RE Show: Jay Bilas - Hour 1 (8-7-2023)

This is the moment of the year. This is the Rich Eisen Show. We're getting football back. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles.

I'm not talking about quarterback competition. I'm talking about the freaking New York Jets. Yeah man, I'm loving my time here. I mean, I've just embraced everything New York. The mayor of New York. Today's guests, ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Villas, NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah, executive producer of Hard Knocks Ken Rogers. And now, it's Rich Eisen.

Yes it is. Well hey everybody, welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show. It is a great day in our neighborhood. 844-204-rich. Number to dial here on our Los Angeles-based program. We do say hello to two Rich Eisen Show radio affiliates.

Smart enough to join the party. We say hello to 101.9 FM 1260 AM The Horn in Austin, Texas. Good to have you now part of the Rich Eisen Show world. And then 1015 FM and 1380 AM The Cat in Daytona Beach, Florida. Good to have The Cat.

We've got The Horn and The Cat part of this thing going on right here. On The Rich Eisen Show radio network, we say hello to our Roku audience as always. The Roku channel audience, 12 to 3 every day on channel 210. On the Roku channel, which is free on all Roku devices, select Samsung Smart TVs. Also free on Amazon Fire TV. Free on the Roku app, the Roku channels on the Roku app.

And the Roku channel is free at therokuchannel.com. We say hello to our podcast audience listening whenever they darn well please as well. Good to see you over there, Chris Brockman, fresh back from the Jake Paul, Nate Diaz set to in the Metroplex. Good to have you over there, sir. I'm also announcing that I'm also joining the Big Ten. Okay, very good. See you guys later.

Maybe that's where Del Tufo is. Good to see you, Jason Feller. How are you, sir? Hi Rich, I'm good, how are you?

And TJ Jefferson, fresh back from? Being on my couch all weekend with my grades, man. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was awful. I'm sorry to have bothered you on Saturday night on my way back from Canton. I mean, and you were yelling at me too. I was definitely not yelling. I was already not feeling good.

Definitely not yelling. I feel better today and I'm happy today. I was walking and talking through O'Hare Airport, making a connection so I could be home in time for this program. Good to have everybody right here on the show. Jay Bell is first up and then we're going to be talking about college expansion in a matter of moments with you at home and then with Jay in about 20 minutes time. Daniel Jeremiah is going to join us, my colleague who I sit next to at the combine and the draft. He has been making the rounds of the training camp world and he is fresh back from Steelers camp and Chargers camp and he was in Colts camp as well. So we'll ask him about Anthony Richardson potentially starting the season. Preseason football writ large begins in three days on NFL Network and NFL Plus.

You can watch a ton of games live there. So lots to talk about with him and then tomorrow night Hard Knocks debuts. We bet.

And we've got the executive producer of Hard Knocks Ken Rogers on the program in hour number three. I don't have my I Heart HK t-shirt that Coach Sala was wearing at his first press conference. I didn't get one of them. Oh come on.

I didn't get one of them. But we'll talk with him about what we expect to see, why the Jets push back. I'll definitely ask him about the quarterback series. It's apparently maybe going to start to look at second stringers, third stringers, practice squatters. I don't know what's going on with that one. But Ken Rogers will join us in hour number three of this program. Overreaction Monday lurks on our rundown as well.

844-204-rich is the number to dial. Can't wait to tell my children one day that there used to be something called the Big Ten with 10 actual teams in it. I'll tell them that one day. The Big Ten, as you know, that currently has 18 teams in it and may soon have, who knows, 20 teams in it. They'll still be called the Big Ten because they understand branding. Or maybe they should just call themselves X. Big X. You know, because that's what you do is you take something that is completely well known and fully branded and just call it X. I think it'd be a big factor of 10. I don't know. It could be Roman numerals. Big X.

Your kids won't believe that story. Well, I mean, right now the Big Ten has 18 teams. The Big 12 has 16 teams. And the Pac-12 has four. What did I say that's crazy? How about this one?

How about this one? The Big Ten that has a team or a school named Northwestern that exists in the state of Illinois now has two teams from the actual Northwest within it. A lot of people are sitting there going, what's Northwestern?

Sitting there in Illinois on the Big Ten. I don't even think Evanston is on the Northwest of anything. And as a matter of fact, this conference now has two schools from the actual Northwest. Well, one of them isn't truly in the Northwest. Washington and Oregon now. Eugene's there. Yeah, Eugene.

