← The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
Ohio State AD Ross Bjork: OSU spending all it can? Should college football have no spending limit?
00:38:58
Ohio State director of athletics Ross Bjork joins Doug Lesmerises and Bill Landis on The Bill and Doug Show to talk about everything in the world of NIL and football roster building on the last day that players can enter the transfer portal.
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- [00:02]
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Doug Lamoris
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- [01:06]
Ross Bjork
What a shot.
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Ross Bjork
Are you not entertained?
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Ross Bjork
Honey, do not make plans. Saturday, January 24th, okay? Why, what's happening? The Walmart wellness event. Flu shots, health screenings, free samples from.
- [01:34]
Doug Lamoris
Those brands you like.
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All that at Walmart.
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Ross Bjork
We can just walk right in, no appointment needed.
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Ross Bjork
And wellness needs at Walmart?
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Ross Bjork
Walmart wellness event.
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You knew?
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- [02:03]
Doug Lamoris
Welcome back to the Bill and Doug Show. Doug Lamoris and Bill Landis joined by a very special guest today, Ross Bjork, the athletics director of the Ohio State University, giving us some of this time. Ross, thank you for joining us here on the Bill and Doug Show.
- [02:15]
Ross Bjork
Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me on.
- [02:18]
Doug Lamoris
All right, let's dive in. We're going to talk about some of this, what's the word, nil stuff. Building rosters, the portal, the modern world of college football. Bill Landis, why don't you start us off?
- [02:27]
Bill Landis
Sure, Ross. I was, I was watching the, the interview you did with Adam King and Tim hall on ten TV the other day and you mentioned something I think a couple of times that caught my ear and was this idea that the sport, and primarily college football has already outpaced the 20 and a half million dollar revenue sharing cap. And I'm wondering one do you have an idea of what you think it should be raised to? Have there any. Have there been Any discussions about that? I know it's supposed to go up 4%, I think, the next two years and then be reevaluated. And, you know, what, what would a race cap mean for Ohio State if that were to happen in some kind of significant way?
- [03:07]
Ross Bjork
Yeah, you know, what do they say? History repeats itself, you know, or there's probably lots of phrases around things that happened in the past. And, you know, I'm. I love history. You know, I love your, you know, Jim Thorpe picture back there that we, we were talking about off air and, you know, actually in the very first intercollegiate athletic event was a rowing race in 1852. Harvard and Yale, and there was a railroad baron who gave away prize money, gave away sponsorship money, was giving away cabins and was basically inducing people to either one come to the race or participate in it. Later it was discovered that some of the rowers were not students. They were hired to try to, what, win the race right in. At Ohio State in the early 1950s, we got put on probation because we had football players that were supposed to show up for a job. They didn't show up, but they got paid. And there was a report that came out from a professor here, Professor Fullington, that said, you know what? It's time to pay the athletes. Some of the upside that was 1957 is when that report was published. So the point is, anytime there's been money and anytime there's been restrictions in college athletics around benefits, money, whatever it is, what do people do? They find a way to get around it just is. Right? And so what we've done with the House case settlement is we put a cap on it. It's 22% of all these revenue buckets. The average across the autonomy for conferences is a little over a hundred million. That produced 20.5 million this year. It goes up 4% a year based on the settlement terms. And then there's. Look in periods based on. Let's just say we do expand the CFP and there's new revenue, bam, you'd redo the calculation. Let's just say the big Ten or whoever redoes their TV deal, you redo the calculation. So it's across all autonomy for conferences that creates. But what happened is when we introduced collectives, when we introduced boosters, when we introduced donors, and we were all racing to this point. When we introduced front loading last year, where everybody was racing to get, you know, the biggest amount of money to solidify your roster before June 30th of 2025, the market outpaced the 22%. It just did that. That 22% number was calculated about three years ago. Well, what's happened in the last three years? Right. And so I, I just feel like anytime we've tried to restrict the environment around the benefits, it leads to people are they doing the right thing? And you know, people criticize, hey, what rules? There, there actually there are rules published, there are rule rules codified both by the House case settlements. You have a federal lawsuit, you have rules that have then been codified by the ncaa, which then has College Sports Commission oversight. And you can debate, you know, oversight and all these kind of things, but there are rules published. They are, they're on the books. And the question is, will they be enforced? What is that look in period going to be? We, we hear that there's some inquiries happening. And so my, my comment is, as we said here today is how do we develop a sustainable model for the future of college athletics? And how do we have structure where we, we govern the, the money pieces of it maybe without a cap? And, and that's hard to say and that maybe that's easy to say because we're at Ohio State, but anytime we restrict the money bill, it leads to what are people doing? And so that, that was my comment as we really thought about this the last two weeks, but even before this, as we're building out third party opportunities and all those kind of things, it, it just becomes, is this sustainable as we look two years out, three years out, 10 years out. And that's our job is to have a sustainable model for as long of a period as we can do.
