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Most Valuable Agent with Matt Hannaford
Your Son Is Being Recruited? A Deputy AD Explains How College Baseball NIL Really Works
00:59:31
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- [00:13]
A
I feel like it's only appropriate as we get started here, that kind of dive into Georgia athletics. We got to talk about the Dogs. I think Wes would be mad at me if I started this off and I didn't say, go Dogs.
- [00:25]
B
That's right.
- [00:25]
A
Opening day, but opening day today. We're joined today by Will Lawler. Will, my audience, I don't. I don't know how many of them speak athletic, like, department language. So help everybody understand what exactly is a deputy athletic director for legal affairs and player management. Like, help us.
- [00:45]
B
Yeah.
- [00:45]
A
Get an understanding of that first.
- [00:47]
B
Yeah. So oversee several departments. The, obviously, the legal work that the athletic department does, but then also the player management piece of it, which is new and kind of the nil world. You have the pieces of it where people are generating revenue and finding outside deals for student athletes. That's kind of one piece. That's not me. You have people who are really managing the dollars and cents of the cap. That involves some of what we do, but really the player management end is dealing with the players, their representation and helping them work through the contracts, assign players and help them become Georgia Bulldogs.
- [01:26]
A
So when you got started, because you before coming to Georgia in, correct me if I'm wrong, 2018, I think you worked in the SEC Conference.
- [01:36]
B
Right.
- [01:36]
A
For a period of years.
- [01:37]
B
Yep. Yep. Worked in the sec from about 2013 till 18 and then came to Georgia and in 18.
- [01:43]
A
Okay. So from 2013 to now, like, how much different is the landscape?
- [01:49]
B
It's a completely different game. So even when I got to Georgia, you were still. It was 11.7 scholarships in baseball. And. And that's what you were managing primarily is how you. How do you manage your scholarships? Fast forward into. You still had kind of the old, old NCAA kind of enforcement model of like, all the little things really, really mattered a lot. They still matter, but it's just people are less tolerant of.
- [02:16]
A
Right.
- [02:16]
B
Kind of the smaller ncaa, it felt
- [02:18]
A
like there was more of like a magnifying glass a little bit from the NCAA's perspective. And not to say that they don't now, but it just.
- [02:25]
B
It.
- [02:25]
A
It. Yeah, it felt different then.
- [02:26]
B
Yep, that's right. So you go the first three years of your Georgia 18, early 21, and you were still doing kind of the old NCAA model. 2021, July. Everything changes. It's really the California things. People think it was the court cases, but it was really that the California law that was going into effect related Supreme Court case. A lot of people tie Austin to, like, everything that changed everything, but it's true.
- [02:53]
A
I remember the California one.
- [02:55]
B
Yeah, yeah. The California state law is really okay. That, that, that was the first state law that said you can't prevent student athletes from earning in IL dollars. So then that kind of. That ripple from that really Austin came out about the same time. And so that's why people will taste a little bit. But it's way in the weeds here. But the. So that started changing everything. In July, nil of 21 and I became legal. Players started being able to get paid for their use of their name, image and likeness, who they are, their names, endorsements, that type of thing hadn't been up to that point, but it was still kind of new and rolling itself out fast forward. Things started Moving faster in 2022, the development of collectives and things like that. And then you were kind of off to the races after that. And so from early 22 on, it's been ever evolving. And then. Yeah, the House settlement, which we're going to.
- [03:53]
A
I want to dive into.
- [03:54]
B
Yeah. Because all that was outside in aisle. That was not school paying players for their nil. That was just. They could go do deals outside deals. They do them with collectives and other things, different levels of institutional involvement. But then you get into the House settlement, I guess, last July. Yeah. Settled in the spring of last year and then really came into full effect, became effective in July. Yeah, July 1st.
- [04:24]
A
So I am visualizing someone listening to this right now, and they have a son who plays travel baseball. Maybe a son who's kind of going into his senior year in high school or in his senior year in high school. And now he's about to go into college. Right. So I want to kind of. I want to speak to them, but I'm envisioning them right now being like, you know, I know what nil is. Or I believe I know what nil is. I've talked to all of my friends who maybe have a son who's playing college baseball. Baseball right now, and they've shared a little bit with me. We might have an advisor, we might not. So I. I have bits and pieces. I have what I can find online, but this whole thing feels so overwhelming. I like, what is nil? I mean, I understand its name, image and likeness, but, like, help me understand.
- [05:05]
B
Yeah.
- [05:06]
A
Fundamentally, like, what are we talking about?
- [05:07]
B
Yeah, yeah. As people use the word nil to mean a whole lot of things, and really a lot of times what they mean is kind of the new college environment related to benefits for student athletes. They kind of use that as a catch all nil is actually pretty narrow, what it actually is. And you talk to different people and different people mean different things, and so you don't always know. But fundamentally, if you back up, even not using the word nil, what has changed is now there are really three buckets of benefits that student athletes can get. So if you're in the recruiting process and you're asking questions, it's really kind of three different buckets. One is the traditional things that student athletes have always gotten kind of incidental to participation benefits. That is food, that is your travel, your jersey, your clothes and things like that to go work out in certain benefits, training things. Some people use. We use a lot of technology here at Georgia, and so really, really high technology school. And so the ability to kind of see what your body can do, that's kind of one. But these incidental participation benefits, you always want to know kind of what those are. Covering your costs to play, really. Second bucket, which has always been there, but it's bigger now, is the scholarship piece. So it used to be 11.7. Now you have a roster limit of 34 in baseball. And those. Anybody could be on scholarships. A lot of schools set limits because they have to for Title 9 purposes. So it might not be 34 scholarships, it might be 30. It might be 27. Some are 34. But. And so then you. That's your scholarship bucket. It's always been there, but there's just more of it now to go around and base also. That's kind of bucket two and bucket three is. Some people use the word revenue share. Some people use it. It's really institutional payments for their nil. And so that piece is what you hear of the cap. Yeah, people talk about institutional nil piece, but. But in. In the cap is what a lot of times. So that's. That bucket said three buckets and we give you a fourth.
- [07:15]
A
Okay.
- [07:16]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [07:17]
A
Fourth bucket, right?
- [07:18]
B
I love this. Yeah. Fourth bucket is kind of your outside, over the cap in aisle stuff. This is what we traditionally talked about. This is endorsement deals.
