Susan Shaw
I was gonna say that, you know, the thing is, we think about it, as you know, as the players who are bringing in a lot of money, but that really is a relatively small number. I work this morning. And right now the median compensation that student athletes are getting for an NIL activity is, let me look at my notes. $65. So for most students, we are not talking about a lot of money. In fact, I was talking to some of our student athletes here did Oregon State, and they were thrilled because they were making an extra $200 a month, and they thought that was just fantastic. So I think sometimes we let those big name big money, student athletes really shape how we think about it, when for most student athletes, it’s a few bucks in their in their pocket.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today I’m joined by three scholars and thoughtful folks to talk about some current major shifts in college athletics and their implications. I’m excited to learn more about NIL name, image and likeness and the transfer portal, discuss equity issues related to these and explore the implications for student success. I’m really glad to have our three guests here with us today. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays find details about this episode or browser archives. It’s student affairs now.com. This episode is sponsored by Routledge and Taylor and Francis your their complete catalogue of authoritative education titles at routledge.com/education. And it’s also sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he him his I’m a speaker, author and coach, helping higher ed leaders in organizations advanced leadership, learning, and equity. And you can find out more about me at Keith edwards.com. I’m recording this today from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to the conversations. I’m excited to hear from all three of you and your different realms of expertise, and especially the conversations we have amongst ourselves. Let’s have you introduce yourself. And we have got Ron George and Susan, we’re gonna start with you, Ron.

Ron Wade
Hi, my name is Ron Wade, my pronouns are he and him. And I’m a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan.

Keith Edwards
A little bit more about your background, a little bit about your background relatedness. I think it’s really helpful context.

Ron Wade
Well, I’ve been University Michigan since 2018. I teach sales management in sports, experiential marketing and sports, basic marketing and social media in sport. And I came to the university into academia after a 15 year career in professional baseball, working with both the St. Paul Saints up in your town of Minnesota, and the Detroit Tigers, where I was the director of marketing for several years there.

Keith Edwards
Great. And I think this sort of marketing aspect of of athletics is a really important perspective. And, George, you’re back with us today. What do you want folks to know about you?

George McClellan
Good morning. I’m George McClellan, Professor of higher education at the University of Mississippi. And I’ve been in Student Affairs in Higher Education for a good number of years, let’s just say that. My, my research interests are all over the place. But one of those places is intercollegiate athletics. And so I have an interest in eSports. I have an interest in I have studied college student gambling, which includes gambling on intercollegiate athletics, and by gambling by college athletes. And I’m also interested in higher education, law and intercollegiate athletics, and particularly, the status of students who participate. Are they employees? Are they students? are they what are they exactly? And that question is bound pretty tightly to the kind of stuff we’ll be talking about today.

George McClellan
So folks who are really intrigued by that gambling, little snippet, there’s a whole nother conversation about gambling that George is on with some other folks that you can find in our archives. Thanks for being here. And Susan helps folks to learn a little bit more about you. Hi,

Susan Shaw
I’m Susan Shaw, and I’m a professor of women Gender and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University. I teach a course called Gender, race and sport at the undergraduate level. And then I also write about women and gender and sports for forbes.com. And for News Magazine, online. And I’m very excited because I have a new PhD student who’s getting ready to do some work on gender and DEI and NIL so I’m very excited about that, because I don’t always have students who want to talk sports. So I’m excited to talk, college sports and in NIL with everyone today. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
Well, I’ll add a little bit more about trim been trying to put an episode together on this topic and trying to find the right people was really challenging. So Ron’s in this realm and has been doing some survey and some research on this. George is a longtime observer and advocate of student success and student athletics. And then Susan, I found your Forbes article and it was just what I was looking for someone who was really looking at this from lots of different angles, asking lots of different questions. And I was like, this is this This is the group we need to have here for us. So I’m so excited. And you’re all just as we did before we hit the button, wildly curious people about lots of different things. So I’m excited for that to come out. Let’s slow to lay the foundation and get some context here. Ron, help us understand what NIL is beyond that it stands for name, image and likeness. And I think that the NIL and the transfer portal are two things that are both relatively new and in unison having a lot of upheaval, in particular sports in particular institutions, how are they changing the student athlete experience?

