Bring your Tigers football, basketball and recruiting questions, and talk to Eli Hoff in a live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Transcript
Eli ±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýHi all, and thanks for coming by this week's Mizzou chat. I apologize for the late start today — had to get the scheduling news out there. If you haven't seen, MU-KU will be a 2:30 p.m. kickoff on ESPN2, which is the announcement I'm sure most of you have been waiting for. Now, your questions!
°Ő´Çłľ:ĚýDo you have an educated guess on the Mizzou football NIL budget. Secondly it is my understanding the SEC gives a significant amount of money to each team for their NIL program.
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýI won't make a guess here because a) I'm not confident and b) these budgets aren't as crystal clear as it would seem. There's a portion of the $20.5 million in revenue sharing funds that goes to football (and a healthy portion at that). Then there's an NIL budget that now has to be "legit" NIL as opposed to thinly-masked pay-for-play. And then there are NIL deals that happen, for some players, outside of the university — like Luther Burden III and Nautica, for example. I remain optimistic that one day Mizzou will tell us the rev share breakdown so that we'll know that part — and I imagine that will be quite similar across the SEC. The rest, we're not going to know. But you can assume it's a healthy compensation base given the portal and recruiting wins Drinkwitz has had.
I'm not aware of the SEC contributing specifically to NIL. Funds from the SEC are part of the revenue that an athletics department can now share with athletes, but I don't believe it goes specifically to those external deals, and I'm also not aware of any marketing campaigns run by the SEC that highlight specific athletes and would therefore be an NIL deal themselves.Â
´ł´Çłó˛Ôł˘:ĚýHello-The Basketball Portal and 25/26 recruiting class, in my opinion, are pretty much underwhelming. What happened? In mid-February we were all talking about how kids want to play for Coach because of his playing style and the building of a big-time program. Help
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýBoth groups are underwhelming compared to some past ones, yes. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how this portal window ending up playing out for Mizzou, and it was about retaining two stars in Ant Robinson and Mark Mitchell and then, as Dennis Gates termed it, finding a "crew of guys to complement our nucleus." Gates felt like he had the two big pieces he needed (and they obviously got a healthy bit of the compensation pool as the stars), so the portal was more about pieces to fit around them. Will that create a top team in the SEC? We'll see, but that was the approach: retain and complement.
Curt Lugger:Â One more recognition for Julia Crenshaw - All American.
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýAnother big honor! For those who haven't seen, Mizzou catcher Julia Crenshaw was named a third-team All-American yesterday. Cool to see her rewarded for how she played on this year's team.
ł˘łÜ:ĚýIt's probably some sort of journalistic malpractice to answer this at this point in the offseason, but to the best of your abilities can you say whether or not we make the CFP with a 10-2 record?
Of course it depends on who the wins and losses are, but looking at the schedule it sure feels like that's achievable
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýYou already know I'm going to say there are a lot of variables to this because I need to hedge my answers. Still, I think I'd say it's far more likely that two losses look bad for a CFP bid this year than last year.Â
All three of last year's defeats were relatively fine ones. Road games at Texas A&M, Alabama and South Carolina are OK losses (the latter two especially) — the issue was the first two being blowouts and the fact that there were three.Â
This year, there's only one home game that could be an OK loss: Alabama. Losses to any of Central Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, UMass, South Carolina (łľ˛ą˛â˛ú±đĚýthis one), A&M and Mississippi State probably look quite bad. And which of the road games — at Auburn, at Oklahoma, at Arkansas, at Vandy — would really be all that OK of losses?Â
Let's say Mizzou loses to Alabama at home and Auburn away. Is that a strong 10-2? At this exact moment, I wouldn't feel good about it.Â
Again, there are so many other variables, including other teams. But I don't see a path like I did last year where 10-2 would very likely mean a spot in the field.Â
Palmetto State Fan:Â Good afternoon. Has the judge signed-off on the settlement in the NCAA vs. House case? If not, what is the delay? Are they still attempting work on a compromise of some sort regarding the number of players on, for example, a football team? One last question. Why do the universities simply move forward with a professional business model and end all of the nonsense. It is inevitable. We will have the Collegiate Professional Football League consisting of the SEC and BIG 10 and the Just About a Collegiate Professional Football League consisting of the ACC and the Big XII.