This was going down while Susie was sitting in this chair on Friday with Cal Bear Amy Trask sitting in the guest seat. Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State are the only Pac-12, Pac-10, Pac-8, now Pac-4 teams left standing. And according to Brett McMurphy, he sent out a tweet literally about a half an hour before we came on the air that just jumped right at me from the Action Network HQ. How committed was the Pac-12 to staying together? Following last Tuesday's meeting with the commissioner, George Klyavkov, a Pac-12 president contacted a Big 12 president and asked if the Big 12 quote could take all nine of us except for Washington State and Oregon State. Source told the Action Network HQ. What? Poor Oregon State and Washington State.

I mean, poor Valis is lovely. Holy Ryan, leave Batman. I mean, everybody's out for it right now. Everybody's in for it themselves. The question is, does this mean a softball team from Rutgers or or Eugene, Oregon, has to travel all the way across the country to play the other? Is that what's happening? Yeah.

OK, swimming gymnastics. All in the name of trying to keep their programs alive because this is where the football money is telling everybody to be. I mean, is there going to be basically a West Coast swing for Penn State? Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State. Are we going to bring the tutors with us? Is that what we're going to do?

Like a four like that's that's a a four school. In the in the basketball season, a four school West Coast trip, West Coast trip, just like the Yankees play the Angels and the A's and the Mariners. They did, but they're professional baseball players.

That would take 10, 12 days. They're not, best I can tell. Trying to figure out their bio. Econ. What are we doing here? I'll tell you what we're doing. We're creating a professional sports league.

That's what we're doing. I told you when the Super League crapped out. Across the pond, as I'm mandated to say, as a sportscaster here in America, when that thing crapped out, what did we talk about on this show? The one sport that could Super League it up is college athletics. And the SEC struck first as our friends now listening to the Rich Eisen Show on 101.9 FM, the horn. In Austin, Texas, they know they were the first ones to fire the first realignment shot with Oklahoma going to the SEC. As they will do next year, leaving the Big 16.

And then. The two schools here in Southern California decided to join the Big 10. We've been in Big 10 country for about a year. Feels different. Notre Dame's been sitting there playing cat and mouse. I guess they'll just sit there and be themselves. What do they care? They've played it right, honestly, this whole time.

Which is what? Having NBC pay them as much money as they can get out of the Peacock network? Independent, make their own schedule. They're not behooving to anybody or anything. And everybody still wants to play them? Yep. And they're still relevant nationally. They're always in the championship playoff mix. Well, I guess if their check from NBC Universal is above what every member school in the Big 18 and Big 16.

And the SEC are giving to their schools. Makes sense. Stay put. You go wherever you want to go and you're making that as long as the economics, because that's what it is. It's economics. As Jay Bilas is going to tell you in about 10 minutes time.

Then then that makes sense. They'll stay independent. And then the question is, is what happens with the ACC?

Are they just going to stay put as well? Does Clemson and Florida State join the Big 10 to wrap this thing up and make the Big 20? And interestingly enough, maybe the Big 10 throws Stanford and Cal a life raft. And the Big 10 has six schools out West. And they decide which other four current Big 10 teams that might be geographically sound enough to be as close to the West Coast as possible.

Let's just choose Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota just off the top of my head. Put all of them in one conference division and everybody else in the other conferences division. You've got 20 teams in the Big 10. And with all due respect to Indianapolis, you play the Big 10 championship in the Rose Bowl. Just like, you know, the Western Division and an Eastern Division, just like it kind of used to be weird. But the Rose Bowl is now part of the college football playoffs that are coming. And I believe they've got a quarterfinal and a semifinal game in the next two years, and then we'll be part of the playoffs moving forward. As America's stadium that I like to call it may like to refer to themselves as something similar to that.

Because that's where it's all going. Who's in the college football playoff or not? And then at some point, the Big 20 or Big 18, the Big 16 or the Big 18 or the SEC with the ACC, if that still exists, and whatever the Pac-12 is trying to cobble together with the Mountain West and the AAC right now to try and stay alive, which is remarkable for a conference that 12 years ago signed a monster deal with the chance or hope to create their own network, only to have it all go completely flat and have them disappear from existence. The conference that gave us Kareem, Jackie Robinson, Bill Walton, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, you can keep going on and on to who's coming out of that Pacific Coast collegiate scene.

I could keep going on and on. That conference is dead. And these other conferences used to be known for just their 10 and 12 teams are pushing 20. And it's all going towards a college football universe that might now bring in the other sports.

Give me 64 teams, 70 teams, whatever you can relegate potentially between upper and lower football divisions. It's coming. It is one million percent coming because this bus is being driven by television dollars. And you know who's going to pay for it? You. Yeah, you, Jay Feller.

Everybody else out there. It's called direct to consumer. Everybody is going in that direction where you, the sports fan, if you want to see it, it's going to be out of your pocket because you're cutting cords. We're right here on the Roku channel. We're on Roku.