Ron Wade
Yeah, well, if you look at the way college sports has evolved, the last 10 years is vastly different than what we were seeing even 10-15 years ago, where athletes now with the transfer portal, it gives athletes the opportunity to leave university and go to another university without having to sit out a year, which is what they used to have to do. And this was in response to the fact that there would be coaches who would take a job recruit these, these people to come play for them, and then leave right away because another opportunity, and then the students were being punished by having to wait an extra year before they could transfer. So now they’re able to transfer freely. Now their coach leaves they have 30 days, and they can transfer anywhere they want. But NIL name, image and likeness came into effect every it took a long period of time to get to where we are and NILwhere the supreme court voted nothing in the Austin versus NCAA case to let athletes actually profit from name, image and likeness. Now, schools cannot directly pay athletes to come play for them. But athletes now can get endorsements, they can actually see their name on the back of jerseys and get money from those types of sales. They’re able to use the fact that they’re an athlete in order to get marketing opportunities and get endorsement opportunities. So this has changed the game for college athletes in the way that now instead of being true amateurs, as the old amateur model was which where you couldn’t make any money at all, these athletes can now make some money and learn their craft while still being college athletes, student athletes.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, well, and it seems to me that previously, students would transfer after a not good experience, right? They would be at an institution, they wouldn’t be getting playing time, they wouldn’t be as successful. And then they would maybe transfer somewhere else where they thought they maybe had fresh start. But I think now I’m seeing student athletes who are having great seasons at x school and seeing how can I leverage that to move to y school where maybe there’s more name, image and image and likeness. And maybe I’m making a little bit of connection, and maybe a little bit of money at this school around image, image and likeness. But if I moved there, I could double or triple that because they have an affiliation with a car dealership or a local alumni or things like that. And so it’s just to me seeming like there’s a, I know, schools can’t do this, but the the affiliation is pretty close and pretty loose, where it can sort of be kind of bidding and recruiting for college athletes is that what’s playing out.

Ron Wade
What we’ve seen is that a lot of athletes have, they take into account you know, their best opportunity to play the best opportunity to learn and grow best opportunity find where they can succeed enough to get the attention of the next level, whether it be professional sports or or the NFL or overseas. But these collectives there are rules behind in Iowa where these collectors can’t go and offer the money to come come to the school come to the school, but they do see what is going on. They are learning about, you know, the diff between certain markets, the different alumni at certain universities that have influence and power and may have financial means that can lead to opportunities. Kind of similar to what you’ve seen with with professional sports where athletes may try to get positions in New York or LA because there’s more opportunities there for endorsements will colleges the alumni have a different base. So there could be opportunities at a school like Oklahoma that you may not be able to get in Northwestern, just the alumni so it’s there’s kind of weighing those those those pros and cons as well. The athletes themselves I think what they are doing they’re going to be constantly looking they have four years essentially may five if they have the COVID year, four years essentially to maximize what they’re going to do and we know that most of these athletes aren’t going pro. So if you’re going to do it during this time you need to find a maximize it so I think they’re keeping their their ears open their eyes open to see what the opportunities are.

Keith Edwards
And I think a lot of the headlines get the the folks who are going and getting major Right, you know, half a million dollars or a million dollar name, image and likeness. And that sort of gets the attention. But I was reading about a relatively unknown student athlete who isn’t going to be going pro. But by moving from this school, that school, got another $15,000. I thought, that’s real money. Like that is significant. If you don’t have million dollar professional contracts on the horizon, that is a significant shift to that can make your college years easier can maybe help your family if they’re in a tight spot along the way. So even at the lower levels, this is significant.

