All right, ten days away from Utah football at the Rose Bowl against UCLA b Yu welcomes in Portland State.

Well, Utah, stay, welcomes in Utah.

It is week ero, though, so we have college football this weekend.

Our next guest good enough to join us after his personal assistant ran interference earlier, the Great Matt Brown from Extra Points Matt, Happy Wednesday.

How are we doing?

Hey, I'm doing great.

I appreciate nobody taking my eleven year old picking up the phone and hanging up personally just to glad that she didn't accellently get put on the air.

Well, actually, Matt, in that vein, I told Porter, I was going to ask you if I could interview this young lady because at times she does do a little Twitter takeover and she seems like a very gregarious, funny young lady.

Is that fair to say?

I would say that she is better at social media than I am.

I think every single time she ends up on my computer when I'm off doing something else, people are like, why are we paying to read Matt?

Let's go, let's go hear the eleven year old review of K Pop Demon Hunters, and not about who's going to join the a sun next week, Like, sure, next time, we'll just get for the phone.

I'll pay you a buck.

Love it, Love it well.

I wanted to have you on for a number of different reasons, but I saw a tweet of yours that caught my attention, got a lot of people's attention that I just find to be interesting and not talked about a whole lot.

And look, I say this often.

You know, I've been in media for about twenty years now, but I've spent my entire career in the realm of sports, whether it was marketing, pr venue management.

And you're really sold kind of a bill of goods that oftentimes turns out to be completely not the thing you thought it was going to be.

You are asked to work a ton of late nights, you're asked to work a ton of hours, and honestly, if you're lucky enough to work your way up to a high position, then you're.

Gonna make a little bit of money.

But up until then, and most people never make it that far, you just don't get paid very well.

It's not near as glamorous as of.

What most people believe because we watch the athletes, and now college athletes are being paid coaches are being paid millions of dollars.

Athletic directors are getting rich.

But what are you hearing about the other people in athletic departments that are now asked to even carry a heavier load without really getting an additional compensation.

There's going to be a bigger story about this next week, and I think you're right to draw comparisons to the media industry, right Like I tell people, I love my job, I love running extra points.

This isn't the best job that I've had so far, and I'm really fortunate that I'm I think, one of the few media people that has a fair amount of autonomy over what I get to do every day, and it makes a decent living.

But it's wild to think that I'm probably like the top five percent, top ten percent of earners because the comp is so terrible.

There's so few jobs left in this world, even for people who are doing stuff far more important, I think than what I do.

And this is very much what I hear a lot from people that work in college sports, where it was I would say bad before COVID, between COVID and House and now this gigantic clawback of research money and federal money at larger universities.

Over the last year, it's very rare that I talk to anybody that I would describe as a frontline athletic worker that isn't deeply, deeply burned out and looking to leave.

And when I say frontline worker, I'm not talking about Kyle Whittingham, although obviously he works a ton of hours.

I'm talking about the people that actually execute the plans that coaches and ads put into effect.

So these are not just the comm staffers that you and I talked to.

These are the athletic trainers.

These are the people that are trying to sell ticket packages to the Boys and Girls Club of Metropolitan Salt Lake City.

These are the people that are making all the social media posts and and video and working on development work, and the one hundred and fifty plus people in a major athletic department that actually make everything go.

Do these guys get paid like crap?

And not only do they do, they truly get paid terribly and kind of you know, run through the ringer.

But what I've been hearing more and more is I'm not expecting to get paid a lot of money because I work in sports for a living.

I do want my boss to be invested in the quality of work that I do.

I want to feel like what I do matters, that there's some kind of connection between how well I do my job and success.

And if you don't feel that once you get to on a mid career, a lot of people are going, you know what, if I'm an athletic trainer, what am I doing working for the University of Utah?

When I can go to some peak private pet clinic, never have to work past six o'clock ever again and make twenty grand more money.

There's a real brain drain that I can see happening, not just at the you know you of U BYU level, but you know, down to the uvus of the world for the people that are actually making stuff happen, and that that is not a positive thing for the industry, just like it's not for media.