I mean, there are apps everywhere on this platform. You can pretty much see every sporting event you want to see right here on Roku, which we're thrilled to say. I'll tell you what, if it's going to cost me money to see Michigan and Ohio State. Because guess what? Soon Fox might put their sports direct to consumer and all of that stuff. That's the way it's going. Why wouldn't a team start their own streaming channel?

Hey, watch all of our games here on the Notre Dame app. Well, that's what's that's maybe why they're staying independent, but it's still not going to bring in as much money as the television companies are going to give them. You don't think?

No, not yet. Ten dollars a year? You don't think 10 million people are paying for that?

Watch Notre Dame? I don't know about that. We'll find out because that's the way this is going. It's the way it's all going.

And college football is leading that bus. Kind of went a little bit Howard Beale on you right there at the very end. That's a network reference.

Everybody's got to see that movie way ahead of its time. Long story short. This is the way it's going.

So I don't want to hear about NIL and kids making too much money with NIL. Get out of here with that noise. University presidents just said we are absolutely going to send a lacrosse team from UCF to Utah. We're going to do it. I don't even know if they have lacrosse, but we're definitely going to tell these kids, hey, up there in Eugene, you're going to Piscataway. Hey. Arizona and Arizona State kids, get ready.

You're going to Central Florida. I mean, come on. It makes no sense. Like I told you, the school Northwestern in the Big Ten sounded like, you know, back one in the day when Atlanta was in the NFC West. Like, what are you called Northwestern for?

There's a history to it. Now there's two teams from the actual Northwest in that conference. You could drive Orlando to Provo. It's only 34 hours. As the crow flies, a little bit faster. Jay Bilas, I'm sure, has a lot of two cents on this subject matter.

844-204 Rich being the number to dial. But hey, you know, we're going to be talking about it. And when these teams play each other, I mean, Oregon, Ohio State is a fascinating college football matchup.

Oregon, Michigan, Washington, Michigan. There's a huge history right there. So. 844-204 Rich is the number to dial here on the show. We'll talk about with Jay Bilas. We also have overreaction Monday. We also have Daniel Jeremiah on the latest from training camps across the country. He was at the Chargers scrimmage last night.

What will Kellen Moore's offense look like here in Los Angeles with Justin Herbert at the controls? And then Ken Rogers, the executive producer of Hard Knocks that debuts on HBO tomorrow night at 10 Eastern Time. He will be joining us here on the Rich Eisen Show. And then there's you at 844-204 Rich number to dial on this overreaction Monday edition of the program. Don't go anywhere.

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Take ownership of your health right now. Check it out. Drinkag1.com slash eisen. Back here on the show, 844-204-rich number to dial. Jay Bilas will join us in a couple minutes time when the radio audience returns here on the program.

So I will ask you your weekends. I saw some of your stuff on Instagram. I was going live a couple times just to give the fans of the show a taste of what we were up to down there on the screen.

That's great. It was you and our call screener Adam Chudwin and the guy to your left. Hashtag weird crew. Jay Felley.

Weird crew. Okay. How many times, who picked up, did anybody pick up dinner? Did you split the check three ways? I did actually. Did you really?

Yeah. Dinner. We didn't have dinner. We went to dinner with Allen Dallas. Oh yeah, that's true. Oh my God.

That's true. Allen Dallas came out and met up with us. And then you picked up dinner for four? I did.

I said, does this look like mold to you? And then it was a company expense. I don't know if you want to be doing that live on the air. What do you mean? He's not a businessman, Rich.

He's a businessman. I got it. Did you? We were discussing Christmas. Chris, did you at least say no? Come on. Did you at least give one of those?

Not at all. I thought we were going to split it actually. But you didn't say anything. If you thought you were going to split it, you could have taken your card out. Did you not take your card out?

Didn't have an opportunity to. Did he even go for reach? Did he go for the reach? Didn't flinch. Short arms and deep pockets.

T-Rex. I don't think that's how it accurately portrayed when it went down. Push back? I just said there was no opportunity.

He and me spoke up first and that's what happened. All right. Because he was pointing out the mold. Yeah. You don't have any business reason when there's mold in the. I don't have any business.

Why would you eat it in a spot with mold? Yeah, that's another thing. We noticed it after the fact. Okay, got it. Very good. The Rich Eisen Show, thankfully not the favorite choice of the IRS. Back here on the program.

844-204-rich number to dial. Right here on the Rich Eisen Show radio network where the live channel, the live Roku channel stream. Sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger is the right product for you.

Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Jay Billis back here on the Rich Eisen Show, otherwise known as an ACC guy, talking to a big 18 guy here on the program. How are you, Jay?

I am doing great, Rich. I am just much like you sitting to sitting listening to people think that the apocalypse is upon us when all this conference realignment has been going on for 30 years now. And they sound like like folks who miss mom and pop shops on the street.

