The Ryen Russillo Podcast - College Programs May Be Broke But It’s Their Fault, Plus Domonique Foxworth on CBA Negotiations  

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on spending my university programs, specifically about coaches’ severance pay (1:35). Then Ryen is joined by writer, sports analyst, and former president of the NFLPA Domonique Foxworth to discuss collective bargaining negotiations; the leverage disparity between the players union and the owners; Domonique’s career path from NFL player, to business graduate, to president of the NFLPA, to COO of the NBAPA, to sports media, and more (16:28). Finally, Domonique addresses Ryen’s comments from last week’s episode of ‘The Bill Simmons Podcast’ (42:50). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan rossillo podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected uh something unexpected is that fight island is real, folks. I don't know if it was just a cartoon drawing, but that's enough for me. I'm all in on Fight Island. There are rumors that it could be

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farm today's guest will be dominique foxworth from espn we're going to talk about all sorts of stuff and specifically the cba and he was the nflpa president and i've always loved his perspective on this kind of stuff he's incredibly incredibly accomplished guy not just playing in the nfl but nba from harvard and then working on player sides for so many different things so i i like that and make a topical too. And what would it be like right now if the CBA were not done and how would it play out differently? Would it play out differently at all? So a lot of different stuff that we'll do with Dominique,

but first this week's open is about college spending. And I'm not talking about tuition for your child. And I'm not talking about you being in school, trying to figure out how to make it work for 20 bucks over the next week. I'm talking about what college programs are spending and specifically college football and college basketball all over the country. There have been massive spikes in television revenues. We already know this. I'm going to go over some of this stuff a little bit later. But what we've always heard is there's been this battle of can't the players get a little slice

of this. And as I've said, I'm not an NCAA anarchist, but I do believe that there's just a time now for the revenue-generating sports to find a way to siphon some of that money to the players. Now, I'm not all in on some of the stuff that I read about sharing some of the revenue, but I think it can be shared, and there's plenty of money to be there. But what we'll always hear is that there isn't enough money.

Now, there's also a lesson here that's very, very simple, and that is if you give a person an excuse, they will use it, okay it most of the time. And college programs will always say, well, you know, we just don't have enough money. We can't really do those things now facing the coronavirus. And I don't know what's going to happen here in the fall. It went from maybe no college football. We'll have it in the spring to maybe we'll have empty stadiums, but we can't really have athletes back if there aren't students that are back.

And then it's like, well, what if we do online courses? Then two Texas schools were like, screw it. We're playing football. We'll see you guys. Classes start September 1st. Maybe they start a little bit earlier. But you get the point. This has evolved, and it's been rapid, and it's happening very quickly

where it feels like we may be building back to some version of college football that we've always lived with. Now, if the second wave happens, who knows? I don't know if it's happening. You probably don't know if it's happening either. But that's the point is we've moved off of total and absolute pessimism to now kind of just hopeful optimism. So that means that there will be, if there's a muted version of whatever the product is, the television money will be there. It'll be worth it because everybody's

going to be watching. But if you're not making the same in parking and concessions and all the different things, the in-game experience, then the programs will say, well, you know what? We're really not making enough money. Now, the question I would ask is, is it that you're not making enough money or it's the way you're spending the money? Because severance payouts to college football coaches and college basketball coaches have spiked so much in the last decade and a half. And I don't think anybody's talking about it.

Let's talk about how you spend. Because I know for myself, I didn't have any money really for, I don't know, 20s to early 30s. The first time I finally saved a little bit of money, I finally felt like a grown up. And it's like, man, in those times where you're not saving any money and you're living check to check and you're going, all right, I have this constant anxiety about money that sucks. And you just keep getting into the cycle.

But it doesn't really change until you can find a way to actually make more. And the first time I actually knew, hey, wow, this is unbelievable. I'm going to have this amount of money in my checking account every two weeks, and it feels real, and I feel like a grown-up. And I called my father, and I said, this is great, because now I'll finally be able to save some money, put aside something, and maybe think about something bigger down the road. And he kind of laughed at me, and I thought, well, wait a minute.

Why are you laughing? And he's always been pretty good in how he saves, and I thought, what? He goes, look, I know you. You've been broke pretty much your entire adult life. And I'm not going to... You're going to buy a new car. You're going to live to your new standard now. It's not that you're going to save more. You're going to live to a new standard because you're making more. I was like, oh, I don't know if that's true. And he was right. I did buy a new car. I did get a nicer apartment. I did buy new furniture. I started doing things that I wasn't doing before. And then I started realizing, hey, with all of this new money, you haven't saved any of this stuff because now you're living to this new