I mean, I could give you a list of so many names of brid eyed, bushytailed young people who would you know, contact me how can I get in sports?

And you know, then you provide an avenue and then suddenly they try it out and they just don't last.

You know, I do think we romanticize the industry in a way that to your point, people that have a skill set that could be translated into other endeavors to allow their pocketbook to a little bit a little bit differently.

They want to work for Utah football because it's cool, they want to work for BYU basketball because it's cool, and then ultimately it just it doesn't last when they experience the reality of it.

Now, it's not everybody.

There are plenty of people that have careers in the space and they're, you know, able to kind of find their way into a landing spot that allows them to make a good living.

But what sort of extra added weight or pressure or work ode have you heard that these staffers have received as a result of things like nil and the new reality of what college athletics looks looks like.

Yeah, So, I think an example that I hear a lot from both big and small schools is with trainers.

Right, in a perfect world, you want some kind of emergency trained medical professional trainer that's at every practice and and every game, and you'll have some of those folks.

You'll be in the traveling party for every sport as they go across the country.

Well as you are.

Let's let's say you're a basketball coach, right, and you're really mad at your team.

They went out there and they played some late November game against to the head Cares Division two team and there they stuck up the joint.

So the coach calls an emergency practice at eleven o'clock at night.

Well, guess what that means.

The trainer who might have had plans has to cancel all those and they have to show up too.

And you'll follow follow the same structure here as everybody else, but you don't get paid over time or any of that.

And what is increasingly, i am told the case outside of the power flour is you have trainers who then are responsible for serving so many different athletes that they don't feel that they can provide a high standard of care if they're responsible for four or five different teams.

And when you go to the school and say, hey, we've got to allocate money to have more trainers are like, well, that's fine, we don't have any money because they've got to pay the players, or we we have to we spend all this money on a new facilities, or the state isn't going to give us any money, or the fens aren't going to give us any money.

So this is the place that we decide to cut corners until until it's too late.

It's very rare.

I think at this point that I can think of schools that have hired common staff.

Most people have laid off or trunk their staffs, while also asking them to produce more social media content, to produce more videos, to produce more features, to be more visible, sometimes even doing sales work.

All of all, this is a lot, and I don't think it's just about money.

I think part of the trade that people make when they work in college sports is I'm going to take less salary in exchange for really rewarding work that's around athletes.

And also, if I'm working for a university system, I should get pretty good benefits.

And I think that kind of trade offs is increasingly not holding up.

All right, Matt, moving off this one.

Tell our listeners and me what the Score Act is and why we need to know about it, And as it kind of continues to gain some momentum, do you think we're getting closer to this actually becoming a reality.

I think we're getting closer to a passing the House.

The Score Act is actually a bipartisan bill, although it's overwhelmingly supported by Congressional House Republicans to address a lot of the stuff that the NCAA has been asking for for years.

It would give the NCAA an anti trust exemption to be able to enforce ANIL regulation, to be enforce the terms of the House Settlement, and and so they won't get sued.

And it's like it's are not and shouldn't be designated as employees regardless of what happens with Johnson v.

NC double A or other future court cases.

This is something that's really important.

It's a powerful conference conference leaders, but also folks in Indianapolis at the incident because their concern is without some of these anti trust exemptions, the CSC can't actually, you know, smack down anybody's nil deal that goes above the cap.

They won't be able to enforce eligibility rules.

And shoot, we already had that.

We just saw today grant in junction first and West Virginia athletes to be able to play a lot of athlete rights.

This and economists and many progressors look at this and think this is terrible because it's all it does is handle overpower right back to the NC double A that the Supreme Court kind of stripped, and that lots of athlete rights activists have said that they shouldn't have in the first place.

It would be a step towards kind of consolidating what the college sports world order looked like about a decade ago.

I can tell you guys, it's very likely to pass the US House.

It has widespread Republican support.

There's three Democrats that are co signing it.

Probably at least one more will vote for it.