They lament Costco coming in and then they love Costco when it gets there. So it's kind of a weird, weird time right now. Well, you know, because to me, this is the true what, lift the kimono moment? Because the last thing I heard or saw on any of these press releases is how there's going to be some sort of mentoring or tutoring on the no doubt what would probably be eight day, nine day, potentially four game West Coast swing now for Big Ten programs going out there. Right.

Like that's that's what's coming. This is professionalism. This is the professionalizing of sports on the collegiate level. Well, I agree, but this happened 30 years ago. And I believe that NCAA football and NCAA basketball has been essentially the NBA and the NFL for decades now. But now there's no denying it. There is no reasonable person could say with a straight face that this isn't pro sports.

And it has been for a long time. But, you know, the idea that with all this travel, the players are going to go through, that it's not the equivalent of the NBA or the NFL is laughably absurd. And it's equally absurd when you hear the recent Pac-12 presidents talk about why they decided to leave for the Big 12 or the Big Ten.

And they they some of them said, well, it's a it's it's for our players so that they can play on a bigger stage and have more exposure and stuff like that. That's not why they did this. You know, they did this for the money and for the business, long term sustainability of their business prospects, which is fine. I mean, this is you know, this is like typical American capitalism. And I have no problem with it.

I think it's fine. The only thing I have a problem with, like, you know, all these schools are market competitors against one another in this multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. They're individual market competitors. And then they group together by a conference and the conferences compete as market competitors. The only time and I believe this is true, the only time that the member institutions of the NCAA get together and act in concert is when they're trying to limit athletes. That's the only time they agree with each other.

The rest of it. They are direct competitors that are out for themselves, which is fine. But the other stuff is a federal antitrust violation. And and they're finding that out from the U.S. Supreme Court and they're going to find out again in this this house versus NCAA case, which goes direct to player compensation. Well, before we get to that, or maybe this is a bridge to that part of this conversation, Jay Billis, is the reason why the schools and presidents of the schools of the universities are act in concert about not paying the players is that is an insane cost. Just take a look at what salary caps are in the NBA and the NFL right now, or it's at least not insane cost, but at least it's much more than what a a four year one would say scholarship is. Right. I mean, like if you take a look at what what the NIL deals for the top players in both of these sports are right now and a four year full ride scholarship would be what?

Maybe if you're if we're being generous. Four hundred thousand dollars over four years. And so you take a look at the costs. And that's a no brainer for schools to not want to do that. The problem is, though, is they're asking the players to act like they're professionals based on schedules and travel and things of that nature. Jay. Right.

Yeah. But even if they weren't asking him to do that, it's it's illegal. I mean, you know, to me, there's a difference between value and cost. So we can argue about what the value of the scholarship is. But when you start thinking about how that cost is allocated, so the athletic department is is said to be paying for the scholarship and booking the scholarship as an expense. Well, where does that money go?

They pay it to the school. So it's like me saying for when my kids were in in in the house, you know, they're older now. But when they were in the house, me saying, well, you know, it cost me a certain amount to feed and clothe them and house them.

And I take that from one pocket and put it into the other. I mean, none of that makes any sense. And it would be the equivalent of me saying if somebody saying, hey, you make a lot of money as a broadcaster.

No, no, no. I really don't. Because, you know, ESPN pays me. But then I got to pay for my house and my cars and my country club and vacations and all that stuff. So at the end of this, I really don't have any money. That's what the schools are saying is we don't have any money.

And it's a lie. They built these gigantic facilities. They have athletic departments that are bigger than the Pentagon.

And they like to say, well, our profit isn't as big because of what we did. But but the athletic department is booking all these expenses and the amount of money they pay to the school. They pay them in scholarship. They pay the scholarship money to the school. They pay for building maintenance and food service to the school. And the school charges them an exorbitant price for those things.

It's kind of an absurd business model. But what went so of course, like to your point, since they haven't had to pay the athletes all these years, they talk about, well, it's going to be expensive. Well, it's going to put some some it's going to make some efficiencies come into play. They're going to say, do we really need twenty seven staff members for our basketball team? You know, they'll probably cut that down to twelve and some people are going to lose their jobs. But the acquisition of talent on the floor is a hell of a lot more important to them when they're going to have to pay. Then paying all these these people to be administrators and all this other stuff. It's horribly inefficient.

But I'm sorry. They're going to have to start paying these guys and sign them to contracts because it's going to be required by law. And their only hope is to go to Congress. So Congress says, all right, we'll give you an antitrust exemption. So you can continue with our blessing to violate federal antitrust laws you've been doing for over 100 years now.