George McClellan
So one of the one of the challenges when NIL got enacted, was we all sort of had this illusion, delusion perhaps, that we could set up this world in which this money wouldn’t be out there. But it wouldn’t be allowed to be used for recruiting, you’re not supposed to use nio money to say come to this school. Right. And somehow, we believe that wouldn’t happen, because we didn’t set up any enforcement mechanisms, or any really meaningful education mechanisms for students. But we just sort of believed in the whatever truth justice in the American way that that was gonna somehow work out. The other. The other thing that’s really fascinating, I think, a lot of us, a lot of our conversation around this stuff is driven by a few programs, and a few athletes at a few institutions. But there’s a lot more activity, as you just pointed out Keith, right. I mean, it happens. So we think about the portal students, students outside of the money sports in D one, they’ve had greater freedoms to transfer for a long time. And the biggest chunk of people who transfer the students who participate in athletics, they don’t go from DI to DI, they go DI to DII, or DIII. And the reason is exactly what you said, Keith, they’re, they’re in a D one. And they’re like, Ben setting, and they’re not getting playing time. I think Ron referenced this, right, and they’re not getting playing time. And so now they look, well, hey, I could go to DII, and be like the rock star, and really get my playing time. And so it’s sort of interesting, we think about this, in that sort of billion dollar million dollar kind of arena. And, and, and typically we think about football, at a few programs, but it really affects a lot more people. And when we talk about, as we’ll go through the conversation, we talked about equity issues, and all of that sort of thing. I think it really helps to remember the context, because it may look like one thing in certain places. And another thing in other places. Yeah.

Susan Shaw
I was gonna say that, you know, the thing is, we think about it, as you know, as the players who are bringing in a lot of money, but that really is a relatively small number. I work this morning. And right now the median compensation that student athletes are getting for an NIL activity is, let me look at my notes. $65. So for most students, we are not talking about a lot of money. In fact, I was talking to some of our student athletes here did Oregon State, and they were thrilled because they were making an extra $200 a month, and they thought that was just fantastic. So I think sometimes we let those big name big money, student athletes really shape how we think about it, when for most student athletes, it’s a few bucks in their in their pocket.

Keith Edwards
That’s a lot of ramen, and macaroni and cheese and trips to Subway, which was what I was spending my money on when I was in college, that that’s significant. I also want to, you know, Ron, you mentioned a really interesting dynamic is that it’s not just smaller markets, the big markets, as we often see in professional sports, but you mentioned someone going from Northwestern in Chicago, to Oklahoma, in Oklahoma, or somebody might move from Rutgers, right outside New York City to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, right, because that might be a larger name, image and likeness market, which I think is also a little contrary to what we might imagine. Yeah,

Ron Wade
and, you know, kind of post Velop your point, Susan, you know, the non revenue generating sports of the Olympic sports, there’s a tremendous opportunity for those athletes there now within NIL, and a lot of as a marketing as a marketer from a marketing standpoint. There’s opportunity there for brands to partner with young influential athletes at a cost that you know, you’re not going to spend millions to try to go after a star quarterback. And it may be much more cost effective. These are ways that these athletes can elevate their brand in an Olympic sport and to be the springboard to whatever their careers afterwards.

Susan Shaw
Feminists are doing quite well. I mean, relative to pretty much every other sport except football, it’s really women gymnast who’ve taken advantage in and we’ve got Jade Carey here and she’s like I think numbers will say, where is she number 17 or something on the NIHL, top valuations and on three and yeah, so there are opportunities, as well as some of the difficulties.

George McClellan
For folks who don’t know, there’s a thing that Susan just mentioned called on three, you can look it up, you can Google it, you can use the Google. And it lists, like the top 100 students who participate in athletics and how much money they make, and all that sort of thing. And one of the really interesting things that you’ll find, because we don’t talk about this often enough, either, I think, is yes, there’s some relationship in terms of sports. But the other big thing is how social media savvy are the students. If you’ve got a really vital LinkedIn, Twitter, tik tok, kind of base, you can cash. Right. And so we a lot of times we think about helping these students learn about money management, or contract negotiation or whatever. It’s also social media, their ability to really get over on NIL is pretty well linked to their social media presence. And so in smaller markets, and those non money sports, like Susan mentioned, that’s how those students are really making it as they have huge social media.

Keith Edwards
And I’m sorry, I want to turn to you, Susan, talk about the equity issues. And we can kind of take this in lots of different directions. I think, as we talked about, a lot of the big money is around football, and men’s basketball, at a relatively small number of institutions. And then there are some exceptions, as you’re mentioning, some other folks are getting in here, as Ron has pointed to at Olympic sports, particularly in and around Olympic years. And competition can be can be really different. But there’s some inequities here on gender. There’s some inequities here around different sports. There’s some inequities here on different institution types, different locations. Help us really appreciate that you were looking at lots of different ways this helps student athletes in this ways, it’s kind of here’s the downside, so help us understand some of the equity issues here.

