Today’s the day!

Might be bordering on politics, but certainly it is good to see our university advocating for higher education! This is the lifeblood of our university, that feeds our sports programs in the end...

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Who do we like out of this crew coming today? The TE has a 4 star rating. Looks like he isn't coming til Fri though.

Wrong board

Every day I am going to post something about the settlement and try to either explain it or show what it is going to look like when all is said and done. I will still have two full Redshirt Diaries next week but these are sort of mini versions focused on the House vs NCAA settlement. I think one of the things that sort of establishes how much this is not going to solve anything but actually make it worse is this: The NIL collectives and groups are still able to raise and spend as much money as they want. The NY Times wrote about this in a really good article Saturday and highlighted how some football teams will have a payroll essentially of $40-$50 million. I think the best case for Pitt is a payroll of about $20-$22 million when you combine revenue share and NIL.

I know there is doom and gloom about Pitt's payroll vs the elite but understand the more I am researching this the more I am convinced there will be far more teams in Pitt's neighborhood than that neighborhood of the elite teams paying $50 million.

I point out UCLA, whose athletic director Martin Jarmond (who used to be at Boston College) is one of the smarter guys in the room on many issues. as a great example. UCLA Is in the Big Ten, has Big Ten money, has Big Ten exposure, has Big Ten security and all of that other good stuff. UCLA should be able to do whatever it wants in terms of funding its athletic department, right?

Well, not quite. And UCLA Is a lot like Pitt - fiscally strapped and in debt after a half decade of overspending, not flush with billionaire type donors and an administration that wants the athletic department to succeed while also trying to maintain some semblance of academic excellence. UCLA Is a lot like Pitt with one exception - they have the Big Ten and Pitt doesn't.

However, Jarmond outlined what the plans for UCLA are and it isn't exactly painting a picture of a program floating in cash. In case you don't want to click on the article, here is the money graph:

"UCLA will distribute $20.5 million in revenue sharing — the maximum allowed under the settlement — while keeping its Olympic sports programs and athletic department staff intact. The school will also preserve scholarship limits at their current levels for at least one year in order to distribute more revenue sharing money to each player."

In other words even though teams can go to 105 scholarships in football and 15 in basketball, UCLA, at least for one year is sticking at 85 and 13. Jarmond estimates a scholarship costs about $65 K and UCLA is trying to maximize their payroll by holding the line. That means, like Pitt, UCLA will have a lot of walkons still to fill in the extra roster spots.

Jarmond said that (like Pitt) he is committed to preserving Olympic sports (which may be tougher to do than any of these guys want to admit) and while there won't be staff cuts, there will be staff reassigned to match department's changing needs and jobs will be cut, sorry, streamlined via attrition. In other words, if five people leave, there will be 2 1/2 hired to fill their roles.

I picked this article because it illustrates just how difficult this could be for some schools to maintain their goals of staying at a high level. This is going to require some painful decisions.

When it comes to Pitt I was initially told as many as four sports could be on the chopping block. Some of the same people who told me that have backed off that prediction a little bit but the funding for a few programs will change dramatically and not for the better. There will be a couple of sports that are going to be minimally funded and operate one step above club sports in some ways. It sounds like all of the sports may have survived the chopping block - for now - but I don't know if they all will still be able to compete legitimately in the ACC.

Back to UCLA Jarmond's focus now is trying too raise NIL - sound familiar? - and find new ways to generate revenue - sound familiar? - from donors and collectives and whatnot.

We have already talked about Oklahoma, which has laid off a bunch of its athletic staff and cut a few sports while basically coming right out and saying a few of their other sports will have a dramatic reduction in funding despite being in the SEC.

It isn't going to be an easy year for some schools, actually many, and I would put Pitt in that category. It doesn't mean it is impossible. It doesn't mean that the programs are cooked for good. It doesn't mean anything other than schools like Pitt - and UCLA and even Oklahoma - will have to be very creative and proactive to make sure they are maximizing whatever resources they have.

I think for Pitt it means a belt tightening in terms of the athletic department, similar to UCLA. Some people will be reassigned to fill roles and the staff will be reduced via attrition (people leave and not necessarily replaced). It means at least initially, Pitt not fully funding the 105 scholarships but continuing its walkon program. It means a greater push for the collective to raise more money to fill in the gaps and it means Pitt will have find ways to make all of it work.