standard that you've set. And college football and basketball programs are doing the exact same thing. Here's a number for you. From 2005 to 2019, the Power Five public schools that we have records of, college football has spent 390 million in severance payouts to coaches that are gone, and basketball has paid 102 million. And some of that's obviously the staff, the head coach, and maybe even athletic directors. So in 15 years of data that this one website, Athletic Director U actually has, that's, yes, Athletic Director U, ADU, a lot of this stuff that I looked at there. Over that short amount of time, that's almost $500 million with data that's actually missing. Now, schools, when they come

back, could say, well, it's not the same. What are you spending your money on? Well, scholarships? No, not really. Travel? No. Are you propping up other programs? Yes, that's true in some cases. But what you're really doing is because of all this extra television revenue, you're spending to a new lifestyle and you're getting away with it while you're also complaining that you're really doing is because of all this extra television revenue, you're spending to a new lifestyle and you're getting away with it while you're also complaining that you're broke all the time. All right? Now, let's look at some of my favorites here. Nebraska football and basketball since 2005

has paid out almost $28 million in severance payments, the most of any Power 5 program. Florida and just football alone is just under $25 million. Nebraska behind them. You know who's third? Third in just football alone is just under 25 million. Nebraska behind them. You know who's third? Third in just football severance payments? Kansas at almost $24 million. The Harvard Current had an article about UConn football. They generated $3 million in revenue. It cost him $16 million in actual salaries and buyouts. There were some Randy Etzel bonuses where he would get $2,000 if the team were up at halftime. Granted, it's just $2,000, but the entire contract doesn't make any sense.

So when I dug a little bit deeper, I go, wait a minute. So is it because the severances have gone up that you're claiming that you're broke? And yes, we can talk about new facilities. And I'm not even telling you that Coach's salary shouldn't have gone up with the new revenue that's coming in from television but what i'm telling you is you can't sit there and spend all this money on facilities spend on the coaches but then also fire all these coaches that you're so excited to hire in the first place and then come back and say hey there isn't going to be any money because that's the other part of this the money isn't going anywhere let's take a look at some of the

conference payouts for these programs the sec with the new ESPN deal where they're going to have the Saturday game of the week, so they're going to have the CBS game. It's supposed to start in 2024, but it could be bought out, and so therefore it could start even earlier. CBS made a ton of money off of that deal because of the way it was negotiated. ESPN came in and spent so much more because it's such a valuable property, where the SEC, who in 2018 paid out each of its schools $43 million, they're going to get a $20 million bump. So in 2024, they could be making $65 million. Other projections show that the SEC and Big Ten could be close to $80 million per program by 2025. In 2018, the Big Ten led the way with $54 million. That's that $43 million number per team in the

SEC. The Big 12 made $35 million a team. The Pac-12 and ACC both around $30 million per team, and they're actually in last. And you think, okay, well, how is the ACC or Pac-12 going to keep up? But think of the increases that we've had in television revenue. And I just used the ACC here because all the numbers were real. The ACC in 2011 and 2012 did a new television deal with ESPN that paid the schools then $13 million per year. That doubled the team payouts prior to that in the previous television deal. The ACC not 20 years ago, less than 20 years ago, really like 13 years ago, was paying schools $6 million per school with their television revenue. Then it went to $13 million and now they're last at $30 million.

with their television revenue. Then it went to 13, and now they're last at 30. Now, there's another part of this where if you're out in the Pac-12, you could be worried because projections show that in 2024, 2025, you might be at $40 million per team, and you're thinking, well, that's great. We're at 25% higher. Not great if the Big Ten and the SEC are both making $80 million per team. And this is all television revenue projections.

Now, you could say, wait a minute, what about the bubble? Because everybody's a bubble expert after the big short. We get that. But is there really a television live rights bubble? You could say that just based on trends saying, well, if everything keeps going this way, there has to be some correction at some point. But I could argue, yes, as media companies struggle everywhere, the thing they may want is, well, give me the one thing I know I can actually turn for a profit instead of all these other things that I'm experimenting with that aren't actually working out. And that's why the television bubble for live rights and sports, I don't think is going away anytime soon. And if the bubble means that you're not going to get as much as you thought, but you still get more, I don't know that that's really a bubble.

So you don't even have to worry about how much you've been spending because you can look at the projections and realize how much more that you're going to make. And there's been no one that says, hey, maybe this is out of control. Because if you go back to 2005 and you look at the actual average severance per these Power Five schools, it's not even close to what it is now. This has just been accepted. And part of that is our fault.

Because why? We're fans, and then there's more prestigious fans than us that are boosters, that write these checks, that influence ADs, and every time it's the next new hot coach that every fan base absolutely has to have, whether's tom herman who everybody's like now harbaugh who i think is unfairly meh but again chip kelly now all of a sudden people think he can't even coach i brought up david shaw as one of the five guys i would want to run my program because i

think the world of him and he had a bad season finally and people thought i was nuts for even bringing him up because of one bad season after a great decade-long run at stanford scott frost was like finally we're back are you miami has tried to hire um everybody with every kind of background and then kevin sumlin in his first couple years at a&m other teams were mad that they didn't hire him and now he's at arizona so part of this is our need for immediate gratification when the new hire comes in. But we turn the page on these guys so much quicker. The sport isn't different, right? The sport isn't any different.

