The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
My friends and I celebrate Bobby Bonilla Day every year in the group text—one of my favorite quirky sports things. My guy still has 10 more payments to go lol.
College Sports (Football)
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The best part about the whole Bobby Bonilla thing is they offered him this deal, which includes a pretty good 8% interest rate, because they wanted to invest the money in a Bernie Madoff run account instead of pay the $5.9 million up front to Bonilla. Madoff promised them a double digit return...
Overall Bonilla will get $29.8 million with the interest on the deferred payments. Not bad!
I have a hard time believing this is above Josh's paygrade. Josh can run circles around most of the members of the Board of Trustees who are political appointees; especially when the business of sports is involved.
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
As a formerly huge nascar fan, I see some similarities between this & what nascar did 20 years ago that serves as a cautionary tale. In 2001, nascar went to a new tv deal with Fox & NBC. Mega money deal that in the short term provided significantly increased exposure for the sport.
However, with that big tv $, the tv executives had ideas about how to tweak the sport & change it to make it rival the NFL in terms of tv ratings. In reality what they did is spend the next 20 years chipping away at what made the sport great & ran off fans & tv viewers by the millions. It will never be what it once was. At track attendance & tv viewership is sometimes less than half what it was 20 years ago.
While this wasn't a company buying a stake in the business, it does serve as a cautionary tale. If someone from outside is dumping 2.4 billion into your operation, they are most likely going to want some influence at the decision making table. And if the league becomes beholden to that money, it could create some bad changes in the fundamentals of what made college sports great.
I realize some of that has already happened, but bringing in outside $ & spreading it unevenly (presumably based on past performance) sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. It's one of those fork in the road kind of deals where once you go down this path it's awfully hard to go back & walk away from the money spigot.
However, with that big tv $, the tv executives had ideas about how to tweak the sport & change it to make it rival the NFL in terms of tv ratings. In reality what they did is spend the next 20 years chipping away at what made the sport great & ran off fans & tv viewers by the millions. It will never be what it once was. At track attendance & tv viewership is sometimes less than half what it was 20 years ago.
While this wasn't a company buying a stake in the business, it does serve as a cautionary tale. If someone from outside is dumping 2.4 billion into your operation, they are most likely going to want some influence at the decision making table. And if the league becomes beholden to that money, it could create some bad changes in the fundamentals of what made college sports great.
I realize some of that has already happened, but bringing in outside $ & spreading it unevenly (presumably based on past performance) sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. It's one of those fork in the road kind of deals where once you go down this path it's awfully hard to go back & walk away from the money spigot.
Just because it's above his paygrade doesn't mean he won't be heavily involved. I've worked on a lot of things where the ultimate decision is above my paygrade, but ultimately my bosses go with my recommendations because I am the person closest to the situation.
it’s simply not Josh’s decision to make
i’m sure he has an informed opinion , but the BofT also has counsel . it’s up to them, not Josh
It’s not a matter of knowledge but of financial authority limits and accountability. He’s a wonderful visionary leader and plays a key role but won’t be the decider.
Josh manages to a budget granted and approved by the university. Seems unlikely he could borrow $100m on behalf of the university (and thus the state) for example. Similarly, he probably can’t sell assets of that magnitude. Any position in any organization has defined limits to its financial authority. At some point even a CEO must go to the board of directors and Josh isn't even the CEO.
True, but numbers can tell us what we want. For instance, I'm sure they have a revenue model with scenarios showing how much we get up front compared to how much we'd be giving up in the future.
If Illinois needed this up-front money desperately, we could easily show a scenario that says we get $150M up front, but this new entity will help the B1G grow revenue so well that over the next 10-20 years that the added value will more than make up for giving away the equity stake - even if we think that scenario is really not the most likely case.
Totally understand, but I'm sure he has thoughts about the possible cash infusion.