But again, rest assured far more schools are in Pitt's boat than in the boat of the elite teams that have huge payrolls and seemingly unlimited resources. I don't know if this helps you feel a little better but I will continue to bring these posts daily to keep you up to date, explain some things that are being tossed around. I think Tuesday I am gonna try and have the Q&A with an agent for you but i am trying to hammer it down and confirm.

Let me know if you find these posts helpful as I will continue to crank them out.

Welcome to a special week of the Redshirt Diaries presented by Cedarbrook Golf Course as I attempt to break down and make sense of all this House vs NCAA settlement stuff. In just the last 36 hours there have been so many developments to get caught up on and I will attempt to break down two specific areas today:

1) The first lawsuit/legal challenge since the settlement was final
2) The private equity stuff


With that being said, happy U.S. Open week and let's get started:

* Well, this one is one we all saw coming a mile away: Eight female athletes have filed a lawsuit based on Title IX and contend that the settlement violates the law. It should be noted that this one is by former athletes who are challenging the "damages" part of the settlement (monies paid to former athletes from 2016 until now for NIL losses) and not the overall settlement. So the back payments are on hold until this is resolved but the payroll/revenue share part of it is still on target for July 1. This, however, is not a surprise and I will be willing to bet that once the revenue sharing is announced by each individual athletic department, there will be more challenges to that. In other words, Pitt is going to take the full $20.5 million. If it gives, say, $18 million to football and men's basketball and then splits the other $2.5 million between all the other sports, I think there will be a legal challenge. Now, the people who have agreed to the settlement and the judge who wrote the decision seem to think that these attempts at a lawsuit or injunction or legal challenge will ultimately fail. Again, I have written it many times but so many administrative types have told me the same thing "Title IX is about opportunity and not about revenue" And while I agree to a paint the reality is courts have consistently sided with equality and equity. I think this first lawsuit will be a huge test case as to just how capable the settlement will be to stand up to the Title IX law. The best case for the NCAA is this lawsuit fails because it would put a real cramp in any of these other Title IX attempts. If this one wins, however, my God the floodgates will open.

This to me is the money graph from Rakesh Kilaru, one of the NCAA's bulldog attorneys....
"Judge Wilken wrote a really thorough order -- 76 pages," Kilaru told CBS Sports. "I think she addressed all the issues really persuasively. It's somewhat notable that this was actually not an issue that we even argued at the final approval hearing because I think typically, when you're challenging back damages, your kind of logical remedy is to opt out of the settlement and not be bound by it, as opposed to challenging it.

"But with all of that said, the ultimate question that the appeals court is going to handle is not just whether Judge Wilken got it right or wrong, but actually whether she did what's called 'abusing her discretion' in approving the settlement. And really what that means is she gets a lot of deference in the decision she made. So I think we feel confident that when we present our arguments to the court that the settlement approval will be upheld."

This tells me two things - the judge made sure to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is before she put her stamp of approval on this thing. And the second thing is that the judge had a lot of leeway to make oversee and approve this settlement and it is not going to be easy to overturn much, if any, of it no matter how much huffing and puffing the lawyers and agents do when it comes to challenging this stuff.

Bringing it closer to home to Pitt, I do believe there will be some Title IX implications that will be considered in all of this. Upper administration still has enough of the "we want to be an Ivy League school with big time athletics" types that there is a push to make sure the $20.5 is distributed a little more evenly than at some schools. I don't think that it will be significant because again football and men's basketball will get the lion's share of the money but there will be a push to break off more than many places for volleyball and women's basketball. I am really interested to see what the number is when it is all said and done but Pitt is capable of making it very hard on itself to compete in the two main revenue sports.

* Now let's talk about this private equity nonsense. You all read the stories about Penn State and UCLA taking money from Elevate's college sports fund, which is backed by The fund is backed by private equity firm Velocity Capital Management and the Texas Permanent School Fund, a special-purpose government corporation that supports the state’s schools. Do you remember this? Yeah, it took all of about 12 hours for both Penn State and UCLA to deny it was them that were the two schools (allegedly) that took the money. Both Penn State and UCLA claim that Elevate is their partner for "ticketing strategy and operations" and they have nothing to do with the private equity fund. They claim that they are partners with Elevate for ticketing strategy and operations but not for any kind of private equity. Penn State is an interesting case because even though they appear to be one of the school's flush with cash, they have had to tighten their belts a little bit and they have added a number of fees, donations and other ways to squeeze donors and season ticket holders this spring. Everyone is trying to find new revenue streams and private equity seems to be all the rage.....