But it's going to be a lot tougher for them to sit before Congress and beg Congress for that when they're cutting all these individual deals. You know, like like the, you know, blowing up the Pac-12, the USC and UCLA in the Big Ten. I mean, Rich, I had I had administrators reaching out over the over the weekend when this all happened, saying this is crazy.

I'm going, no, it's only crazy when somebody else does it. When you did it, it was fine. Like I played in an ACC that had eight teams, eight. And I grew up in Los Angeles when it was the Pac-8. And then the Big East expanded and took in all these schools for football.

Then the ACC raided it. Maryland went to the Big Ten. Nebraska went to the Big Ten. West Virginia is in the Big 12. I mean, this has been going on since the early 90s when Florida State went into the ACC.

And it actually went on before that, but just not as high a level. And it's only crazy when somebody else does it. When we do it, it's it's good business and it opened up new markets and look at the sustainability and all that stuff. And then it makes perfect sense. Somebody else does it. Then it's crazy. And I just sort of laugh at that that reasoning. How did this individual or individuals, when you responded via text by saying holding up a mirror, how did they respond to your text?

Was it new phone who dis or that ended the conversation or what was the response? No, I mean, I listen to it because I understand for a lot of folks of our generation, it's different. But I could say the same thing. Like, I can't watch baseball anymore.

The Astros are in the American League. Are you kidding me? Like, that doesn't make any sense.

You know, and I get it. It's different having you like I don't like seeing the Pac-12 go away. But if I really love tradition so much, I would have been really upset to have Duke no longer in the Southern Conference where they started.

You know, the ACC started in the late 50s and it stayed 18 up until the early 90s. But now these behemoth conferences are coming in and things are going to change and they have changed, but they've changed a lot. And every time something changes, doomsday is around the corner and, you know, people prognosticate doomsday.

And this thing just gets bigger and bigger and in a lot of ways, better and better. They said for years, can't have a playoff. And when when the media companies dangled a billion dollars in front of them, all of a sudden they got a 14 playoff. And now that more billions are coming, they're going to have a 12 team playoff. And it's not going to be a problem.

Everybody's going to love it. You know, we hated the ball games going away. They didn't go away. We have more ball games than ever. You know, this is there's a lot. I've really hesitated, Rich, over the years to use the term hypocrisy with college sports because I don't like I don't like sort of pinning people with that. I've always said there are a lot of contradictions that somehow that seems softer. But now you can't you can't avoid the term hypocrisy with with the way based on what these administrators say and then what they turn around and do.

It's it's horribly hypocritical. J. Bill is here in The Rich Eisen Show. So let's talk about the the crystal ball aspect of this and where it's all going. You mentioned before how, you know, efficiencies may come into play here and, you know, lowering staff numbers. You said, why does a basketball program need 27 staffers? And, you know, maybe slice that in half. What about if efficiencies start getting applied to, if you will, lesser revenue sports and there will be fewer college sports programs out there?

Is that, do you think, coming, Jay? No, no, I don't. Because what I think a lot of people miss in this is now one reason that they have so many sports now is because they have so much money. So my question has always been, what's the right number of sports? I think when I played at Duke, Duke had 13 varsity sports. Now they've got like 30. And that's sort of the around the number that most of the big conferences have, you know, 25 to 30.

Maybe the the FCC has the lowest number there in the 18 to 20 range. All these institutions are going to have whatever benefits them. But these lower sort of lower dollar sports, non-revenue sports, if you will, some call them Olympic sports, some call them country club sports. They all have scholarship limits. So baseball team, for example, Division One has 12 and a half scholarships.

That means about about 20 or more of those players on every roster are paying their own way. So that's a money making enterprise for for these schools and they retain those students. Athletes wind up staying more so than regular students do.

And retention is an issue for every university with their regular student population. So they make money off of sports. They claim that they don't, but they make money off sports and they're going to have what's in their interest. And recently, Stanford canceled like four sports in the last few years, but they canceled like synchronized swimming and archery, stuff like that, even though they have those things. But they're going to have what's in their interest to have. But the idea that we're just going to be football, basketball, women's basketball, softball and all that's going forward is is sort of laughably absurd. They're going to keep that stuff. And when some I think it was the last few years, Cal wanted to want to cancel their baseball program.

And the alums spoke up, protested and came up with the money and they're going to have what's in their interest to have. So I don't I don't take that as a threat at all. This is all just a lot of that. That's what I consider to be doomsday prognostications. And they've been saying that for years.

They said it with NIL. We're going to have to cancel sports. When there was unlimited food, we're going to have to cancel sports.

Dogs and cats are going to live together. And none of it happened. It's all just it's all just doomsday talk.

They've been spewing out for the last hundred years. And then now I guess that brings us to the NIL and the paying of players, because, again, you're right. I said this to start the show. This is the profession.