Susan Shaw
Yeah, so gender is certainly a big one, I went and took a look at it on three. And so there are only two women in the top 10 valuations. For for that, as you move down percentage gets even worse. So if top 100, there are only seven women in the in the top 100. And it’s interesting, because in the top 10, the you know, you’ve got Brawny James is at the top at USC. And again, it’s also sometimes the name recognition helps out as well. And so, you know, Brawny James is, is valued at $5.8 million. And then the top woman is Libby Dunn, who’s an LSU gymnasts, who’s at 3.5 million, then it drops off pretty fast. And, you know, you get down to like the the number 10. Woman Who you see that it falls off pretty pretty fast. There is a women just don’t have the same opportunities for those those big dollars, and so gender, certainly a factor there. And also go back to George’s point about social media. You’re absolutely right. But social media actually poses particular dangers for women as well. And so the ways that women get targeted on social media, and then the potential that even moving into real life can be really sort of scary. And so when that becomes your primary way of of making money, it’s sort of selling yourself, and is one of my students said, you know, and we also know, it’s pretty girls who are going to get the biggest following. And so it’s the sorts of ways that athletes get gendered that make a big difference there. As you mentioned, you know, there are other things though, like whether or not you’re in a power five conference, which will soon be a power for conference. And so as someone whose University has been devastated by this realignment, I wonder what that will mean for our student athletes. You know, who came here because we’re, you know, we’re top ranked in gymnastics in wrestling in women’s basketball. So we have all these sports, where they came to play at a power five conference and now what’s that going to do to their earning potential through NIL if they stay here and basketball, playing in the WCC gymnastics, baseball are going to be independent. And so I think that their issues there. I also found out talking to our athletes that international students can’t do an IRL because they can’t be outside the university. And so even when you have a top ranked athlete, if they’re an international student, they can’t earn anything. We mentioned the non revenue generating sports. And because they have less visibility, they have less earning potential as well. You know, and I worry about things too about students access to agents, for example. So the students who have the greatest earning potential are more likely to get an agent. And then you just worry about students being taken advantage of, I mean, we’re in the classroom with them. We know that at 18, they may be adults, but there’s a lot they don’t know how to manage about the world. And I really worry about predatory actors who see this as an opportunity to basically build their own value base based on the lack of knowledge of a student who’s maybe not able to do to add. And so I worry about their level of ni l education and the ways that they understand what’s going on. And I know universities are, are taking that on. But I think again, it varies widely across universe.

Ron Wade
Frustration, frustrations, Susan is the fact there’s not a standard, right? No. standard practices, best practices, standard training standard. We know the rules, but then we all know that those rules are people try to bend them to their will. Yeah. So well, how can how can colleges and athletic departments best go step forward and say, Hey, we need some guidelines, please get together and give us some guidelines they’ve been trying for years, and it’s still couldn’t seem to take in shape, take shape, why.

Keith Edwards
It’s like a kind of a difficult situation for athletic departments to be in, because on one hand, we can’t be involved. On the other hand, we need to help manage. And I would assume if I were an athletic director, the more we get into managing and directing and doing this, then the more risk we are at being in trouble. But beyond that there, you know, in professional sports, there’s a lot of rules around agents, and what they can do. And if they misbehave, there’s a lot of consequences with, with associations, with with players associations, with all of that, it seems here that there’s a lot of room for agents to be college students who graduated three years ago, got an MBA, and now can do this or that. And some of them I’m sure, have athletes best interests at heart, for sure. And some of them are just trying to make as much money as quickly as they can. And in a realm with very seems to me like very little consequence for mismanagement or deception.

Susan Shaw
Well, I was I worry, too, that of course, often those people don’t see them as student athletes. And so I think we recognize that their students that their particular needs related to that. And so I also worry, you know, if they’re spending all this time on NIL activities, what are they missing out? And of course, I worry that they’re missing out on their, their class and their studies. But also, they’re missing out on just being normal college students, which is hard enough for athletes anyway. And so I think that there are a lot of things that get wrapped up in this when they’re having to spend so much time on social media when they’re so concerned about their brand. And I worry about the tensions and jealousies that can even set up among athletes on a team.