But it appears the "Private Equity" craze has died down significantly. It would be great for schools like Pitt, that need money, to link up with one of these private equity firms and watch the money roll in but here is what has happened: schools and leagues have figured out that private equity and nonprofit are not a match made in heaven. North Carolina was one school all in on jumping in bed with one of these private equity firms until North Carolina realized that their goals did not align with the goals of a firm that exists for one reason and one reason only: to make money. Private equity firms want a return on their investment and they want to be shown that there is going to be a return. One administrator type from one of the school said it best "private equity is not going to want to invest in Olympic Sports, they want to make sure their money is in sports that make money." Well, duh. It isn't just the schools though that have slowed down the private equity craze, it has also been the firms as they have figured out college athletics are probably a bad or losing investment.

As for Pitt, there probably isn't a lifeline here because again, private equity firms aren't in love with lots of red ink. This is a development, though, we should all watch because I do believe there will be some things worked out so that these kinds of investments make sense but right now it is a lot more talk and wishful thinking than anything else.

* I hope you enjoy these breakdowns as this is a huge story to digest. Tomorrow I will look at the Hail Mary thrown by the NCAA to congress and break down what all of this stuff might mean for Pitt. By the way, if any of you ever want to get together and play a round of golf at Cedarbrook with me drop me an email at paulzeise@yahoo.com and I will make it happen.

Are the 2 Dunbar commits, twin brothers?

...is Texas A&M.

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8 figures sounds nice but i honestly dont know if, or what the downside is.. anyone have thoughts of how this will play out?


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I have an article coming up on Pitt commit Lincoln Hoke (North Allegheny), and I thought his quote on Pitt and the WPIAL was worth a post:

"I've heard a lot about it. My experience with that whole thing is the coaches pushed really hard, and they recruited really hard and they worked, so I didn't really understand that whole narrative. But my experience was really positive ... they did a great job recruiting, and I'm really grateful for the way they recruited me."

Obviously there's been a lot of discourse surrounding Pitt and the WPIAL lately, but going 3/4 last weekend with local recruits was good work. Hoke, Reston Lehman (Peters Township) and John Curran (Pine-Richland) are a strong local base.

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Pitt goes 3/4 with the WPIAL kids this past weekend as Central Catholic LB Colsen Gatten commits to Duke.

Reston Lehman, Lincoln Hoke and John Curran are a good haul in my eyes.

I'm here this afternoon for the weekly live chat. We're gonna start in about 15 minutes, but ask away whenever; I'll try to hang out for a while today. We're coming off a successful first official visit weekend and gearing up for No. 2 now—football, basketball, whatever else comes to mind.

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Jaydon Dunbar has flipped an official visit from June 5-7 from Georgia to Pitt, he announced today. Dunbar (6-5, 175bs) was previously slated to visit Pitt from June 19-21 but called it off. He's an intriguing prospect, one that offers a contrast from the wideouts the coaching staff has recruited of late.

His other OVs include Duke, Mississippi State and Kansas State.

PZ since he had a son recently play at this level. Yeah, this is going to be old school take. Not old man yelling at clouds mind you, but still a take that seems either lost or completely outdated. What is going on with academics? I mean this is supposedly COLLEGE football.

1. We never hear of players being academically ineligible. Never.
2. Is Prop 48 even a thing?
3. With these multiple transfers where kids cannot even finish out semesters, how are they having credits transferred, or even if they are enough credits, and how do these guys maintain "fulltime student" status?
4. You would think the one chip schools/NCAA's have to guard against future court rulings is upholding academic standards in regards to transfers, the portal and recruiting. But obviously they don't care.
5. Finally. How come no one, no sports journalist, no column writer, not even a non sports investigative reporter is asking these questions or having any discussions about it?

It sure seems like academics (to quote the former OSU QB Cardale Jones "we aint here for math class) has completely been disregarded and diminished and has absolutely zero decisions in anything except maybe at a few schools like Stanford.

Why does no one even talk about it? Does anyone care?