This is the kimono being lifted, the complete professionalism of collegiate athletics, amateurism, however you want to put it. And that appears to be schools and school presidents and and television networks. They got the whole realignment thing down pat. They got this thing handled. They know how to strike that deal.

Paying the players. I mean, ever since NIL came into being two years ago, there still isn't any rules. And whatever is on the books statewide. I mean, you even heard Greg Sankey of the SEC say it in his in his opening address at the SEC Media Week. You know, state laws are not enforced. They don't know of a single state law that's been enforced. And then the NCAA is telling programs, yeah, your state laws don't even exist as far as we're concerned.

You know, my coach, you know, if I boil it down a couple of hamburgers to some kids, he might miss four games. I mean, the whole benefits and paying of players. I don't know how the hell we're ever going to come to an agreement on that. I will now leave you to answer that based on this past weekend's events.

Jay. Well, I hate to I hate to bullet boil it down to this, but it's really easy, Rich. Right now, the administrators and coaches are complaining about two things. They're complaining about NIL because they don't know what the market is and they don't know what they can and cannot do. And the truth is, they can do just about whatever they want to do, which I think is the way it should be.

I think it should be deregulated. And then they're they're worried about retention, the transfer portal. So they want they want players to have to declare where they're going and be locked in because it helps their roster.

They like to use the red herring of what happened to commitment and loyalty and all that stuff. When, hey, man, the transfer portal for schools is wide open. You know, schools, they're transferring left and right to whatever conference they want. But then they want to turn around out of the other side of their mouth and say the players shouldn't have to be allowed movement.

But here's the easy fix to all this. The NCAA needs to stop with this amateurism nonsense that's dead anyway. They move the goalposts to use a sports metaphor. They use the move the goalposts to employment.

Now they can't be employed. Drop all that nonsense and just let the school sign players to contracts. And that way you can find a player to a three year deal. If you want to buy out, if the player leaves or whatever goes pro, you can do that. You can have contract conditions.

Everybody knows what the market is and they know how they're competing. It's incredible how contracts work for literally everyone else in America except college athletes. They could do that in a heartbeat. And there'd be some cost certainty and retention in there. And they wouldn't have to worry about this transfer portal.

They wouldn't have to worry about NIL. You sign a player to a contract just like you and I sign a contract with our media companies. And we would negotiate and they would be able to tell us whether we could do commercials outside of it and what commercials we could do. You pay for that right in the employment contract.

Really simple. If you get arrested, they can terminate. You know, morals clause, they can terminate. There's all kinds of contract conditions. And then there are contract remedies through the court systems.

It's really pretty simple. And what about going to school? It works for the rest of the American business community.

It would work really well for college athletes. But it's just a line that they don't want to cross because they don't feel like it. And in the meantime, they're going to beg Congress for an antitrust exemption. They're continuing to do that. And they're having to deal with these court cases. And the latest one is going to be the crusher if they can't be successful in the NCAA. And I think they're going to have a hard time because they're going up against Jeffrey Kessler, the guy that handed them their rear end in the last case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Just two questions to ask you, and then we'll wrap this thing up. You mentioned Jeffrey Kessler. You know, NFL fans know of his name because he was part of the collective bargaining during the lockout. And man, did the NFL owners not like him at all. The league didn't want him in the room at all.

He is a bulldog, to say the least. Does that mean players are going to unionize? Is that what that means? I mean, is that the inevitable aspect that college players must join, athletes must join a union and everything has contracts? Softball, lacrosse, hockey? It's all contracted employers?

Jay? Yeah, they don't need a union because all these different employees don't necessarily have a union. And a union specifically may be difficult because we're dealing with public and private institutions. So there are some legal hurdles there. They could certainly have a trade association, somebody that the NCAA or individual conferences could bargain with so that they have a more collective bargaining type of environment.

And that may be helpful overall. But whether the players decide to organize so that they can speak more with one voice in negotiation with management, that's all fine because that's agreed to between players and management that way. If they decide to do that, that's fine.

If the NCAA finds that easier, it's all good. Because people sometimes will say, hey, they just can't pay a player anything you want. They have salary caps in the NFL or the NBA. Well, that's true, but those are collectively bargained and the players get around 50% of revenue in each of those things. So when these schools talk about how expensive it's going to be, they want to give 50% of revenue to the players. They'll find out what expensive looks like. That's expensive. Right now, the players are cheap. Even the highest paid players in college due to NIL and these collectives are cheap relative to the amount of money that the enterprise makes. And that's why they would say, well, we don't need 27 staff members. Let's put the money on the floor, on the field, things like that.