- [07:27]
A
Delta Airlines.
- [07:28]
B
Delta Airlines is going to do a deal with someone, you know, other companies, Newt Force or somebody that has nothing is not associated with Georgia other than they want to do deals with. With student athletes. And you know, you. We can go out and find those deals.
- [07:42]
A
Yeah, that's. That's more of the. For the listener, the traditional marketing deals that anybody would have had, let's just say in professional baseball, right?
- [07:50]
B
Yeah, yeah. So those are really your kind of four buckets of benefits. Go back to 2018, there were really two buckets and one of those two buckets was 11.7.
- [07:58]
A
And it was the first two buckets you referred to. Right. Like all the things that you generally would get as an athlete. The second being the scholarships. When that changed then when you went from the 11.7 to now, you know, again, like the 34 limit, was that something from the inside, from a school's perspective? Like, what was the response? Are you like, oh man, did you see how much it was going to change things? Was it, did you like that? It felt like we have the ability now to, you know, go out and maybe secure more players from a scholarship perspective or like, what was the initial reaction?
- [08:33]
B
Yeah, I think it's been such kind of a gradual. I mean, I say gradual, actually, not gradual, but like there's been such shifts over time that it never felt like it all happened at once to where I was like, wow, that's. That's a lot. It has been a lot, but it's been a lot each year something, something new since really 21.
- [08:50]
A
Yeah.
- [08:51]
B
And so like it, it's been, it's been really good, I think for the sport of baseball, because in baseball you were always having to manage that 11.7, which is crazy. Pretty low roster sizes that you were having to deal with. And so having some freedom there. It's really, really good and good for the Southeastern Conference, obviously. Just a lot of good baseball down here. And so now you can have get even better players.
- [09:14]
A
Yeah. It's interesting when all of these changes started. I mean, the SEC has always been a conference that I would say is kind of leading the pack in a lot of ways from an athletic perspective. Post all of these different changes, we're starting to see like, you know, there's kind of the SEC and really everybody else, right? And it's how you have somebody who's from California originally and Southern California specifically, being in Southern California, seeing a kid, let's just say from Huntington beach, right, Decide to not take the scholarship at USC or UCLA and instead choose to go to Georgia. Like, you know, in the 80s and 90s, I felt like that would have never happened. Where now all of a sudden it's, it's like a no brainer. Like, of course I want to go to the sec, right? And that was even before the whole money piece was added too, because I think back then it was like, I want to go experience this college environment that just doesn't exist on the West Coast. And so now it feels like you have A combination of both, which has allowed the SEC really to take a pretty decent lion's share of the. Of the population of athletes now.
- [10:20]
B
Yeah, yeah. No, it's, it's true. You already had, you've always had your. Certain schools, even within the sec have great facilities, great stadiums. It's just these kind of just metropolises and in certain places and then some are more player development focused where it's what's under the stadium that. That really drives it. Hey, we're going to get you to MLB and you're going to be able to, you know, play in the pros and yep, still a great stadium, but we're going to be able to develop you and get you to where you want to go ultimately to play in the, the really big atmosphere. So.
- [10:52]
A
So can we. I want to go into the third bucket, right.
- [10:55]
B
The.
- [10:56]
A
What we'll call kind of like the rev share money piece of things. When, when these families hear nil, I think what they do is they kind of combine bucket three and four and they don't really understand that there's like a difference. Can you help? I mean, you kind of already touched on the differences, but can you talk about it maybe a little bit from a school's perspective, like why there is a difference in. To a player? Just, hey, money's money. So like it's the same to me. But can you talk about how it's different for the school?
- [11:25]
B
Yeah, yeah. So the primary difference is one institution is paying the student athlete for their nil. So that check is coming from the University of Georgia to the student athlete. And then that student athlete is granting the school the ability to use their picture and image and name on fees and tickets on anything that they want to. That you negotiate and can. Can do. So that's that one. The other one is again, is the money is coming from an outside business. The payer in that situation, Delta or Newt Force or whoever it may be, is paying the student athlete to endorse their. Their entity. So these are your billboards, your commercials, you know, that. That type of thing. So for a, for a recruit or a prospect who's looking at these types of things, a lot of times you'll see two different numbers, two different agreements.
- [12:21]
A
Right.
- [12:21]
B
There'll be an agreement with the, with the school that says we're going to pay you X amount. You're granting certain rights back to the, to the school. And then the, and then outside deals would be a separate agreement between the student athlete and again, your outside company.
- [12:40]
A
Yeah. And one, the one with the school is like, hey, we're going to agree to. This is going to be the deal. Essentially. The other is that, I mean, that dollar value could change over the course of the season. Like, all of a sudden you could have more companies that reach out and want to do deals.
- [12:54]
B
Yeah. Schools cannot guarant outside deals either. They can't say, hey, if you don't. What I mean by guarantee is they can promise they'll find it for you, but it's more of a best effort site promise than a. If you don't get it, then we will pay it. That is not. If you do that, that's your violent. Yeah, it's not okay now.
- [13:13]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
- [13:14]
B
There was a time when that was okay, but now that's shifted. And now you're looking at probably as far as you can go as a school is say, kind of a. Kind of a best efforts type thing. And you'll see that some different schools do it different ways. The reason someone is paying institutional dollars as opposed to usually related to the cap, cap space. So this is really way down the weeds, but broadly across the athletic department, right now you get about $20.4 million to spread out across all your sports. A lot of times, most places, football is going to get a big chunk of that. Then you'll have men's and women's basketball, depending on the school. Baseball is right there in the mix. And then other sports get certain amounts. And so depending on how that's been split up and how you've kind of negotiated and done things in the past and what the future looks like, there's only so much that's available in institutional dollars because of the cap. So a lot of times schools will then say, okay, but we think we can find you based on our history and everything we've done, we can find you this much in outside deals. Again, it's best efforts type language when you do that. And I just. What I mean by that is we're going to do every. We know we can do this. We're telling you we can do this. And there's some trust involved in getting those outside deals done.
- [14:29]
A
So from the inside, you obviously work throughout the athletic department, but you're also. You handle specific things with the baseball department. I know you serve as the sports administrator for baseball. Are you having to almost like fight for dollars for baseball with, let's just say the football guy? And like, is. Does that exist? Or is it more like we come together and we just have an agreement like, hey, this is how much I need this is how much you'll get.
