[gentle music] NARRATOR: Support for this special conversation comes from the Gertrude J. Sandt Endowment, the James H. Olay Family Endowment, the Sidney and Helen S. Friedman Endowment, and from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, and welcome to a conversation on NIL and the NCAA.

I'm Carolyn Donaldson, and we're coming to you from the Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross Production Studio.

Name, Image, and likeness, that's NIL.

Those deals are now a major part of college and now high school sports.

As more student athletes earn more and more money through NIL deals, questions arise as to how we should deal with it all and what the future holds for NIL.

Well, tonight, we have guests who will discuss these concerns on what the positive and negative consequences might be for name, image, and likeness student athlete deals.

Let's meet our guests.

Dr. Brett Christenson is a clinical assistant professor of marketing at Penn State's Smeal College of Business.

He earned a PhD in consumer behavior from the University of Alabama, and previously worked in Major League Soccer with FC Dallas and AEG in Los Angeles, among other companies.

He now teaches courses on NIL and is the coordinator for Smeal Sports Business Programs.

Jay Paterno is no stranger to the high stakes world of college football.

As a coach, speaker, and now author, he has spent decades immersed in the sports landscape-- complex landscape.

He's also the author of his newest novel, Blitzed The All Out Pressure of College Football's New Era.

Drawing from real life scenarios, Blitzed explores the challenges brought by seismic shifts like big money, transfer policies, name, image, and likeness rights, and the toll it takes on all of the components of that in reference to mental health.

And joining us later in the show will be Penn State women's volleyball player Caroline Jurevicius, who will talk about her own experiences about getting an NIL deal and her thoughts on it all as a student athlete.

Thank you so much for joining me for this program.

We've heard the buzz.

We all have different aspects of it.

As a fan, of course, I'm invested in it, but I'm also a newbie.

So let's start with a look from each of your perspectives on what is name, image, and likeness, and from your lens that you look at NIL and then the NCAA as it plays into that.

Carolyn, thank you for having me.

Name, image, and likeness is something that is new to the college athletics landscape.

It's something that had probably been talked about for a long time leading up to that.

But then, in 2021, became something that was out and about and people could talk about it and actually participate in.

So from my perspective, as an academic, one of the things that we're trying to do is quantify what the name, image, likeness value is, let's say, of a student athlete versus the institution that they might be playing for.

How to maximize that NIL value through follower count, through engagement rate, things like that.

And then, some of the downstream effects of NIL.

So what would be the effects on, let's say, teammates with each other that might be earning different things for doing the same sort of work.

And then, also, the impact that it might have on recruiting and the institution long-term.

[laughs] And someone who knows about that effect, of course, has been Jay Paterno.

Jay, give us that brief primer, will you, on your background with NIL and where a deal is.

Well, I think, Jeremy Bloom was an athlete at the University of Colorado who was a World Cup skier and Olympic skier.

And he was not allowed to do deals in skiing because he also played football at Colorado.

So this goes back to that era.

So where he just could not do those things.

So what's happened with NIL is, really, there's two tracks.

You have what is authentic NIL where Nike or Coke or Doctor Pepper says, if we pay athlete X to be on our commercials, we'll get a return on our investment.

That's legit NIL.

What they're calling synthetic NIL is, well, you know what?

We're going to pay athlete X amount of dollars to play at our school, and it's really pay-to-play.

And so there's really two tracks this does go where there's no concern about return on investment other than how many touchdowns can they score or three point shots they can make.

So it's gone on this and it's all going to come back around and be settled very quickly with lawsuits and things like that.

Yeah.

And again, this has been happening, I guess, transparently over the last couple of years.

But Jay, your perspective, this was happening before it was kind of-- before I knew about what NIL was, right?

Well, it wasn't really NIL back then.

There was a lot of pay to play in the recruiting world of college football and men's basketball and football mostly where bags of money would show up.

Not because there was an NIL thing, it was just a recruiting inducement.

So that's kind of now that's as-- I think it was Lane Kiffin called it, NIL means Now It's Legal.

So that's kind of where we're at.

So it's now changed.

There are no-- every state has different laws.

It's a patchwork of things to try and navigate, even to the point where the state of Georgia is trying to propose a law where student athletes who play at their schools will not have an income tax on their state income tax in their NIL.

If they stay in play in their state.

If they're in Georgia.

Because-- It keeps them there.

--which keeps them there, which, I mean, we're at the point now where a state legislature is going to protect 200 people in the state from income tax.

It's messed up.

So this is the wild, wild west in some regards.

Beyond.

Beyond.

And we'll talk about maybe where you'd like to see it go a little later in the program.

But let's get into the nuts and bolts.

And again, I have to tie it to Penn State since we're here on the campus of Penn State with this program.

So maybe start with that perspective.

Any insight on how the NCAA and universities like Penn State are handling NIL deals right now?

And maybe from your research, what you're seeing?

Sure.

So I mean, the NCAA has published some rules and some guidelines for what institutions can do.

I think the rules that the NCAA puts out take a back seat, let's say, to a state law.

So a Pennsylvania law would actually override what an NCAA is saying that they would like to have now.

I think the current proposal that's out there is that the NCAA would almost serve as a clearinghouse for some of these agreements between a brand, an institution, and a player.

But the NCAA has increasingly been trying to push off this advancement.

There was the amateurism argument for a long time, that these were amateurs, not professionals.

That has since been ruled to not be so true.

And so the NCAA's perspective is rapidly needing to change if they want to continue to remain relevant and have not only their finger on the pulse here, but also some say in how this goes.

And then, what Penn State is doing, I think, Penn State has invested a lot of resources into preparing their student athletes.