The question is what happens in the Senate, because if you want to break the filibuster, you need more than fifty one votes, and the Senate Republicans, last time I talked to some staffers there feel pretty good about getting some Democrat support.

They don't think they have sixty votes yet, so we'll have to see.

Started the show off today after listening to Brian Rolapp, who's the new commissioner excuse me, the new CEO of the PGA Tour.

Brian spent twenty two years as Roger Goodell's right hand man, friend of the program of actually interviewed me a couple of times.

He's a really really smart, really sharp guy, and he gave a very eloquent, organized message about this committee.

That he's starting with nine people led by Tiger.

Tiger Woods is going to be on it, and he used the word innovate about six or seven times.

They want to innovate, they want to improve, they want to capitalize on this moment the golf is having that it quite frankly has never had.

It is so wildly popular that you can barely get a tea time and they're like five six hour rounds, so everybody's like, ratings are up, interest is up, you know.

And to juxtapose what I perceived to be a very intelligent, organized approach from a new CEO of the PGA Tour, I talked a lot about the difference between innovation and then change for change's sake, and it seems like college athletics, college football specifically oftentimes just.

Wants to change just to change.

And the new proposal that was forwarded by the Big ten to expand the CFP to twenty eight, to give the Big ten seven auto bids, the SEC seven, Big twelve would get five, the ACC would get.

Five, then there's some left over number.

It strikes me as so tone deaf because you eliminate conference championship games and what you do is almost not entirely, but you really do kill the main thing that I think makes this sport great, and that is the prescient nature of every weekend, the urgent nature of every single conference game.

Does this thing have any legs at all?

Like, what's your reaction when you saw that this is the thing that the Big Ten decided to actually leak out there?

When I first heard about this, my first thought is always I personally appreciate when schools and conference offices are willing to leak stuff to reporters, throw things at the wall that they know are not completely baked and get beaten up a little bit, because I actually I think that's a way to kind of keep organizations from making really bad decisions.

And sometimes after an idea kind of gets dragged through the national, you know, discourse circuit, sometimes it comes out better.

And that was kind of my read on the Big Ten's proposal.

Like I'll tell you, I talk to people that work at the Big Ten.

Like Big ten headquarters is fifteen minutes from my house.

There are people that have Big ten email addresses, are like, now, this is a stupid idea, And what I think this is more about is trying to negotiate in public to throw something out so Atlantish and like Ash Hucks, You're right, twenty six is way too many.

We should go back to sixteen, right and try to you know, shift the terms of the debate to go get what they really want, which is automatic more automatic bids.

So a team like in Iowa or Minnesota or Wisconsin that will probably not make the twelfth team college football Playoff more than once a decade has more of a pathway to that world.

I think that overwhelmingly benefits the Big Ten in the SEC.

The plus sucks.

I agree with you.

I haven't seen anybody in the here in the Midwest in the footprints, you know, really really cake for this thing.

I didn't even think the mass pencils out because conference championship games, even as they are, you know, less important than they were in like nineteen ninety four, they're enormously valuable, not just broadcast television inventory, but they're really important for conference sponsorships.

Like you know this, the SEC and the Big Ten make a lot of money selling sponsorships at Lucas Oil Stadium and you know the Georgia to only all these other places for these events.

So you have to bet that now, you know, moving inventory that you control to the college football Playoff that you don't control will make you financially whole I for a game, first round game that's going to feature you, like two eight and five teams.

I very much struggle to see how that works for anybody.

The Salt Lake Tribune did a really interesting piece this week on BYU and their athletic department.

Budget is double since twenty twenty.

According to the Tribune, they interviewed a history professor at BYU.

Excuse me, he's a leading Latter Day Saint expert of Colorado State.

His name is Matt Harris.

Uh.

The Church Commissioner of Education, Clark Gilbert, he's a general authority, UH sent out you know, this tweet about, you know, the way that BYU should handle their NIL endeavors and their economic model.

UH.

And they they went in depth, and we've talked about it quite a bit.