- [14:54]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's not really so much a fight. A lot of times it's driven by Title 9 and some other things like that. But there's just a general. It's more of a collaborative conversation between there's certain sports to where the recruiting environment and the current. And maintaining your current roster. Remember like a lot of these guys can go pro and so you're able to keep some guys sometimes. So just that environment to do that, the sport and the people you're competing with on a day to day basis to remain competitive have to get a certain amount of cap dollars to do that. So that drives it probably as much as anything is just the player market for the sport and who you're competing against.
- [15:37]
A
I think it's an important thing to talk about too that you know, because we are, you know, I personally am on the player side so much of the time and talking to these families, obviously the families on the player side too, it's so easy to lose sight of kind of what globally is the goal of college athletics, right. Like everybody wants to perform, compete, win, right. And so you have to kind of keep tabs on that and be aware of. And I've always talked about this even for players from the standpoint of like equipment in the minor leagues, you know, every player, when they get drafted, they want an equipment deal. And I always found it important to educate these players on do you understand from an equipment company's perspective where they're receiving value in doing a deal with you? Because I think it's so easy getting into pro where you're like so and so has a deal, I want a deal. And yeah sure you can get a deal but you first need to kind of grasp do you understand what they're like, why they're doing a deal? They don't have to do a deal with you, right. And so when you started to kind of educate these players on, let's just say it's a New York Yankee, right? Okay, the New York Yankees want to do a deal with you and you're in high A. The New York Yankees, let's just say they don't need to do a deal with you because they have Aaron Judge, right? So like they're going to get the eyeballs through Aaron Judge, but they're trusting that maybe you're the next guy who can be a big name and they want to associate with you now. But there's ultimately a business behind the scenes that's, that's like you know, guiding their decision making. And in college athletics, it's. It's the same thing. It's like there's a business back here. So why is football getting the majority of the money? Well, they're generating the majority of the money. There's more eyeballs on football. It doesn't mean that there's not on baseball. But that's why, you know, baseball is maybe a little bit further behind than football. Makes sense. I've had some families who've been like, I don't understand this. I'm like, this is maybe one of the easiest things to understand. But when it comes to the job and the responsibility, and I've told Wes this, that he has to navigate. Okay. We have to make sure that we're obviously competing at the highest level. You know, you have the transfer portal now. You got the kids out of the draft. It's like you don't know. And again, being on the player side, I advise a lot of kids in the draft. And there's no way of foretelling how the draft is going to go this early in the process. So you kind of have to wait a little bit longer. All the while you got to coach the team. Right. It requires a dynamic personality. And so I think Wes job. And then maybe this is a compliment to you. Wes's job is only made easier when he has people like you behind the scenes really helping handle a lot of that other stuff.
- [18:01]
B
Yeah, I think too just it's easy for people to miss. And so I always joke with people that don't live in this every single day that sometimes these days, it may sound a little pollyannish, but the ultimate goal of college athletics was always meant to develop young people and to, yes, the academic portion and the developing men, to leaders and people that can go out into the world and do great things, play pro baseball and do that as well. But kind of that fundamental developmental of being a better person and that academic nexus that sometimes we forget about, talk to joke with people all the time. Like, people think college sports are what you see on Saturday mornings. That's like 1% of it. Now financially, it's a huge piece of it. But like Saturday mornings in the fall, weekend series in the spring is, you know, is a 5% of the. Of what college sports actually is. It's really about developing young people and trying to help them do people in this business. I know, like externally and people are trying to make it don't focus on that as much. But it actually is still the core of. Is shifting now being Kind of pulled into the. There are the, the business aspects of it that describing it, that's driving. Driving some of this. And so as you're, as you introduce nil, which in its purest form is about a player's nil value, their monetary value to promote products, services and things for businesses, of course, like, businesses are driving like which person helps me sell more of my product to make more money. That's what the businesses, the outside businesses are driving there. And so that was a long wind up to say. I think that's. I think that's right. Getting people's minds around kind of those two things and having them be able to coexist. Yeah. Is really.
- [19:52]
A
Yeah. I think sometimes people have lost the forest from the trees a little bit. And even in, you know, the business I'm in, it requires that you remind yourself oftentimes of like, why am I doing this? Like, what is the. What is the thing? Because otherwise you can go down into the minutia and like, oh, we have to win this one little thing that in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal. And you know, it's funny as you were talking that I was like reminded of what I wanted. The reason I'm in the business is I like to see players dreams fulfilled. Like, that's actually the thing that gets me to want to do stuff. Right. It's what. Why I care so much about seeing a player, you know, achieve certain goals. And again, we're here in Georgia opening weekend. Joey is a perfect example of like seeing his dream be fulfilled is. Is truly the most special thing that I think anybody should be focused on. So. And you guys included.
- [20:43]
B
Yeah, yeah, no, that's right. And you have the. Even beyond the developmental piece, wins and losses, championships really matter. And even. That's kind of separate from even that business end as well. Like in the pros, owners have to make a decision between money and championships sometimes. In colleges, we have always focused primarily on the championships end of it, wanting to win. Even if, you know, we are non profits in a lot of. In a lot of ways. Which is weird because people think about it as a money maker, but it's really all that money that's coming in is going poured right back into those players become again better people, but then win championships and that helps develop them as well.
- [21:22]
A
Yep. So going into the house settlement, right. I think people think of, okay, the house settlement. That is a thing. It happened. And we no longer have to worry about the house settlement. What. What is it that People don't understand about it generally like when is the next thing that they're going to have to worry about with this settlement that that was agreed to. Like what is it exactly?
- [21:45]
B
Yeah, yeah. So the, the house settlement set the, the cap first. It permitted institutions to be able to pay players didn't for their nil. That wasn't around before and so it allowed that. It also set a cap on what the institution couldn't. Could they have other language in the settlement for. But that's basically what it is is a cap. It set that and it also allowed us to go find outside deals. It's calculated based on a bunch of different numbers and those numbers will grow over time. Every three years there's a little bit of a. There's a, there's a look in and there's some bumps along the way. So it grows slowly over time. I think the, the primary things that, that you're seeing now is it's really because it happens so fast. You're building out the infrastructure for it.
- [22:31]
A
Like oh, how is it going to work like in practice.
