Kentucky.

Tonight I'm your host, Chip Polston.

Well, it's almost college football season in Kentucky.

Tonight we'll take a look at what may be considered the biggest transformation in the history of college sport.

The shift to paying players through name, image and likeness deals or NIL tonight you'll hear from some of the biggest names in Kentucky collegiate sports.

We'll have interviews with the presidents of the state's two flagship universities, Doctor Eli Capilouto at the University of Kentucky and Doctor Jerry Bradley at the University of Louisville.

You'll also hear from Pat Kelsey, men's head basketball coach at the University of Louisville.

Joining us live in the studio tonight are Jay Bat, CEO of Champions Blue, LLC and director of athletics at the University of Kentucky.

Josh Hurd, director of athletics at the University of Louisville, Brooklyn.

DeLay, a senior at the University of Kentucky and member of the volleyball team which made it to the NCAA tournament championship game in 2025.

She is also an NIL participant and Kyle Tucker, veteran national sports journalist, formerly of The Athletic, the sports division of The New York Times and currently the director of college basketball content at 24 over seven sports.

Many thanks to all of you for being here with us tonight.

And as always, we want to hear from you.

You can send your questions and comments by X, formerly Twitter at Pub Affairs KET.

Send an email to KY TONIGHT at ket.org.

You can use the web form at ket.org/ky tonight, or you can call one (800) 494-7605.

So how did we get here?

It's hard to believe that it all started with a video game.

Ed O'Bannon was a member of the 1995 men's NCAA national championship basketball team at UCLA, according to his book Court Justice.

One afternoon in 2009, he saw a kid playing the EA sports game NCAA basketball oh nine on his Xbox 360.

As he watched, he noticed a player for UCLA in the game who wore his number 31 was listed as being six feet, eight inches tall and 222 pounds, and was a left handed power forward.

That was him.

The only thing missing on the avatar was O'bannon's name on the back of his jersey.

His pro basketball career had never turned him into a star, and at the time he was selling cars at a Toyota dealership in Nevada.

After initially feeling flattered to be in the game, he then realized somebody was making money from this and it wasn't him that led to the groundbreaking O'Bannon versus NCAA lawsuit, the first of several which eventually resulted in the House versus NCAA settlement in June of last year, which paid 2.8 billion with a B $2.8 billion to athletes who had been denied Nil opportunities.

And for the first time ever, schools were allowed to directly share revenue with athletes up to roughly $20.5 million per year per school.

Coming from media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships.

While schools cannot cross the $20.5 million institutional cap, athletes can receive unlimited additional funds through true third party Nil corporate deals and booster collectives, and proposed federal legislation could increase that cap significantly.

So here we are in our sit down interviews with Doctor Capilouto, Doctor Bradley and Coach Kelsey.

I started by asking all of them the same question.

How has NIL complicated your job?

>> Little did I realize 15 months ago, stepping into this job, you know, I thought as provost, I knew kind of a lot of what was going on.

But, you know, really what's happened over the last 15 months around the college athletics scene has just been unbelievable.

I mean, you know, we talk about disruptions in higher ed, but right now in college athletics, it's it's a it's a tsunami.

>> Not really complicated.

Many things at the University of Kentucky are challenging.

We always adapt, adjust, look for new ways forward.

When compensation for student athletes was made permissible through court decisions and other rules and regulations, we did set up a new mechanism mechanisms to oversee and govern college sports give us some flexibility, and that is set up an LLC Champions Blue that is fully under our board of trustees, all state laws when it comes to procurement and open meetings.

But that brought some new expertise around the table to help us at a time when the commercialization of college sports becomes more of a responsibility and opportunity.

>> I don't know if it's complicated.

It's obviously a seismic shift in our industry, and seismic shifts in industries happen all the time.

And the important thing is if you want to be in the industry and you want to have success, you better adapt and you better run at that change versus being resistant.

>> So, Jay, let me start with you.

How has NIL complicated your role?

>> Well thank you, Chip.

Thanks for having us.

I'd tell you that, you know, we are certainly tackling a tremendously new set of responsibilities each and every day, whether it's working through revenue sharing Nil opportunities to support our student athletes.

But at the University of Kentucky, we choose to view this as an opportunity.

And it's a changing tactic to develop and work through Nil opportunities.

Rev share.

But at the end of the day, the opportunity mission of college athletics remains the same.

So while this tactic and being excellent around this tactic is important, remaining the opportunity mission of college athletics to provide opportunities to our student athletes remains the same.

>> Josh how about you?

>> It might have created 1 or 2 more headaches, but like everybody said here, it's it's an opportunity.

It's an opportunity for us to, to evolve and get better.

And it's something that we preach at the University of Louisville and our athletic department, which is evolve or die.

And we can sit here and say, we don't like it or it shouldn't be this way.

It is this way.

And so we've got to figure it out because we want to try to be really good in everything we do at the University of Louisville, and that's where we're at right now.

So in some ways it hasn't changed anything.

We were just having the conversation about watching a field hockey game Sunday at 1:00.

That aspect of it hasn't changed at all, but the aspect of just trying to figure out the business functions and monetize and commercialize different things, it has drastically changed the day to day.

>> So let's take a look now at the financial institutions within the schools.

We'll start at the University of Kentucky.

In June of last year, the university lent the athletic departments $141 million.

That included $31 million in operating funds to offset expected deficits and $110 million in capital investment loans for major facility projects.

Here's what Doctor Capilouto had to say about it.

>> Our board, which it has done in other circumstances, it has made loans to colleges, other units when they need to invest as they adjust to develop new revenue streams.

Yes, the board made that loan.

And let me say that the University of Kentucky Athletics Department is operated as a tub on its own bottom.

