Someone asked me the other day how old l was and how far back my memory went in terms of sports. I told them, “This old fossil remembers watching the Green Bay Packers defeat the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl ll on a mammoth floor model black-and-white television in the living room like it was just yesterday.”
Clearly, much has changed in the sporting world, with the most prominent being the proliferation of television money tossed around in college football and basketball like a frisbee at a park. Add in the colossal apparel company cash that’s subsidizing all the top programs, and before you know it, there’s a need for a huge team of certified public accountants and actuaries to handle all the disbursements and investments of such in a prudent fashion.
With Nike partnering with roughly 53% of all Division I college athletic programs, it’s not only about the brand imaging – it’s also about the pressure to win. In turn, this keeps the apparel money coming in on top of the outrageous sums of television rights dollars that long ago destroyed any possible integrity that college athletics may have had amid the billions in cash.
I’ve often said the NFL prints more money than anyone other than the Federal Reserve, but college football and basketball certainly aren’t cash poor, and the numbers will continue to rise in the name of brand recognition and the all-important status that says national championship.
If you can’t maintain your status as a perennial contender, you’ve got yourself a rather significant problem in terms of how the big money flows and just what the consequences will be if you’re not in the highly polarized playoff picture. This, in turn, keeps the enormous financial wheels greased continually and efficiently, bolstering the overall financial statements and balance sheets for the heavy hitters in the industry who covet the fans that gobble up both tickets and apparel as quickly as they become available to them.
The obvious rainmaker in all this madness is the head coach. After all, he makes crucial decisions in how the recruitment processes work, including the vitally important transfer portal outcomes, which can literally change a roster overnight and make one a legitimate candidate to improve their position in the coveted top twelve playoff rankings accordingly, which in turn bolsters their ability to draw top athletes to their program.
James Franklin recently found out just how quickly unhappy things can become in Happy Valley, and that a winning percentage of roughly 70% wasn’t acceptable.
Forget about the fact of where the program was when he arrived and how he advanced it. Despite a preseason ranking of number two, he didn’t have the Nittany Lions in the playoff hunt this season. Last year’s playoff run was suddenly irrelevant and quickly became something in the rear-view mirror. At good ole Penn State, this season’s losses to UCLA and Northwestern are more than enough grounds to burn a coach at the stake publicly during a halftime ceremony in front of some one hundred thousand strong, most of them clad in apparel showcasing the coveted Nike swoosh to keep them warm.
Before we shed a tear for Franklin, keep in mind he’s now going to receive some fifty million dollars in guaranteed monies for his services and will certainly coach again if he chooses to.
That seems like an outrageous sum, but in reality, it’s simply a by-product of the insane world of college football, where an above-average quarterback can make millions annually with all of his family receiving the latest flashy apparel delivered discreetly to their respective home addresses.
Penn State will pay an eye-popping sum for their next “Commander in Cleats” and he, too, will be expected to win big and often. Can they lure Nick Saban out of his retirement, or will they simply poach their next coach from an established program by paying a huge buyout and then giving him a king’s ransom in terms of a contract?
One thing is for certain: they won’t have to pass the hat to make it happen, as that’s how the multi-billion-dollar business of college football is conducted and will continue to be, as long as their institutional bank routing numbers are more important than coaches who simply leave it better than they once found it.
Danny Bridges, who has never received a fifty-dollar buyout in his illustrious career, can be reached at (317) 370-8447 or at bridgeshd@aol.com.
Danny Bridges is an award-winning journalist and a longtime sports columnist for the Indianapolis Recorder. He covers college, professional sports and especially all things IndyCar racing. He can be reached at 317-370-8447 or at bridgeshd@aol.com.