- [07:28]
Bill Landis
Do you with, you got my, you got my mind spinning now about a world with no cap, like because some pro sports.
- [07:35]
Doug Lamoris
Right.
- [07:35]
Bill Landis
Yeah. Well, I'm wondering could, could you envision a world where maybe there is no cap, but athletic programs could be taxed by some entity that probably doesn't exist yet if they go over a certain threshold to cut to try to maintain a level of competitive balance, even though yourself, like Ohio State, has more money than a lot of other programs to kind of make sure that you don't have a LA Dodgers situation within college football.
- [07:59]
Ross Bjork
Right, right. You know that, that creates. Okay, what is that entity? Is it the Big Ten? Right. Because we're, we're more closely aligned and perhaps because all, all of this is antitrust. All of this is antitrust law that frankly we have been violating, you know, as an industry for a long time. Whether it's restricting the transfer piece, because we always could always. You can't Go to these schools. We could always. I remember filling out forms when in my early days as an athletic director, hey, so and so wants to transfer. Okay. They can't go to these schools. Right? Antitrust, capping money, capping scholarships. You know, we never allowed cost of attendance to be, you know, part of the scholarship. And then we allowed that, and everybody thought we were going to close down, and then we had the Alston money, and everybody thought we were going to go bankrupt. We've always found a way. So, yes, an uncapped market is very, very difficult, but who's to say what the value is? And what we've done is we've made this about nil, but it's really about performance. And what does Ohio State view the value of that young man or that young woman? And then what does Oregon or what does USC or what does my former place, Texas A M or Ole Miss or. So that's really. The market is how do they value that? And to try to restrict that, I think we've. We put ourselves, you know, back in the crosshairs of again, what is a sustainable model. So you'd have to find an entity, you'd have to come up with some agreement with the athletes, and let's face it, the agent world would be involved in this, right, because they. They have inserted themselves. And we want our athletes to have representation to protect themselves. So it's a complicated web that you'd have to figure out to get to the final point. And to me, if we don't try to get there and we don't try to solve it, then we're not leading. And so I'm going to keep beating this drum that we have to solve. This time is of the essence, and we need to have a sustainable model for our enterprise because what we do is great. We go to class, we play games. Let's not lose that. Let's not lose the academic mission, and let's not lose the playing game element. That. That part is what we do every single day.
- [10:25]
Doug Lamoris
So let's. I don't know if we get a ballpark here.
- [10:27]
Ross Bjork
Am I throwing you guys off track?
- [10:30]
Doug Lamoris
I mean, like, we're going to get. We sound like, all right, well, now we have 19 questions instead of 17. Summer of 2022, Ryan Day says it's gonna take $13 million to retain our roster. Summer of 2024, the number that's out there is 20 million. You're saying, like, it's outpacing, right? It's ballpark. What. What's a. All in Rev Share, nil, everything. What's a ballpark number for a national title contending college football roster right now?