It receives no university resources, no state funds, no tuition and fees.

In fact, on in the last decade, when it generated positive revenues, it supported general scholarships for students.

It paid for two thirds of $112 million academic science building.

It pays all its own expenses.

So we're at a time, though, that expenses outpaced revenues.

We need time to adjust, develop new initiatives so that we can generate the revenues it's going to take to cover things like student athlete compensation.

>> Jay, before we talk about the budget in April of last year, UK set up the Champions Blue LLC.

This was billed as a first of its kind nonprofit holding company created to manage and operate the athletics department.

Tell us about what that is and how that works.

>> Yeah, so we're really fortunate at the University of Kentucky that our trustees, our president, our leadership saw it fit to move forward with the Champions Blue LLC set up.

And I think, you know, meshing of the two questions, you know, as we move forward in college athletics, commercialization is incredibly important.

Finding new sources of revenue are incredibly important.

And so what champions blue allows us to do is to find those new sources of revenue, be more efficient, be more nimble.

As college athletics continues to change, being nimble, being well capitalized through change allows us to be aggressive and to approach all of the opportunities with that same that same lens.

>> So let's go back and review that budget situation that we talked about a little bit earlier as the A D. How do you reconcile that $31 million deficit and the $110 million loan for infrastructure?

What that's what's that going to be put toward?

>> Yeah.

So I'd say two different, you know, kind of buckets there.

One certainly helped us and helps us adapt through change.

I'm happy to report that we're ahead of schedule, repaying that loan to the university and off to a good a good place.

With that, I think the 110 that we're looking at investments, that's everything from Kroger Field, new premium opportunities.

Those are exactly as President Capilouto mentioned, investments that our board saw fit to invest in a newly commercial operation.

Champions blue is the tool and the structure in which we'll use to spend those dollars appropriately.

But in today's college athletics environment, focusing not simply on investing for the sake of spending dollars, but to invest to create return on that investment.

I think that's why the University of Kentucky is incredibly well positioned going forward, and that we've targeted centered those investments around things that will return.

>> You mentioned the work around Kroger Field.

That's a pretty exciting development that you have coming up.

Tell folks what's going to be happening there.

>> Well, certainly for this season, there'll be new premium seating, online investments.

In our general fan experience, the Big Blue Nation is the lifeblood of Kentucky athletics.

I think we all know that and throughout the state just how much it matters to our fan base.

We've done everything from simple inside the concourse improvements, working through technology enhancements, game day experience enhancements, but also adding premium seating opportunities.

That return on that investment is pretty strong.

>> Well now pivot to the situation at the University of Louisville.

Here's what Doctor Bradley had to say.

[MUSIC] Looking at what's required to compete in this Nil era.

The last athletics budget was projected to have a $30 million deficit.

As the chief administrator of the university, how do you reconcile that?

How do you fix that?

>> You can't, you can't.

I mean, at some point, then there's going to come at the at the cost, you know, where you have to make hard decisions about what is the next season look like, or what are the sports that you can do.

And I think always the concern is that we never wanted to see any of the scholarships that existed for, for other athletes, you know, so people forget we're talking about like in the case of University of Louisville, we have over 600 student athletes.

And when you look at sort of nil, it really is only a small portion of those 600 student athletes.

And it was all about getting a college education and getting a degree is what college athletics was about.

And what we will see is that, you know, we will see universities, I think, across the country will have to make decisions around what they can support around sports.

>> Josh your response to that?

>> Yeah, I think as we talked about with board chair and president myself, when we put out that white paper relative to where college athletics currently sits.

The $30 million deficit was an opportunity for us to say, what does this really cost to operate a pretty successful athletic department?

And I do think athletic departments and universities have been pretty good at, as I say, left, left pocket, right pocket exchanges and accounting, for lack of better terms, where, you know, is there tuition vouchers for out-of-state students that are given to the athletic department and all these different ways?

Is the university going to pay for utilities?

Are they going to pay for this?

Are they going to pay for that?

And it just kind of gets shifted on the accounting ledger.

And nobody is nobody's the wiser.

And so what we did when we created this budget is what does this really cost?

And, and this is what it's going to cost.

And we want people to see that because this business model has been disrupted and turned on its head.

Two, three sports real quick, 23 sports.

Two of them make money.

>> Right, right.

To that point, you mentioned the white paper that you and Doctor Bradley and board chair Larry Benz put together.

It was called College Athletics is Running Out of Time.

You've gotten a lot of publicity for that.

There were three main tenets in there as to how you all thought Nil could be fixed.

Walk us through what you said in that paper as to how you believe Nil could be straightened out.

>> Well, I do think that there has to be a hard spending cap.

And if you look at any professional league that has gone about this, there's there is a cap of some sort, right.

And people know what that is.

There has to be clear enforcement around that cap, which I think has been very difficult for us to get our arms around at the collegiate level.

I do think that restriction on movement is is helpful.

And and that one's a tough one for student athletes of, hey, maybe I didn't have a good experience.

Maybe what this coach told me or this school told me isn't what I got in my first year.

So am I going to have the ability to go where I want to go and, and maybe change some things in my life for the better?

Or are you transferring every year because you're trying to get to whoever that highest bidder is?

Because this is a highly, highly competitive industry.

And so I think we need to take a take a look at that.

And then the opportunity, if if it makes sense to pull our meteorites, and I don't know the answer to that, because I don't think that there has been an objective study done that says it's right or it's wrong.

And I guess my premise around that is looking at the professional leagues and the professional leagues have been able to increase their revenue stream through TV because of that.

Will that happen in college?

College athletics?

I don't know, I don't know, but for us to say that we just shouldn't take a look at it, I would I would disagree with that.