I think across the board, for almost any institution, this is going to affect recruiting.

This is going to affect how you approach bringing a player to your campus, keeping a player at your campus.

What does the state legislature have to say about that?

I think Penn State is in the same position as a lot of other institutions in trying to figure out where is the puck going to and how can we skate there while also addressing what our student athletes need now.

And to Jay's point in an earlier conversation about mental health support, financial literacy, I think a lot of those are tools that we could probably be providing to our student athletes.

And Jay, you've got different perspectives, Coach.

But also, you are integral in some of those early NIL collectives that were here at Penn State, right?

Jay, do you want to explain a little bit about your background there?

The collectives became a way for people to amass money to create NIL deals.

Now, what a lot of it was, let's find a way to-- it was thinly veiled pay-to-play.

But if you do it right, and the collective that we started, the idea was we're going to get money put together so athletes can then do things to promote charitable endeavors.

So Success With Honor, if I'm not mistaken, was the first naming at first.

And it was-- for football players that go to an event at the State College Food Bank.

State College Food Bank would not have the money to pay them to show up to do an event.

So a Success With Honor was working with State College Food Bank, using money from other people, to do those things, women's shelters, things.

There was a lot of really good stuff that was going on.

Some of that then morphed on the national scene into pay-to-play, where it was, hey, you give us two hours a month and you get $100,000.

Well, and then, kids are complaining.

I said, well, if you start looking at what you're getting paid per hour, you better go to law school or med school and you're going to wait a long time to make that per hour.

So take what you got.

So I think that's where it kind came into it.

I think where it goes, there's going to have to be some national legislation.

And it does not look like there's any kind of appetite right now in Congress to give the NCAA antitrust.

Are they the employees?

Is there collective bargaining?

I mean, the NFL and all those leagues have that in place.

The NCAA does not.

So this is still a long way from being settled.

Wow.

I have to-- it begs the question right now is, where does academics play into this?

They're still in a college setting, right?

Do you have some NIL student athletes in your classroom?

We do.

Is academics tied at all into these deals?

Do they have to go to class?

Do they have to maintain a GPA?

I just want to ask that now because I'm curious to see what the league is.

You're hopeful.

I'm hopeful in the classroom.

We have students that are, obviously, coming in and we're there to talk about the business of sports and how this works.

And my role as a professor is to give them the tools and try to educate them to do the best they can once they leave the institution.

And so we're certainly addressing it in the business school.

And then, in some of the classes that we're teaching, particularly focused on collegiate athletics and then the NIL space.

In addition to that, I don't know if there is any sort of tie-in with, let's say, an NIL deal that, outside of being a student at the university, which is you must attend-- you're supposed to attend your classes.

You're supposed to be involved on campus.

That's still-- I don't think that's-- The bar is still there for that.

Any of these deals, it might still be the, hey, you spend two hours somewhere, that two hours might not be at the food bank.

It might be in class.

Or tutored, again, all those kind of things.

I think that the institution and the athletics department has an incentive to showcase that the educational value is still there, that the student athletes are still maintaining a certain GPA, that we have a certain graduation rate.

How much that's tied to recruiting in NIL, I can't say.

I don't really know.

Well, talking to coaches that I know, nobody wants to be the one that says, if you maintain-- if you don't maintain a certain GPA, you don't get your money.

And what we really have now is a very transactional relationship, especially with the grad transfers.

The guys that are not-- they're going in there taking the minimum amount of courses they can just to stay eligible for one-- in football, it's one semester.

And they just go through it.

And you're really going back-- Amos Alonzo Stagg wrote a book back in 1929 called Touchdown, which I have.

I got a copy of it a long time ago.

But you go back 100 years, you had schools that were paying players to show up and play for Harvard who weren't even students.

They were paying-- and these were Ivy League schools.

So we're right on the cusp of that right now where some of these guys are doing very minimal amount of work as students, but they're representing the school and making a lot of money.

So there is history here that can guide us towards what the future is.

The question is, is there the will to take some hard-- make some hard choices?

OK, we're going to take a timeout from this conversation and head to an earlier one that I had with a student athlete here at Penn State University, part of the award winning team that won the National Championship.

Let's hear from Caroline Jurevicius.

Caroline Jurevicius joins us now from the Penn State women's volleyball locker room, that is the National Championship volleyball team for women's volleyball.

Caroline, the daughter of a football star at Penn State, Joe Jurevicius.

Went on to play professional football.

And equally important is her mom was Megan, a track star at Princeton.

So thanks so much for joining us, Caroline.

You are currently, academically, I believe, a junior at Penn State majoring in the Bellisario College of Communications.

And for eligibility purposes, we've got three more years of eligibility thanks to the NCAA playing a great women's volleyball here at Penn State.

Now, we're going to get into all the specifics, but I want to start with a look at where you came from and how you got to Penn State and playing women's volleyball here.

And then, we'll get into all the NIL business.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, thank you for having me.

I would say my journey to Penn State is one that isn't necessarily very typical.

I spent my first year of eligibility at the University of Nebraska.

So I was there for the entirety of the year of 2023 from January to December.

And the day after we lost in the National championship, we-- I ended up hitting the transfer portal.

And then, I took my calls the next day.

And then, I was on a flight out to State College the next day.

And then, I committed at the corner room, ultimately, three days after the last call dropped of the 2023 season.

Wow.

And you've been here for one full season, but it was a season of-- like none other, I think.

Give us a walk through what this last year has been for you personally and athletically.

Yeah, so my year at Nebraska, I redshirted.

So I am very, very grateful for my time there.

And I am very grateful that I also got the gift of time from that, meaning that I have that extra year to work with and develop as a player and as a person.