I went through the 1999 SEC coaching 10 years. And you had Spurrier at that point was in his 10th season out of 12. Fulmer was 8th season out of 17 with Tennessee. Jim Donnan, the Stamers, he only made it five years in Georgia. I could go through a bunch of 17 with Tennessee. Jim Donnan, steamers. He only made it five years in Georgia. I could go through a bunch of these other ones. My favorite still might be Jerry DiNardo, who barely won six games at Vandy. Actually, one coach of the year at Vandy from going one and 10 to five and six. I didn't expect to see that in my research. Jerry DiNardo, who went from Vandy to LSU, which would never happen today, and people were still making fun of Jerry DiNardo every time I

go to Baton Rouge. And then he ended up at Indiana, and then he ended up on College Game Day Radio with Dave Revston and Todd McShay. And Todd McShay said he was a really nice guy. Booger McFarlane called him a piece of shit on our podcast, which was interesting, and there was no real follow-up there. But it just felt different back then because these guys latched us so long. I mean, Cutcliffe was at Ole Miss for seven years, and they were like, eh, we can do better. And Cutcliffe probably is one of the most successful, given her circumstances, most successful head coaches in college football today.

And then you had Houston Nutt, who made it 10 years at Arkansas. Ole Miss couldn't wait to get him in there, and he went from 9-4 to 2 and 10 in four years. I also have some Jackie Sherrill stats that I'm not even going to share with you because I feel like now I'm getting distracted. Let's bring it back on the track. These guys are getting fired all the time because the money's bigger, but they're getting fired all the time because the money's bigger. Because you feel like, hey, we can just fire this guy and pay the entire staff. We'll have these severance payments. What's 25 million in severance over a decade? Is it really that big of a deal? Look at all the TV money that we're going to get. I had this friend. His name was Mike. He's still a friend. We were both broke. We were on the Cape, I think, for a night out in the summer. And we were like,

how are we going to pay for everything tonight? And he just threw down a credit card. He's like, I got it. I was like, really? He goes, yeah, I got a couple things cooking. He had nothing cooking. Nothing. But in his head, he thought he had something cooking. And that was enough. He didn't even have the fake money coming that was already fake. He didn't even have any of that.

These schools can do this because there is something coming. More TV money. But the lesson, again, in all of this is, are you going to tell us that you're broke all the time? But why are you broke? Why are some of these programs underwater? Is it because there isn't enough money? No.

It's because there's so much money. And you haven't adjusted for this yet. And everybody accepts it. It would be like my roommate saying, hey, do you have rent? I'd be like, no. Like, what do you mean? Like, oh, there's not enough money. You don't have enough money?

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Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. All right. I'm excited to talk to my guy, Dominique Foxworth, 2005, 2011 NFL career. And something that I learned about Dominique, especially getting to talk to him and be around him is that he was the youngest ever vice president of the NFLPA executive committee. And then in 2012, he was elected president of the NFLPA. And as I mentioned with Bill, and I have mentioned this numerous times, I'm a big CBA guy. I love talking about it.

I think I understand it. I would say modestly, I know I'm not an expert on it, but it's just something that's really interested me. And I remember I'd done a segment about the players in the 2011 deal i'm like man these guys get killed in this deal and and foxworth comes up to me he goes do you have any idea you just like set me straight immediately and that's how we met each other um which i think is it's one of the most important conversations i've ever had because you got me to understand so when you would hear somebody like me on the air this big platform talking about these CBA,

then you're in it, you're leading it up for the players. What was always the most frustrating part of that for you? I mean, I think it's just people don't have all the information and they parachute in at the last minute and make decisions and have a misunderstanding of how negotiations work. They think it's like the movies where you can walk in and you just got to play hardball or like there's some sort of negotiation tactics that'll trick the other side. Like negotiations about outsmarting them or out gaming them.

No, it's about leverage and wielding that leverage, creating that leverage and timing. Like that's what it's about. And so, yeah, when you, I guess I'm used to it from being a football player because football is a complex game and people pass judgment on what happens on the field, even though for the most part, unless you are analysts and you're like watching it very, very critically and you have a background to understand it. People don't really know what's happening. They just see like the final score and that determines like, hey, this guy stinks or this guy's. Be honest, you probably hated most every analyst as a player. Yeah, probably. I mean, either I hated them or I didn't think about them that much.

And I know the I don't read, I don't watch thing is something that people say and you assume it's a lie. But I didn't really read or watch much stuff about myself. It would get to me sometimes and it would upset me or make me feel good. But I just didn't care that much to consume football 24 hours a day. Like I'm that's work. When I get home, I don't feel like doing more work. I want to go do something fun, listen to some music or watch a show. Or when I was in my early twenties, make some friends. or watch the show or when I was in my early 20s, make some friends.