Keith Edwards
Well, you’re queuing up George for one of his favorite rants. So let me just add to it here a little bit. So this episode, the whole reason for this episode is because one of our favorite listeners, Susan Komavez, emailed and said, I’m really curious about NFL and the transfer portal and what it’s doing to the athletics and what it’s going to mean for student success and student graduation and retention and completion rates. I think it’d be a fascinating conversation. So thank you, Susan, and thanks to all of you for making this possible. And we really want to George here to talk a little bit about the implications around student success. So what are you seeing and when we particularly when we think about that word, student athletes?

George McClellan
Well, first of all, I, I try not to use the phrase student athletes and the reason that I don’t is because the the the, the term was actually coined by the NCAA by an employee of the NCAA as part of an effort to keep from having to compensate students. And so it’s an awkward construction, but you’ll hear me talk about students who participate in athletics are simply athletes. But I tried to use I tried to avoid using the phrase student athletes and there’s a reason that’s really interesting to the bigger question about how things like the portal in NIL may impact on students success, and I and I say may, because as as we started out, it’s so new and it’s changing so fast. It’s really hard to say with any say certainty what the impacts may be. Have some guesses and hopefully they’re educated guesses. And and I can point to some questions that I think we all ought to keep our eyes on. And Susan, as you said, Keith, Susan sort of led us there, right by saying, look, for example, we already know that lots of higher education institutions aren’t great with handling transfer students don’t set that up well. We don’t handle it well, not on the giving end and not on the receiving end.

Keith Edwards
And not on the onboarding and orientation and connecting.

George McClellan
And that’s for students who leave normally busy student lives, let alone as Susan pointed out the sort of incredibly busy lives of athletes and then athletes who are trying to run really successful entrepreneurial NIL entities at the same time. Right. So I think part of the concern around the portal issue relates to that whole idea of transitioning. And some of this will depend on the receiving athletics program, right? How much care did they take to onboarding people into a new community? You can’t assume? Are there some commonalities across football culture? Sure. But is the culture at the University of Mississippi is football program the same as the culture at? You know, Lake Forest colleges? No, they’re probably not the same cultures, right. And so. So some attention has to be given to those sorts of things to help make sure that those transfers are, you know, I think about a student transferring, you know, right now, Lane Kiffin here at the University of Mississippi is pretty much viewed as having one of the top part all group going on. I don’t know how much you know, about Oxford, Mississippi, but housing is not an abundant commodity around here. So just the simple act of I’m moving in the middle of the year, and I need to find a place to live is a pretty big deal. Now you complicate it with all the scheduling hassles of being a student athlete, a student participating in athletics. And then you add to that, and I’m trying to run my ELA and I L entity, it gets to be a lot. And so that whole transfer piece is going to be really important, we know that that can can be a problem for success. And I wanted to add I’m sorry, that sort of circular are not linear here. But the other thing I think we need to do is interrogate what we mean when we say students success. Right? Because for some of these students getting all this business experience, and all this sort of thing that is success. That is what it looks like they’re there, they could be learning really powerful lessons, whether they continue on in their athletics, career or not, whatever direction they go. There’s some really powerful learning here. And so one of my questions is, we all know the best learning is guided learning. Not completely controlled, not completely independent, but guidance structured learning. So who’s doing the structure? Who’s helping define the outcomes? Who’s helping measure the progress? And, again, that that that may look very differently in very different kinds of places. And this, Keith, you mentioned earlier, this is, you know, who sorts of who sets up who trains the students around these issues? Well, you don’t want athletics departments or universities to do it. Because they have an inherent conflict of interest in this conversation. Right? My argument is, so I don’t know how the NCAA has a speaker’s bureau where they offer programs, a list of speakers who’ve been to some extent vetted by the NCAA. And then then then so all of the NCAA programs are required to do certain kinds of education efforts for their students. So maybe we would develop a portal and NIL sort of speaker expert list, that it in some way, and they’re out there and sort of independent or quasi independent, and that might help us a little bit with some of this stuff. So those are some of the success issues. Also. You know, because it’s not all bad, right? We sort of joked about this earlier. But we know how many students struggle to get food on the table to be able to buy the books to be able to put gas in the car to get to campus. And so for a student who can make now as Susan said, $100 $200 right. And Keith was sort of joking, but it is a lot of ramen and it is a lot of back. He’s right. At photo buy a lot of $1 can suit and so that’s going to so for some students, this nio stuff is really a difference maker and in a very positive right in terms of student’s success, so the things that they can learn, if we help guide them, the ways that they can help better afford opportunities in school, I mean, how many times do we know students who don’t go to study abroad? Or don’t go do internships or don’t go do X, Y, or Z? Because they, they can’t afford to do it? Yeah. Maybe this lets them do something.