However, with that being said, redshirting is a difficult mental thing because it's like, how prepared am I really to go play in the toughest conference in the country, the Big Ten?

So coming to Penn State, there was a lot of doubt in my mind, and there was a lot of what ifs and a lot of questioning, am I meant to be here?

So a lot of this season was me working through that and trying to establish myself on the court and also in the Big Ten scene.

And ultimately, I was surrounded by the greatest coaching staff and the greatest teammates that just helped me grow and become better as a whole.

And I can't express my gratitude enough for that.

It shows on the court and off the court because you guys were so much more than just the play, right?

I know that's been hyped up and talked up.

And when you got to that national championship level, of course, those stories were told and retold.

But it hit at home, right, Caroline?

I mean, this was real.

You were dealing with lots more than just playing a game of volleyball.

1,000%.

It was a very moving season in that it started off pretty typical.

It started off how, really, anybody's preseason goes.

You go play a couple of different schools.

We started off big times.

And then, we were sat down in the meeting room one day and we were told that Katie has breast cancer.

And it was just like this silence that I will never forget.

And instead of walking out of there, all like, wow, season is ruined, like everything changed.

Everything did change, but it was a positive direction.

Because we, as a team, rallied around her and were able to turn something so terrible as breast cancer into something extremely powerful.

Set an example for women everywhere that you are capable of doing this.

And Katie has served as a beacon of hope for so many women that have beaten and are going through breast cancer right now.

All right, so we kind of surfaced-- just level surface the amazing season that you just had.

But we're here to talk about the NCAA and what's called NIL.

And again, as part of the program, we wanted to talk to a student who is in the middle of NIL.

Give us a look at what your NIL experience has been, and if you can, share with us how things are going in that world for you.

Yeah, so I think NIL has become a majority of college athletics at this point, unfortunately.

And I think it's actually taken over the purity of the game, in a sense.

I think that NIL is a great thing considering the fact that it can give students-- student athletes an economic start into the real world once you're done with college.

However, I feel like money is becoming everything and taking away from the love of the game.

But with that being said, I think NIL is handled in a lot of different ways around a lot of different schools.

Like the way they did it at Nebraska is different than they do it at Penn State.

So my experience with NIL personally has been through collectives, which is the boosters and donors donating their money there.

And there's autograph signings, there's appearances, there's the stuff to do with that for the community engagement.

And then, there's also the specific brand deals that you do with companies where they'll reach out to you on social media or reach out to you on different branding platforms to talk about how can you promote our product and what can we give you-- like a quid pro quo type thing here.

So I'd say those are the two that I have the most experience with.

And then, of course, coming up, as everybody knows, is revenue sharing, which is going to completely change the face of college athletics.

It's going to be handled differently school by school, and it will be extremely interesting to see how Penn State handles it.

And we have to also mention the gender gap, right?

And how revenue sharing, hopefully, are you led to believe even that a little more in the scheme of things?

Yeah, so with revenue sharing, I think, obviously, the money is going to go majority towards the sport that makes the most money.

And I mean, I'm not going to say 90% of schools.

Every single school, except for the schools that don't have a football team, it's football, and that's completely understandable.

That is the revenue driving sport.

And then, from there, the standard from what I've heard and done my research on is next going to be men's basketball and then women's basketball.

And then, the rest of that would be divided up between sports.

So from a monetary perspective, yes, it is going to be proportionally divided.

From a gender perspective, I don't know if it's necessarily doing the justice that it really should be doing for women's sports and closing the gap between men's sports.

Your team certainly elevated women's volleyball.

I mean, Coach Rose, of course, had the tradition, but you're winning that championship definitely boosted it right here in Happy Valley, right?

I think we agree on that.

Can NIL and revenue sharing help in addition to Title IX?

Do you think that'll come into play?

Are you able to comment on any of those kind of perspectives, Caroline?

Yeah, so I think Title IX is definitely going to come into play a lot, but I don't know if it's necessarily going to be out of things following it or not.

I think Title IX is going to be used as the baseline where a lot of these revenue sharing ideas are going to be bounced off of, if that makes any sense.

So making sure that those are in compliance is going to be huge.

And I that's going to be a big struggle for many schools and many programs over the next couple of years as revenue sharing becomes the new face of college athletics.

You have an added advantage of being a College of Communications major.

So I got to say, you're a little ahead of the game that some of your fellow athlete-- student athletes.

How does that help you, I guess, and how do you feel we need to come up to speed with arming these student athletes with the right information and the right, I guess, proportions to be able to make good decisions?

Yeah, I think, ultimately, that with revenue sharing and coming from the perspective of sports that wouldn't necessarily be getting as much money as the footballs, the basketballs, you know what I'm talking about here.

It's a matter of taking advantage of the money that you do get and also demanding the best of your sport.

Demanding the best for your sport and making sure that you are talking to your coaches and working with your athletic department, but also being smart with the money that you do get.

Because I think a lot these days, the money that these young kids are getting, some of these kids are 17, 18 years old coming into college, they're just blowing their money.

And I think financial literacy is going to have to become a major point within these athletic departments to make sure that these kids aren't throwing away their money.

Put it in investments.

Make sure that you're saving up and make sure that you have enough to pay your rent at the end of the day.

So I think that-- yeah, financial literacy is about to be huge.

And I think that these athletic departments need to be prepared to take that on.

And in conjunction with that, mental health.

We've heard from a number of people that it's hard-- these kids-- you guys are young and you're getting bombarded with lots of points of interest and excitement and dollars shown to you.

How is that playing into it?

How are you feeling about all this?

And what help do you think colleges, universities, even those initiatives and those collectives should be doing for this?