What I don't want to see is 10 years from now, segments on 60 Minutes or a 30 for 30 or some former athletes "suing" schools because these guys have zero portable skills in the job markets that they are working as janitors or garbagemen. I don't care. No one should care about this because the athletes and their families don't seem to care.

Welcome to the Redshirt Diaries special editions with the settlement. The House vs NCAA as you all know will change the way college athletics is funded, athletes are compensated and what the value of a scholarship is. I have been trying to break it all down into shorter editions focused specifically on certain aspects. I have spent time talking to people who know about this - agents, administrator types etc. - in order to bring you fresh perspectives since I am not an expert on high finance of college athletics.

Please note - I have an agent who is going to join us for a Q&A. I was trying to get him locked in for today but he had to back out so we are going to try and do it next Tuesday. As you might imagine this is a very busy time for guys in his business. I think you will like him, he is smart, direct and pulls no punches.

Today I am going to focus on two things - NIL and how this will all be affected and how are these people realistically going to actually monitor and regulate it all. In short, buckle your seat belts it will be a bumpy. bumpy ride.

OK, let's get started:

* Let's start with NIL. I am going to say it right up front - this is going to turn into a mess and it is because the NCAA has no, zero, zip, self awareness and ability to read the room. The ship has sailed on any of these futile attempts to regulate it or scale it down. It is just not going to happen without a fight and the fight, I think based on everything I have read, is already lost. It isn't quite the same law that will make the enforcement of a salary cap difficult but it is in the same family. The bottom line and underlying question is this - how can the NCAA, the newly formed College Sports Commission (which is charged with monitoring and enforcing things like NIL restrictions) or anyone else tell an athlete what his fair market value is. That is going to be the heart at every one of these challenges and honestly, I just don't know how the College Sports Commission will win in court. A car company wants to pay a kid $1 million for NIL that's his/her fair market value. The second part of it is this - athletes are charged with reporting all of their deals over $600 from third parties to NIL-Go, which is essentially a clearinghouse database. It is not terribly different from the NCAA academic clearinghouse in which all of a student's information is entered and then they must be approved and cleared in order to participate. In this case all of the details are entered, it will be reviewed/audited by Deloitte and then either approved (cleared) or rejected. That is reasonable and guess what - if the NCAA had gone this route initially they would probably have no issues or legal challenges. In other words, when it became clear NIL was a fight they were going to lose, they should have instituted it with this kind of regulation and clearinghouse and got way out ahead of what has become the Wild, Wild West. They didn't, they were not proactive, they were reactive and since they were reactive they are now trying to tell people who already have $1 million deals in place that they need to be reviewed and regulated. It is going to be very, very hard for them to win these fights. That's especially true since the standard the clearinghouse will use when reviewing each deal is does it have "a valid business purpose and fall within a reasonable range of compensation." Again, it is going to be very hard for the CSC, the clearinghouse or anyone else to make that determination without falling into some real legal gray areas. The Supreme Court has already ruled against the NCAA on several huge antitrust cases and I think with that precedent being set, there is no way that players whose deals are rejected by the clearinghouse won't eventually get paid after they win in court. The biggest joke is that the people of Deloitte have said that had this clearinghouse been in place the last few years, as much as 70 percent of the NIL deals would have been rejected. Good luck on that. Again, this is going to be the biggest sticking point of all this settlement stuff because it is another attempt to monitor and/or limit the amount of money an athlete can make in what should be a free market.

The second part of it is this - who is going to monitor and regulate every single athlete to make sure every single deal has been reported to the clearinghouse? The New York Times wrote a great piece "the return of the bag man" and it addressed this very subject. First off, what is going to happen if a kid doesn't report every deal he has? And who is going to report it? Well, the number one and overwhelming thoughts about it all is that this will lead to all kinds of off the record deals, behind the scenes deals, backdoor deals - aka back to the bag men. And what is the penalty going to be if they don't report it? Will the team be penalized and if so will the penalties be as much of a joke as they have been in the past? You look at all the teams that got caught cheating and then look at the success they had and tell me if a few lost scholarships and maybe a lost bowl game or something was worth it. UConn is the poster child for this - Jim Calhoun cheated his ass off, was funneling money to AAU programs through those exhibition games against Marathon Oil and whatnot and yet he built his program into one of the best in the country. Why? Because winning breeds more winning and also because the rewards of cheating were always greater than the risks of getting caught.