We have debt of over $300M for the athletic department. I'm sure he could say something like that is unsustainable, and if we get $150M or whatever that number is up front, we will use it to lower our debt, and therefore our debt servicing payments by X, and if we don't do that, we're screwed in 5+ years or whatever that might be.
That said, I have no clue how the debt vs pledged donations timelines work, so we may have the debt covered already.
can 2 schools outta 18 stop this ?
must it be unanimous?
I personally am against it UNTIL I hear a valid argument for it .
it kinda smells like when Daley sold off all the street parking revenue streams and the skyway .
i’m all in favor of privatization of city services (expenses) , but not in favor of privatization of city income producing assets .Same with university stuff
must it be unanimous?
I personally am against it UNTIL I hear a valid argument for it .
it kinda smells like when Daley sold off all the street parking revenue streams and the skyway .
i’m all in favor of privatization of city services (expenses) , but not in favor of privatization of city income producing assets .Same with university stuff
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To your point - my niece got married in Indianapolis last summer. It was Brickyard weekend - I thought OMG - what were they thinking? Of course, my perspective expected 250K-300K at the race (like the two times I attended 25 years ago). Turns out, they draw less than the average Colts game now. I think we saw about a dozen NASCAR fans the entire weekend.
Be very careful on who owns your brand - the goose that lays the golden eggs is not immortal.
Maybe it would make sense as a purely financial transaction, but beware of granting any operating authority.
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RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
Even better… after the Madoff crash, the Mets asked Bonilla to restructure the deal. He said “uh… no.”The best part about the whole Bobby Bonilla thing is they offered him this deal, which includes a pretty good 8% interest rate, because they wanted to invest the money in a Bernie Madoff run account instead of pay the $5.9 million up front to Bonilla. Madoff promised them a double digit return...
Overall Bonilla will get $29.8 million with the interest on the deferred payments. Not bad!
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
The Holiday Bowl tinkered with the idea of playing in Saudi Arabia? GTFO.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
It always boils down to one thing...it's give me mine now, even if undervalued, because it will be some other guy's problem in xx years when the deal is up.
The underlying, intelligence, honesty, or any other human factor is immaterial. Dishonesty or ignorance just assures more will be skimmed off the top, but no one can resist the lure of the money today. The fact that USC and Michigan are doing so just illustrates that they see some different path to get even more than they would otherwise. They have business schools too.
The next PE proposal will just have them moving up a tier at the expense of the newer (non-USC) members...or worse, all other members including us.
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Depending on the date, I may go
You're being awfully rough on Josh Whitman.
boy, if you thought the Bahamas Bowl had an attendance problem………..
obviously the Saudi Royals underwrite this to make it profitable for the schools & bowl committee , but I draw the line at our border for bowl games . enuf is enuf
I believe he’s saying it’s just human nature to reach for the shiny deal. Everybody finds the opportunity to become the transformational hero tempting! Sometimes —- but not necessarily by Josh in this case —- the noble legacy motive is combined with dishonesty or ignorance. Big deals are risky even with great leadership and downright dangerous with dishonest or ignorant leadership.
How many MA deals (and even ordinary reorganizations) fail miserably long after the architect is promoted, leaving the collapse for his successor?
And I am surprised that only 2 schools were opposed. Especially, as has been reported, in regards to the uneven distribution of money. I would think those schools on the lower end of the distribution money would also object.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
I’m not saying anything about Josh Whitman. I’m saying it’s human nature to grab the shiny thing now, regardless of one’s integrity. Josh is one of the best ADs in the country.
I think any agreement allowing unequal distributions is wrong and opens a door to later shenanigans. Just off the top of my head, you don’t think partnering with the California Retirement System might generate some future requests to favor the schools from that state?
Just an example, I know they are different organizations but politics makes strange bedfellows, to quote an old phrase.
Do the cheerleaders get to go?
The Vandy OC is the goods. Don't think Boyd's size would bother him in the least.
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