Yeah, so I the-- I think mental health is a major point of contention these days as more and more people are being diagnosed and whether that be more and more people are actually having mental health struggles, like gaining them, or the fact that they've always been there but are just now feeling like they have the platform to speak out about them, I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that.

But I do know that NIL can play a point-- can play a key role in athletics considering the fact that social media is so intertwined with NIL.

These brand deals that people are doing, the deals with the collectives and stuff, 90% of the time, you have to post for them.

And that's how these brands grow and that's how they gain engagement and that's all completely understandable.

However, with social media, you have people on social media that like to make unwarranted comments about a player's play, their appearance, just things that should not be said in any social setting.

And people feel like they have the stage to say that on social media because they can hide behind a screen.

So so many of us are encouraged by our sports psychologists and our coaches and our families to get off of social media.

But with NIL, that makes it impossible.

Because in order to make the money, you have to be on social media.

So it's a double-edged sword here.

And really, it's about learning to navigate and getting that self-control to not look at the comments.

And that's something that I struggle with, and that's something that I know a ton of people struggle with.

But I think, unfortunately, it's an unavoidable thing.

And I think that the way to combat that is through supporting your athletes and making sure that the positive comments and the "you've got this" and the-- just keeping your mouth shut about things that don't concern you on social media, I mean, for lack of a better term, can help with that.

Because social media is not going away anytime soon and that space of NIL isn't going away anytime soon.

So it's just a matter of managing better as a society.

Yeah, you have to feed the beast, but the beast is killing the mental capacity.

And it is, definitely.

That's a one-- an important issue that, I think, we'll, hopefully, keep front and center.

The other issue I wanted to touch on was just pure academics.

You guys are under such tremendous pressure to sign those deals and then work the deals with the social media.

But when do you have time to go to class?

How do you balance this above and beyond, again, your rigorous workout schedule and practice schedule?

It is a lot.

And I think as I've gotten more into the branding space and more into the NIL space and taken on more projects outside of school, I have realized how much it can become.

And also, we're in school.

So I'd say total I have about an hour of free time per day where I could say I genuinely don't have anything I need to be doing or have anything going on.

But also, that comes with time management.

If you want it, you have to go get it, and that's not changing anytime soon.

And I don't think that will ever change.

So if you want it on your plate, you've got to eat it.

You gotta get it done.

You're an amazing athlete, of course, you and your team and collectively, the teams that are at least part of the Penn State program that I follow, certainly.

But also, that academic portion.

People are saying it's becoming more of a professional sport, so therefore, are kids even going to class?

Are you able to say, school is still important to you?

You're going to want that degree?

Yes, 1,000%.

Because at the end of the day, I want my degree from Penn State and I want as many degrees from Penn State as I possibly can have with my eligibility here.

And personally, for me, I know this isn't the case for everybody, it goes sports and school, NIL is down here.

NIL is an added bonus that I get to accomplish within my sport.

So I came to school to get my degree.

That's, ultimately, why I'm at Penn State University.

So I'm going to get my degree.

And if that compromises-- if NIL compromises my ability to get my schoolwork done or go to class, then I, obviously, have to reevaluate some things.

Well said.

Caroline Jurevicius, and soon to be your sister, I know, is at Penn State and will be joining you on the court next year, so we'll be able to cheer on two Jurevicius's, Ava and Caroline next year on the courts.

Thank you so much for joining us at this very important program, a very important topic.

Thank you for having me.

Caroline Jurevicius raising some very important questions there.

And if you're just joining us, I'm Caroline Donaldson.

This is a conversation on NIL and the NCAA.

And joining us tonight are Dr. Brett Christenson, a clinical assistant professor of marketing at Penn State Smeal College of Business, and Jay Paterno, coach, speaker, and author of Blitzed The All Out Pressure of College Football's New Era.

So, wow, she brought up some great points.

And I saw you guys answering.

I know.

We should have done the whole hour with her.

Yeah, so she brought up some really important points.

Financial literacy.

You touched on that.

But that and the mental health.

I know, Jay, you-- before I even interviewed her, you said, make sure to ask any student athlete about mental health because that is playing into all this, right?

They're getting pressure-- extreme pressure.

How about the financial literacy?

What are you seeing the research or-- because there's agents involved, right?

There's mom and dad involved or there's Uncle George.

And how long, things like that.

I think there's always some tales that you hear that, oh, please avoid that and don't go down that path.

Make sure you read the contract.

Make sure you understand what you're signing over.

These are 17, 16, 15-year-olds.

I think back to what I was probably like when I was 17, 18 years old.

And if somebody had handed me a check with that much money, I don't know if I would have known what to do with it.

And I probably would have read the comments and that kind of thing.

So I think that these students are under an extreme amount of pressure.

They were already under a lot of pressure being a student athlete, and particularly, at an institution like Penn State that has a storied history of success across the court and across the field.

So I think-- and I don't have 100,000 people coming to watch what I do on a Saturday.

And then, I don't have a lot of people talking about it online that I can go read and hear all sorts of positive things, but also personal attacks as well.

So I think it's an added source of pressure for a student athlete.

They are 17, 18, 19, 20 years old.

And I think that a lot of the training to understand how the money works, where it's coming from, where it's going, how to think, what's going to happen five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now when I might not be playing for this institution, and how can I best set myself up for success long term?

The idea here, I guess, at the institution, is that we're supposed to be preparing them to understand that and to do that.

And then, also adding on other sources of support for mental health because it is very much-- there's fandom and the fans are very passionate about what the student athletes are doing, and they all have thoughts and opinions about that.

And sometimes, as we all know, everything online is very respectful.

[laughter] Everybody doesn't take any shots.