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýThe judge (Claudia Wilken) has not fully approved it yet. Her decision could really come at any time now. The only delay is her pondering the roster limits aspect and whether giving schools the opportunity to grandfather in athletes does enough to satisfy her prior concern. That was the compromise submitted a couple of weeks ago, so now it's wait-and-see time.Â
The issue with what you're floating is that fully professionalizing requires athletes to be employees and be able to collectively bargain. Maybe that's where this is headed, and it would simplify/unmask some things, but it would come with its own hurdles. How do you tie pro athletes to school? How does eligibility work? Recruitment? The portal? A CBA? And I'm sure other things administrators and legal experts would anticipate but I'm not thinking of right off the bat. So instead, it's a holding pattern of de facto pros, as I'm calling them.
Palmetto State Fan:Â SEC at nine conference games plus one BIG 10 game, plus one non-conference game in 2026? If so, why? If not, why not?
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýThis has been one of the big discussions of the SEC meetings down in Destin, and it's hardly a new debate. The reason to go to nine SEC games plus one Big Ten matchup is money. The reason not to is to avoid losing. Ah, the two priorities of modern college football! But I'll expand.
Another SEC game for every team means another eight league games overall each season (if my math is right), which in turn means eight times the number of million people who watch those games. It's another home game for eight schools one year (and eight the next, assuming it would alternate) that is probably a sellout. All of that brings in more money. The same goes for the Big Ten scheduling agreement. You could get a few marquee games out of each conference's blue bloods, and even so those games will all perform better in attendance and ratings than playing Sun Belt State. So even more money.Â
I doubt this would be a factor to the same level of more revenue, but it would also help with SEC standings, giving another game to create separation and head-to-head tiebreaks in the final table. Last year, the league standings were a mess with teams at 5-3 and tiebreakers that just seem sort of silly. Another league game wouldn't eliminate the core problem of conferences that are too big but would alleviate it a bit.
Now, the risk of losing is what's holding this up. Another SEC game and a Big Ten game are both, in a vacuum, losable ones — especially when compared to two soft noncons that would otherwise be on the schedule. Programs are paranoid about doing that right now. Why make a schedule tougher when an SEC slate is already tough enough to get you into the CFP? That's why this is tied to the notion of auto-bids, which would make the SEC feel more comfortable about adding losses to its schedules without having to sacrifice the chance at four-plus teams in the CFP each year. It's all connected.Â
˛úľ±˛µ°ů´Ç˛Ô:ĚýHey Eli, has Mizzou announced the 25-26 mens bball schedule?
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýMizzou has not. The SEC slate comes out later in the summer and the noncon games are being scheduled as we speak. I received game contracts for a few last week and I'll file a public records request for another batch in a few weeks. So far, we know: MU opens at Howard Nov. 3; will host VMI Nov. 9; will host Minnesota at some point in November; will play Braggin' Rights vs. Illinois in 51şÚÁĎ and play Kansas in KC. Calum McAndrew over at the Columbia Tribune got his records back a little more recently and that included a Dec. 14 game against Bethune-Cookman. So quite a bit still unknown at this point in the process.Â
°Ő˛ąłó˛ą°ůłŮ27:ĚýGood day to you Eli--hope all is well your way. My ADHD is out of control and as a result, I haven't read one of these chats in weeks now. I feel like a "bad Mizzou fan" if I am not religiously keeping up with your must-read Mizzou chats. But that's my problem. Thanks for letting me vent though! I actually do have a question: how much input does Dennis Gates have in putting together the non-con portion of the basketball schedule? I have a bunch of fellow Mizzou fans calling me an idiot for thinking he has any say in it because they believe apparently it's completely done by the AD.
