Utah Utes (official thread)

[ORD_Buckeye]

Buckeyes have probably explored something similar. As far as I know, they don’t have the single multi-billion dollar “sports fan” donor that some other schools are seeing pop up. Or they maybe have one but the athletic department won’t touch that (also don’t think he cares about athletics). Obviously we’re doing alright for now but…

MSU just got $400M from Greg Williams + Mat Ishbia played for Izzo and owns the Suns, Mark Cuban is a huge IU fan (played rugby there), Dolphins owner Stephen Ross is involved at TTUN, BYU has the Utah Jazz owner sinking money (plus Crumbl Cookies owner? lol). You know Texas has oil industry crazed sports guys. Etc etc.

What OSU does have is a brand and fanbase that is worth a lot. If the Big Ten doesn’t agree to something on the whole, I can easily see them looking for outside investment to keep up.

Who knows, I may live to see some Saudi Prince owning the Ohio State Football Club like we’re Manchester City someday.

*Bucks do have a ton of NFL guys with record contracts at least. But that’s not billionaire status and I’m not sure how much they contribute to NIL

It's a culture that goes back to Woody. The AD focused on building a huge mass of small to medium donors instead of the tejas big cigar types. The goal was to keep donor influence to a minimum. Woody had a famous quote about it, "one year they buy you a Cadillac and the next year they buy you a tank of gas to get out of town."

 

[Jaxbuck]

At what point do we divorce, in this case, Buckeye FB from the University? When I say that, my thought is that you buy/lease the right to the use the name, mascot, stadium, facilities, etc.

No idea on timing but that's what I'd do and how I'd do it. Central Ohio sports ventures LLC or whatever, playing every game as The Ohio State Buckeyes. The University gets a big share of the revenue as a licensing deal. Name, mascot, stadium the works.

Players get a GI Bill like voucher to go to school there at some point and free lifetime healthcare. Let the quality of the education and health care be a differentiator for talent acquisition.