I think Jay-- That kind of spills over into what Jay was talking about earlier is there's a whole other aspect of this outside of the financial literacy that's emotional and mental.

And you're no stranger to that, are you, Jay?

No, no.

I mean, look, I mean, I think I can say this.

Actually, the best advice I got as it relates to that is don't get in a pissing contest with a skunk.

And that's what you find.

You find a lot of skunks on social media.

But I think the thing is, you talked about the financial literacy, the group that I've consulted with, Advance NIL out of Philadelphia.

They started out doing financial literacy at schools like Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, those places.

When NIL came in, I got involved with them to try and create educational modules and things like that to do this.

And part of that, the mental health stuff, started to crop up pretty early where not just from fans, but family members saying, where's that big check that you're supposed to get?

Or if you go to this school, we want to open this up so you can go into bidding.

And then, when you talk about the agents, there's a whole thing that they've got to learn is, if it's pay-to-play.

They get a percentage.

But if you're a marketing agent, you're generally around 20%.

Wow, that much.

So these NIL deals are marketing deals, but a lot of them are actually pay-to-play.

So the agent is taking 20 instead of 3.

So there's a rub there as to how that all goes.

So it has yet to settle itself down.

And you've got to be really sharp.

And as one coach at a Big Ten school basketball coach said, once money shows up, he said this to the group that I work with, the dirt balls all show up, and that's what happens.

And those are the challenges that you're going to find is everybody is trying to get a chunk of that money.

Are there resources right now within-- and I'll be selfish here-- within the Happy Valley Collective or any of the ones that maybe our own athletes here at Penn State are dealing with that offer financial literacy as a component or offer some mental health?

Or is that all on your own?

These kids, are they getting direction from their coach, from Penn State?

Well, I think the question is this.

A lot of people have set up things.

The execution is going to be what happens.

And sometimes, kids don't want it or they don't-- They're stoic.

Well, or they just-- it's just not important.

And so part of it is you can put the trough out, does the horse comes to drink from it?

The other part is, how many schools are just checking a box and saying, we have this, and not really following through.

And that's going to be the real challenge is if you're being recruited, you want to know and you want to talk to kids that are there, how serious are they about those things?

So for anybody that's being recruited, that's going to be a key.

It's OK to say we got it, but the execution is going to be important.

And some of those are through athletics.

You might have something like a brand academy.

You might have something like a third party that's coming in to try to do this as well, maybe through a collective.

And then, I know, from my perspective, at least through Smeal and then also through Bellisario School of Communications is having coursework that is applicable to this as well.

And then, opening that door to student athletes.

I have some student athletes in my class.

I do not have 800 to 900 of them that we have across campus here, but I do have a good chunk.

And making sure that door is open to them as well.

Yeah, they call that workforce development classes and some things.

I mean, that's kind of what you're doing, but for the sports athlete out there.

Let's look at the numbers here.

Because I do think it's important to take a look at exactly what kind of money we're talking about and just walk through these graphs and comment as you will.

What are we seeing here in this first one?

The number on the right is a little staggering.

BRET CHRISTENSON: A lot of zeros.

JAY PATTERNO: A lot of comments.

Once the comments start showing up.

Manning has a little bit of pull since what?

His dad and his uncle and grandpa all played.

JAY PATTERNO: And if you look at Texas, one of the things-- one of the biggest opponents of national laws has been Ted Cruz.

And the reason being is, if you look at the true money that is at the University of Texas at Texas A&M in terms of their endowments and the kind of alums they have because of oil, they have an advantage over everybody else in the SEC.

So why do they want to level the playing field?

CAROLYN DONALDSON: Oh God.

That's going to be the question as you start to look down this thing.

Then, that's more on the pay-to-play side.

So it's going to be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

Different type of competition, right?

On and off the field.

In the legislature.

And those were college athletes.

Let's take a look at the next graph where we look at-- OK, here we've got one, the payout per school and conference.

So how are we-- oh, there you go.

That's the one I wanted to see.

Yeah, the high school football players.

This is mind blowing to me.

And I understand Bryce Underwood already resigned his deal, right?

JAY PATTERNO: Michigan gave him a bigger deal.

Apparently, the guy of Barstool guy.

BRET CHRISTENSON: You don't say.

JAY PATTERNO: No, no, no, the Oracle guy's wife is a-- BRET CHRISTENSON: Yeah, Ellison.

JAY PATTERNO: Ellison's wife is a Michigan grad.

And so they got themselves a quarterback.

But I think the thing is, even guys that are sophomores and juniors in high school or high profile or women, they can get NIL deals in Pennsylvania.

PIAA allows them.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: PIAA allows them.

So these kids that are playing on Friday night under the lights are getting the money-- well, they don't get the money yet, but they're promised that kind of money.

They can.

They can get it.

They can?

They could do an ad for-- if LeBron James-- I happen to have-- the first time I saw LeBron James was in ninth grade.

I was a recruit in that school.

And everybody knew in 9th and 10th and 11th-- CAROLYN DONALDSON: He had it.

He would have had the Nike deal in 9th or 10th grade regardless of what school he went to.

So yeah, that's going to happen.

Pennsylvania does allow high school athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness.

And these students also might not be-- well, they're obviously not at a university that might have some of those resources for support.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: Wow.

OK, let's keep looking.

Because these numbers, again, for those at home who are watching or listening can see, it is a lucrative deal for some, but not all.

And a little bit about what this graph is showing.

Jay, do you want to comment on this one?

JAY PATTERNO: Well, I think what you're seeing is it's moving up and up every year.

You're seeing it based on per sport.

I think one of the things that's jumped out is certain sports have viral moments.

Women's gymnastics is really high up there.

Livvie Dunne is probably driving that from LSU.