- [10:57]
Ross Bjork
Yeah, I'll, I'll let others speak to that, Doug, because last time I got, I got in trouble because I was trying to actually clarify something that it was way, it was way above what, what I clarified. And so, because that just leads to, well, what's the narrative? You know, well, they should have won. They, oh, they had all the money in the world, they should have won this. You know, it's really hard to say, right? So if you do take the 20.5 million and for us we're allocating that to four sports, right? Obviously football, men's and women's basketball. And then we chose volleyball. We think that could be a sport that can thrive here at Ohio State. And then how do you build out these third party opportunities to, to one pass the system, right? To report, we, we have to look our athletes in the eye and say, you know what, you're going to report this deal because if you don't, you could be ineligible and we do not want to put our athletes, you know, in harm's way. So I, I don't know what the numbers are. You hear things, you know, there's all kinds of websites that have aggregated nil values of athletes and you know, this roster is worth this. But if you see things like, and I'll just use names, you know, Brendan Sorsby, entice them. So just take those two guys, right? Very public processes, very public numbers. So it gets to the point, Bill, about if those things are being thrown out there, again, how do we govern the money? And so is it 30 million, 40 million th. Those are the things that are being thrown around there. But if the 20.5 is a cap, how are you producing $20 million of other third party deals that didn't have to pass that? That's going to be the question in the test as we move into this sort of, this next phase of this nil era, if you will.
- [12:50]
Doug Lamoris
Are you, is Ohio State, obviously with the rev share, you're spending the 20.5, right? You're spending every nickel you can spend in that. How you allocate it, right? Mostly for football, but you have those four sports. Is Ohio State then on top of that, with it, with the, the, the nil opportunities, Are you distributing, spending everything you can at this point? Are you maxing out everything that is possible there or is there more that could be done that is not being done by strategy, by choice, by rule, following whatever that would be at this point.
- [13:28]
Ross Bjork
Yeah, yeah. Yes. We are maximizing every possible, you know, scenario. All kinds of different partners from, you know, our multimedia partner Learfield, from our partner Nike to other partners that we have that all see, you know, where this is going. And they, and they want to help and they want to align themselves with our brand. Of course, Ohio State, you know, we're the biggest brand in college sports and the metrics back that up. And they want to align with our, with our athletes because of the way they represent and the, the exposure that the athletes can bring to their company or their partnership. And then, and then there's new opportunities. Right? And we're, we're out there in the market. We're talking to companies, we're talking to, you know, donors who are Buckeyes who have a company that can turn into a marketing deal. So there still can be an upside as we grow the enterprise, as we grow the buckets in each of these parts. And, and you know, we're looking at all kinds of creative ways. You know, look, we, we sell the most amount of merchandise, you know, when that logo gets sold, we have the biggest. So how do we turn some of those opportunities, you know, into nil deals? How do we, you know, memorabilia, autographs, appearances, those things can pass. You know, the system are taking our, you know, training camp, you know, in August and can you turn that into, you know, solely an nil platform Again? All of the, all of those things. The big Ten, you know, the, the big ten enterprise and the private capital piece. The private capital piece sort of got set aside right now that's on the shelf. But we should be doing Big Ten enterprises and we should be really pressuring the big Ten. And they're doing it, they're doing a great job of mapping this out is how do we create opportunities to the Big Ten that our athletes can have nil opportunities. So everything's being pursued to try to grow all of this. And that's what we're trying to maximize.
- [15:27]
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- [16:21]
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- [16:54]
Doug Lamoris
Is it more like, hey, this is how much money we have in nil opportunities to spend on the roster and you know, a number or is it more like, hey, this, there's a, a player X's out there that we really like and we can give him 200,000 of rev share, but we're going to have to find another 200,000 of nil to get him to come there, make some calls, go find that extra 200,000 of nil. Is it, is it, you know, the number or is it every opportunity you seek out the money to make it work?
- [17:25]
Ross Bjork
It's both. It's both.
- [17:26]
Bill Landis
Okay, right.
- [17:27]
Ross Bjork
We, we, we, we knew numbers kind of going into the cycle and then you're adapting, you know, along the way, based on need, based on priority, based on roster, you know, fulfillment, you know, the coaches obviously are deciding who's the best fit. You know, can these guys play? Where do we have holes? You know, so you've got there and obviously look at who we, who we have retained. That's a big part of this, right? You got roster retention and look at who we have retained. We have a championship caliber retainment, you know, of the talent and of the young men who represent our program. And then you have the high school piece, right? We 28 new guys coming into campus and boy, those guys are great young men. They look the part. I've seen some workouts and then you have the transfer piece. So yeah, all it's, it's all the above, Doug, in terms of how you're basically, you know, maneuvering, you know, in the port, especially in the portal world as we sit here, you know, today.
