State of the Union on Monday

[mat1992 2,238]

http://links.engage.ticketmaster.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MTAxNTQzMjgS1&r=NDk1NDg0MjM4NDI1S0&j=MTg0MDU5Mzk0NgS2&mt=1&rt=0

[Blounge 521]

Thanks for the reminder! Hope to see you all on the call tonight!

[mat1992 2,238]

A lot of interesting stuff tonight about NIL. I doubt they release it, but I did tape it. I would take me at least an hour to transcribe it. If I have the time tonight or tomorrow, I'll try to just do that portion, which was about 15 minutes.

[sr16 161]

totally forgot about it lol 

[Chris Datres 424]

Some decent info there tonight.  Bill and Ed asked both my questions about NIL so I guess 'great minds'.  It was real nice that they made a couple players available to talk as well.  It's a nice step forward with engagement with the fans & donors.  It would be fun if they can keep this going maybe prior to conference season starting and with other sports down the line.

[mat1992 2,238]

Ok, here is the first part of the State of the Union mainly about NIL. I’ll do the second part tomorrow night

Towson Basketball State of the Union

Skerry Opening Comments

(Thanks everyone, Cale Kupa, Brian Finn, Meredith Crawford)

 

(Richard Kent, runs Student Athlete Name Image and Likeness (SANIL) Gold Collective)

Pat Skerry

“We start out next Monday against Colorado, a top 25 program. Our guys have been here since Memorial Day. We’ve had 24 days of practice. It’s a hard-working and connected group. Love the leadership, especially of Charlie and Rahdir. They’ve set the tone, especially on the defensive end of the floor. We’re going to play a lot of guys. We’ve arguably have the best young guys we’ve ever had in the program. We’ll get great challenge early in our non-conference schedule. Hopefully we’ll have a good crowd at the Robert Morris game. Going down to the Charleston Classic. A top 3-4 pre-season tournament. Will be on one of the ESPN networks. Start with a top 10 team in Houston. “

“In our program, we’ve looked at basketball as showcasing our athletic department and our great university. Anytime we can play on national TV, we want to be able to do that. The last couple of years after the pandemic, we’ve had a lot of those opportunities. I have to thank Steve Eigenbrot and Mike Gathigan in what they’ve done with Monumental Sports Network (formerly NBC Sports Washington). We have a lot of games on that again. The opportunity for people to watch us on linear TV is important for the program, athletics and our ability to attract and attain high-level athletes that fit at Towson.”

“As we try to grow that GOH Collective to help our student athletes. Richard Kent is a sports lawyer who specializes in NIL. Works for SANIL, who manages our GOH Collective. He jumped a the opportunity to talk about what they do.”

Richard Kent, sports lawyer in Westport, Connecticut

“It is the Wild West out there. The US Supreme Court decided the Alston Case that in May of 2021 that student-athletes could benefit, get additional educational benefits for their name, image and likeness. It was a 9-0 decision….About six weeks later, we had 38 states enacting legislation to facilitate this. The NCAA basically abdicated…very few rules and regulations. There are some federal bills that have been introduced by Tommy Tuberville, Joe Manchin, Richard Blumenthal, but given what has been going in our country right now, I don’t know if that’s going to be a priority.

Name, Image, and Likeness permits student-athletes to make money off their name of name, image, and likeness, but it’s not pay for play. In other words, Pat can’t recruit somebody and say ‘if you come to Towson, and we’ll give you $50,000’. What he can say is that we have a ‘GOH Collective and some of our student-athletes are benefitting from it.’ Now, student-athletes can’t benefit from any products, from a marketing perspective, that are alcohol, tobacco or gambling products. As about 5-6 months ago, universities can be involved to help to facilitate deals. They can’t initiate deals, but they can help facilitate deals.