She got out in front of this.

Got a lot of deals.

I forget what the company is.

It's a clothing company.

But you see her all over the place.

So some of these are skewed a little bit by an outlier like that.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: OK, and how about the next one there?

Do we have another graphic there?

OK, so then we look at the sports.

And this is no surprise what overwhelmingly almost 50% is football.

BRET CHRISTENSON: Yeah, I think this actually speaks to what Caroline was talking about earlier in her interview, which is, how does the money get distributed?

And there is not clear set rules on how the lump sum of money might get distributed amongst different teams.

And Penn State has 31 teams.

Other schools might not have that many teams, so they might have bigger pieces of a pie to split up for those individual teams.

Whereas, Penn State is spreading out that money over many more teams.

I think one of the-- I don't want to call it maybe the argument here is, is this Title IX apply?

Is it supposed to be equal payouts to each one of these teams, or is it based on revenue generation?

And I think, either way that goes, whatever the courts probably end up deciding, there'll probably be some sort follow-up lawsuit to try to change that or challenge that.

But right now, I think the idea is that the revenue generating sports are going to be the ones that are receiving most of that distribution.

Although it could be a political hotbed, too.

Oh no question.

I mean, the Department of Education has switched their guidelines on Title IX as it relates to revenue sharing twice in the last year.

Where that ends up, we'll find out.

As Bret said, it's going to end up in the courts.

I mean, the minute this thing is decided, someone's going to file a Title IX lawsuit and then that's going to go-- and everybody judge shops and they find the judge that they think is most compassionate to their cause.

And then, that goes and it'll end up in the Supreme Court.

And the Supreme Court has, obviously, in past decisions shown that they don't think the NCAA is unique or special, that this business model should be legal.

Then, we talk about the churning of the actual product.

Because these guys get these deals and then they have to produce.

And this graph I have to bring up because it actually highlights the different forms of social media by sport and how much-- again, this graphic might be a little dated because these numbers change every second depending on the deals that are struck.

But who wants to take a stab at what these numbers mean?

JAY PATTERNO: Have at it, Bret.

BRET CHRISTENSON: I'll go first.

Yeah.

So I think different platforms demand different-- have different levels of engagement.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: And for old folks, guys, these are social media platforms, OK?

In case you're not on TikTok.

JAY PATTERNO: I don't see Myspace on there.

Where's that?

BRET CHRISTENSON: Yeah, remember the Myspace.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: We're the dinosaurs, Jay.

BRET CHRISTENSON: No, I think there's a little bit of research to show that different sports, obviously, attract different media coverage.

And so a football player or a Livvie Dunne that's, I think, it's Biore is the clothing company that has national-- is being nationally broadcast or is on a national campaign for another company is obviously going to demand a higher price because there's more eyeballs on that person.

Certain sports are watched more than others and broadcast more than others.

So I think there's a difference in the valuation there.

And then, across platforms, different platforms lend themselves to different audiences.

And Instagram is different than TikTok in terms of how-- are we looking at views?

Are we looking at another type of engagement?

And so I think there's a difference in pricing there.

Let me take a timeout.

As a media person, I have to ask, who's instructing these wonderful student athletes on how to produce the content?

Where is that all playing out?

BRET CHRISTENSON: Wonderful question.

Jay's laughing.

[laughs] JAY PATTERNO: You hope that within-- yeah, you hope that within each sport that there is somebody that's media savvy on these things.

I think, when you look at these numbers, you take a sport, we just had Caroline Jurevicius.

That's a sport that you're going to see tremendous movement up, I believe.

When you look at the NCAA Women's Final and the semifinal at Penn State was in 1.3 million viewers and 1.2 million viewers.

Those two numbers are higher than five of Penn State's football broadcast viewership.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: Really?

JAY PATTERNO: Five of the games.

And you look at the day that Penn State played in the whiteout against Washington, that was on Peacock.

Penn State Wisconsin women's volleyball was on NBC.

So there is-- and I know going forward, there are now TV networks that want to put this on.

So that number is going to change for a sport like that.

Yeah.

Very interesting, confusing.

Is every student athlete, probably, who signs a deal should probably major in and be a part of the Smeal College of Business or the Bellisario College of Communications, I guess, if they're a Penn Stater.

OK, so with all these numbers, here's another one.

Let's look at our conference, because that's changed, and the payout.

So we're the ones in pink.

We're part of the Big Ten, which isn't Big Ten.

How many teams now?

JAY PATTERNO: 18.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: 18.

But we're not going to rename ourselves.

So we have the most payout.

Is that a good thing in this pie chart?

Is this good that we're ahead of the game, Jay?

JAY PATTERNO: Well, I think the reality is we have to be honest about what we are right now.

We're running a sports entertainment business on our campus.

I mean, at this point, when you're looking at $1.1 billion in television rights and revenue sharing as it relates to-- among the schools, we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

I mean, we are running a professional sports enterprise.

I think in 2020 when the players had to be sequestered, to get that season in, to get that check, the whole thing changed because the players realized, without us, where is this all going?

And that's when NIL kind of kicked in and they realized.

So the playing field is not level among conferences.

The Big Ten has an advantage.

And when you look at some of the changes and things that have happened, I think that's it's good from one standpoint for if you're in the Big Ten.

But from a national standpoint, I don't think it's good for the game.

Let's look at-- this is a bar chart.

And if you can't read, like I can't read from this, these are the TV breakdowns.

So the TV deals, which is just one platform, right?

But it's a big one.

And again, we're dominant, Big Ten.

BRET CHRISTENSON: I think the Big Ten has done a good job of investing in multiple TV markets.