UH And ultimately there's just kind of this, uh, this conversation going on about whether or not the modern version of Cougar athletics is at odds with what BYU's mission is according to their their own mission, their own model, and it does appear there are a lot of people who work for BYU that aren't necessarily comfortable.

And you know, the the the friction between academia and athletics at institutions as a tales old as time.

This is not a new thing, uh, but certainly a lot of people, Uh you know, the pay for play is not landing all that well with certain people down at BYU.

The fans love it, of course, because you're getting better talent with the basketball team and the football team.

It just continues to be the messaging of you know, people in the athletic department that doesn't land with me because they're they're lying, is what they're doing.

They have been among the highest bidders to land certain players that have played that are playing for basketball and football.

The average Big twelve roster, according to the Tribune, will be about twelve million dollars.

This year.

BYU's is going to cost more than fifteen million.

They're paying Kevin Young as one of the highest paid basketball coaches in the country.

Kilani got a new deal, Rob Wright three point five million from Baylor, Richie Saunders seven figures.

But there continues to be this like clandestine approach to messaging from the Athletic Department that they just do not want to say the truth out loud, which is you are among the highest bidders in college athletics, which is a benefit to you.

You are not breaking the rules.

You should be able to say it out loud as opposed to lean into the BYU experience.

And that's why AJ sat like you're paying him five million dollars.

Like, it's a really interesting piece, And I just wonder what your thoughts are with this dichotomy between one side of what appears to be down at BYU with some administrators not being comfortable with the way they're going about it, then on the other side in the athletic department, while they're clearly writing big checks, they just don't want to say that out loud.

Yeah, I'll answer this question with the caveat that I have not had a chance to read this in its entirety, Like that's one of the stories that I've had opened on tab for a minute here.

Well, what I can tell you just from being on this beat here for a minute is that it's pretty rare to find an ad or a senior administrator or a president who's willing to say on the record, yes, we do pay near the top of the market for talent.

When I was at the college football National Championship game and I was down on the field after Ohio State won, and I ran over and I grabbed ross Byorke as the confetti is falling down, Ohio State sad And the only thing that he wanted to talk about in that moment was Hey, Matt put it in the paper that we didn't have the highest payroll for our football team, which which was actually true they didn't, but like that was the narrative that they wanted to spend.

I feel like the only school that's been willing to kind of say it with their chest this offseason that yes, we are opening up our checkbook is Texas Tech and and a big part of that is because the check book opening up is not exclusively coming from the university.

It's also it's also coming from some booster.

So I think that there's there's a there's a discomfort with with admitting we are paying in the top twenty percentile for X, Y, and Z.

I don't think that's unique to b YU.

I don't think it's unique to the LDS Church.

Like that's that I think if you if we if we called up Scott what we're at LSU right now or Brian Kelly, he'd probably tell us the same thing, even if it's not true.

I also think, knowing what I know about BAU athletics, if there's some some some discomforts with with answering some of those questions, like, look, you have to you have to say what if you're going to say something in the paper, you you have to say what your bosses want you to say, even if you know in your heart that that yes, you know our our payrolls and the X percenter, you know for X, Y and Z.

If you know that if you say that in the trade, if Clark Gilbert's going to yell at you're not gonna do it.

I understand that this is legitimately, Like I'm not being dismissive or just saying that pejoratively, like that's that's the gig, And that's true at state schools, and and that's true somewhere else.

There's a lot of unique tensions in a place like b YU between the athletic department, between academia, between central administration, between high level donors.

And I know that that's that's not unique to just nil, I don't.

I don't think this is a state, this is this is a this is talking out of school or gonna get me in trouble or anything.

But the ethotic department at b r U is gonna have often has a different view about diversity related issues than everybody else because they talked they work with the most diverse pool students than anybody in the law school or the business school or administration does like it's it's in their interest to maybe have a lighter touch or more inclusive touch for their students.

That it might be if all you do is teach American heritage.

That's true for fundraising that that you know that that's true for for lots of other departments.

I don't know how it ends.

Like what I would say to anybody listening to this, trying my very best to not be biased, is I don't think there's a writer or wrong way to feel about this.