So when you are heading up these negotiations, when you broke down the math of it, you know, where you go, the NFL is different. Now, I do think that sometimes the shortened career thing can be exaggerated with running backs. Like, oh, you're only – like, if you're good and you're going to play, you're going to play for longer than the three-year average that's kind of thrown at everybody and i think that average is dragged down by the guys that like are on a squad for a year then they get them off the

team and they realize you can't play but the math just doesn't work out right like how impossible is it for you to ever have players say hey we're gonna actually change the tide here and really sacrifice some things because that's as we saw from the last vote it's hard to get players to do that especially when it's this many yeah i mean I think the average is dragged down by those players but they're players too and they that that matters so the averages I think is the the best number to use but I do understand your point is like the names that we know don't play for three years but I think the math the interesting thing is the NFLPA is kind of thought of as one of the weaker unions but the same thing's happening to all sports unions. And you can probably make it even

broader. It's happening to all unions. And I guess during this time, with the exception of the police union, that's a whole nother conversation. But the power that unions have is dwindling. And we can look at the NBA. I know people talk about how much power they have. They have a unique situation over there. And we saw their money went down two CBAs ago. And then it kind of stayed the same when they when I was there in the early parts of that negotiation, when they wanted to increase it. Same thing for Major League Baseball. While they don't have a salary cap, they have a very restrictive revenue sharing situation that kind of creates a league-wide salary cap. And then they have service time that makes it harder for guys to get paid. So I think the average, the revenue breakdown, I think baseball last time I checked like

three or four years ago, they were the lowest percentage of revenue, despite the fact that they have a couple of guys with big numbers. So it's a tough situation and it's a long way to go to get to the question that you asked originally, is that the money doesn't work out because of how long players' careers are relative to how long owners own the team and how much it's worth. So if you have a big piece of pie and let's say you cut it in half, you split it 32 ways, that's better than splitting it 1,500 ways. And then if you think that you get to get a new piece of pie or a new pie every year for inter-perpetuity, if you're the owners, then

let's say on average, maybe one point, and I don't remember the numbers now, but I'll pull this out of anywhere. Let's say one percentage point on the CBA just to make it easy is like worth $20 million per team. Or yeah, it's 20 million per team. If you divide that up across all 1500 players, it's not very much money, but 20 million for an owner is a lot of money, especially if your career as a NFL owner lasts as long as you want it to last. So if you're saying we're going to a lockout and one of the only points of leverage that you have as a player is to go and strike or withstand the lockout, then every minute that you spend away is money that you'll never get back because you don't own your position

into perpetuity. You can't hand it on to your kids. You will lose that job. And every year you spend away from the game is one year older you are and one less uh year of earning that you have so it just doesn't make sense uh on an economic level to win that way which is why we always end up in court and everyone no one ever likes that but like that's the only way we can find some recourse is to be able to threaten their antitrust protection and they have antitrust protection they're allowed to do of it, to operate as a legal cartel because the union exists, which is why one of the articles I wrote a long time ago that people seem to like was the argument that the teams to operate as other businesses would. And they wouldn't be able to do some of the legal things like have a draft or have a salary cap and trade players and all those things that we've become accustomed to. I feel like everybody who's listening has fallen asleep already.

Only me care about this, Ryan. I promise you, no one cares. This is some of the stuff where it'll make me sound like... It's very much like a lot of topics, right? You have to be all player. You have to be all owner. And sitting with enough guys that have played and caring about it as much as I do,

I know where I stand on the player-owner thing. But every now and then, there'll be a little owner thing where I go, okay, well, is it wrong? Is the draft wrong? Is it wrong that if you're drafted and you're good, like, is it Seattle's fault that they were the one that picked Russell Wilson? And is it messed up that Russell Wilson's making less than everybody else? Yes. But is it, is it the ownership? Is it the team's fault? Like,

is there any part of this where you are like philosophically flexible on, yeah, I get how the draft makes sense. I get how free agency and trades work and that that's sort of our business as opposed to other labor laws. Yeah. I mean, the further I get away from the game as it may not seem like it. And I went to business school with the plans of like going crossing over to the business world. Harvard. And making a whole lot of money.

That's why I went there. And I left thinking money wasn't as important as I originally thought. So I steered in a different direction. So I completely understand how businesses operate and understand how difficult it can be for certain businesses. But it's hard for me to have sympathy when you have a legal cartel, like you're a legal monopoly, like you have no competition. It's hard for me to feel bad for them because part of the reason why I would feel sympathy for someone who was doing a startup or even someone who had a sustained business, like one of the major companies in America, they have real competition. And you know what happens if they don't succeed? They go out of

business. They lose money. They have stock price that they have to worry about short and long term. They lose money. They have stock price that they have to worry about short and long term. Like none of this applies to professional sports teams. Like you're going to be good. And if you can't afford it, you know what? Sell your team. You're only made, I think that for the NFL, it might have been 300%.