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýGates has a lot of input — and really, controls most of it. Some games/series are put together at the AD level, like Kansas and Illinois. And the athletics department has to sign off on every game (and is consulted on dates, travel, etc.). But for the most part, it's up to the coach on who and when. We know Gates liked opening on the road last year, so that happened again this year. We know he likes to play HBCUs to support those programs. In the case of VMI, he's bringing back a staffer from this past season who's now an assistant there. Those are all coach-level philosophies. I'd say it's probably 80% Gates, 20% the athletics department.Â
Palmetto State Fan:Â All 'hurdles' that can be addressed and managed via legally binding contracts. My view all along is the 'hurdles' are simply straw men (or women) to ensure one side's POV and interests get a bigger piece of the pie. College Professional Football Players Association negotiates with whatever entity governs college football. Same as the NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL, etc. Bottom line, IMO, the universities have never wanted to pay their athletes and never will.
Collegiate athletics is a performance driven business. Risk is a huge part of any such endeavor. Time to put on the "big boy" pants and see what happens.
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýSure, every side has their priorities. Keeping control and saving money are among the biggest. I don't think I'd dismiss the hurdles so readily, though. What happens when a pro college football player is failing all his classes? How do you set up a pro league that only allows players to take part for five years? How do you enforce tampering rules or create a free agency? Can the SEC, Big 12 and C-USA (for examples) all operate under the same frameworks? Who collectively bargains for athletes across that entire span? How do you keep this tied to academic institutions? Yes, all of those are answerable/solvable, especially if you get parties interested in solving them into a room to settle things. But when has that happened before in college sports?
°Ő˛ąłó˛ą°ůłŮ27:ĚýIs Drink going to feel obligated--maybe even pressured--to start the transfer from Penn St at QB because of the NIL money spent to get him even if Sam Horn outperforms him in training camp?
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýIt's a fair question/concern, but I don't get the sense that would happen. If Pribula was going to be handed the job, he would've been handed it coming out of spring ball. The expectation is still that he'll win the competition and be the starter, but there's a reason why the competition will take place into fall camp, too. Drinkwitz hasn't really been the type to give players snaps because of what they're being paid.Â
°Ő˛ąłó˛ą°ůłŮ27:ĚýWhat does it take for the Mizzou powers that be to give a bleeping darn bout rebuilding the disgrace of a baseball program? Are they clueless to the fact that College Baseball has arguably always been the second most popular sport in the SEC? Their callous disregard for the abysmal state of the Baseball program is infuriating. Maybe they are waiting for a hefty donation from a deep-pocketed alum towards the Baseball program before they even try to put their own money into it?
±á´Ç´Ú´Ú:ĚýYou said it at the end there: money. Otherwise, what's the incentive to sink a lot of dough into a sport in which it's difficult to break through in the SEC and which loses money? Mizzou athletics has not had enough money in recent fiscal years to cover its current level of spending. The campus side now helps out with "institutional support" funding. Without more money coming in from somewhere, I don't see where the money needed to move the baseball needle is.Â
What would it pragmatically cost to make Mizzou competitive in baseball? A lot of folks seem to think a new stadium is part of that. The construction alone is probably $70-100 million, based on what I'm seeing out there for some recent college baseball projects. Then you factor in increases to coaching compensation and roster compensation and that's a few million more per year to sustain. Until/unless somebody cares to provide it, I don't see it happening in totality. Yes, other SEC schools manage to sustain baseball, but many of them have bigger revenue streams than Missouri.Â
So for right now, the charted course of chipping away at the facility when possible and trying to do more with less seems like what it'll be.
And folks can push back here, but I don't rate the ceiling for fan interest in the baseball program all that highly. It's so reliant on Columbia/mid-Missouri showing up game in, game out. Even with a nicer/new stadium and decent weather, how many people from KC or 51şÚÁĎ are going to come over for a college baseball game? I really struggle to believe that many would given that there are pro teams in those cities. This could just be me growing up following a conference that doesn't care about college baseball and now covering a school where it's not a priority, but I personally would never drive four hours round trip to watch a college baseball game if I had a pro team in my city. Maybe that's the wrong way to think about it, but that's my personal view — and I'd guess the view of at least some others out there, too.
On that rosy note, we'll call it a chat! If any of you will be at the STL Tiger Club golf tournament next week, I'll be around, so say hi! And to everyone, we'll see you here next Thursday for another chat.
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