What is the difference with NIL at a mid-major like Towson, let’s say juxtaposed against an Oklahoma or a Rutgers, who we also do business. It’s largely going to retention device for Pat at Towson. In other words, if he has a freshman that blows up and averages 15 ppg, 5rpg and 3ap, that kid is going to get poached by Xavier, Marquette, Creighton. Based on numbers that we’re seeing, he could be offered $150,000, $200,000, $250,000. I know two kids that basically could be a fifth starter at Power Six programs and they both got in the range of $350,000. So you may ask, what does a mid-major collective really have in it’s coffers. I would say the numbers range on the low end from $175,000-$200,000 to the high end of about $500,000. That money is administered by us at SANIL and it is administered pursuant to getting kids opportunities with businesses, on campus, large social media followings on Twitter/Instagram to help market products hopefully by Towson graduates. In part, what I’m saying today is a call to arms. It’s ugly out there. There is pay for play at a lot of universities. Not at Towson, that’s for sure. None that we’re affiliated with and we’re affiliated with 32 of them. There is pay for play. We do everything by the book, so does Pat and Towson. Towson needs everybody’s help on this Zoom to have a decent-size collective and decent-size war chest to avoid its student-athletes get raided. Quite frankly, that’s going on everywhere. It’s going in Power Five programs and mid-majors.. Actually, some of the low mid-majors are telling student-athletes to come to this school, you’ll start here and after a year-or-two that you’ll be marketable to a Power 6 or higher level mid major and you’ll make $200,000. That’s how bad it is. Recognizing that those kids are not even going to stay that the university for 3-4 years. Come here and play here for a year or two.

That is my pitch and I’d be happy to answer any of your questions.

Questions

Where do they come from?

“Donations that have come into Towson are donations from alumni. I don’t know specifically. I didn’t do a deep dive today or preparation for this. I don’t know where they reside. My hunch is that their local and primarily on the East Coast.”

On the innerworkings of NIL and how do people donate?

“I would Google the GOH Collective and look at the website. Just do some reading. There is so much literature out there. There are textbooks about it and this is only two years old (He teaches it). If we did this Zoom in two years, I’m willing to tell that student-athletes will probably get a piece of the pie by way of revenue sharing at the Power Six schools. That would make collectives at mid-majors even more important.”

Why would somebody donate to the collective instead of donating to the athletic department?

“The donations to the athletic department are not NIL-directed donations so they don’t go to the student-athletes. They go to infrastructure. I would assume. I don’t know intimately about the Towson Athletic Fund and where the dollars go. As of October 2023, those dollars cannot be used to student-athletes to endorse products or alumni ventures.”

The NIL donations are not tax-deductible?

“They are not. A couple of universities tried to get cute. And develop a charitable arm (501c3), but the IRS issued rulings and regulations that doesn’t pass muster.”

Kent asking Pat Skerry

How much does NIL come up in his recruitment and retention of players”

“Good question. It certainly comes up in recruiting and we try and stay away from that. For us, the concept of a collective is really important when you have a student-athlete is here for all the right reasons. Loves Towson. Is having a good experience in the classroom and on the court. You can help facilitate as a retention tool. We’ve been fortunate that we’ve retained student-athletes but where it becomes alarming or concerning is that we’re coming off the best two-year stretch in school history and we went 3-of-4 in signing high school kids last fall and it’s a good yield. We also went 3-for-10 in the spring because a lot of those were what I call transitional type of recruiting. It’s for real. What’s excites me about the program right now, especially when we’re about to sign two outstanding high school kids next week, is that we have a lot of health and talent in the program. Expect to have another strong season and every retention to skyrocket that and retain a lot of our good players.”

Richard Kent

“I was on a Zoom at 5pm today with a school (nameless). They said an ACC school offered two of their players $50,000 each after their freshman year to leave. All this school could do was offer $10,000 to stay and both of those kids stayed because they loved that university. Even though the incremental difference was huge, at least that university could say that we have a collective. We have money in our collective and we can help you out here. I was told point blank that if we had zero in our collective or no collective, we never would have retained those kids.”