Keith Edwards
Right. So I know your run. I know you’re doing a survey around this. Could you tell us a little bit about that? And I don’t know where you’re at, in that what you’re learning what you’re hoping to learn?

Ron Wade
Well, it’s still an ongoing, we, I’ve partnered with a couple of colleagues, other institutions, notably Sam Fullerton at Eastern Michigan, and we’ve surveyed students, freshmen through seniors, of their thoughts about NIL, and thoughts about, you know, do they think athletes should be compensated in this shouldn’t be structured. And what we’ve discovered is that, overwhelmingly, many of the students are in favor of it, they’re in favor, they see no reason why athletes shouldn’t be able to make money off of their name, image and likeness. Where we didn’t see a lot of consistent we can’t make any judgments yet, is on gender. And whether they feel as though it’s equitable for both of the men and male and female athletes. Well, they think it’s equitable for the non revenue generating sports. So that part we haven’t really got, we haven’t got enough data points yet, because we’ve only been doing this for a couple of years. But so far, and this is a cross section of multiple universities, not just Michigan and Eastern Michigan State’s couple other universities as well. So what we are those, we believe that most of the students are in favor, but and this is just me, my opinion, I think that structure aspect of it is the part that the students recognize that they need, they need to be some sort of equity that need to be some sort of structure. And, Keith, you brought up something where you mentioned that professional organizations, they have, you know, Players Association, they have a union that can kind of help along with the negotiates along with the the league’s. I think that if you look ahead and see where things are going right now, I think that you’re going to see to a point where and we’ve seen in case in cases, right now, the courts, where athletes have tried to unionize, they’ve been turned down or they’ve haven’t been able to do it. But they get in a little bit closer each time. And at some point, that wall is going to fall. And then when athletes can unionize. And they can be declared employees, that’s when there’ll be a huge change because no College wants to pay athletes as employees. And that’s going to open up a whole new, cool new wave of change. So as we try to study this, try to research and try to come to conclusions. By the time we get to a point we have enough data to make a conclusion, everything’s going to shifted.

Keith Edwards
And I also think this is going to get more and more political. I mean, we see some of this already. If if more restrictions benefits are big time college program that everybody’s talking about all over the state and all over the thing, it really incentivizes politicians to, before those restrictions. And if those restrictions harm us, and our chances of being in the NCAA playoff for football, for instance. There’s some political incentive to push back on that because it’s a wildly popular thing, right? Sports for better or worse really unites a lot of people we were talking about Oregon and Oregon State can unite the state depending on the year and depending on house such as such as doing. And so I I worry a little bit about this being sort of a the politics of the convenience of the moment to garner for politicians, a few more media hits, maybe some on fundraising of their own right. Politicians have been idle for a long time.

Susan Shaw
One hour in just about the NCAA is seeming in effectiveness and actually creating structures to benefit athletes, you know, and and granted, I will go ahead and say I am bitter about what happened to the PAC 12 and the lack of the NCAA’s leadership in that to prevent our conference from being destroyed. But again, I haven’t seen them step in here also and give us the level of guidance, so that we have this just piecemeal map of rules in different areas in schools and states and types of institutions. And I just thought that serves students.

George McClellan
I think we have to remember that the NCAA is us. We say the NCAA doesn’t do this and the NCAA doesn’t do that. And I hear you. But the NCAA is us. It’s a membership driven association. So you know, it’s I’ve met the enemy and they are us. It’s our it’s our own inability to trust one Another it’s our own greed. It’s our own drive for prestige. I was thinking about what Ron said, you know, I, I go back and forth on this, and I don’t have a great crystal ball. But I increasingly believe that that the very, very top tier programs are going to spin off to their separate for profit entities. And something will emerge as not for profit sports competitions or there’ll be some structure like that because the interest of this modest number but huge social impact set of programs. Those needs can’t be that I just don’t see how we get those needs aligned with the other. Still DI but not big money DI or DII or DIII programs or Nia because we’re all talking about NCAA. But remember, there’s Naia and junior college student athletes or athletes participating in a student’s participating in athletics.