- [18:26]
Bill Landis
Ross, I think the thing that, that's most difficult for people to kind of like wrap their minds around is this, this third party nil piece of it. And obviously there are some very high profile mega donors, I guess you can call them other programs that seem to be footing the bill, more or less. For, for those programs, rosters. And it doesn't seem like Ohio State has that. But if, but if Ohio State did have that, I'm just. What would that look like? What are the machinations of that? Where does billionaire X funnel his money to pay for the Ohio State football roster? Does that go to Buckeye Sports Group? Does that person make deals with players individually? Like, I've just sort of always been fascinated by, okay, this person's super rich and wants to give their money now what?
- [19:10]
Ross Bjork
Yeah, so basically, if, if money were no object, how, how would it work? Yeah, right. If there's, if there is no budget, if there is no cap, again, based on the settlement of a federal lawsuit, based on rules that are published, based on not putting the athlete at risk, if the athlete signs an agreement, they have to report it. And then that agreement would be subject to a valid business purpose, be subject to a range of compensation. And there'd have to be some, you know, goods and services, you know, to the public. So a billionaire, you know, booster would have to satisfy you know, those elements of whatever that contract would look like. And then it, and then it's cleared or not or it's, it gets submitted and then you can rearrange it. If it didn't meet the right value, you can add more deliverables for the athlete. So that, that's how it would work. It would be a, basically a marketing arrangement for that athlete to represent, you know, a valid business purpose. And again, valid business purpose can be defined in lots of ways. It can be appearances, Right. For a company. It can be autographs. Right? That's, that's a business. Or it can be, you're representing company X. So that's how it would work, you know, in this, in this era.
- [20:30]
Bill Landis
Are you guys, hypothetically, if someone woke up tomorrow morning and said, boy, I got a lot of money, I'd love to funnel it into the Ohio State football roster. Are you guys set up for that to be a reality or. Because.
- [20:41]
Ross Bjork
Okay, absolutely. Yeah.
- [20:42]
Doug Lamoris
Yeah.
- [20:42]
Ross Bjork
Yep. Yeah. And we've had, you know, again, we've had people even in the last couple weeks say, hey, what can I do to help? And we're like, this is how you can help. So, yeah, I mean, things are, again, if you're not fluid and you're not nimble, that's why I have a stand up desk. Right? We got to be nimble. We got to be on our feet. And so it absolutely. Things can happen in real time where, you know, where people can support and you know, look all. Both Collectives are up and running because actually agreements can still get approved through collectives. So both collectives are up and running. The individuals involved in, in those organizations are active with us right now. They're. They're helping us again matchmake and solidify deals. And so we still have as many resources on the table as we can possibly get because people want to help. And so we're maximizing all of that.
- [21:37]
Doug Lamoris
I know as soon as this interview's over, Ross is gonna be like, bill, you got a name for me? What are you talking about? You got a whale out there that I don't know about? Where are the billionaires?
- [21:44]
Bill Landis
I'll play many millions and see where it goes.
- [21:46]
Doug Lamoris
Where are the billionaires? If a fan wants to give money, If I got, if there's a fan that's got 50 bucks, because there used to be buttons like on the 1870s Society and the foundation to donate, it doesn't seem like the buttons are there. How do you give. Is that. Do you want 50 bucks from a fan?
- [22:01]
Ross Bjork
Oh, absolutely.
- [22:02]
Doug Lamoris
Or not.