Franchise value growth in the last 10 years for baseball is like 180. I'm not sure what it is for basketball, but like. Basketball is probably more. It's going to be even. No, it's going to be even more. I'm not. You're right. basketball, but that's hard for me to muster up. No, it's going to be even more. You're right. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but it's more. When the TV rights triple and the Celtics go from

a $300 million investment in the early 2000s or the people made fun of Joe Laker buying the Warriors for $400,000 plus. They're like, oh my God, the Celtics were overpriced, but what did you just pay for when you bought the Warriors? All those teams you could argue were worth four times as much. It's hard for me to find sympathy given all those facts. That's all I'm saying. Then when we have these situations

now coming out of the pandemic where Major League Baseball is trying not to pay these players their full salaries or not even their full prorated salaries and they call them their partners. Like if we were partners, baseball salaries have grown 30% in the past 10 years. And I think the, what'd I say? 180,

I think 180 might've been for football and 300% for baseball. They weren't partners when that was happening. Like 30% is different from 300. So they weren't partners there. So why do they need to be partners now and the idea that they need to the players need to make some sort of investment in the future of baseball they don't own baseball you do so you make the investment that's what you do make investments in things that you own and then you reap the rewards later so i'm sorry i'm getting fired up but that uh frustrates me so the baseball part is i've said I think on the last podcast that I did with Passon, we're always told it's a business, it's a business, it's a business.

What law passed that guarantees that your business is always profitable if you own a franchise? And maybe, just maybe, hey, you had a bad year in 2020. You had a bad year. You still had your pay to your employees. And guess what? Next year is probably going to be pretty good. And when you sell your team,

none of you guys are going to lose money. Because anyone who has an article about a franchise selling for less when it's sold, feel free to forward it to me. Absolutely. You made the perfect analogy on Bill's show when you said it's like owning a big house in a fancy neighborhood and complaining about the electric bill. Stop it. It comes with owning a house. Sometimes the electric bill is going to be high that's that's what happens i was wondering which bill pod maybe we'll get to that a little bit later oh yeah i was like i don't know wanted to tease it wanted to tease it we can't we can't not talk about it no we are we are going to talk about

it but let me uh i have two more things on the cba thing is there a and i do this sometimes like hey tell me your best story and and what do you remember the most is there a moment when you were president of the nflpa where you go oh whoa like the story you tell your buddies like the most illuminating thing where it's something that kind of will stay with you whenever you think about those times trying to get that deal done oh my gosh there's so many stories um and obviously there are a few of them that i do not want to on record and i can tell you about those later um i'll give you one that that i don't think i've told before that uh is okay to be public um jerry richardson the former owner of the um panthers was on Yeah, he was leading their management council because they have just like we have an executive committee.

They have a smaller group that actually participates in the negotiations and makes all the decisions. He was the leader of that. He was older at that time and he was falling asleep in the meeting and fell out of his chair and like woke up. And we all like tried not to laugh but eventually bust out laughing so that was pretty funny and another Jerry Richardson story that was in outside of Chicago one time we were in New York and we're getting close to the end of negotiations and Jerry Jones obviously is printing money so like any idea of a lockout, like he's not interested in it. We were down to negotiating small things. And Jerry stood up and said, now we're just circumcising a mosquito. And Jerry Richardson said to Jones, something like sit down or whatever, something like that. And Jerry Jones said back to Jerry Richardson, I will work you on the inside, you long arm son of a bitch. I'll never forget that. That was pretty funny.

Those are two pretty good stories, I think. Oh, that is good. I've heard the Mosquito one before because the pronunciation. Did you hear the long arm son of a bitch part? That was the punchline of that story. No. The one that Woodson told me was when I think Irvin went to Jerry to try to get a new deal. And he started telling him about these investment stories from El Paso, Texas. And Irvin's like, what? And I think it was Irvin. And he was just trying to figure out like, where the hell is this story going? And then as Jerry got done meandering and being folksy for five minutes, he went to Irvin. and he goes so what i'm telling you

is on this thing that you're asking for i'm gonna pass el paso and he was like what and he goes it was the nicest like funniest most entertaining way you could have your boss tell you no thanks i'm not interested more with foxworth here in a second but this episode of the ryan rossillo podcast is brought to you by full sail University's Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting. Legendary sportscaster Dan Patrick. You know him from the Dan Patrick Show, Sunday Night Football, the Olympics, and SportsCenter has teamed up with Full Sail University to offer an accelerated bachelor's degree in sportscasting. Full Sail University combines hands-on learning, immersive projects, and faculty with the real-world experience to prepare students for life in the media industry. And for the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting, they've brought in some of the sports media's best to be part of this program. Longtime ESPN producer and multi-time Emmy winner Gus Ramsey is heading up the program. And sportscasting pros such as Sage Steele, Jay Harris, Kevin Agondi, and many more are involved.