Monday there was a press conference of the five league commissioners. Here is the money graph for me from the Associated Press article....

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who spoke Monday on a Zoom news conference with fellow commissioners Greg Sankey (SEC), Tony Petitti (Big Ten), Brett Yormark (Big 12) and Teresa Gould (Pac-12), said they've all had ideas (about how to enforce and regulate the NIL), but nothing they're "ready to come forward with." Ultimately, Phillips said, the rules and boundaries will be under Seeley's purview.

"We're in the process of developing some of those rules and structure and overall implementation of that," Phillips said. "Now that we have Bryan (Seely, the new czar of the CSC) on board, I think we'll be able to move a little bit quicker. But we want to get this right. It's one of those areas that until you have somebody leading the College Sports Commission, it's difficult to get together with that individual and start some of that framework that will be in place."

OK, so let's review - you got sued multiple times about a variety of salary/NIL/amateurism type issues, you lost in grand fashion almost every one. There has been a settlement in the works for at least six months now. You just formed the college sports commission and as part of the settlement threw in some rules regarding NIL AND YOU HAVE NO FIRM PLAN ON HOW TO IMPLEMENT THEM AND/OR ENFORCE THEM????

Maybe I am out of line but how in the world is this possible? How can they be this incompetent? How can they STILL be this reactive and way behind the tides that are changing. I just don't understand it but this is where we are. So yes, players must report their NIL deals over $600, or maybe they don't. And if they don't there will be penalties but nobody can tell us what they are so maybe there won't be. I mean, I wish I was writing fiction but I am not, I am telling you like it is.

I had one agent tell me that the "bag man" thing will absolutely begin to happen again but it will be different. It will be through off the record NIL deals and at the end of the day the schools that have always found their way around the rules will be the ones who get ahead. If Heather was still around I could tell you unequivocally that there would be no gray areas at Pitt as she was a compliance person at heart and that made it difficult for the coaches to maneuver around at times. Allen Greene has SEC roots so I am hopeful that he understands the gray areas and why they need to exist.

Either way, this NIL fight is going to be very interesting to watch as agents are chomping at the bit to blow them up. One thing that did happen was NIL agents had about a three-hour window Friday between when the Settlement was signed, sealed and delivered and when it officially became the law so there were a bunch of deals done before this whole regulation by Deloitte clearinghouse started at midnight that night. The deals that are done are done and grandfathered in but every new deal must be reported.

* Tomorrow I am going to tackle the latest craze - the private equity investment into college athletics.

So we had 22 guys visit this past weekend...5 were already committed and it sounds like we got 11 commitments...so that's 16 out of 22. Not shabby at all.

Visited but already Committed:
1. Demetrius McCray WR (May 2025)
2. Marcus Jennings S (Mar 2025)
3. Dylan Wester WR (Mar 2025)
4. Isaac Patterson S (Feb 2025)
5. Angelo Renda QB (Jan 2025)

Committed this weekend:
John Curran OL
Nick Howard OL
Michael van der Oord OL
Wyatt Villareal TE
Jaydon Dunbar WR
Reston Lehman DE
Lincoln Hoke DT
Isaiah Simmons LB
Kentrail Mcrae DB

Looks we are officially waiting on one for the 10 Pat Signals thus far, and as Paul said, one more will make it official next week, making it 11 from this weekend.

I looked thru the uncommitted visitors list (Link: https://pittsburgh.rivals.com/visits/football/2026)... Only Cole Gatten (WVU 6/13) and Javonte Williams (NCST 6/13) have just 1 more visit. Others have none or multiple visits beyond next week left.

Gotta think we take a RB. Wonder if we would take both. Or if they told Ferguson and Lawrence they're only taking one and first one in gets it...or they put Ferguson first, as he is higher rated.

Welcome to the Redshirt Diaries special editions with the settlement. The House vs NCAA as you all know will change the way college athletics is funded, athletes are compensated and what the value of a scholarship is. I have been trying to break it all down into shorter editions focused specifically on certain aspects. I have spent time talking to people who know about this - agents, administrator types etc. - in order to bring you fresh perspectives since I am not an expert on high finance of college athletics.

Please note - I have an agent who is going to join us for a Q&A. I was trying to get him locked in for today but he had to back out so we are going to try and do it next Tuesday. As you might imagine this is a very busy time for guys in his business. I think you will like him, he is smart, direct and pulls no punches.