And I think the really interesting piece is this is people are going to have different opinions based on where they are in the collegiate landscape.

And I would tell you, for us, I think that makes sense to take a look at.

>> Looking at the organization there at U of L, your version of Champions Blue is called Cardinal Ventures that you all have set up.

Kyle, let me ask you, is this the model that you're starting to see in other schools that they're adopting this, this LLC, nonprofit holding company model to be able to manage this?

>> Yeah, to some extent, I think that we're seeing a trending that way.

I don't think anyone's doing it quite to the full extent that Kentucky is doing it right now, moving the entire athletic department under that LLC.

But the reasoning behind it, it's pretty simple.

And he mentioned it earlier to be nimble, you know, operating within the normal university structure is not really set up for speed.

It's intentionally slow.

And, and we started the show talking about how what is nil changed and it's changed.

The business model has changed the need to run an athletic department in college, like a high level business, to hire a CEO as your athletic director to operate that way.

And this, you know, bringing your at least your revenue arm under an LLC gives you flexibility to go out and pursue different, you know, streams of income, lines of credit if you want to, you know, some schools are looking at private equity and that's increasingly an option in college sports.

Everybody's looking for, okay, we got to pay these guys and we got to pay them handsomely.

And we still have to keep up our our facilities.

The arms race hasn't ended in facilities.

And so how do we do that?

How do we make those decisions quickly?

How can we do it without getting tied up in a bunch of red tape at the university level?

And because what Nil has changed is we're now nakedly professional sports, whether whether anybody really likes that idea or not, that is what it is.

And you have to be run like a business.

>> To that point.

Let's now look at NIL through the eyes of a student athlete.

Brooklyn, you had a great career at UK.

You were first team all sec.

Last year.

You played for a national championship before you started as a college athlete.

What did you think Nil would do and has it done what you thought it would?

>> Yeah, to be honest with you, I had no clue what Nil was going into college.

It wasn't really something that was popular or trending at the time.

But honestly, I think now for athletes that are going into that recruiting process, that's going to be the big talk of it.

But back in the day when I was doing it, it was more of finding the school that would best fit me for the next four years and set me up for life.

So I was more looking at culture and just the coaching staff and people around the university instead of just nil itself.

>> So you've kind of seen how this evolves as when you came in, this really wasn't in play.

Now it is over that course of time.

How does it work in the locker room and are players looking at each other differently because of different sums of money that may be paid?

How does that work out?

>> Yeah, you know, I can't speak for any other sports or institutions, but I know at Kentucky and the volleyball locker room, we don't talk about Nil.

That's kind of just been a rule that's been set by US leaders because it could cause drama or it could cause just like a difference in, I don't know, people as a whole.

So our main focus is just trying to win a national championship, trying to win games.

And if Nil comes from that, that's great.

But we try not to speak about it just because we don't want the extra drama from just trying to play volleyball.

>> Our folks following that rule to not talk about it pretty well.

Yeah.

Okay.

In looking at what it takes to be a college athlete, it takes a lot of time.

Not only are you going to school, but you've got a lot of time to devote to your sport.

Now, NIL is a part of this as well.

How do you manage the time commitments regarding this?

>> Yeah, I think it definitely helps with time management, but also just like a lot of people don't know, just the work that it takes to kind of do all the deliverables that are asked of you within deals.

But I think it's just also such a cool opportunity that athletes have in order to make money in college.

But yeah, it definitely does take some extra time, especially on like off days when you're trying to get those done.

But I think just the university does a really good job at Kentucky to just set us up for success in trying to get those knocked out before the season starts, so that we can just truly focus on our sport.

>> The importance of social media within NIL your your brand value, if you will.

Is that really the big intangible that's at play here for folks like you?

>> Yeah, I don't really do much on the social media side of things.

I know some athletes are really big into that, and that's great because they're just building their brand and getting endorsements because of that.

And just the following that they make from just posting videos or just their daily lives.

But I'm not one to just like put my daily life on social media.

So I don't think it really affects me as much as others.

>> What do you hear from fans?

Do they have this misconception that everybody who plays college sports now is a millionaire, or do they not really understand how much or how little you might be getting from this?

>> Yeah, I think it's definitely a misconception.

I feel like especially with the numbers that are thrown around on social media or just in the news is kind of crazy.

And just people that don't know much about Nil are kind of blind to like the reality of it kind of what was mentioned before.

Only a select few of athletes get the opportunity to make nil, and that doesn't go for everyone on the team or everyone in the athletic department.

And I think that's something that people should be aware of, because those numbers are sums that are getting talked about aren't happening to majority of the athletes.

>> Wright J. And Josh, let me ask you this question.

What Brooklyn just described here, this sounds like an education in and of itself.

It's almost like a graduate level business class that she's actually getting to live.

Do you all provide any guidance in terms of things like tax liability and things like that, to kind of bring athletes up to speed on on creating a business while they're an athlete?

>> Yeah, first and foremost, let me just say how incredibly proud I am.

Of course, you know, this is this is a hard thing to to come on here and talk.

And you make everybody at the University of Kentucky proud.

So thank you for being here.

I'm also really proud of the team that we put behind our student athletes, whether it's through our partner at JMI or also through our internal resources.

I do think we do a really good job of supporting our student athletes, not only providing opportunities for them to go and earn, but also to try to help them as they navigate those things, whether it's, you know, completing deliverables or making great choices going forward.

>> I think the only thing I would add there is life comes at you fast, right?

When you're 18 and you're transitioning from high school to college.

And oh my gosh, NIL opportunities.

And what does this mean from a tax liability?

I mean, there are so many questions and I do have a lot of confidence like Jay does, that those resources are there.

If our student athletes want to take advantage of them.