We've incorporated some West Coast teams, some teams that might not have traditionally been thought of as-- CAROLYN DONALDSON: There's a whole other eyeballs.

BRET CHRISTENSON: But now we're invested in other markets where there are fans that are watching the sport and are already attached to those brands, those teams, those colleges.

And now them being part of the Big Ten means that the pie for the Big Ten has grown.

I think we're seeing the SEC do the same thing.

And we're seeing a competition kind of off the field between the conferences for what is your portfolio of teams and which markets are those in because that's going to bring in more media revenue that we can then redistribute to.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: They're fighting those channels.

But the channels are getting so much more.

But then, the streaming, and you have to pay to even watch, if you're a fan, there were a lot of Penn State fans that were pretty pissed when it went on Peacock, right?

JAY PATTERNO: And now they all have subscriptions.

Yeah.

But I think the thing that's interesting is, up until the last four or five years, your game day revenue, you ticket sales, parking, concessions, all that was bigger than your TV revenue.

That is not the case anymore.

So when people say, why can't we have the white out game?

Why does Fox Big Noon grab the Ohio State game every year?

You know why?

Because they write you a big check.

And that's how it goes.

And that's just the reality of it.

And Fox is going to take the Ohio State Michigan game every year because that is the highest rated regular season college football game every year.

And then, they get the next pick and they say, Penn State and Ohio State because great viewership.

So I mean, we may not like it, but that's where we're at.

OK, so on that same note, when we look at TV viewership and in-person viewership at a Penn State football game, I'm going to use that as an example, are we going to see the same dynamics play out on the field with these student athletes that are getting the $2 million?

I've heard we're not going to have a blue white game someday because those players are not going to want to play for just fun and sport and just for the love of the game.

Am I being too radical here with that kind of scenario?

Jay might, actually, have more insight on what's going on between the players and the coaches and the players and the motivation there.

I think, Caroline in her interview actually spoke to that a little bit.

And I think the word she used was the purity of the game rather than the love of the game and wanting to be out there.

I think as the mindset changes that you're being paid to do a job and more of an employee mindset, you might encounter a little bit of that.

Maybe a little less passion for rah, rah, go state, and I'm really here for the colors.

And you might have fans that start to cheer more for the laundry rather than the player that's wearing it.

But so I think the passion element might shift.

But I think Jay might have a little bit more insight, actually, on that.

Well, I think the challenge now for coaches, everybody says, go pay for talent, you get talent.

You could amass as much talent as you want.

You can build a roster.

The challenge is, can you build a team?

And I think when you look at women's volleyball, Penn State's women's volleyball is not doing some of the things NIL wise that some other schools that have bigger budgets.

But Katie Schumacher-Cawley did an incredible job of building a team rather than a roster.

And when push came to shove, when they're down two sets to none, that's where it comes through and they are able to sweep.

So that's going to be a challenge for coaches to manage that as they go forward.

And as the players come in and out.

Or you might have players coming in to play for one year and they might not have spent their entire career there.

I know we didn't even touch on the transfer portal and we've only got about 10 minutes left.

But maybe a quick aside on how the transfer portal plays into NIL.

Is that a direct connection, I guess?

Yeah, you jump in and say, hey, who's got what for me?

I mean, the quarterback from Georgia.

He started it.

He jumps in.

He's got a Lamborghini, which just got stolen recently, which is-- I don't know.

You want to call that karma?

I don't know.

It's got a new response.

Exactly.

But I mean, so yeah, there's no question that plays into it.

OK, and I lost my train of thought here.

Any other thoughts about the complexity of being a coach of these sports now and dealing with it?

You touched on that.

But they have to be part-- well, they've always had to be part psychologist, but they have to be more business savvy.

I've heard there's going to be general managers of all these sports, even at the College level, Jay.

That's already here, and some of those guys are making seven figures to figure this all out.

And as revenue sharing comes in, you're talking 20.5 somewhere-- 20.5 to 22 is-- the number kicks around a little bit.

But if the AD says the football you've got-- and most people are kicking around the number of 16.5 million for a football-- BRET CHRISTENSON: Out of that 20.

Out of that 20.

And so now, as the general manager, you could give 105-- 105 guys in your roster.

Do you give them all 150 grand ish, whatever?

Whatever 105 into 16.5 million is.

Or do you say, I'm going to give the quarterback this amount, do I give that guy that amount?

So now, that's where general manager's going to start coming in like a salary cap.

But the NFL, again, has collective bargaining.

College athletics doesn't.

And the next Arch Manning may say, I don't want to be party to that.

I want my own deal outside of that.

So there's no guarantees that that will even hold.

Yeah, there's no Players Association for the college athletes at this point.

And that's not on the horizon, of course.

Oh, I think it is.

Oh, you do?

You actually think that's-- I think it has to.

OK, how about the fact that they're all still giving college scholarships to attend the Pennsylvania State University?

Are we going to have that wiped out with these unbelievable deals and they'll just go for the money and maybe go to class?

Sorry.

I'm going to be brutal.

No, they're all coming to class all the time.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: OK, good.

And they're very good students.

I think the general idea behind giving a scholarship or an in-kind reimbursement for tuition was a form of compensation for an amateur student athlete.

Again, I think once amateurism was kind of cut out of that statement, and now they are student athletes.

Whether athlete comes first or student comes first has always been a little bit of a conversation to have.

I think the students-- what I see on campus is that the students are still very motivated to go to class.

Again, I think you heard in Caroline's interview that she is here to get a degree, as many degrees as she can during her eligibility years.

And so I think that the compensation of a scholarship might not be seen as directly as, let's say, a cash payment or that Corvette or that Lamborghini or whatever the car is.

But it is still-- there are students-- most of the students on campus are still paying to be here and would love to have that scholarship that's being given to the student athlete.