Today I am going to focus on two things - NIL and how this will all be affected and how are these people realistically going to actually monitor and regulate it all. In short, buckle your seat belts it will be a bumpy. bumpy ride.

OK, let's get started:

* Let's start with NIL. I am going to say it right up front - this is going to turn into a mess and it is because the NCAA has no, zero, zip, self awareness and ability to read the room. The ship has sailed on any of these futile attempts to regulate it or scale it down. It is just not going to happen without a fight and the fight, I think based on everything I have read, is already lost. It isn't quite the same law that will make the enforcement of a salary cap difficult but it is in the same family. The bottom line and underlying question is this - how can the NCAA, the newly formed College Sports Commission (which is charged with monitoring and enforcing things like NIL restrictions) or anyone else tell an athlete what his fair market value is. That is going to be the heart at every one of these challenges and honestly, I just don't know how the College Sports Commission will win in court. A car company wants to pay a kid $1 million for NIL that's his/her fair market value. The second part of it is this - athletes are charged with reporting all of their deals over $600 from third parties to NIL-Go, which is essentially a clearinghouse database. It is not terribly different from the NCAA academic clearinghouse in which all of a student's information is entered and then they must be approved and cleared in order to participate. In this case all of the details are entered, it will be reviewed/audited by Deloitte and then either approved (cleared) or rejected. That is reasonable and guess what - if the NCAA had gone this route initially they would probably have no issues or legal challenges. In other words, when it became clear NIL was a fight they were going to lose, they should have instituted it with this kind of regulation and clearinghouse and got way out ahead of what has become the Wild, Wild West. They didn't, they were not proactive, they were reactive and since they were reactive they are now trying to tell people who already have $1 million deals in place that they need to be reviewed and regulated. It is going to be very, very hard for them to win these fights. That's especially true since the standard the clearinghouse will use when reviewing each deal is does it have "a valid business purpose and fall within a reasonable range of compensation." Again, it is going to be very hard for the CSC, the clearinghouse or anyone else to make that determination without falling into some real legal gray areas. The Supreme Court has already ruled against the NCAA on several huge antitrust cases and I think with that precedent being set, there is no way that players whose deals are rejected by the clearinghouse won't eventually get paid after they win in court. The biggest joke is that the people of Deloitte have said that had this clearinghouse been in place the last few years, as much as 70 percent of the NIL deals would have been rejected. Good luck on that. Again, this is going to be the biggest sticking point of all this settlement stuff because it is another attempt to monitor and/or limit the amount of money an athlete can make in what should be a free market.

The second part of it is this - who is going to monitor and regulate every single athlete to make sure every single deal has been reported to the clearinghouse? The New York Times wrote a great piece "the return of the bag man" and it addressed this very subject. First off, what is going to happen if a kid doesn't report every deal he has? And who is going to report it? Well, the number one and overwhelming thoughts about it all is that this will lead to all kinds of off the record deals, behind the scenes deals, backdoor deals - aka back to the bag men. And what is the penalty going to be if they don't report it? Will the team be penalized and if so will the penalties be as much of a joke as they have been in the past? You look at all the teams that got caught cheating and then look at the success they had and tell me if a few lost scholarships and maybe a lost bowl game or something was worth it. UConn is the poster child for this - Jim Calhoun cheated his ass off, was funneling money to AAU programs through those exhibition games against Marathon Oil and whatnot and yet he built his program into one of the best in the country. Why? Because winning breeds more winning and also because the rewards of cheating were always greater than the risks of getting caught.

Monday there was a press conference of the five league commissioners. Here is the money graph for me from the Associated Press article....

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who spoke Monday on a Zoom news conference with fellow commissioners Greg Sankey (SEC), Tony Petitti (Big Ten), Brett Yormark (Big 12) and Teresa Gould (Pac-12), said they've all had ideas (about how to enforce and regulate the NIL), but nothing they're "ready to come forward with." Ultimately, Phillips said, the rules and boundaries will be under Seeley's purview.

"We're in the process of developing some of those rules and structure and overall implementation of that," Phillips said. "Now that we have Bryan (Seely, the new czar of the CSC) on board, I think we'll be able to move a little bit quicker. But we want to get this right. It's one of those areas that until you have somebody leading the College Sports Commission, it's difficult to get together with that individual and start some of that framework that will be in place."