I think that is the that is the main variable that.

>> Interested in that.

>> Exactly, exactly.

And we have one of or had one of the absolute legends relative to making a smaller sum of money, not necessarily in college, but in the pros in Junior Bridgeman, who parlayed that into just an unbelievable, unbelievable business career.

And so we were so, so fortunate to have him because he would come and talk to our student athletes about a lot of those things that you just talked about right there.

So we have to fill that void.

Definitely.

But I think we're doing that.

>> Let's look at it now from the eye or through the eyes rather of a coach.

A couple days ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with UofL men's head basketball coach Pat Kelsey, to ask how he approaches Nil within his program.

[MUSIC] How is it affecting or impacting the end product that we see on the court?

Is there a direct correlation that you see there?

>> I mean, there's people that think, and I probably subscribe to this theory as well, is that it's raise the talent level.

You know, I mean, kids that are probably able to go professionally earlier on in their career or staying around because of the, the amount of money that they can make in college sports.

So, you know, I think the level of play is probably as high or higher than it's ever been.

>> Thanks to N I, l and being able to keep those kids that maybe would have gone pro.

>> I think.

>> So.

Okay.

From a recruiting standpoint, how has it complicated recruiting folks to come to this program?

What what are the different layers that you're having to deal with now that maybe five, ten years ago you didn't have?

>> Again, I don't know if it's complicated, but it's changed.

And again, you have to adapt to change.

Obviously, the amount of money and the fact that negotiations and, and money is a major factor.

That hasn't been the case for years and years and years.

It was it was it was your scholarship and it was your room and your board and your books.

And then, you know, eventually the NCAA started giving, you know, allowing players to have stipends and cost of attendance type things.

And that was kind of the first time the players received anything outside of scholarship.

And now, you know, the floodgates have opened.

And obviously you're talking lots and lots of money.

And, you know, the involvement in agents in the the recruitment is important as well, just because of the amount of money and the stakes and those type of negotiations.

I mean, players are smart, you know, like they're not professional negotiators and things like that.

But agents are and they're, they're, they're smart to partner with people that know what they're doing and that in that realm.

So that's added some layers to it as well.

>> What are those negotiations like?

>> I don't do it.

Okay.

So I don't know.

I stay completely out of it.

I'm the basketball coach.

I want my relationship with the player to be player and coach basketball.

And, and, you know, I let the I let the people that in our in our at our university and in our department in our front office, if you will handle those things.

>> So you're, you're completely hands off when it comes to that.

You don't want to be in that pool.

>> I don't want to have I do not have money conversations with players or parents or agents just on principle.

That's the way I do it.

Just because, like I said, I don't want those type of things to affect my relationship with the player.

I want it to be about mentor, player, basketball, coach, player and keep it at that.

>> Is that typical among coaches or are you kind of a standalone there?

>> I mean, obviously you have to be involved because you have everybody has a certain amount of money to spend.

You got to figure out how to allocate your resources.

But when you actually get down to the, the numbers part of it and you're negotiating and talking with, I, I stay completely out of it, I don't know.

>> Many thanks to Coach Kelsey for taking the time to speak with us.

You can catch our full interview with him on KET YouTube channel now bears saying we did reach out to UK men's basketball coach, Mark Pope over the last several weeks to get his take in.

His communications team said they were.

He was not able to make it work due to scheduling conflicts.

Kyle, let me go to you with what Coach Kelsey said there about being hands off on NIL is that a norm or is that something that that you don't hear that often?

>> Well, I think it depends on what hands on, you know, what conversations you're talking about behind closed doors conversations.

I think every head coach in the country is very hands on.

And it's probably the the final say in, as he alluded to there behind, you know, when when they're in their staff, as you're talking about, how much do we have to spend is what's the value?

What's the, you know, if we spend this much, do we can we complete our roster?

Right.

I think roster management is a conversation that every head coach is heavily hands on.

But I do think that there are there are several like him who believe it's awkward and can create a lot of awkwardness within your roster, within your team, within your relationships, to have the money conversation between the head coach and the player or the family.

And it's interesting because we're talking about college sports as pro sports, but not it's not a one for one, but you you think about the NBA and college basketball.

The GM position now in college basketball is popular.

A college basketball GM is not an NBA GM.

The NBA gym is the is the coach's boss.

That is not the case in college basketball.

And so a head coach in college basketball kind of has to wear a little bit of both hats.

He he sort of is the final say.

And so I think different coaches play it differently, but they're all very heavy handed in, in deciding is it worth it to spend this money on this guy.

>> In terms of how our basketball coaches in Kentucky are responding to this and a conversation I had with you, Kyle, last week, you said that you think the two coaches most on the NIL hot seat in the nation right now are Mark Pope and Pat Kelsey.

Why is that?

>> As you put me on the hot seat, I think the word hot seat.

I wouldn't use the word hot seat necessarily.

I think what what money does is apply pressure.

It applies it to the players we see.

We could talk about that.

The mental health that comes along with players.

I've come in and people know or think that I'm the highest paid player on the team or in the country or in the conference, what pressure is on me?

I think that's true too, of coaches when when you've got an investment and we're talking about running these things like businesses and forming LLCs and desperately seeking every revenue stream we can to pay these exorbitant prices, when you're then given huge dollars, you know, some of the the most expensive rosters in the country, it applies pressure.

And I think, you know, certainly before the Mark Mitchell case today and he's going back to Missouri when he was coming to Kentucky, I think I would put Kentucky and Louisville both in the top five, probably in most expensive rosters in college basketball this year, maybe one, two, you could make a case.

I think transparency would be great.

So we'd actually know those things.

But when that is the case, when you've when you've spent as much as anybody in America, there's pressure.