- [22:02]
Ross Bjork
You know, one of the things that I've challenged our staff with is, you know, we're such a large fan base, right? You know, there's, we, we actually have some data, but if you just take the state of Ohio, there's 12 million people in the state of Ohio, you know, roughly, we have about 12 million fans that we have sort of data on. And then you take, okay, who's truly engaged with us? We, we just hired a data analytic person last summer to really organize all of this. We just ran some data. We have 750,000 people that have activated some sort of ticket interaction with us in the last year. They either bought a ticket directly, they had a ticket transferred to them, or they bought on the secondary market. So if we just had 10% of that group, that'd be 70. Over 70,000 donors that could give $50, $100, $1,000, 100,000, a million, 10 million. Whatever the numbers are, it all adds up. So the best place, honestly, is to give to the Buckeye Club. Because what, what that does is that helps our budget, which then allows us to go out and seek marketing agreements or to be able to take our multimedia rights money or Nike money and deploy that to an athlete. So the best place that people can give is, is the Buckeye Club. And that, that's what we're going to be pushing. So we have some initiatives that we're going to roll out to try to, to try to reach some of this scale. And if you really think about the numbers, whether it's our alumni base at over 620, 630,000, whether it's those 12 million fans, whether it's the data set that I just mentioned. The scale's there. We just need to activate it and we need to engage it. And that's. That's going to be another realm that we'll go after as we roll out here in the spring.
- [23:56]
Doug Lamoris
So it's less of a direct transaction, though, than it used to be. It's no longer my 50 bucks might help buy a left guard. It's that my 50 bucks is going to Ohio State so that Ohio State can then better develop nil opportunities through its marketing program.
- [24:11]
Ross Bjork
Yeah, if you. If you. If you sort of just take the. Take the two collectives, right, that are the most prevalent 1870 foundation. They're. They're not as retail perhaps, as they. As they were before. Right. Because of the rules of engagement, again, they're still active, they're still up and running. We can still submit deals through those collectives, but it's not as retail to your point, as maybe, you know, it was before.
- [24:36]
Doug Lamoris
What can they do that you can't do in house, though? Like, what is the. What can a collective do that. That Learfield and the Buckeye Sports Group in house can't do?
- [24:46]
Ross Bjork
It gives us a little more flexibility, like I said, around, you know, memorabilia, around, you know, maybe some merchandise opportunities, maybe some appearances, a charity, again, that are still, you know, being. Being submitted and being approved. So it's just another avenue that provides, you know, a little more flexibility.
- [25:04]
Doug Lamoris
Are they any. Is the csc, like, more on top of stuff that's coming through in house? Because, like, Learfield just put out that guidance the other day, right. Of, like, reporter was like, hey, by the way, like, just so you know, Learfield's not out here just, like, handing out money. It's got to be real. Outside collectives is a little looser. Can they just. Can they. And maybe not my rule, but, like, in practicality, and I'm not even saying specifically at Ohio State, but in general.
- [25:29]
Ross Bjork
Right. Perhaps. Perhaps. Again, you know, what's the risk to the athlete if the athlete receives an agreement and they don't report it? You know, they're at risk. Right. But again, deals are still being approved that are, you know, managed by the collective. And it might. The collective might. They might contract with another company. That's okay. They might contract with the memorabilia, you know, company. That's okay. They might contract with a. An apparel company and Represent a line of clothing. Again, it's just another avenue. Is sort of a marketing agency that, you know, we can, we can utilize and we want those to remain active. And then look, we. For our other sports, you know, we're obviously, we're focused on football right now. Our, you know, our wrestling program, you know, they, they have great support, right? Our men's lacrosse program has great support from the community, from businesses, you know. And so again, this is not just a football endeavor. This is all of our sports, you know, trying to capitalize, you know, in this environment.
- [26:32]
Bill Landis
As this continues to grow. Grow, I guess would be the word. I guess you can say spiral too, if you wanted to. And these contracts, for lack of a better word, contract negotiations with athletes become more and more sophisticated and larger numbers. Do you think, Ross, that major college football programs need to have sort of like in house contract experts? You know, no offense to college football GMs, but a lot of them are guys who are just personnel guys who did a really good job and rose to the level. I don't think there are a lot of football coaches who have MBAs. Like, do you need people in the building well versed in contract negotiations to be handling that part of the business of college football now?