OK, so let's review - you got sued multiple times about a variety of salary/NIL/amateurism type issues, you lost in grand fashion almost every one. There has been a settlement in the works for at least six months now. You just formed the college sports commission and as part of the settlement threw in some rules regarding NIL AND YOU HAVE NO FIRM PLAN ON HOW TO IMPLEMENT THEM AND/OR ENFORCE THEM????

Maybe I am out of line but how in the world is this possible? How can they be this incompetent? How can they STILL be this reactive and way behind the tides that are changing. I just don't understand it but this is where we are. So yes, players must report their NIL deals over $600, or maybe they don't. And if they don't there will be penalties but nobody can tell us what they are so maybe there won't be. I mean, I wish I was writing fiction but I am not, I am telling you like it is.

I had one agent tell me that the "bag man" thing will absolutely begin to happen again but it will be different. It will be through off the record NIL deals and at the end of the day the schools that have always found their way around the rules will be the ones who get ahead. If Heather was still around I could tell you unequivocally that there would be no gray areas at Pitt as she was a compliance person at heart and that made it difficult for the coaches to maneuver around at times. Allen Greene has SEC roots so I am hopeful that he understands the gray areas and why they need to exist.

Either way, this NIL fight is going to be very interesting to watch as agents are chomping at the bit to blow them up. One thing that did happen was NIL agents had about a three-hour window Friday between when the Settlement was signed, sealed and delivered and when it officially became the law so there were a bunch of deals done before this whole regulation by Deloitte clearinghouse started at midnight that night. The deals that are done are done and grandfathered in but every new deal must be reported.

* Tomorrow I am going to tackle the latest craze - the private equity investment into college athletics.

one of the seminal music moments still is Woodstock (3:30am) and Sly delivering Wanna Take You Higher

(maybe jump in youtube medley from 1:45 until 4:30 for the essence (it'll do you no harm))

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Don't look now, but the Buccos swept the Red Sox at Fenway

2023 Team Payroll
New York Mets $355,436,854
N.Y. Yankees $275,249,873
San Diego $257,610,217
Philadelphia $236,260,439
Los Angeles Dodgers $221,759,500
Los Angeles Angels $212,228,095
Toronto $210,367,554
Texas $199,569,490
Atlanta $197,332,500
San Francisco $193,482,500
Houston $192,767,233
Boston $190,556,279
Chicago White Sox $189,158,667
Chicago Cubs $179,168,250
Colorado $176,008,778
Minnesota $156,488,740
St. Louis $152,712,308
Seattle $130,969,948
Detroit $123,500,500
Arizona $117,251,292
Milwaukee $116,351,987
Washington $101,540,153
Miami $91,975,000
Kansas City $90,118,100
Cleveland $89,824,629
Cincinnati $84,175,714
Tampa Bay $75,209,811
Pittsburgh $71,652,500
Baltimore $60,422,300
Oakland $57,795,000


Hey we’re not in last!

Here is Karl's story about a top lineman narrowing his list, setting is visits and even his commit date. Pitt is a finalist.

The House settlement provides a path going forward where college athletes are paid.

Professional sports are able to set legal salary caps and restrict player transfers by negotiating for those powers with a player's union. Because college athletes are not employees, they can't form unions. Without unions, it's not clear that any of the limits negotiated in the new settlement can stand up to future antitrust lawsuits.

Unless unions can be installed at the college level expect a whole new round of anti-trust lawsuits. The NCAA routinely loses these lawsuits.

It will be sometime before this all gets sorted out. In the meantime college athletes will be paid. Athletic Departments are going to have to figure out how to pay for this. I would think some sports will be on the chopping block.

Not sure if a thread was ever started. Isaiah, Ike, Simmons is listed at 6' 200lbs and is a likely OLB prospect at the next level. Maybe a bit undersized for the moment.

What is interesting about him is that he is a multi year player at Maury High School in Norfolk, Virginia (the oldest existing school in that city).

A school of 1700 students, it is a very competitive football program and a good one, too. They went 15-0 last season winning the 5A state championship.

There must have been at least one dozen division one prospects on the team. It is impressive that Simmons was a starter last season and has been a varsity contributor since arriving at that school.

Perhaps with a strong senior year and a redshirt in 2026, he will be another candidate to fit in with the sharks.