I myself recently just did a class for a while with Gus. I've known Gus a while. Bill's known Gus for a long time. I know how much he cares. And there's a lot of students there that have professors that are people that I work with. And I know how much some of these professors care. And the guy barely worked with Dan when I first got there. Dan was kind of leaving as I was getting started. But Dan has taken the time with me a couple of times to return a call, which means the world to me. So knowing that that guy is behind this, where he had no reason to ever call me back or any of that kind of stuff. We talked a bunch, a couple of different times, and he was just sincere about the whole thing. So that meant a

lot to me. So I'm all in on Full Sail, just knowing the people that are behind it. So they have in their program, students are going to learn sportscasting inside and out, on camera, behind camera, podcasting, radio interviewing, and everything in between. At Full Sail University's Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting, you can earn a bachelor's degree in about half the time, as short as 20 months. And you can choose to earn your degree online or on Full Sail's campus in Orlando, Florida. To learn more about Full Sail University's Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting, go to fullsail.edu forward slash Russillo.

That's R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O. And hit me up on Twitter at Ryan A. Russillo if you want and let me know if you enrolled and I will speak to your class. And they didn't ask me to do that, but that's what I think of those guys down there. So I'm happy to help when I have free time. One of the things leading up to the new CBA,

which I loved, which was just ownership media relationship 101, was media members that covered the NFL saying, well, the owners would like to get this new deal done before the season starts. So look for a deal there. And you'd be like, well, yeah, I understand what they would like, but if'm eric winston if i'm demore

smith if i'm um george atala if i'm any of these guys and i'm going on the player side like yeah we get your desire here and then it kept happening right oh by thanksgiving you know and they'd like to do the new tv deal with everything that has gone, both between the pandemic and conversations that have happened in the last couple weeks, where you can see the NFL reacting in a way they've never reacted before when it comes to social issues, what do you think would have happened if the CBA hadn't been agreed upon prior to all this stuff going on and then we opened it back up and brought it to the table, say, next month? on and then we opened it back up and brought it to the table say next month i mean i think that gives a level of power to the players that they didn't have before because it's another it's another leverage point like they can the players and the players alone have the ability to change the perception of the league and this right now the league's perception is kind of negative and if the players come out and are positive about it, the largely black players who've been outspoken,

that means something to them. And that's a chip, essentially. And I think it also, right now, they feel like villains. And they so rarely seem, or they so rarely are villains or treated like villains in the public view. It normally comes down to the players, because everyone knows the player's name. They know how much the players are making.

And many people are jealous of the players. They're like, man, they got all this money and they're younger than us. They're Black. That plays into it. And when it comes down to decision-making time, people on Twitter are yelling at the receivers and the defensive tackles about, man, just take the money.

And the players read it and they listen and it inputs them. The articles that are written are about why the players can't just be happy with what they're getting. Like so rarely do we go through the owners and hit them with the same thing. If anyone catches the heat is Roger Goodell and, and he can't do anything about it necessarily.

So that's a, that's a tough situation. I think the the tables might be turned a little bit because right now it it feels like the public and large are happy to be on the player's side happy to feel like they're on the side of right and happy to to yell at uh the the team owners yeah it's you know the counter would be hey we have all of this uncertainty and i would be thinking well wait a minute i'm not going to negotiate a decade long deal because of like, as unknown as the fall still may feel, I'm not signing off on 20, 30 values here because of a pandemic.

I'm just not going to do that. I wouldn't even want it. Like, I'd be like, that's going to end the conversation. But at the same time, you would think that there's a – I don't know if it's real or not. I would think from the messages that we've seen, because everybody feels like they have to be putting out like, hey, make sure we check the box and make sure the NFL ownership,

we do these things. Goodell does this statement, and it's like, okay, so they're doing some different things. I'm just wondering how much that could impact a more favorable player CBA. I don't know. Maybe I'm dreaming. I'm not sure that it would impact it that much, but I do know that the impact that you would see

is the public pressure. That's something that the players feel and the players care about. So that's taking one leverage point. Because right now the owners and the league have all the leverage. The ESPN, the ringer, everybody who's covering this. Like, you know, you recover from pissing off a player. His career, 10, 15 years, he'll be all right.

You won't recover or it's hard to recover from pissing off a team or the commissioner or the league. Like we saw that with the Monday night football games that ESPN got for so long. Like that is a real penalty. That's hard to recover from. I mean, Bill, the ringer itself is born in part out of pissing off the powers that be. So when it comes down to people writing articles and talking about who's winning and who's losing, they read all this. I've gotten calls and emails and text messages, never from any players mad about the things I say about them, but certainly from people high up in these organizations.