- [22:34]
B
That's right. So the institutional payments are actually probably were set up pretty well first and that there's a pretty good. You're having to learn how to manage the cap because you kind of were behind. There was some front loading that happened and then now you're trying to get back to where you can manage your cap and see what's going to be. There's a bump and then now it's kind of leveling out over time and seeing what, what, what's driving that. So that's a big piece of it. But then you heard outside cap nil Go. So any outside deals now have to go through Nil Go. Which means you get an outside deal, the player has to submit it. School doesn't do it for you Get a deal with Jittery Joe's Coffee here in town and they want to do a deal. Player has to put that into Nil Go. And they check it for is there a legitimate business purpose? Is it a real business or is it fake? You're just money laundering. Yeah. And then two, is it within the range of compensation? So what? Fair market value. They don't like the word fair market value, but it's just range of compensation for a similar player and a similar business and what they would normally pay. It's not just this.
- [23:40]
A
Right. So bake again some random businesses. Hey, you know my buddy's dad owns it and I'm going to pay 100 grand and you're going to have to just tweet one time and that's not going to pass.
- [23:49]
B
Yep, that's right. That's right. So you got to go through it takes a little time, gets vetted, all that stuff. So any time.
- [23:53]
A
It's fairly quick, though. I was actually surprised how quick some of this stuff comes through.
- [23:56]
B
Some of them aren't. The ones to where they're not associated with the institution go relatively quick. The ones that. Where they are associated, that's kind of a different level of review. Oh, the ones that aren't associated, they don't even do that. It's just. It's just you got to report it and it's pretty much clear they're associated with the institution and they have to do that extra level, do they?
- [24:17]
A
Well, they. Is that like a. You get a phone call and they have questions and you got to answer the questions or is it like just behind the scenes behind the.
- [24:24]
B
The associated company. Associated entity is what they call it. But this associated company has to fill out kind of what it is. And then they're just checking is there a legitimate business purpose if you're real. If it's. Again, Delta Jerry Joe's. There's clearly a legitimate business purpose there. And then they look for the range of compensation and they have algorithms, metrics that we don't know, but that fits that.
- [24:45]
A
So thankful that's not our job.
- [24:47]
B
Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. But it's interesting because, I mean that is to your audience the as you're going through and there's these best efforts promises that are being made. It's got to make it through all of those. Have to make it through Nil Go. And so a lot of times you'll see these giant numbers and you're just
- [25:03]
A
like, I don't know how you're going
- [25:04]
B
to get that through unless you just have a really solid plan of kind of. There are these 10 companies here they are. And this is how they're going to make it through the.
- [25:12]
A
Yeah.
- [25:13]
B
Make it through the process. And so just a big number out there that they say they can go get for you. It's nice to see at least some idea of how you're going to get this.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah. If you could wave a magic wand and change something for the better. Is there something that jumps out like, I wish this was more streamlined or.
- [25:37]
B
Yeah. I think right now it's just getting things going. In a perfect world, you would have had a year to build out. Nil go have the new college sports commission fully staffed. And then you hit go and everybody's clicking instead of your little bit of building the plane as you're flying it. And so there can be some backlogs with associated entities and deals. And a lot of times you're like, okay, this is. The company's already either about to pay them or hasn't. They've already done their production shoot, things like that, and it's not cleared yet. And so if you could refine that a little bit better, it would be, that's perfect world, but that's not the world we live in. So just gotta get there and do the best you can.
- [26:20]
A
Yeah. How has it been? I asked this question because I am one, an advisor, an agent. How has it been dealing with the various people like me? I mean, I imagine there's ones that you enjoy talking to and others that maybe are a little more difficult. But the reason I want to jump into this a little bit is because I really would love from your perspective if you had to describe what kind of like the ideal person on the other side that you're dealing with would look like. Like what. What would you say on that?
- [26:48]
B
Ideal for me or ideal for the, for your auditor, for your parent maybe.
- [26:53]
A
Like if, if you, knowing what, you know, were a parent, which you are, but had a son who was the process. Like, what would be that ideal?
- [27:03]
B
Yeah, character. I think it would be someone who had good relationships with the school. You don't want an adversarial from the beginning because that just bogs things down. And if, you know, if from where we sit, if you know it's going to be a fight, then you start way over here instead of just kind of getting, hey, we're just going to have a conversation. We know kind of the main issues we got to talk through. You get through it and you, you move on. There's always back and forth and that's, that's great. That's actually, that's the way it's supposed to work. That's fine. But the ones that you can kind of get to those primary issues more quickly on would be. Would be. Would be ideal. And so, yeah, that having, you know, people that have some history in the, in the game kind of know what the market is and have a good feel for that, that's. That's always really important for, for a parent. If knowing the schools, knowing what, what schools will do what, knowing when a school is reliable for that best efforts, kind of kind of stuff like, hey, they know, they tell you this and they best. But they always, they've never not delivered on being able to find these legitimate outside deals that get through in I'll go versus they tell you a number and it doesn't mean anything because in baseball particularly schools are going to have to manage some of this through kind of those best efforts outside deals. And so being able to trust them when they tell you that if I was a parent would be critical. Have you ever not delivered. Have you. You know, those types of things.
- [28:35]
A
That's a great question. I do want everyone to kind of think about that too because yeah, if you get. If there's a proposal. Right. Because when you go through this as a parent and as a kid, you're thinking nothing but positive thoughts. This is all going to work out.
- [28:48]
B
This is great.
- [28:49]
A
I love this. Everybody's, you know, in the best of moods but asking that question, hey, have you ever not delivered on anything that you've said? Yeah, amazing question.
- [28:59]
B
I mean and just knowing that that school, if they have a good reputation where they have then that sometimes another school may the numbers, if you're getting two different numbers, if you're getting a here's the rev share and then here's the best efforts. Somebody may promise you a lot in rev share and have a small best efforts amount that they're going to go out and find you. But if they don't hit it, then it doesn't do you a lot of good versus someone who may have a smaller rev share amount but has a great reputation for finding that you know, you need to know or vice versa, you're in really bad shape if it's a small rev share amount and they don't have a good reputation for finding outside the gap deals.
- [29:36]
A
And do you. I'm imagining you lean very heavily on the staff, the baseball staff as far as like a, like what are we comfortable with with this player?
- [29:46]
B
Right.