- [27:15]
Ross Bjork
Yes, and we have that. We, we have our office of General Counsel, our office of Legal affairs here at Ohio State. We actually have a contract, not, not an attorney, but a contract operator, operations person that's embedded into our athletics and business advancement unit. Logan Hittle is our associate AD for, for Nil. He obviously is well versed in this whole landscape, and so, you know, he provides a lot of support. Obviously, Mark, you know, Mark Pantoni and the, the football general manager position, you know, he's got both evaluation and he does, and he does contract negotiation. So I feel like we're. We're in a good spot, but the, the volume as we move in, you know, not only now, but also in the new era. If we need to add resources, we. We will.
- [28:07]
Bill Landis
You.
- [28:08]
Ross Bjork
You have to do that. We're actually going to hire another NIL person to, to support Logan. That, that job search is in process right now. So yes, that, that expertise, we, we have a lot in house. If you need to go external, you can always get that. But you're. You're exactly right. These are, these are complex negotiations now that I think last year probably not as much, but this year definitely, you know, a lot more complex.
- [28:39]
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- [29:34]
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- [30:06]
Bill Landis
Is there anything on the agent side of this that you think needs to be reined in or have somebody take a look at in terms of who is actually permitted to represent some of these athletes?
- [30:18]
Ross Bjork
You know there, there is some, there's state laws. Each, each state has different sort of agent registration, agent disclosure, mainly around player representation for employment contracts at the next level, NBA, pro, whatever. There's not a lot of sort of oversight on the marketing side. So yes, I, I believe that we need to pursue some kind of action to at least there's some sort of educational element, some sort of certification element to the agency world. I think that's best for the athlete. I think that protects them. How that gets codified, that that's the challenge. Right. Because we're, we're living in a state by state era of state by state law. That gets me into the congressional pursuit and you know, we've talked about that a little bit, but I think that's one piece that we could get federal oversight on is some sort of agent environment to make sure that again that everything's transparent, that these athletes have all the representation that's done the right way, that we know who we're dealing with on the other side. I think that would be very, very healthy for the enterprise.
- [31:30]
Doug Lamoris
What did you think of the Daman Williams contract situation at Washington and the idea that there was a Big Ten template of a contract that then was used to like say hey, you signed this and this is going to be enforced. What did you think of how that went down?
- [31:44]
Ross Bjork
Yeah, obviously we were all paying attention, you know, to that dynamic. And, you know, it sounds like there was sort of two layers, right? You had the, you had the revenue share contract. And again, I don't know all the details. I, I just probably read the same thing. You guys read a revenue share contract with the institution and then some kind of marketing contract with a third party, whether it was a sponsor directly, who knows who that was with. And so it sounded like that Washington had some protections in there that had, you know, you can call it buyout language, liquidated damages. Who knows how it was described, but it sounds like there was some things in there that would have caused, you know, the young man, his family, whoever, to pay some sort of liquidated damages. And after they thought about it, they said, you know what, we should stay put. Very complicated. I think the, the agency represented both the player and the coach. You know, so there's, there is crossover in the industry like that that I think people should be careful with. But we were all fascinated. But I don't think that, I don't think that was going to be a tipping point for our enterprise. I don't know what the next tipping point is in all of this, but I don't know if that was going to be a tipping point. I mean, you've seen the, the case between a young man who went from Georgia to Missouri, you know, now he's back out in the transfer portal. There was a young man that went from Wisconsin to Miami and there was a legal dispute. I don't know what the next tipping point is, but I don't think that one was going to be it. I think there's still going to be more to come that gets us to a place where we get that sustainable model.
- [33:26]
Doug Lamoris
Does Ohio State have rev share contracts that include buyout language or any kind.
- [33:32]
Ross Bjork
Of similar protections based on the situation? Yes.
- [33:36]
Doug Lamoris
Yes. Okay, so. And you would do. Are rev the rev share part of it when it is direct payment from the university to a player, is that a more enforceable contract and deal than the outside nil things?