George McClellan
Oh, I really don’t think that these tensions are reconcilable in the current structure. I really don’t I and again, I admit I, you know, forecasting the future is a fool’s errand in higher ed and lots of other enterprises. But I’ll play the fool for a moment. I just don’t think we can reconcile these tensions. And and so eventually, I imagined some sort of separate not for profit entities that are the big sports. And the legal logic will be there’s a social benefit to that and entertainment economic benefit. And so we’ll let that happen. And then all the other programs that are sort of not big money programs will continue, kind of like we are now but as Ron pointed out, Susan have been talking about with sort of evolving NIL portal framework.

Keith Edwards
I love perfect prognosticating the future so I it’s a slippery slope. But it’s interesting. We I also wonder what what what do others see ahead? Or what questions do you have about the future here real quick before we move on to our closure?

Susan Shaw
Well, I do think that the conference realignment is probably going to accelerate what George is talking about. And I imagine football spinning off, in particular, maybe men’s basketball. I don’t know maybe part of the reason we’re hanging on to the PAC 12 is we’re hoping in a few years, everybody comes back for all the rest of the sports. Because I cannot imagine our students it from from the University of Oregon or from Stanford are going to enjoy having to travel back and forth to the East Coast.

George McClellan
Yeah. And in sports, like soccer, where you have two or three games a week, you know, are two games a week, right? I mean, yeah.

Ron Wade
I’ll talk a little bit about what I’m kind of excited about with this is that as a marketer, the potential for like collectibles and the potential for other revenue to be generated for these athletes. I, I’m excited about that. But I’m also very wary and cautious of what could happen. But you see things like art Manning’s first, first card assigned card was sold for 1000s of dollars already. So now you’re getting to the point where you can barely play college football. Exactly. So now you got a chance for these athletes to not only cash in a big way, but also the collectibles market and find ways to to get additional revenue through collectibles and I think that’s a big growth area, especially with women’s sports. And, you know, I love the fact that I turned on a TV and I saw Caitlin Clark On a State Farm commercial, it was, it was really nice to see that, you know, they’re, they’re embracing college athletes in this way. But it’s, again, it’s scary. I’m excited. But it’s scary.

George McClellan
I guess for me what comes next is federal legislation. I think that’s there’s there’s already

Keith Edwards
Do we do that anymore federal legislation?

George McClellan
Apparently, there’s still there’s already three or four bills out there, I think there’s gonna have to be as much as I generally am not a fan of, you know, we were not supposed to have a federal higher education system. But I think federal legislation is coming in. And one of the interesting questions for me is what happens when a student’s NIHL interests clash within institutions? So Keith mentioned gambling earlier. What happens when I want to sign a deal with a gambling gaming company? Because some other one has

Keith Edwards
school and I want to assign with Coke, right.

George McClellan
Some of some of the some of the legislation that’s being proposed very explicitly says, there can’t be any limits on the NIL interest of the student. So now I can do tobacco I can do my local cannabis shop I can do I can do gambling. I, you know, again, Pepsi, Coke. We’re a Nike school, and I’m going to do whatever tasteless finishes. But

Keith Edwards
yeah, interesting. I,

George McClellan
I’m just waiting for that, that that’s, that’s coming.

Keith Edwards
Well, this, I love this because I really wanted to have a conversation that explored not for or against, or binary thinking, but the complexity of it. And here we are. It’s more muddy and more messy than when we started. And I love that. So I thank you, all three of you for really being formed. I want to move us to wrapping up, as we’re just about out of time. The podcast is called Student Affairs NOW. So we always like to end with what are you thinking about? Troubling or pondering now? And also, if folks want to connect with you? What’s the easiest way for them to do that? So George, what are you pondering now might be related to this conversation or something else? What’s with you now.

George McClellan
And I see the cycles of history and higher education. And I’m waiting for the swing back to the great presidents who aren’t afraid to stand up and talk about the true values of American higher education, and not just what’s politically convenient. So that’s, that’s, that’s what I’m waiting for, where where are the higher education leaders who will? Who will speak you know, truth to power? And, and if you want to reach out for me, you’re welcome to email me here at the University of Mississippi. I’m also on Twitter, which I refuse to call that other name. And it’s GSM. The lead the number for students GSM for students.