There's also no cap now, at least in football, on the rosters for how many scholarships can be given out.

So I think it will be packaged into the recruiting process for a student to come to our school because part of your compensation is that we're also covering this as well as any additional payments on top of that.

We can think in that pure sense of Penn State love, right?

And I think, look, you have to mention about realistic about what we are at this point.

I think the only way this really gets settled is you're going to have to have collective bargaining.

You're going to have to treat them as employees.

You're going to have to have all these things that come with it because let's be realistic about it.

When you start giving people six figures and seven figures, this isn't a hobby.

This is not a-- and so what schools are right now doing is they're taking a chunk of cash and they're saying to team A, you've got-- whether it's football.

You've got this much in revenue sharing, this much in scholarship money.

Dole it out as you see fit.

So now, if I'm recruiting Brett to come play quarterback at Penn State, I might say, well, we can give you $1 million to play quarterback and we'll give you 50,000 out of state.

We'll pay that full scholarship.

So your whole package is a million plus the scholarship.

So I think that's where you're looking at what's going to happen with all this.

But I think until we get to that point, until we get to collective bargaining, it's going to continue-- the target is going to move every year.

CAROLYN DONALDSON: Every year.

All right, we've got about-- I'm an old school guy that's not-- I'm not happy about it, but I'm realistic.

And we have to give a shout out to your book, again, because it is based in fiction.

It is fiction, but it's based in reality every scenario that you sketch in Blitzed.

And I'm still reading it and it's fascinating.

As a non-football person, I'm finding all sorts of great insight on that.

So thank you.

Jay.

Last question because we've only got a couple of minutes left.

I'm going to change the table here and say, as a fan, as a person who wants to still go to the volleyball games and the basketball and, of course, the football games, what should fans do at this point to embrace NIL, to be an active voice, to help, hurt?

Can you summarize that for a fan?

I'd say, as a fan, acceptance and open hands is going to be maybe the path moving forward because it's here.

It's going to happen.

It's only going to progress.

I think as we get into collective bargaining and more structure into how this industry works in this new develop in the industry.

So I think, from a fan's perspective, there will be a sense of this is new, this is exciting, this might have been a long time coming.

I think there's also a large percentage of fandom that also feels a sense of loss and it is not the same and things have changed.

And it might not be, as I think, again, the word was purity.

It might not be as pure as the love of the game and you're here for that blue and white and to play for Penn State and to really be attached to that name.

It might be more monetarily driven.

And I think that it's going to happen.

So learning how to ride that wave would probably be the best path forward for most fans, I think.

And act as advocates, I guess, if it gets to be a state issue.

Right, Jay?

And I'll let you say the final word here.

Give us some insight as to what we can do to be proactive going forward with NIL.

Well, I think just be passionate about your school like you always have been.

But it is crossing in-- as you talked about very quickly, you made a comment rooting for the laundry.

There was a whole Seinfeld thing about you're rooting for a jersey.

But really, the thing about college athletics is, if you're an alum or you grew up with it, it's more than just that.

You can't divorce yourself of your Penn State degree.

So you're still tied to it.

So I think, look, stay engaged.

But I think you want to stay engaged with the university to try and make sure they maintain the academic integrity.

Keep that pressure on a university to say, look, let's remember what we're here for first.

I think if you look at Notre Dame's football season this past year, I think there's no question that's a program.

You look at Ohio State.

They've had a perfect APR rating in the NCAA academic performance rating the last couple of years.

So it can be done, but I think you have to set that standard, and that's what you want to do as a fan.

OK, just another minute left.

So I'm going to let each of you close with your wish for that student athlete out there.

What you hope NIL becomes for them.

I hope NIL becomes a platform for people to advance their goals in life, to develop themselves as a person even further than the discipline it already takes to be a high performing student athlete.

That takes a lot of time.

It takes a lot of commitment.

There might only be one hour each day that you have where you don't have something scheduled.

So I think that being a student athlete is already something that calls that person to be very self-disciplined and very committed and consistent.

I feel that NIL is probably going to add on another brick in the wall there for, here's another area that you can discipline yourself and grow.

Maybe it's the financial literacy, maybe it's investment, maybe it's-- and thinking outside of what you're doing on the field or on the court and planning a life further down the road for you, and this is an opportunity for you to get a head start on it.

I think that's a good plug to go take a class.

I'm not going to argue with that?

That's done/ Yeah.

I was going to say-- JAY PATTERNO: I think you said it as well as it could be said.

If you're watching this class core program and you need a course in your Penn State lineup-- BRET CHRISTENSON: Please do.

Come on.

Yeah, there's some great things happening then, we hope, right, Jay, within the curriculum?

That'll help these student athletes.

And I think it's also knew that the research that he's involved in, it's going to rapidly accelerate the amount of data they have very, very quickly as well as the NCAA is now saying there's got to be more transparency.

So there's going to be more access to more data, to more number, to know what true market value is for certain athletes.

Well, I can't thank you enough.

This has been a great conversation about a pretty important topic for most people that are trying to spend their weekends cheerleading on their favorite team and their favorite student athletes.

So we've been talking with Dr. Brett Christensen, a clinical assistant-- excuse me-- professor of marketing at Penn State Smeal College of Business.

And Jay Paterno, the coach, speaker, and author of Blitzed.

It's a novel-- I'm sorry, it's a work of fiction based on some real life issues.

It's called The All Out Pressure of College Football's New Era.

I'm Carolyn Donaldson.

And our next episode of Conversations Live will be on April 17 where we're going to talk about something quite different, but quite spring, it's gardening.

From all of us here at WPSU, thanks for joining us.

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