For Pat or Steve, from a CAA perspective, where does Towson stand in NIL raised-money

Steve Eigenbrot

“We’re fairly well positioned in the conference. We haven’t fallen behind other than CofC. They have close to a million dollars in their collective. They have a group of private individuals step up and do it. Richard and his company serviced that role for us that has some positives and negatives. The private individual running it helps because that individual has a network and people that they know. There are a couple of kids on Hofstra’s team that landed NIL deal to get there. Where we are now and the investment what we’ve raised, where in a position to be competitive. Pat and I are a little bit frustration about raising money for NIL at this point. As people get more into basketball, having the framework of SANIL and some of the decisions made administratively, we’re in the middle of the pack and position to be competitive with our peers. There is a kid from Stony Brook who transferred to College of Charleston. Not sure if that was an NIL deal. The haves and have nots are starting to form in the CAA and I think we’re in the position to be up in the top ½ of the conference. There are couple of schools that don’t have anything going on.”

“We just had our CAA meetings and what I told everything in our league is that we need to try and talk about NIL as much as we can in social media platforms to make sure people understand that NIL is real in the CAA. It’s not just Nick Timberlake going to Kansas or (Estrada) going to Alabama. It’s a thing that we all have to wrap our arms around. We’re squarely in the middle.”

Richard Kent on Title IX

“One thing I’d like to mention that I’m often asked is that whether Title IX is implicated. It’s not implicated yet, because the universities cannot be directly involved. Two or three years down the road, the universities will be directly implicated and then you’re going to have Title IX issues. Female and male athletes are going to need commensurate NIL opportunities.”

Pat on NIL. High schoolers and transfers

“It’s a potpourri. We’ve always tried to get good high school guys and retain them. Charles Thompson. There’s no better representative of a Towson athlete. Nick Timberlake was here for five years. We need to continue to attract really good talent. We have that with Christian May and Dylan Williamson. People are going to like Tyler Tejada and Mehki Lowery pretty quickly. They have to be a good fit. Good students and good people.  We have to get those kind of kids. We do have to supplement those kids in the spring with transfers. It makes sense to try and stay older. For us, it’s 2-3 high school kids early and maybe a couple late would probably be our familiar.”

[Blazer49 186]

Mat thank you great work as usual.  Any idea the number of people that attended the Zoom?

It is kind of scary looking at the dollar figures that were mentioned.  Not only can Towson not get anywhere near those amounts currently but those numbers are just going to continue to grow and the gap will continue to widen.  

I am only going with Mat's transcript of the Zoom as I did not attend but I was kind of annoyed reading Richard Kent's comments.  "I didn't do a deep dive today or preparation for this." "I would Google the GOH collective and look at the website."  The purpose of the Zoom last night was to gain more insight and one could presume that anyone who attended the Zoom has already viewed the website.

 

[mat1992 2,238]

25 minutes ago, Blazer49 said:

Mat thank you great work as usual.  Any idea the number of people that attended the Zoom?

It is kind of scary looking at the dollar figures that were mentioned.  Not only can Towson not get anywhere near those amounts currently but those numbers are just going to continue to grow and the gap will continue to widen.  

I am only going with Mat's transcript of the Zoom as I did not attend but I was kind of annoyed reading Richard Kent's comments.  "I didn't do a deep dive today or preparation for this." "I would Google the GOH collective and look at the website."  The purpose of the Zoom last night was to gain more insight and one could presume that anyone who attended the Zoom has already viewed the website.

 

I think there were about 35 people on Zoom. Yes, Kent should have been more prepared to know Towsons situation though I think they have 30+ schools they are dealing with. 

[TuTigers2012 1,071]

Come on pat. Colorado is a middle pac12 team not top 25. They don’t try and sell us that. Haha.  It was a nice call. Getting to hear from the two players was good. 
 

can we get highlights for previous games on the scoreboard before games?  

[Bay Area Tiger 347]

44 minutes ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Come on pat. Colorado is a middle pac12 team not top 25. They don’t try and sell us that. Haha.  It was a nice call. Getting to hear from the two players was good. 
 

can we get highlights for previous games on the scoreboard before games?  

18-17 22’-23’ 

21-12 21’-22’ 

23-9 20’-21’ 

21-11 19’-20’ 

Tad Boyle is an excellent coach. And Billy Grier his Asst was a long time San Diego coach who got them to the Big Dance. 
 

Middle of the pack is correct but they will be a handful for us.  
DeSilva & Simpson both averaged 15 a game last season.  

This team plays that old Kansas style of ball where they go inside and then out.  Paint touches so important.  Can’t have CT get “2” early fouls next Monday night.