From my reading of the scriptures and my understanding of LDS theology, I don't think there is anything that you know runs counter to church teachings.

In paying a basketball player five million dollars, I understand for cultural reasons or other reasons.

Why so that would make somebody uncomfortable, and I think both of those feelings are valid.

I share your thought that I wish the people that we talked to would would just tell us the full truth instead of hiding behind euphanisms.

But that is I you know, I don't think I could throw any any proverbial rocks just that pro for that, because I think that's a higher education challenge, not just the Utah County challenge for sure.

You know, I find interesting.

I've got a good friend who's a Notre Dame alum and he's Catholic, obviously Notre Dame Catholic the tie there, and we were discussing he's done well, and he donates heavily to his alma mater, and he loves Notre Dame football, Notre Dame basketball, and the language he uses isn't unlike what I hear from some of my LDS buddies who went to BYU, who also you know, it's just kind of it almost feels in a way, Matt, that some of these religious institutions have this built in advantage when it comes to raising money with NIL, because if you are a faithful member of a certain religion and you believe that your money will help further the message of the religion you belong to.

If your by you were Notre Dame, you can send out the message to the masses like, okay, all you faithful believers, our football program being good helps the mission of the church, So open up your checkbook.

It's kind of an interesting dynamic that some of these faith based institutions do kind of have this nil thought raising advantage.

You know, yeah, maybe like that actually I think might be something that that's worth investigating or worth turning into an actual story.

You know.

One of one of the differences I think between b YU and that kind of approach and maybe other large religious institutions in Division one is uh, most Protestant and even Catholic institutions are not missionary focused.

The the the these you know, the spreading the message of Catholicism through Notre Dame football does not have like the same doesn't mean the same thing, I think as as as it does in Mormondom, I don't know if there's as many people that are like you know, checking the annual statu reports about about how many people went to Mass or or you know, if they opened up a new parish somewhere maybe the same way that that that that happens in this market.

I think there what you're describing is something that could be true for Liberty, that it could be true for some other institutions, But there's a lot of faith based schools, and like, I don't know if that helps Jamie raise money at Grand Canyon.

I don't.

I don't think that that necessarily works for Baylor.

And I don't know if there's anybody other than outside of the immediate Waco area that thinks like Baylor Bears football victories is as a positive sign for Baptists to slay the godless Episcopalians in the Protestant Wars or something like.

I don't, I don't.

I don't think it necessarily works that way.

I think from an outsider who you know, who spent a long time in the LDS world, I think that that kind of argument would has a little bit more emotional heft about trying to give about the importance of constantly trying to grow and spread this message and to get validation in the national culture.

I don't think that's a thing that like Wake Forest fans think about the same way, because they already are part of the culture.

Certainly, yeah, yeah, yeah, and certainly the examples I utilize your anecdotal be interested to hear somebody like you read somebody like you actually dig into it to see if there's anything.

There but man thinks a good idea.

Yeah, I'm glad we were able to get past the first layer of the brown household to get you on the show today.

Where where can people go get the work?

My friend, you bet you can find my work my reporting at Extra Points mb dot com.

I have some I'm gonna break a little bit of news about some some SCS conference re alignment tomorrow.

I've got I've got some reporting that's gonna come out in a couple of days about they kind of burn out crisis within within college sports.

I'm gonna be in the in Raleigh this weekend for the Raleigh Sports Podcast Festival and doing the reporting there and then next week when everyone else is talking about the biggest games in college sports, Like I mean, I'm excited.

I'm going to Texas to go to the first ever game at ut RGV.

We're gonna we're gonna counter program.

You have to state Texas, you know, world here.

I'm excited for some of the places on off the beat path.

I think extra Points will be going this season.

Very nice.

Well, thank you for the time, save travels and we'll chat soon.

Thanks Matt, oh yet you bet.

Thanks friend the.

Great Matt Brown College the college football newsletters called extra Points.

I utilize it for the show all the time.

It is definitely worth your time on his socials.

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