Keith Edwards
Nice. Well, I think you’re mentioning presidential leadership, I think on this issue, that would be great on di that would be great on student success. That would be great on state funding, that would be great. So many things. And then of course, presidents don’t seem to last nearly as long as they once did. You know, Clarcor was decades in a role.

George McClellan
And it’s always been a tough job. It is really tough right now. But the answer is not to be quiet. I am not sure of everything. But I’m sure that quiet isn’t the answer. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Thank you, George. Susan, what are you pondering now? Other than your new book? So feel free to mention that? Yeah, yeah.

Susan Shaw
Oh, gosh, I’m pondering so many things. I mean, related to this, I am pondering what the impact of conference realignment is going to be on students, on coaches on staffs and what all that’s going to mean with all the travel, and, you know, selfishly speaking, what that’s going to mean for OSU and for Washington State, who were in a whole world of hurt financially now, because of this, and what’s the impact going to be on the academic side of the house. But I’m also wondering, just some things I saw on the news. There’s a big thing in the news today about gender based violence and hockey players and Canada. And also the I don’t know if you saw the Washington Post big exposition about how the NFL is trying really hard not to pay out the concussion dollars that it owes players who’ve been hurt, and who are suffering from dementia. And so I’m pondering those things as well. I do I have a new book, which has nothing to do with any of this. Tell us about it anyway. So my other hat is in religious studies, and so I have a book coming out called with Grace Jason Kim called Surviving God, and it’s doing theology from the perspective of of survivors of sexual abuse. And it’s that comes out March 26. So I’m very excited about that. And if people want to reach me, you can reach me at Oregon State University. I’m on yes, that that platform that used to be called Twitter. And I’m also on Instagram at Susan Shaw 1960. So you can find me in all those places. Great. Thank

Keith Edwards
you. And Ryan, what’s what are you pondering now?

Ron Wade
Well, as someone who left the sports industry, to go into academia, the thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is I talked to students, and it kind of goes to this and I’ll conversation as well with some of the athletes is I’m really curious about why people leave the sports industry. And I feel so that’s an aspect of a career in sports that I haven’t been able to give my students, we haven’t gotten raw data, I’ve been trying to look for reports and data and research on, you know, why people have left the sport industry, is it because of, you know, what’s going on with the timing is it because of the requirements is because of low, lower pay. So that is something that I’ve been kind of passionate about for the last last couple of years, and I’m not, I’ve been really think about it lately, the last few months, because I’ve had a cmp, a slew of people that I know in my network, who’ve all left the industry for other industries. So I’m kind of thinking about that research. I think it’s very interesting to find out why people are leaving that industry. If you want to reach me at all. If you have any ideas. You can reach me on Instagram at Prof. R Wade, I’m on LinkedIn as well as Ron Wade. I’m not on the platform formerly known as Twitter anymore. So those are the two best way is to get a hold of me.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks to all three of you for being here. And being a part of this conversation. I’ve learned a lot. And as good learning is, you know, now the more I know them, the more I know, I don’t know. And so it’s even messier and more complex. And I love that you’ve brought that to me and to our audience. So thanks to all of you for your thinking, and your leadership and for sharing today. Thanks also to our sponsors for today’s episode, Routledge, and Symplicity. Routledge and Taylor and Francis is the world’s leading academic publisher and education publishing. A wide range of books, journals and other resources for practitioners, faculty, administrators and researchers have welcomed Stylus publishing to their publishing platform and are thrilled to enrich their offerings in higher education, teaching Student Affairs, professional development, assessment, and more. Routledge is proud to sponsor student affairs now view their complete catalog or authoritative education titles at routledge.com/education. And Symplicity is the global leader in student services technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institution Symplicity supports all aspects of student life including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and wellbeing, students success and accessibility services. To learn more, visit simplicity.com, or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And huge shout out to our producer Nat Ambrosey who does all the behind the scenes work to make all of us look and sound good. We love the support of these important conversations from our community. You You can help us reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast, or YouTube channel or our weekly newsletter, announcing each new episode and more if you’re so inclined, you can also leave a five star review. It really does help us reach a larger audience with these conversations. Keith Edwards, thanks again to the fabulous guests today. And to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thanks everybody.

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