- [29:47]
A
Because it's obviously what I, what I imagine not having been behind the scenes, what I imagine you're, you're kind of navigating is all right, we have X number of dollars, right. We have all these other various guys. We don't know who's going to sign, who's not going to sign. So it's this constant like juggling of figures. And what the coaching staff at least probably understands is, well, this guy's not just talking to us, right. Like he's considering a lot of different places, especially with the transfer portal.
- [30:15]
B
Yep.
- [30:16]
A
So I, is that, is that fair to say?
- [30:18]
B
Yeah. And every coach, just every coach is different you know and so like some the coach will you like to keep it to like you don't have a lot of people talking especially talking about money because then it starts getting no offense but. But the agents and others out there will start saying well I don't like his answer so I'm gonna. Mom didn't tell me yes so I'm going to dad, you know or type thing. So you try to keep it you know, pretty narrow to having a singular voice. Maybe it's the head coach and someone like me. A lot of times in baseball that's that's what it is. But then even how they evaluate players, some are still kind of your old school baseball guys who it's a feel thing for them. There's a big subjective element to it. And so when you're trying to not just evaluate how good a player they are but actually valuate value them well how much is a player like this? How much is their nil worth? How much is are they worth kind of on in the current market the baseball coaches usually some have better feels for that. Wes is fantastic that has his own models like his valuation system is.
- [31:26]
A
There's no shortage of insight with Wes. He's got an idea.
- [31:31]
B
I think baseball is a special sport in there. That's just because of the old you know, data analytics, you know all of that. There's kind of all. There's more of a built in kind of you know, objective metrics that I think most are at least paying attention to. Some use it more than others but. But yeah. So it's interesting how is how was
- [31:49]
A
like a social following matter for a school?
- [31:53]
B
I think it, I think it does matter. Again it kind of depends. So if you, if you are using a lot of your kind of best. If they are a best efforts heavy player you can, if you have a large social following it helps because they look at that when you're going through nil go.
- [32:11]
A
Yeah, it's eyeballs.
- [32:12]
B
Yeah, right, right. That's how you justify. Well they're going to get whatever $2,000, $5,000 for three posts. Well if you only have one follower it's hard to say that's worth that. But if you have, you know, if you have a. Whatever the number is then it helps Schools now spend a lot more time trying to like build those help players build their brand, build their followings if they want to. Some don't. Some that's not dangerous. They want to play baseball and that's somebody else's thing. And a lot of times they're more focused on kind of the. The caf dollars with their stuff.
- [32:48]
A
Speaking about social media, do you guys. Are you going through, you know, the history of a guy's social follow or not following? But just like some of his posts, has he said anything that's been controversial? Is there going to be an issue that we're going to have? Like, you want to, I imagine you want to familiarize yourself with, like, who's the guy that we're, you know, quote unquote, getting into business with. Right. For lack of a better term. But.
- [33:11]
B
And there's always been, strangely, this is the part like that's always kind of been a thing, kind of a character reference type type thing. Before you sign someone, you want kind of to know where. What their character is. And then also now everybody puts everything on social media so you can see a lot more. But then also if there's things out there reputationally that you just don't want to take on as a, as an institution. So that actually has probably been around even before this. But it is particularly important. It's probably more important now for the student athlete because if they do have those reputational issues, companies will not want to take that on.
- [33:46]
A
Yeah. Going back to the agent thing real fast. Do you have. Is there something that you wish every agent understood about what you have to deal with?
- [33:59]
B
Right.
- [33:59]
A
Is there something that. Well, if agents only understood that this is what we had to deal with, like this would be a lot easier conversation.
- [34:07]
B
Yeah, it's probably the cap space and the limits.
- [34:10]
A
Like it's not that we don't want to give you the money. I'd love to give you the money, but I'm having to navigate this.
- [34:14]
B
Is it. Or the way you have to structure certain deals to where if you can structure the deal in certain ways, then we can get back cap space. Not just for. If I give you picture all the money, all the cap space that we have, then you don't have any bats. And if 10 is still a loss. And so like you need. You've got to have players around you and stuff like that. So we can structure things in ways that may look a little bit like that's not in the best interest of this particular player, but it does help build a team around them. So that's probably, probably the best thing because even if sometimes you get there on the dollars, sometimes you get there in the structure of the agreement, that just helps us be able to find a little more cap space. There's only so much money we can pay and so Just finding cap space for other players to put around those players is really important.
- [35:07]
A
Yeah, the going back to the house settlement too. What kept coming to mind as you were talking about that was like the collective bargaining agreement in baseball.
- [35:15]
B
Right.
- [35:16]
A
You have MLB in the union come to agreement on a deal and then over the next couple years everybody is left really trying to figure out, all right, how is this whole thing going to function? Like how is this really going to work? And then you start to see, oh, so this is now how teams are starting to use these rules and, and work and try to be as malleable as possible to improve their ball club within the rules. But now there's a clear trend of how they're doing that. And then it seems like the next CBA is trying to correct some of the ways in which guys got around it. And so do you feel like in college like there's, there's an element of that that probably will happen as you figure out how schools are maybe again playing within the rules but kind of manipulating things a certain way that they would.
- [36:01]
B
Yeah. Even within the house settlement, like it gives some room for. To develop anti circumvention rules.
- [36:07]
A
Oh really?
- [36:08]
B
Yeah. And so you'll see that over time, like things they can pass new, new rules that prevent that type of circumvention. Sometimes it's, sometimes it's truly. Yes. Circumvention, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's not. We're not circumventing anything. It's just a more efficient way to find true, legitimate above cap deals and that there's always a little bit of a rub there.
- [36:30]
A
Yeah.
- [36:31]
B
All right.
- [36:31]
A
I have an interesting question that I'm going to propose to you to see if you want to. Is there something that you want to ask me that you would be dying to know from the player's perspective?
- [36:42]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's a good question.
- [36:45]
A
Something to ask you in a funny way. I actually think this is one of the best ways for families to be educated through this.
- [36:53]
B
Yeah, I guess the number. You may not can answer this. The one thing I would always be curious of is when. And I'm not talking about you particularly here, I'm just talking about agents generally. The numbers that you come with first that our X school is offered this are most of the time those real numbers or are those kind of inflated a little bit to see if we'll come up?