And things would be a lot more sane. Well, and then that's the last part is the going to school part. If we have now reached a part, or we have a long time ago, but now we are just flat out acknowledging that a full ride scholarship is not even remotely commensurate to an athlete's value and or remotely commensurate to the revenue that's being brought in collectively by the athletes performing, then what about going to school?

Does that go away too? And we just play for a school? No, no. I mean, this is where the NCAA, this is in the NCAA's wheelhouse. And this is where regulation is fine. I think as a baseline principle of being a college athlete, it's fine for the NCAA to say a condition upon this money being a part of the enterprise playing whatever is you have to be a full-time student in good standing. That's not that big of a deal. You know, that's really the only thing, the only thing that is separating the NFL and the NBA, Major League Baseball, whatever, from college sports is the requirement that the players be enrolled in school. And, you know, they've used the term student athlete all these years, and they don't want to get into why that came up, but it's really a phony construct. I mean, all you have to do to be a student is be enrolled, but enrolled and in good standing, and they can have some reasonable regulation around that.

That's not that big of a deal. They can send their tutors on their 10-game road trips and all that stuff, but, you know, there's clearly going to be a lot more on the road. And then each individual school can make a decision. Do we want to do this or not? One thing I say to all these administrators that complain when they say this is getting out of hand, this is not what this is supposed to be about, I said, well, if you want to play, you know, if you want to play a Division 2 or Division 3, it's wide open. You know, remember years ago, and I love him, he was the best ever, Jim Delaney still is, but he's retired now. When they talk about paying the players, Jim said, you know, the Big Ten may go Division 2 if that happens.

And, you know, I couldn't respect anybody more than him, but I couldn't help but snicker because I knew that it was a phony threat. Like, does anybody really think that Ohio State is going to play Amherst at the Shoe on Saturday with no television and free admission? Like, that's not going to happen. None of these schools are leaving this enterprise. They need it too much, and I don't want to say they're addicted to the money because they're not, but they're chasing the money just like any of us would. There's nothing wrong with what the NCAA schools are doing here. I think it's fine, and each school, their alums and their supporters can say whether they like it or not. They can make their individual decisions on how to handle this. Where it becomes hypocritical is when they say, we are going to act this way in the marketplace, but we are going to restrict only one class of person in their earnings, and that's the player.

That's where this becomes, in my judgment, wrong to the point of being immoral. Jay, you are the man. I knew this would be the chat that I wanted to have, just to give folks an idea of what's happening, what's going on, and where it's headed. I appreciate the two cents, Jay.

You be well. Good luck watching the Big 24 this fall. And you don't even know which conference that is.

No, I don't. It could be in the middle of the country or on the, well, I mean, who knows? It's no longer geographic.

I was talking about the Big Ten always had a school named Northwestern that had nothing to do with the north and west of our country. Now they've got two such programs, so it's all good. We've got it working. Always a pleasure, brother.

Thanks for having me. That's Jay Billis. Hit him straight, Jay, in the meantime. That's Jay Billis.

844-204-rich number to dial. I knew he would have the unique perspective. Daniel Jeremiah, still to come.

Overreaction Monday. Ken Rogers of Hard Knocks, the producer of said program, still to come. Are you currently enjoying the show on the Stitcher app? Then you need to know Stitcher is going away on August 29th.

Yep, going away as in kaput, gone, dead. Rest in peace, Stitcher. And thanks for 15 years of service to the podcast community. So switch to another podcast app and follow this show there. Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Search BLEAV Podcast wherever you listen. Costume manufacturer against Barney the purple dinosaur. They sold this thing called Hillary the hippo, which looked exactly like Barney.

And it was just being rented for people to do parties for their kids and all that. So we wanted to settle the case right away, but they wouldn't settle it because they wanted to make an example out of it. So we went to federal court and won.

No kidding. Yeah, we won. And then it went to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. I had to argue about Barney the purple dinosaur one step away from the United States Supreme Court. The funniest part, because the case is over, I can say this now. I had had the costume, the evidence of the trial, I had the costume at home for some reason. And my wife and her friends used it to have a birthday party for some of our kids, for some of the kids in the neighborhood. And they had all this back before cell phone pictures knowledge, pictures of all this.

I'm like, are you what are you doing? Do you realize this could end the trial right here? If the other side got a hold of this, I subpoenaed Barney to the trial. Honest to God, I subpoenaed Barney to the trial. The other side said, you know, Your Honor, we can't do that. There are only three of these costumes in existence.

It's on the road doing this and hardship of bringing it in. And the costume is six foot eight inches tall, weighs like two hundred and fifty pounds or whatever. And I stood up, I said, Your Honor, I'm six eight and I weigh about 240.