- [33:51]
Ross Bjork
They're, they're both legal contracts, you know, so I think the enforceability, you know, goes, goes both ways. Right. The athlete's going to have protections. If it's a revenue share agreement, the institution will have protections. And then if it's a third party, then the, the other party to that contract with the athlete is going to have protection. So to me, they're all sort of binding in some way shape or form. And then, and then you. There's always exit provisions, whatever that is, right? If, if it is buyout language, if it is just the contract ceases the moment it's, you know, it's terminated. So there's all kinds of layers to it that, you know, fit whatever, you know, whatever the situation is. Okay.
- [34:31]
Doug Lamoris
I do think in the end, Ross, for, For the. So many people who care so passionately about Ohio State football, they hand out trophies for, for winning football games. They don't hand out trophies for following rules. And this is a situation right now where, like, best intentions, but if not everybody's doing it like that, that can be a tough balance, I think, to try to explain to fans, because we just came out of an era of where it felt like, man, there are some people who are following rules more than other people. And now if, like I thought, oh, well, now we have. Congress acted. We have. It's set now, but here we are again. We're still having debates about who's following more rules or more closely or following them better. And, and that seems like it has a chance to affect the winning.
- [35:19]
Bill Landis
I don't know.
- [35:20]
Doug Lamoris
There's. Should there be a trophy for following the rules the best? Like, it's just a hard spot. Ross?
- [35:26]
Ross Bjork
Yeah, look, it's. I mean, I've talked to. I don't know how many ads I've talked to in the last 10 days. You know, look, every. Everyone lives in a glass house, right? We can all throw stones at each other and say, oh, my gosh, we're gonna live by this. And so, and so over here is doing this. You know, the, the fascinating thing about this, this era is everybody said they want structure and they want to make sure that we know exactly what the playing field is. But again, back to what I said at the very beginning of this. You introduce money and you introduce pressure to win. It causes people to act a certain way. So I, I don't know how to argue with people that say that we're bad people because we want to do it the right way. I don't know how to combat that. All I know is my number one job every single day that I wake up is to do what's in the best interest of the Ohio State University and never, ever put the university at risk or put. Especially put our athletes at risk. I can't look an athlete in the eye and say, I'm going to put you at risk because of this. I. I can't do that. And so I, I don't know how to argue with that, that's why I think as an enterprise, if we don't have a sustainable model around the economics, in the finances, around the academics, around the calendar and the structure, and the fact that we're playing games that are more popular than ever, then, you know, what, what are we doing? What are we doing? So I, you know, I can't argue with people, but I, I know what my duty is. I know what the institution expects. I know that I, I can't look a family or an athlete in the eye and say, don't worry about this. You're at risk, but don't worry about it. You know, I, I don't know who can live that way. But we, we do need to get to a Time is now. I, I'm going to beat this drum with the. Within the Big Ten nationally. Time is now that we really, really not have to come together and figure this out as an enterprise. Because if we're going to be doing this the next five years, then again, what are we doing to, to make sure that we have the right system?
- [37:56]
Doug Lamoris
Okay, so I know you're not. We're way past like 20 million from the summer of 2024, though, right? Like, we're way, like we're, we're, like you said, like, we're outpacing it. We're not outpacing it by 10. The market's like, practically doubling every year. Is it not like it's, we're way out there. Right. We're way out.
- [38:14]
Ross Bjork
Like I said, like I said three years ago, we thought, actually the negotiations on the House case settlement started, I believe, sometime in 2000. Early. Either late 2022, early 2023. And it was way less than 22%. Way less. But again, all of this was new. No, nobody knew. So, yes, we, we have out the phrase we have outpaced the market. Yes, that, that's accurate. So I'll let others decide on numbers.
- [38:47]
Doug Lamoris
If you thought, for instance, that, that you should be able to give 40%, should be the rev share number. Not, not this 22%. What would have to happen to, to allow that to be the case?