- [37:16]
A
That's a great question. I would tell you, I would assume it's. And this is maybe how I'm different than others, I think. And I'll relate it to. In the major leagues, when you're negotiating a contract, it is the easiest thing in the world to say, this is what the player's value is. But for you as an agent to then go and get the value is something totally different. And that requires strategy. It requires a game plan that you have to execute. And part of that game plan is leverage.
- [37:45]
B
Right.
- [37:46]
A
But also it's like, yeah, what does the market say this player in particular is worth? Right. In this instance of what you're asking, I would say it depends on the relationship that you have with the agent.
- [37:58]
B
Right.
- [37:59]
A
It depends on the specific player. Like really, because we could talk about any player and I could just make up a figure and say, I have this. I think what the agent needs to consider is, is that even believable?
- [38:13]
B
Right.
- [38:14]
A
If you don't have it, you got to be careful the language you use. And this, I truly believe this. If the reason why I cannot mislead a baseball team and I'll put a school right there, is because if you catch me lying about something one time, yeah, I'm a liar forever, right. And I've built up my reputation over 25 years in the business to ensure that when I tell a team something like, it's true, I got it. Otherwise I would not be saying that. And that's one of those things that I think maybe inexperienced advisor, somebody who isn't really thinking through it, maybe enough, maybe they're afraid they're going to get fired by the player. And so this is the only pathway to maybe try to get this big dollar. But I would tell you truly, maybe it's not the answer you wanted, but it kind of depends. I would say the most experienced ones, when they say, I would also pay attention. How are they saying it too, right? Are they saying, look, I have this, and if you don't say yes to this, we're going to take this other deal right now in one phone call, like, we're ready to go. Or is it, hey, I'm just telling you I have this, but let's keep negotiating because that's something totally different.
- [39:22]
B
Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. No, but that is probably the question that we're always wrestling with the most because it's different than the pros where, you know, generally you may not know the negotiating when you get into free agency and that type.
- [39:33]
A
No, you know, like value.
- [39:34]
B
Yeah, but you know, value of players. Whereas you go into port, particularly portal markets and stuff now, and half the time you're like, I don't think that's real. You know, and you're always having the gauge. So that one. That. That is very true. You asked earlier about schools. If you have an honest agent representation who you know you can trust, then you go into those and you're like, he's not lying to me. I know he's negotiating. He may be huffing a little bit. It might be he's trying to stretch some things to get the most for his client. But it's not that. It's just completely. I'm just throwing a number out there to see if I can.
- [40:09]
A
Yeah, well. And this may be a message for either parents or potential agents out there. It's not a negotiation. Isn't like, okay, I'm going to clock in for this phone call, negotiate, hang up the phone and stop negotiating a negotiation. And I remember, like, learning this throughout the years. It starts the minute you become a professional. Every conversation you have is a negotiation.
- [40:30]
B
Right.
- [40:30]
A
And I don't mean that that in, like, the specific case of, like, the team is looking at you like you're negotiating, but everything that you say, the people that you're speaking to are analyzing. What does this mean? So if you're a player in professional baseball and you're kind of coming up through the minor leagues and randomly a trainer says to you, and the GM farm director is over here off to the side listening, and he says, hey, did you see so and so's early extension that he signed with that team? And you go, oh, my gosh. Yeah, amazing. For him. Loved that. For him, that GM farm director, whomever it is, is like, oh, this guy would take an early extension. And he, in that moment isn't thinking about that. He's just responding, having a conversation, let's say, with a trainer, but that's where the negotiation starts. So then down the road, are they going to offer you something fair or maybe they're going to start a little bit low. They're probably going to start a little bit low. And so that's maybe a bad example, but it just gives you something to think about. And so with. With guys going through this whole college decision and everything, I think, think the same applies. Like every conversation you have, I have to be thinking about, you know, what seeds am I planting? And this isn't to say. And this is what like, I think the. The best blueprint for any agent is. If you're truly in this business for the right reasons and you care about the player, then you can just be yourself. If you're not in the business for that reason, then now you're having to orchestrate this whole thing. And at some point, you're going to make a mistake, Someone's going to figure it out, you're not going to be liked, your reputation is going to be bad. Whatever it is. I don't think there's an alternative pathway. And so leading with. All right, I want to make sure that this player is taken care of. I'm obviously smart enough to know everything that I say is being analyzed and taken, and they're going to go back and talk about what I've said. But I think the best thing an agent can do before any of this starts is actually figure out from the player, what do you want? Not money, what do you want?
- [42:17]
B
Right.
- [42:18]
A
If everything was considered equal, every school's offer was the same. Where do you want to go? I want to go to this school first. Okay, great. Now we can put a plan together to figure out, well, how do I make sure that we get you what you want, which is to be with this school, but only if, let's just say, the money's equal with everybody else. All right, well, now that plan is going to have to take all those things into account. And that's where, I guess we're now in this agent train of conversation. But that's where I believe it separates an agent or an advisor who. Who truly has the things that you referenced earlier. Good relationship with the school. You know, transparent, honest. I feel like it's an open dialogue. That person understands what we're dealing with, we understand what they're dealing with. And it's this reciprocal thing that can grow over time, where you're not just sending one guy there one time. It's. Yeah, you're dealing with each other over the next 15, 20 years, and we'll see a multitude of players come through. And it's never a situation where an agent. Because I think sometimes agents, when they look at this like a contentious negotiation, they call you on the phone and be like, it has to be this or don't call me back. Why? Why does the negotiation have to be like that? Like, that's not the best approach to get what you want.
- [43:35]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:36]
A
But I think sometimes with agents, they don't necessarily have, like, I look at them like chefs. Like, they don't have another ingredient to use to make the cake.
- [43:44]
B
Yeah, They're.
- [43:45]
A
It's just, I gotta bully you and tell you this is what it's got to be. Doesn't work all the time.
- [43:50]
B
I think Also too, I've noticed over time there are some agents and representation that they take it very serious once that contract is signed. And so it's like they feel like their reputation is online as well. You see too much now in college sports there. Everything is done, we've agreed to everything. And then a month later somebody else comes in. They're not supposed to be talking, but they do. And now they're jumping in the transfer portal or going somewhere else after within a month. And I think those types of things, you see some agents that are like, no, no, no, yeah, want me to represent you, that's not happening. We're not doing this. Right. And others, it's just kind of, they. They go do what they do.