And that's what I don't know if hot seat is the right word, but the expectation at Kentucky is to go to a Final Four.

It's the same at Louisville.

And these are two guys going into year three who now have been given rosters that are among the most expensive in America, and you got to win.

>> Neal is something that both federal and state governments have looked at, trying to rein in.

And two years ago, during an NIL hearing with officials from the NCAA on Capitol Hill, Kentucky, Representative Morgan McGarvey asked a pointed question.

And now remember, he's directly asking this to staff from the NCAA.

Here's what he said.

>> I'm going to say this is the first time on our committee I have seen an organization come forward before us who doesn't have its act together and is so inept that they are actually asking the government to take over what's going on and regulate this.

Here's my warning.

Just like what we did in Kentucky, when you needed a change, you got to go back to the state legislature.

When you all are asking the United States government where it will literally take an act of Congress to change something once we let it out.

Loose in the wild.

Is the NCAA so inept right now that this is something Congress must legislate?

>> GA Josh your response to that?

>> As I say, when we get asked this question, because I know Jay gets asked it a lot and I do too.

Do we really think that the federal government needs to be involved in college athletics?

And my answer is pretty simple do we need to?

Do we think the federal government needs to be involved in anything until they actually do?

Right?

Because that's the point and that's the function of government.

And I think, yes, I do think that we have shown and the NCAA has shown that they need help governing college athletics.

When the NCAA was created, did they ever think that they were going to be sued every day of the week relative to eligibility?

Right.

It was, hey, here's here's the rules that we're going to play by.

You get four years, sometimes you get five, there's an injury, so on and so forth.

And now we've gotten to the point where it's like, you know what?

I want to play one more year.

I think I'm just going to sue you.

And that's another saying that I say all the time in that college athletics was never intended to be a profession.

Let's not forget why kids student athletes go to college.

Yes, they have an opportunity to make money now, which is great, but getting a college degree is worth more than anything that they're ever going to make, because you can't take that away from them.

You know, there's a lot of these student athletes, they're not going to have this money down the road, but you can't take that college degree from them.

And so, yes, I would say that getting the federal government involved, we are at that point now because we need a framework that says, hey, here's some protections that are going to be afforded to the NCAA or whatever that governing body looks looks like, so that you guys can actually govern and move forward.

>> Jay, your thoughts?

>> Yeah, I think I would agree in in particularly as it relates to Protect College Sports act.

You know, as Josh mentioned, having a, a consistent framework for all of these affairs across all of our states from a competitive equity perspective is incredibly important.

I think secondarily, we've all talked about here where Nil can be a benefit to our student athletes and a lot of different ways we need to provide that in a consistent, enforceable way so that we get some consistency.

We also need to provide protections for our student athletes, right?

We talked a lot about the different pressures that this creates.

Well, part of that is we need to provide a consistent framework under which we can help to alleviate some of those pressures.

And I think there's some some consistency pieces there, certainly some high level kind of parts and pieces of that legislation that provide us that framework.

There's still work to be done.

There's still pieces that we would, you know, I think as it evolves, we'll see.

But I think at the end, it would be a really good step forward.

>> And you talk about that consistency.

And Josh, I believe you all covered this in the white paper that you did.

The problem really is the patchwork of state laws and judicial rulings by judges that are sometimes alumni of the schools that they're ruling on that really has has clouded the issue and complicated the factor.

>> Well, once again, that goes back to think about how highly competitive this is, where literally it's like, hey, do we like we think this judge is going to rule, rule in the favor of this student athlete or that student athlete.

It's unbelievable.

You know, it's something that Jay and I were talking about before the show.

Is there anything in the state of Kentucky that creates more emotional joy or emotional pain than wins and losses by the Wildcats and Cardinals?

And so when you get that kind of emotion involved, then you need an objective body to come in and say, hey, this is how we're going to do things, and this is how we're going to make decisions.

>> So let's now really look at another question.

And all this really does beg the question, how can smaller schools in Kentucky who aren't the cats or the cards compete?

Here's what Kentucky schools spent on Nil over the course of about a year.

And this information comes to us courtesy of the Louisville Courier Journal.

According to the CJ, UK declined to reveal the amount they paid out.

The University of Louisville reported paying just less than $33 million.

From there, the numbers drop off decisively.

KU paid out around $2.5 million.

EKU and NKU were in the six figure range, and Morehead State was slightly under $100,000.

J is that Courier Journal reporting correct?

And if so, what's the mindset behind not releasing that information?

>> Yeah.

You know, I think there's in these roles, there's two really good responsibilities.

I think first and foremost is to our student athletes.

And so we find it really important to protect their their individual information, including how that relates to revenue sharing in Nil.

I think the second part of that goes back to a little bit what Josh says, which is this is a highly competitive environment.

And those how we're arranging those Nil opportunities, Rev share all that provides a competitive portion of the of the program that we feel like is important.

>> So looking back at those figures, how can smaller schools like EKU and NKU compete?

In this story from Kentucky Edition, our Emily Prince traveled to Richmond and Highland Heights to find out.

>> Revenue sharing.

It's a relatively new term in college sports, but what does it mean for institutions like UK?

It means they can share millions of dollars of revenue directly with student athletes.

But that's not the case at universities like Eastern Kentucky and Northern Kentucky.

>> I think we often hear the words revenue share, but I think revenue share really is for those institutions that have revenue to disperse and to share.

That's not in our case, and it's not at the mid-major level.

>> In KU and EKU participate in Division one athletics, but are not in a power four conference, meaning they don't have the same resources or media exposure as schools like UK or UofL.

>> It's a little bit different, I think, at our level in terms of the revenue share, it just allows us maybe to do some things that we weren't able to do for our student athletes, but certainly not at the level the power force.

