and this is how he's running other races. And it says, this is your return on investment with this horse and I'd never heard the term ROI used before and now I use it as if I'm some sort of big time player and everything but return on investment is an important factor in this. This is obvious. I'm not telling you anything you do not know. Where do you think you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck?

That is what every human on the planet is looking for. Bang for your buck ROI, return on investment. Your return on investment is absolutely nil if you give money to a swimmer. Your return on investment is absolutely nil for the most part with track athletes. They might make the Olympics and that might look good but Lolo Jones was an Olympic runner for LSU. Who's more important to LSU the person that ran in the Olympics or the person that was part of a nine and three football team? Well, probably

the person that not even probably definitely the person on the nine and three football team. The offensive lineman that you've never heard of on the LSU National Championship team is more important to the school than Lolo Jones who was an Olympic medalist did. So like those are the things. It's return on investment. This is not hard. And when I read that the schools are having to deal with politics at some point, and I get that that's part of being a manager and you got to

stroke egos and all this shit. At some point, people need to understand their lot in life and their position in life. If you are the golf coach at LSU, you know that you are not the football coach or the basketball coach or the baseball coach or the women's basketball coach at LSU. If you are the baseball coach, now it gets harder if you're like the coach of the baseball team who's won six national championships and you're back in Omaha again and you play a relevant sport like baseball

and you're like, hey, give me a little bit more, but you still understand that football is why all these other programs exist at LSU, Florida, Alabama, Auburn. So you kind of have to get it, but you can fight a little bit more in those scenarios. Like that's how life is though. You got to understand where you are in life. Pick your battles. I used to disagree with this all the time when people would say pick your battles. I just picked every battle and battled. That was kind of my thing is I would fight over everything but as I've

gotten older I've learned hey pick your battles. Like as we talk about a lot I feel like if I'm going to get another radio job guess what's going to happen? It ain't going to be making well into six figures like I was here. Like you got to find the little tiny thing. Like you can't argue over minutiae. You have to understand where you are, what position you're in, and kind of grow to accept that and fight the battles that need to be fought. And I think if you are a coach that doesn't coach football at Louisiana State University, you understand that you're much lower on the totem pole. And if you don't coach basketball,

you're even lower probably, at least at school like LSU, it may flip flop with baseball. And if you don't coach basketball, you're even lower probably at least at school like LSU it may flip flop with baseball. But if you coach, you know tennis you understand that hey, you might win 10 national championships. No one gives a shit. You might have 10 volleyball championships. No one gives a shit and that's the important factor in this about who's going to get this money. At least there's not some built-in bullshit rule in this where it's like the women's team has to get 50% or 40%. That would be absolute bullshit and it would go against

everything we stand for as a people. But anyway, more to come.