- [44:31]
A
Yeah, I respect that. I think this just happened with the quarterback out of Washington as an example. But these things don't happen a ton, but they do happen every once in a while. You'll get a kid who, let's just say, you know, agrees to something, signs his deal, and then like a day or two or five days later, all of a sudden he's going and he's leaving. Those are rare, I'm assuming. Right. Do you think, like, how does that happen? Because it. Well, not that this is in your experience, but do you believe that those things happened because there was some lack of communication, something said that maybe turned out to be untrue? Like, what would lead a player to ultimately do that? Because I just think it's absolutely wild that a guy would agree to a deal and then a day or two later reneg and enter the portal.
- [45:21]
B
Yeah, I don't know. Other than the first entries. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's what's in the mind of those. Those people. But what it appears to be is sometimes these portal markets are crazy and the dollars jump up really high really fast. And so what was a fair deal, you know, two, three months ago, now the portal markets are just crazy. And then they got a lot of money thrown at them and they're willing to jump for the money. Right.
- [45:51]
A
This is my one chance to go bank some money. And sorry if I'm offending you or you think I'm not a man of
- [45:56]
B
my word, but yeah, the school took some risk early to be able to say, we think this is what your nil is worse.
- [46:03]
A
Yeah.
- [46:04]
B
And. But we're going to go in and lock it in. We don't know how you're going to finish this season, but we believe in you. We're going to go ahead and lock it in over time and commit to you over time. And then the portal hits and the, the wild, wild west of that goes on for a while and all of a sudden there's a bigger number. And now the school had the risk kind of on both ends and the, the player got. Was the school was locked in.
- [46:31]
A
Yeah.
- [46:31]
B
And so they were locked in for that amount of time and then they go somewhere else and they got the best of both worlds protection and more money later.
- [46:39]
A
So, yeah, the portal is.
- [46:40]
B
Is.
- [46:42]
A
You know, I've gotten asked this question quite a bit like, is the portal good or bad? And it's interesting because to me it's like neither. It's, it's one of those things where if it's handled improperly, it's bad. But in a certain situation, putting money aside, do I think it was ever fair that a player has to go to a college and all of a sudden now, you know, he's at the mercy of whatever that coach thinks. That coach all of a sudden, even though he committed him, is like, you're never going to play here. And that guy really, maybe he, you know, I guess he could release it from the scholarship, like, doesn't really have any recourse. Like. No, I think in that instance, the portal's great. I think it's bad when it just becomes this thing where literally you see guys that'll go there here for freshman year, there for a sophomore year for a junior. And it's worse in football, obviously. But I, I mean, I'm a loyal guy. I like loyalty and I like seeing guys play for one place. Unless, yeah, there's circumstances that, you know, make it so that you have to leave. But when you do decide to enter the portal, that's where I think you need to be so buttoned up with how you're going to handle things. Because it's, it's the, it's the easiest thing to lose your reputation as a player immediately, right?
- [47:56]
B
Yeah. And even too, going back to kind of that again, maybe a little bit sounds a little Pollyannish, but most of us believe this. Like, if the ultimate goal of college is graduation, player transfers four times, it's nearly impossible. I mean, you can, maybe you can do it, but your graduation rates go to drop dramatically. And so, you know, to your point, is the, is the portal a good thing in general? Sure. But if you bounce from school to school to school, the odds of you being able to get your, your degree, which is the point of college, is it just drops so much that it becomes hard to. To manage. I don't know how you solve that at this point, given everything else that's going on. It feels like it's kind of a, you know, either or type situation.
- [48:49]
A
But I think we're in a place where there's a lot of things that need to get cleaned up. They're gonna eventually figure it out over time, and that'll be another thing that gets figured out, but not necessarily yet.
- [48:59]
B
Yeah, I'll say too, like even when people are, they sign these deals that school is then out finding deals for them, you know, they're using, they're putting them on season tickets, they're spending money depending on them, and then they go somewhere else. And now that their nil that they hold at that time is basically valueless. Right. If you're playing somewhere else, then your sponsors that wanted to put them in a commercial that you had lined up are now like, what the heck? You know, these are businesses who are used to. And so then that hurts kind of your future reputation with those companies. Next time you want to be able to have some best efforts conversations with recruits and you go to these companies like, hey, we've got, you know, what types of deals do you want to do with our players? If they don't know if they can rely on that, then they might not be as willing to do deals with players and with you as the university.
- [49:54]
A
So as we wrap up here, I have a couple just random things that I want to get with you on. Some of this you may have already talked about, but I think this would be extremely valuable. So I want you to, I want you to visualize that you are talking to your best friend. And your best friend has a son who's 17 years old and he's now starting to be communicated with by all these colleges. And you have 10 minutes to sit down with him and his family and like, get him up to speed about like, all right, listen, this is what you got to be prepared for, right? When you're dealing with schools, what would be like three things that you would want to make sure that you cover with them.
- [50:30]
B
The coach making sure the coach is a fit and is going to, you know, fit with you and the family. His plan for, for the player. And I'm talking about, yes, academically, but as a player and probably less financial on that in that first piece, like, what is the plan for? What are your goals as a player? And then what is the plan for that player here? What's playing time progression look like? Generally my Goal is to play major league baseball and I want to, I feel like I need to increase my velocity to be able to do that or I need to be able to, you know, improve something else. You know, what's the plan for that? How does the place in general highlight that ability to do that? We talked about stadiums and things like that earlier. There are certain stadiums that are great fits and make you look as good as possible for major league teams. So I think that's kind of bucket one. It's kind of what's the plan and kind of fit there and I think not losing that priority because college, as opposed, you know, pro deals, you're talking about long periods of time. College is a short amount of time. The numbers at least in baseball are not so for the 99% are not so great that they overcome that piece of it, what your future could be. So I'd say that's number one. Number two is kind of understanding the financial package. What are the benefits incidental look like? Sometimes that's the hidden piece that people don't understand. Like yeah, I can pay you a bunch of money but you know, what does the food situation look like? Like 18 to 22 year old boys eat a lot, baseball players eat a lot. So like what does that situation look like? What does my day to day look like? What is the, you know, even the developmental pieces that they're paying for, knowing that, that, that part of it and then the, the scholarship situation, how that's going to be, how that's going to be kind of ironed out. It's still, there's a little bit of, still kind of dividing that type of stuff up and then I guess that's kind of bucket two. And then probably that third bucket is the, is the. Okay, now what's the rev share number? What is the terms? Yeah, what are the, what's the institutional number? What is the. What are you going to go out and find in. In other type deals and what's that
- [53:00]
A
look like as a follow up to that? Are you guys finding for guys that are going to get drafted or have the potential to get drafted that it is becoming more common to start actually diving into the agreement itself before the draft.