>> One of the things Eastern Kentucky can do involves scholarships.

They now have the ability to divvy up scholarship amounts to different players, rather than all players receiving the same amount of scholarship money.

>> It just gives us a chance to maybe get a picture or maybe get a softball pitcher, a baseball pitcher, or a position player that can help us.

We can't get a whole team, but we may be able to get a player or two that that separates us from our competition.

>> For KET, I'm Emily Prince now.

>> As for NKU, they're the only public university in the state to not have a football team.

So they'll be concentrating their Nil funds on their basketball program.

Kyle, let me go to you.

Can small schools keep their heads above water with this and how is that going to play out for them?

>> I think they can.

But I think I think one of the things that worries a lot of people is, have we seen the death of Cinderella?

And I don't think we've seen the end of individual upsets.

That's always going to happen.

You think about the NCAA tournament, but are we at the end of the era where a team like that can make a long run, win several games in a row?

And I think there's a lot of questions, a lot of doubt that that can happen.

I talked to a lot of coaches this summer.

What worries you most about the sport?

And Josh Schertz at Saint Louis said exactly that.

Like, is Cinderella dead?

And you know, he's not not discounting that somebody could get crazy hot and there could be a huge shooting variance or, or, you know, any number of things.

It's not impossible.

But the likelihood of it, I think has gone way, way down.

And we're going to see, again, individual games, but not that long ago, what, three, four years ago we had two Mid-majors in the Final Four.

We've seen VCU get to the Final Four and George Mason get to a Final Four.

Can a team string together 5 or 6 wins when you know the teams they're going against have outspent them 5 or 6 X what's on their roster?

And also because of the fact that this has led to Mid-majors being the farm system for the big boys, quite frankly.

And every year your roster is getting picked over anybody who can play even a little bit at the lower level is getting called up to the big leagues.

And so, you know, a lot of those Cinderella stories are built over years of teams staying together.

And you get a, you know, five seniors who played together for their whole career at a mid-major level level.

And they get hot.

We're not going to see that anymore, for certain.

>> In terms of the pool of talent that's out there.

I had a chance to listen to one of your podcasts a couple days ago, and I was fascinated by something that you talked about in terms of college basketball recruiting, and you felt the preeminent college basketball recruiting event now in America wasn't a Nike five star camp somewhere.

It was the NBA combine.

Why is the NBA combine such a fertile recruiting ground for coaches?

>> Well, there's two reasons that it's now the preeminent recruiting event.

It's because high school recruiting has been de-emphasized.

I mean, that's when you talk about who is who's who.

Is it costing guys getting a fifth year of eligibility and guys sticking around to get their pay day is kids coming out of high school.

That's one reason.

And because every coach wants to be older, not younger.

And and, you know, on the flip side of that, and we talk about the product itself is really good right now in college sports and college basketball in particular, it's because guys like Thomas Houck at Florida, who was going to be maybe a lottery pick, certainly a first round pick actually is incentive, has incentive to come back to college because he's going to make, you know, five, six, seven, eight, nine, $10 million in college.

And and because you can go to the combine now and offer that and say, listen, you didn't have a great combine.

You know, you're slipping in the, the mock drafts, I can guarantee you more money next year in college basketball than you're going to make in the NBA or trying to make it in the NBA.

It's a much more attractive thing to those players now.

I mean, we are seeing that everywhere.

Guys that would have never, ever, ever come back to college in any other circumstance.

They can outearn what they would make in the NBA.

>> And as Coach Kelsey said, it really is driving up the level of talent that's staying in college and is making that a better product, right?

>> It's I think it's the second highest paying league.

And you could argue maybe it's the second best basketball league in the world after the NBA.

>> Josh and J. Let me ask you all in looking at this overall, can coaches still use the pitch come to this school because it's the best place to get an education and develop as an athlete without having the money conversation?

Or is the money conversation so baked in now that it's just going to be the part of any conversation that a recruiter has with a student?

>> Yeah.

I mean, I'll start with that and then kick it to Josh.

I would say that much about college athletics hasn't changed, right?

And all of the, the parts and pieces that you just mentioned, those are incredibly important is the student athlete package going to be important?

Heck yeah it is.

That's part of the the evolved or the evolution of college athletics.

But I think tonight and just go forward, we shouldn't lose the opportunity quotient of this, this this discussion.

And, you know, as, as Brooklyn said, there's a lot of different situations across the board.

Student athletes have a lot of different conversations in recruiting.

And so it is certainly not the only thing.

It is a privilege and an honor to come to the University of Kentucky and compete for the Wildcats.

There's a lot that goes into that is NIL or revenue share.

Part of that for sure for some folks.

But I am committed to and continue to find that the opportunity quotient matters.

>> Joshua, let me ask you, as a differentiation of this, are you hearing from coaches that there's 18, 19 year old athletes who are approaching this in a completely unrealistic way?

Are you are you hearing that there's a lot of these conversations where they're just not rooted in reality of what the economics of it looks like?

>> I think there's there's obviously some of those conversations being had, but I think if you have an established culture around your program that you're going to say what we're going to take a pass on on that potential student athlete.

And going back to what Jay was saying here a little bit, putting that offer out there, whatever it may be, I think allows you to say, hey, this is where we're at now.

Let's talk about all the other things that in our case, the University of Louisville and this basketball program, or whatever program it may be, can do for you.

And that's where I would put Coach Kelsey up against anybody in the country, because I've said on some of those recruiting phone calls and he he builds a plan for everybody that he's recruiting.

This is how we're going to get you to be a first round draft pick.

This is how we're going to get you to do what you, you know, to be your your absolute best while you're here at the University of Louisville.