I got in there just fine. And so the judge ordered the costume and they brought it. They brought it, opened up this big truck, and they wouldn't let anybody see it unless somebody was in it. Barney pops out of the back of a truck onto the loading dock. The judge came down, all the court reporter and every employee of the federal building was there to see it. It's celebrity, right?

It was the dumbest thing you'd ever seen in your life. Great times with Jay Billis throughout the nine years, soon to be nine year history of our program, all on our YouTube stream. Back here on the program, 844-204-RICH, number to dial. Al and Dallas, you're here on the Rich Eisen Show. Al, did you see the guys this weekend?

You see them? Who, the weird crew? What's with the weird crew? Why is it called the weird crew? Honestly, Rich, in regular walk of life, me, Adam and Feli wouldn't exactly be hanging out together. Okay.

Out of town, at a venue, at an event like this. Who came up with that name, Al? Did you? That's the hashtag?

No, no, I wish, I wish. They anointed themselves the hashtag weird crew. Okay, very good. You proved it. I tried to be a humble host and show them a good time.

So weird in itself. And I think we did. I think we had a decent time.

Alright. Were you there when Feli reached for the check? Were you there?

Al? Well, what check was that? The dinner check? Yeah, the dinner check.

Were you there for that? Yeah. Okay.

Alright. Did anybody else make a reach for the check? Or was it just Jay who made the reach for the check?

What do you got? Well, considering that I reached for the first check in the evening and got shell-shocked from some of the drink prices, I thought maybe, you know. That's alright.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm talking about the guy in the hoodie in the middle of the screen that we just had there, Chris Brockman. So that's two checks. That's two checks he didn't pick up. You know, you gotta, you know, you gotta pay for the entertainment, you know, so that sometimes that happens. Well, I'm sure Chris, you're the one who reached out for the tickets, right? I mean, I arranged tickets and hotel. I mean, what more do I have to do? True, true.

So there's a fee that comes with that sort of service. I understand. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. No, it was a good time. It was good to see some of the boys.

I haven't seen Brockman in a long time. Okay. We had a nice time. And I brought you to a pretty nice place, right? Absolutely.

We had a great time on Friday. Alright. About a minute plus to go. What sports item did you want to talk about, Alan?

What do you got? Well, you know, the boys did come to, like, you know, Dallas and Frisco as the sports capital of the United States. I don't know if you heard. But last night's event that we hosted here about three or four miles from my house, Lionel Messi did not fail to disappoint.

Another free kick in the net. This one to tie it for all. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, it was pretty amazing.

And, you know, unfortunately, Rich, I really did appreciate your Old English 40 pour for the – there you go. I'm just seeing the picture. That's a good picture, actually. I'm a little late on Roku. Okay.

All good. Your 40 pour out for the Pac-12. What a shame and what a disgrace. Yeah, man. I mean, we poured one out for them. Again, thanks for the call, Al.

Appreciate it. I'm glad you saw the guys over the weekend. That was happening while Suze and Amy were on the air here. Crazy.

It is crazy, but it's just the way of the world. They screwed that one up. Did they screw that one up or what? The Pac-12? No one could watch their games.

Pac-12 Network wasn't on anymore. I mean, it's just – they just absolutely screwed that one straight up. Yeah. And this world of, you know, TV contracts and other aspects of it. Oh, my gosh.

Hour number two, Daniel Jeremiah coming up. It's not like they were relevant football anyway. Well, I mean, but that shouldn't matter.

You know, so much of it is cyclical. You know what I mean? I know, but it's been – Honestly, so then the SEC, with all due respect, there's two schools, right? Who else we got? Who else we got?

Who else is, you know, really – I mean, that's fair. I mean, Tennessee had a nice moment. For a minute.

Right? Auburn, when was the last nice moment for Auburn? Well, they won a championship 10 years ago. Right. The USC was pretty damn good in the Pete Carroll era about 20 years ago.

They were the home. Right. And then he had – That Rose Bowl between Texas – And then he had some shady stuff going on and bolted, and now he – That Rose Bowl between USC and Texas, now Big Ten versus the SEC, you know, I mean – It was January of 05. One of the greatest ever, and that is 18 years ago.

Yeah. So when was – and when did – so when was Cam Newton a quarter – it's 2011, right? That's 12 years ago.

So, I mean, you shouldn't just sit here and say, you're no longer interesting because you haven't won anything in five, six years. Well, Big Ten only has had one championship team in that span. USC had the Heisman Trophy winner, the guy who everybody is going to be falling all over themselves in the NFL season to potentially set up the get-off. And they didn't make the play-off. Well, because they couldn't tackle the Big 12 Utah Utes – or, pardon me, Big 16.

They couldn't tackle anybody on that team. So they deserve to get broken up. I don't know. Hour two coming up. Oh, wow, that's disgusting. It sure is. Check out ARN every week, wherever you listen.