- [53:16]
B
The agreement itself meaning like reviewing of
- [53:18]
A
the agreement, like assuming that this guy ends up on campus like doing that in advance of the draft rather than
- [53:25]
B
sometimes maybe more with current players who may be draft eligible? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you're having, having that conversation. I think most of the time maybe the. Sometimes you'll have an initial conversation about the number, but at least at this point, we'll see. We're only in kind of year one of this.
- [53:44]
A
Yeah, that's exactly. It's kind of like morphing and changing as we go.
- [53:48]
B
Yeah. Terms and like your actual, like legal kind of language stuff. Not as much for in. For newcomers, you know, whether it's high school kid or a transfer kid, if they're trying to decide between draft or going pro. And that usually maybe the number a little bit. And that's kind of a fluid conversation.
- [54:07]
A
But the.
- [54:07]
B
The terms are still are usually after. Yeah, yeah. Maybe some big stuff, you know, but.
- [54:14]
A
Okay, I got some rapid fire. It's going to be quick.
- [54:17]
B
Okay.
- [54:18]
A
You're going to love this.
- [54:18]
B
Yeah.
- [54:19]
A
Number one, why Georgia?
- [54:20]
B
Oh, man. Georgia baseball. I say West Johnson. It's the most positive, fun, smart coach that I've been. I'm a little biased on the sport administrator for baseball, but in general, I think most people would say, go spend a day with Wes Johnson and you're. You will come out of it. He is a kind of a. He's a joy. A joy pusher. You come out, you just feel better, you know, you go to some folks and. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Superstar. Yeah. Yeah. So. So that would be. That would be the key. He will have a plan, I assure you. And objective. Like, there's not. There's not a lot subjective about what's. So.
- [55:03]
A
Yeah. Okay. Number two, what is one piece of advice you would give to a player thinking that he only needs to commit to a school and leave for more money after the first year?
- [55:14]
B
Think long term. Think long term. The college is short. You're going to enjoy college. Go. Go to the place where you're going to have some fun. Enjoy that college life. Develop and put yourself in the best position for life. That end of it. Yeah. So.
- [55:34]
A
All right, last one. What does college athletics look like in 2030? You're like rapid fire. This is like a. Yeah.
- [55:41]
B
If I knew that. Yeah. So five, four or five years from now, what does it look like? Man, that is. It's hard to. Because when I first started predicting all this. I'm slowing your pace down in here a little bit. But when I first started predicting all this, I said, In 10 years, I'll think. I think this is where we'll be. And that happened within a year. And, you know, and so it was always like this. The timeframe is so much faster than where we are. Obviously the cap will grow. I think at some point you're going to have a stronger regulatory body. There's just too much wild, wild west. I think deep down people love college sports and they love what college sports are about, and they don't want to lose it. And right now we're kind of at this tipping point of having to choose between, do you want to have college sports anymore? What we traditionally thought of, I'm not talking about nil or being able to pay players or anything like that, but do you actually want to have college sports or is that just over? And we're like, this is enough. This is. We're in Europe and it's just pros or high school, and that's. There's nothing in between. And I think the answer people are going to say is, yes, we still love and want college sports. And to do that sounds like a broken record these days, but you're going to have to have some intervention from either Congress or, you know, the courts in a different way.
- [57:00]
A
I agree. I think there's like an innocence with college athletics that people really appreciate. I think people look at professionals sometimes, they're jaded, they're making all this money they don't understand. And very quickly, when you become a professional, it's a job.
- [57:14]
B
Right.
- [57:14]
A
Whether you love the game or not, it's still feels like work. We're in college athletics. Yeah. It's like the last time you can really just play the sport because you love it. I don't think people want that to go anywhere.
- [57:23]
B
Yeah, yeah, no, that's right. For the love of the game, right?
- [57:26]
A
Yeah. Well, I. I do think, I mean, interestingly enough, you know, what does college athletics look like in 2030? I think on some level with college baseball, it is directly tied to what is happening with the CBA in baseball. I think with the draft, there's going to be some changes that come through that. It'll be interesting to see how that changes things with college. I think it's a good thing for college baseball, though, because where back in the day, you know, so many kids would have signed if they limit the amount of rounds, obviously not as many kids can sign. More guys will go to college, so it'll increase the game in college, which will be good, which is also in turn good for players too, because then college almost becomes like a minor league system in a sense, which it already is, but, like, even more guys will go to college. And so in turn, it's going to require, you know, coaches to get better continually and learn how to develop better. And so I think ultimately it's It's. We're gonna figure this thing out. It's gonna be all good.
- [58:21]
B
Right?
- [58:22]
A
But this was very, very insightful.
- [58:26]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [58:27]
A
I feel like every time I talk to you, I'm learning something.
- [58:29]
B
No, no, me too.
- [58:30]
A
Yeah.
- [58:31]
B
This is great. If you can get one thing done in Major League, if you can just get the draft, move back a few weeks, like back into June, that would be fantastic.
- [58:39]
A
So, I. I gotta be honest, man. Everybody wants it back. Everybody.
- [58:43]
B
Yeah.
- [58:43]
A
The scouts hate it because the scouting directors. I mean, there are events going on that they can't get to. Right. The cape. No one even goes to Cape anymore.
- [58:51]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [58:52]
A
Can't get to these events, honestly, because. Yeah. They're getting ready for the draft. Yeah.
- [58:56]
B
We have the portal. The portal is over and you don't even know. Is this your team or not? You know, like.
- [59:00]
A
No, it's. It's that. That needs to be lined up and fixed. There's no question.
- [59:04]
B
Yeah.
- [59:06]
A
I don't know. You know, Major League Baseball wants it to be around the All Star Game, which. Can't figure out.
- [59:11]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [59:11]
A
But appreciate you, man.
- [59:14]
B
Yeah. Yeah, thanks.
- [59:14]
A
Great.
- [59:15]
B
Yeah. Appreciate it.
- [59:16]
A
Go Dogs.
- [59:16]
B
Yeah, absolutely.