So it's a variable moneys a variable now, but it is not the it should not be why decisions are made.

And if that's the only reason decisions are being made.

Like I said, if you have an established culture, you say thanks, but no thanks.

We're going to we're going to move on down the road here.

>> Let's look.

I'm sure, sure, sure.

I mean, to his point, I think the money is almost allowed for more honesty or it's just upfront, what are you what are you getting?

What do you want?

You know, what's everybody else offering you?

Can we match it or not?

Can we get close?

Okay.

If we can get in the neighborhood, then let's then.

Okay, we start there.

The money's we're we're above board here.

We know what everybody's dealing with.

Everybody's hand is.

And now I can sell myself and my program to you beyond the money.

Because everybody, if you're a hot commodity, everybody's offering you a nice pay day.

Not everybody's offering you the same coaching and plan and place.

And I think it does allow for some more honesty.

>> There are variables there that can differentiate.

>> I think in today's environment, you know, all these discussions, you know, we just celebrated Craig Skinner's 500th victory on Saturday or what Saturday.

And I think it's a testament to, as you said, Kyle, as this is evolved, authentic leadership from coaches makes more of a difference today than it ever has, whether it's the speed of change, the speed of these decisions that have to happen.

But the ability for our coaches, no matter the sport, to pour into our young people and change trajectory, outperform all those sorts of things that have always been there, even more important today than it's ever been.

>> Let's look at the sources of of revenue and how that's playing out.

And it begs the question to Jay and Josh, where's this money going to come from?

Colleges in and of themselves.

Academic departments are out trying to raise money.

Universities are trying to raise money for scholarships and different areas.

You all are trying to raise money as well.

Is the well going to run dry, or do you think that that this can continue on as it has been?

>> I'll start and then maybe, you know, I would tell you that I think we need to be.

And we look at and certainly champions blue.

This is part of our approach is that there are traditional revenue streams that as we move into a more commercially facing entity and enterprise, we've got to find ways to maximize and optimize those.

And those are traditional and we've worked at those a long time.

I also think part of these different setups allow us to approach new and different sources, whether it's external events or interesting setups around, you know, entertainment district or whatever it might be around our our assets, exploring those pieces.

You've got to do both.

>> I just think college athletics just didn't evolve for a very long time.

Like traditional model.

Here it is.

We've got ticket sales, we've got concessions, we've got a few other revenue streams.

And then it like it necessitates a change.

And yeah, you can say that maybe leadership got a little lazy and we said, hey, we're going to be fine.

And it's like, nope, we're not fine.

And so we've got to look at every opportunity.

And that's getting into what Jay was saying.

There's opportunities there.

We just I don't think we've taken advantage of them in the past, and we have to rethink how we're doing everything from a business model standpoint.

And so do we think the well is going to run dry?

Do we think people are going to stop watching college football or college basketball or volleyball or women's basketball?

I don't think so.

>> And in the white paper you all talked about, and you mentioned this earlier, media rights being something that really needs to be looked at.

You all believe that there's a great opportunity there.

>> Yes.

I, I believe it's worth looking at.

I absolutely believe it's worth looking at and seeing if that is another revenue stream that can be created or increased.

And I've been very clear, the expectation that the Big Ten or the SEC is going to take a reduction from media rights.

If this goes.

Absolutely not.

That would be foolish.

This is this is still America.

This is still capitalism at its finest.

The idea for me is can can they get more money out of it and increasing everybody's revenue streams?

That's that's what I want us to take a look at.

>> Rising tide raises exactly.

>> An objectively saying this works.

Or you know what, guys?

We don't think it does.

>> Yeah.

>> I have a question for you.

If I could, for for the two athletic directors here, I always wonder, you know, as you talk about new revenue streams, Josh Pastner sort of raised some eyebrows out saying, you know, do you want to buy?

Do you want to own a college basketball team?

But it's an interesting question because because you need revenue and because you're very reliant on your donors and now other revenue streams.

And if if private equity comes in, is there a concern that you that it's, you know, whether it's, you know, literal or, or more figurative, that you have an owner or a group of an ownership group?

And do you lose?

Is there a risk of losing control of your own program when you're sort of beholden to the money?

>> I'll give that an answer, which I would say is, you know, having donors that have provided resources, whether it's tickets or other things, there's nothing new there that that's been an important part of our ecosystem.

And we've been really, really fortunate at the University of Kentucky to have a lot of really generous folks that have supported and stepped up.

And we've managed with those folks.

And I seem to I seem to think of them as partners, but at the end of the day.

I think what's really important is we explore new revenue streams.

Kyle is it's got to make sense.

It's got to fit right.

This is a really important brand in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

And so any of the things we're going to explore, any of the new opportunities we might go after and Chase have to make sense and fit within our brands.

>> I'll try to boil this down to how my 11 year old and nine year old think, because they're bringing home all kinds of squishies and trading them all around the neighborhood, and they get to determine whether or not they want to make a deal for this squishy or that squishy.

Well, we still get to decide, do we think this is a good deal for the University of Louisville?

And and until we give that up, which I don't expect us to do, then we have the ability to say, hey, it's you get a win in this.

We get a win.

Let's move forward with this deal or no, this doesn't make sense for the University of Louisville.

And we're going to hit the pause button right here.

>> Looking ahead, if I could, I also think at the end of the day, doing what's best for our student athletes, we can't lose sight of that as we as we continue to evolve this business.

And you've mentioned a lot of different things that are out there and folks have talked about, we're still here for our young people.

And so I think part of that fit, to your point, Josh, making those decisions intentionally comes back to, are we making the right choices to support our student athletes and and our institutions?

It's got to be the right thing.

It's got to be the right fit.