So they apply that pressure, and that pressure comes down on the players, and the players respond to it. Yeah, I just don't know if enough people understand that Monday Night Football stretch that ESPN went through. They just don't. It's been written about. I mean, there have been guys that are very close to me that were involved with monday night football that would be like did you see that we it felt like

every week it was jacksonville tennessee and that was not when tennessee was as fun to watch as they were this past season and i know jacksonville had a nice little defensive run there two years ago but it was it was a real thing and then when i read jeff perlman's usfl book which was awesome and it was whoever did those tv deals it was was ABC, I think, did it with the USFL. And then there were just memos basically saying the NFL but like i never understood when bud seely would be upset about being criticized i would think well why can't espn tell baseball like hey who else is going to pay you hundreds of millions for the sunday night baseball slot where it's a really good slot like who else is going to pay you this so sorry bud like we're going to push back here but they wouldn't because that was their these are the high high level things that are happening that even guys with voices don't always understand and cbs like if cbs or

fox had 24 7 3 channels doing sports guess what there'd be people saying some stuff that the nfl wouldn't like or the nba wouldn't like but we're just or i shouldn't say we anymore but at that time you're exposed you're exposed from all these opinion people that you don't want to tell can't say these things right so i'll push back on you a little bit in that I agree with you. I wish that's how they felt. But the risk reward and now I'm taking management position, the risk reward for ESPN at that time is so, so, so clear. Like I'm going to piss off my my writers my on-air talent who I pay whatever, something with one comma in it. Or I've got to piss off the league that I pay something with three commas in it. And for what purpose? So that my organization is like appears to be righteous or something like if i were running the business and i was being

graded by like the final score uh i think i would lean in that direction like i understand why that why so many companies feel the desire to not upset the money because that's like that is the power especially with the how we all know how media change like live sports is where it's at you could risk pissing off a couple of your writers who don't really get people to show up or you can risk pissing off the nfl which is the only reason why you exist i can't believe i did not expect this turn that at some point there'd be a slightly pro management lean from no i'm just a contrarian you all you got to do is put me on the other side and i'm gonna find a way to fight i want to revisit though your opposition in that my position was more about baseball and not football it was strictly a

baseball thing where i thought like can't you tell baseball that hey sorry sorry somebody made a butt-sealing joke um football no football i'm with you okay so when you first came to espn i don't were you kind of doing a hybrid thing where you were doing stuff for the undefeated but you're also doing some breakdown stuff so you're also doing the morning roast with mina and clinton and you were i don't want to say you're ahead of your time but you were always more outspoken i think you were always looking at things a little bit differently. And I think at first it's almost like,

oh, what is this guy going to do? Is he an NFL analyst or is there more to this? Which is obviously more mainstream now, but how tough was that for you both as a player and maybe early on transitioning your media career where it's like everybody's trying to figure out your lane and your lane was more complicated than other ex-players? Yeah, I mean um after business school i took a job at the nba players association in new york and i was planning

on having a professional career and obviously not like i would pass judgment on the athletes who could only make money by staying in football like i didn't want to be that guy that's why i took a year to study and go to the fanciest business school I could find. And that was the plan. Then I moved to New York and I was working from eight to eight, riding the train with two young kids. And my wife was pregnant with a third and it just was not a happy existence. And then I was like, why am I doing this? It's making everyone in my life miserable. So I quit without any plans and I started writing because I always liked to write. And then because of that, I was writing about race and stuff that I found interesting because of that. An agent contacted me and then connected me with ESPN. So ESPN, the football people, I mean, it's hard to sell myself. Football people didn't really

want me and I don't blame them for that because like I was a decent player, but like no one knew my name. No one's going to show up for that. And then the writing side was like, I mean, he does, he's written like 10 pieces. Like he's not, we're not going to pay him. So I ended up meeting John Skipper and he was like, well, I think you're talented. We're going to pay you and you figure it out.

And it just so happened that my wife's from DC and undefeated opened. And I was interested in race and stuff. And that's how I ended up there. And then I just started trying to figure it out and trying to find ways to get it done. And most of the time I was like, I don't know how much I like this necessarily. I might want to move on. But when big, important stuff comes up like that's when I have fun. When big, important stuff comes up, that's when I have fun. Right now, I'm working more and feeling more fulfilled than I have at any stretch in this time because it feels like big, important things are happening. It doesn't feel like all this inconsequential stuff

that sports normally is. It doesn't feel like that's not what we're talking about. As important and fun as all that is, it's not as invigorating to me to being able to talk to all these other bigger social issues. So that leads us to this. You reach out to me after the last podcast that I did with Bill, which I've since talked about and apologize for moments in it.

And I've talked to a lot of different people, but your conversation, we talked off the air. I mean, we don't have to share all this kind of stuff, but I guess this is one of those things where I'm even afraid I don't even want to ask the question wrong. So I think you just start with where you're at. Don't ask the question. I appreciated what you did in that podcast.