- [38:58]
Ross Bjork
Yeah, I don't know. We'd have to work with a lot of attorneys. We'd have to work obviously with our presidents and our chancellors. We'd have to work with our conference, you know, the, the five conferences. The PAC 12 was a defendant in the House case settlement along with the other four. PAC 12 obviously, is a different era. So it really have to be the four conferences that have to be the NCAA to say, okay, how do we have a look in, if you will, on the, on the settlement? And so logistically I, I don't know how it would work but, but again, if you raise the, if you raise the, the number, what's going to happen? People are going to try to go above the number because we would put a restriction on the money and anytime we put a restriction on the money, that's where we are. So okay, it's complicated, very complicated. But I, I, I think we have to continue to, to try to map this out.
- [39:59]
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- [41:27]
Doug Lamoris
So you're in favor of no restriction on the money?
- [41:31]
Ross Bjork
Maybe, maybe. But again, anytime you've governed it, you've led to this chaos. And so having an unlimited number, that's hard, that's hard to do. And it's easy maybe for us to say because we, we have large revenue. But how do we have a system where we can sit down either with the athletes or with, or some enterprise and talk about what's the right system, whether that's a cap, whether that's an employment model, an independent contractor model. There's lots of options. But we, we have to create the structure to get to the discussion to then create the options.
- [42:12]
Doug Lamoris
Because that's, that's something that always makes me the, the most upset is like everybody, like other sports figured out, why does our sport have to be chaos? Because you're talking about no One's disputing it as chaos. Like, why can't we figure it out? We love this sport, as you said, the Saturdays are wonderful. We have wonderful young people putting their brains and bodies on the line to entertain thousands and millions of people. And it's like.
- [42:31]
Ross Bjork
But.
- [42:32]
Doug Lamoris
But. Yet we're stuck in chaos. But it sounds like the only. It's got to be collectively bargained, right? How do you figure it out? Every other league, you figure it out. With collective bargaining, everybody gets to the table together and makes a set of rules. I don't know how you get there otherwise.
- [42:44]
Ross Bjork
And the reason why it hasn't been figured out is because, again, we're the only country in the world that has education, higher education mixed with sports. There's no other system like it, you know, in the world. And so we're not professional athletes. We don't have, you know, a players association. We don't have an employment model. So that's why we've been. We've been in this era. And really, I think if we really would have adapted to a lot of the changes in technology, especially video games, social media, I think we could have put ourselves in a much better, stronger position to. To really adapt to the modern era. And we never did. We. We left it a restrictive environment for way too long.
- [43:30]
Bill Landis
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:31]
Doug Lamoris
Reactive, not proactive, man. All right, so it's up to you, Ross. I think it's down to you. You got to fix it, man. I don't know who else is going to do it. The AD at Ohio State. Go. Go solve everybody's problems. Thank you for doing that, by the way. Yeah, we appreciate the. The work, man. We appreciate your time here on this show. We know you're busy. Ross, the Ohio State athletic director. And the reason that it matters is because you have. You have young. Young people putting their brains and bodies on the line, and then you have millions of people who care so passionately about what Ohio State and what college football and college athletics is about. And you understand that. We understand that. And we're just trying here to, like, represent their views and their concerns and. And, you know, but in the end, Ohio State's still, you know, pretty good spots, right? I mean, you guys are all right. You're all right.
- [44:15]
Ross Bjork
That's right. Look, we're always going to be on the right side of the equation, right? From an economic, you know, standpoint, there's no question about that. And that's the thing, you know, the opportunity that we provide to athletes, I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing. I mean, I see our young people and they want to go to class, they want to play games at a high level. Do they want some money in their pocket? Who, who doesn't? Right? So how do we do that? But also just the opportunity for them to grow. I mean, that, that is so special. And you know, we can't lose that. We, if we lose that piece of it, then again, we have to ask ourselves, you know, what are we doing? So we're going to keep trying. That's all we can do. Keep working on behalf of these athletes and the institution. Thanks for having me on, guys.
- [44:58]
Doug Lamoris
Thanks, Ross. Bill Landis, I'm Doug Lame Reese. Thanks again to Ross Bjork from Ohio State. And that was the Bill and Doug Show.
- [45:10]
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- [45:17]
Ross Bjork
Oh, what a shot.
- [45:18]
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- [45:23]
Bill Landis
Time.
- [45:25]
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- [45:26]
Ross Bjork
Bam.
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