>> And I'm going to add on to this really quickly.

When we think about student athletes and people talk about it's professionalized, it's professionalized, you know, professional sports don't have, you know, 15 academic advisors just for their student athletes.

They don't have ten mental health professionals just for their student athletes.

We can go on.

There are so many instances where it's like, no, it's not professional sports.

And so to sit here and say it is would just be flat out wrong, because we have so many student athletes that rely on a lot of the resources that aren't generating a dollar anywhere.

But we're not we're not going to cut those.

>> Excellent point.

And in terms of tapping into those new revenue streams, some states, such as North Carolina and Louisiana, are beginning to tap sports wagering proceeds to fund Nil programs.

The latest data we have in Kentucky is from June of this year, and it comes from the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation for that month.

In Kentucky, the sports wagering handle was $223 million, a 27% increase from the same time a year ago.

Now, the state excise tax, which is collected from wagering revenue, was $2.8 million.

A majority of this excise tax funds in Kentucky now go to helping Kentucky's public pension systems.

I know it's a hot button issue, but I need to ask it.

Would you support a measure in Kentucky to dedicate some of sports wagering proceeds to fund Nil at Kentucky schools?

>> I'll take this one.

And yes, it is a hot topic based on where these proceeds go now.

And sure, not trying to dodge the question, but I would tell you, we need to look at everything.

So what are those opportunities?

As we're seeing other states start to go down that road, not just with gambling revenues.

Right.

But Wisconsin appropriated $15 million, was new Jersey appropriated another $5 million for Rutgers.

You're starting to see it.

And once again, it goes back to name anything else in this state that brings, we could probably argue maybe bourbon here in Kentucky, but brings more joy to the Commonwealth than our teams having success.

And so what opportunities at the state level can be provided to say, hey, we want the University of Louisville, the University of Kentucky, Western Kentucky, Northern, right on down the line to be very successful in college athletics.

>> Jay, very quickly, your thoughts on that?

>> Yeah, I appreciate the question, Chip.

I do, but I would say that, you know, we've got really great leaders at our state and they're certainly tackling a lot of really complex issues.

And so would would think that they would, you know, look at everything they possibly can.

But certainly something that I would leave to them.

>> To close out tonight.

We asked everyone we interviewed for this show the very same question at the end of our interviews.

If for one week you were king of college sports and you could do whatever you wanted to fix the Nil issue, what would you do?

Here are their responses.

>> I would have myself have the enforceability around what the settlement had been.

That was, which would be this year, 21.3 million.

I think I'd rather that be the cap than even a higher cap than that, because I think it creates a more level playing field, no pun intended.

Across the conferences.

I think none of us want to see a situation where we have a Super League, or we just have a few that come to dominate.

What is college sports?

>> I think I'd want a fairly regulated market that gave student athletes an opportunity to get a good education, have the benefits that we provide in terms of scholarships, wellness, academic support that are universities to a level competitive playing field would provide our fans memories that, you know, bring people together, build community.

>> I just know one thing, it is special.

I mean, it's how I feed my children.

I love my job and I'm so blessed to be here.

And when I hear and I know this is, you know, public television, I don't know if I can pump up another network, but when you hear that CBS music, you hear that NCAA tournament.

Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.

And just how special college sports is in wanting that to continue.

Like I said, I'm going to leave it to the people that are smarter than me or are thinking about it 24 over seven how to figure this out.

I'm trying to get, you know, those 13 young men over in that other room into championship shape.

So I'm controlling what I can control.

I'm counting on those people to take care of what they can, what they can do to fix this thing.

And then and then let's go.

>> Quick answers.

Josh, what would you do?

>> A clearly enforceable cap guidelines around eligibility requirements and protection around lawsuits and state laws.

>> Jay.

>> I would simply add that we need to continue to, to develop two things.

A clear, broad based system that provides a understandable, consistent framework in addition to what Josh shared.

And then we need to continue to protect opportunities for student athletes.

>> Do you think that clear framework does involve federal legislation?

At this point?

>> The Protect College Sports Act would move that forward, and I think that's a really good thing today.

>> Brooklyn, what would you do?

>> Yeah, I think I would take out the transactional piece, especially in the transfer portal.

I think NIL is a great opportunity, but for athletes that are going into the portal just to find a school that gives them the biggest amount or biggest paycheck, I think should be taken out.

>> So to reel that bidding war back in so that you don't have that.

>> People are going to the school for the right reasons.

>> Sure, sure.

That's right.

And Kyle, your take on.

>> It, I think the real fix is a lot of we're alluded to here, short of congressional intervention, require collective bargaining.

And that comes with a whole nother web.

>> We could do another layer on that.

>> I don't I don't see us getting there with any speed.

And so if you're saying one change that could make a difference, again, I pulled a lot of coaches this summer and many of them said one time transfer, with the exception of because the argument is my coach leaves, well, then you get an exception.

If your coach leaves, you can also move.

Maybe if you graduate early and you have that extra year.

That's one other exception, but very few exceptions because player movement and being able to transfer every year really leads to most of the problems.

It leads to tampering, rampant tampering.

Because if I know every player in college basketball is available to me, I'm going to start talking to him in December and floating the number.

I think it would lead to athletes taking time to make a better decision about their long term future.

That's not just dollars and cents.

>> Well, it's been a fascinating topic.

Many thanks to our panelists tonight, and we hope we've been able to provide you some background on how all this works for sports that are so near and dear to all of us in Kentucky.

We appreciate you watching.

Be sure to join us Each weeknight for Kentucky edition at 630 eastern, 530 central.

And I'll see you again right here on Saturday night at 8:00 eastern, 7:00 central on Kentucky Life.

Have a good week.