And I certainly am not taping for you or anybody else. Like I said, when we talk that we're not friends, like we know each other and like we're friendly when we see each other, but we're not like friends. Like we, we wouldn't talk if it weren't for this media thing, but I've always appreciated people like you. And I'm not going to compare you to anybody else, but there's a few types of people in this business.

And there are people who don't want to say the wrong thing. There's a few types of people in this business. There are people who don't want to say the wrong thing. There are people who are dishonest and will say salacious things just for attention. My kids are down here. Then there are also people who I think are unafraid to say their position and, and we'll deal with the consequences. And that's the person that I think you are. And I've appreciated that because like,

I feel like that makes me better, especially when you disagree with me. So like I was fired up on TV that day and it was good in part because I couldn't sleep that night at three in the morning, I was listening to you and like, I disagreed with some of the positions that you took but none of it was um none of it made me angry it just like was intriguing because like an honest person who's smart who comes to a different opinion is useful for me in my life and uh so yeah that's that's all I'll say. I think I have some answers to this. I know I have some answers to this, but what do you think was the biggest problem with what I was?

And I'm going to explain a little bit more on it, what we talked about, but the biggest problem that so many people had. Yeah. I mean, I think saying that you vote for your tax interest like that, given who is in the White House right now, I think a lot of people assume certain things about the decision that you made. Knowing what was said before the election and knowing what's happened since the election, it's impossible, frankly, to to reconcile. Making that type of decision, that's a hard thing. And like I have this is like the oh, I have black friends thing. friends thing like i actually do have friends that that voted for the current president uh because my best friend from college my roommate uh i became friends with some of his friends and he grew up in like a rural area of maryland and i really love those guys i like them a lot but they i fight with them all the time because I just don't understand how they could justify making that decision, given all the things that were going on at the time.

And I know we talked and since then I re-listened to the podcast and you actually never did say that you voted in that direction. But that was part of the reason why I think it rubs so many people the wrong way. And especially right now, when all this stuff is happening, it's like, man, that is a level of bravery that very few people have. Yeah. Well, you know me, as you said, I think we've talked enough in that you know kind of what I'm doing. I wasn't trying to be brave. It was just a very, very, there's a bunch of stuff that I regret. But then when it turns into something,

the thing that's being reported and written about over and over and over again, you're just like, whoa. And then I remember talking with you about it and we were both like, yeah, wow, how did we come to this conclusion on the whole thing? Yeah, and I went back and listened and that was not what you said,

but I certainly don't think that it's not fair to be critical of somebody for something they did not say or something they did not do. But there's certainly a bunch of fair criticism to be made of you in that moment. The only bit of of understand or this is another bit of me understanding management is like, while I disagree with some of the policies about talking about the president or talking about race or politics. It's a blanket policy to protect people from doing what you did then is like working through your thoughts on air, you because like yeah nothing you said is is anything that i'm sure didn't cross people's mind i guarantee you that um a lot of people who are close to riots at some point considered man wonder if it's gonna come over here but they didn't say it on a microphone because it's like it's not something you say in that moment. And like all of that stuff, like, I don't know, I guess because I saw it as human, it didn't, that's not what bothered me. And I also like, I used it because it was like, man, this is good.

I know that I need to come on the complete other side of this as hard as I possibly can because, because it's not how I feel at all. I, I learned a lot of lessons, um lot of lessons in the week plus since then. And you were definitely part of that because it meant a lot to me that you and I would just kind of talk a little bit about it and through it. And then, you know, Van Lathan and I talked for quite a while. I mean, you know, whatever. Oh, name all the black people you know. Oh, is that what I'm doing?

Name some more blacks. Is that what I'm doing? No, I'm just messing with you, man. Well, you've got me right now because I don't have any counters. I don't have any lines. Yeah, that's one of the best things about this moment. While there's not very many good things about this moment. Actually, I've gone to the protest the last couple mornings and I leave feeling great.

That's invigorating. But another great thing is this level of power that black people have right now is something that i i've never experienced where i just i walk into rooms of white people and they get so nervous and everyone's just apologizing to me i'm getting emails and texts of people saying that they love me and they care about me asking me what to do like if you would have told me a couple months ago that all of America All of the white men in America Would be nervous and hoping Begging for my approval

I would have told you you were crazy But it's been fun making all these jokes Making people uncomfortable Well enjoy it Like I said I have no other line To use here Yeah man

We'll do this again alright Sounds good I appreciate you I have no other line to use here. But yeah, man. Well, look, we'll do this again, all right? So I appreciate it. Sounds good. I appreciate you. Okay, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. We'll be back again this week. And that is TBD.

But please subscribe, rate, and review to the pod. And check out all the Ringer podcasts. And we'll talk to you like i said later this week Thank you.