Saving College Sports—Landmark New Legislation that’s a Massive Win for Athletes, Colleges & Fans
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
3
sentences flagged
Toxicity
3
sentences flagged
Hate speech
6
sentences flagged
Summary
Ted Cruz and his wife Heidi celebrated their 25th anniversary this week, and they talk about the good, the bad, the ugly, and the just plain weird things they did to celebrate. Ted and Heidi have been married for 25 years and have been through a lot in that other couples don t have to deal with.
Transcript
00:00:04.360
Turn someday into right now with Body by Jake Radio.
00:00:13.040
Search Body by Jake Radio and stream it for free right now.
00:00:16.580
Awesome health and wellness tips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
00:00:21.280
When your heart is hit, it's when things seem worse that you must not quit.
00:00:28.320
him. Search Body by Jake Radio and stream it for free. Have a great day.
00:00:36.700
Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you as well. And it's so nice to
00:00:41.560
have some of you listening on the radio around the country. We've got a lot that we're going
00:00:45.660
to be talking about, but before we even get to the topics, I got to say, Senator, I know you.
00:00:51.220
I feel like I know you well. I feel like you're one of my best friends. The idea that for 25
00:00:57.920
years. There is one woman who has put up with you for 25 years is truly incredible. I don't know if
00:01:06.720
this is a rapture alert. I don't know if you've gotten really good at gift giving, but congratulations,
00:01:12.000
25 years. You have been married. That is incredible. Well done. Well, thank you. We
00:01:17.700
celebrated our 25th anniversary on Wednesday this week. Heidi says 25 years of marriage. It's been
00:01:25.340
21 of the happiest years of her life so so i i i'll take i'll take that ratio that that's not
00:01:31.020
bad i'm i'm i'm i'm exceeding asking for which four years she's describing as the other ones
00:01:35.980
right and she didn't she didn't say they were contiguous it's just you know it's i'm batting
00:01:40.640
well over 500 i'm happy with that um we we had actually a fabulous anniversary we we started
00:01:47.440
the day we went and had brunch together we we spent the day just kind of we look through our
00:01:52.540
wedding albums. It's unbelievable. It was 25 years ago, May 27th, 2001. And my God, we were
00:02:00.160
kids. Like it really, I mean, you know, you're, you're still young in the Senate, but you're not
00:02:04.500
young anymore when you look at your wedding pictures. That's the best way you can describe
00:02:07.780
it, right? So I'll tell you the weird thing, Ben, is, is Heidi's parents were my age when we got
00:02:14.280
married and, and we thought of them as like unbelievably old. Um, and you know, 25 years is
00:02:20.700
a long time, but it was, you know, our nephews and nieces were two and four, and they were like
00:02:27.820
the flower girl and the little ring bearers, and they were so cute. And all four of them now are
00:02:34.900
grown and married. They're great kids, but, you know, 25 years added to two and four gets you old
00:02:40.820
enough to be grown and married and a full-on adult. So we spent the whole day together just
00:02:46.060
reflecting on kind of what the last 25 years were what surprised us on the good side what
00:02:51.620
surprised us on the bad side and then uh wednesday night we went out and had a nice romantic dinner
00:02:57.920
together um it was funny we each got cards and we both wrote the same thing in the card to each
00:03:06.680
other we both wrote i can't wait for the next 50 years together and there you go and when i read
00:03:13.300
Heidi's note that's how she closed it I just started laughing because she hadn't read my card
00:03:17.320
yet and that's how I closed mine I was gonna say was somebody cheating did someone leave their
00:03:21.340
card out the other person saw the card so that was genuine authentic it wasn't okay no cheating
00:03:25.700
involved there I love that turns out 25 years you kind of know how each other thinks and uh
00:03:30.660
okay I'm gonna tell you a quick funny story then we're gonna get to substance but but I
00:03:34.440
you know I went to get her I got her two dozen roses for the 25th anniversary and and so I met
00:03:39.300
at whole foods right down the street from us bought the roses yeah um i wanted to get 25
00:03:44.020
but they only had them in 12 uh bundles and and they didn't have any loose roses and there was
00:03:49.040
nobody working the darn counter so i got it i got her 24 i gave her the 24 when she said that she
00:03:54.980
said did you get 25 and i said i said sweetheart you're the 25th rose oh look at you and it was
0.94
00:04:04.200
a moment look look i'm usually not very slick but it was a moment she just cracked up laughing
00:04:17.220
But I got her a card, and it was a card that was in the tray on the little carousel that said blank.
00:04:23.260
And it had a really pretty, almost like silk drawing of a flower that was just really pretty.
00:04:29.660
It was blank, and I figured I'd write her a nice note in it.
00:04:32.940
And I'm at the checkout counter, and as I'm paying for it, it flashes up on the screen,
00:04:50.840
and I'm hurting with you for all your suffering.
00:04:54.320
And I cracked, I didn't actually end up giving it to Heidi
00:05:01.840
it was very funny, but Caroline, our eldest daughter,
00:05:07.840
I would give Caroline a sympathy card, but Heidi would find it less amusing.
00:05:14.060
And so instead, I went and got an actual blank card and wrote a note.
00:05:19.700
Valentine's Day, I will actually get two cards.
00:05:21.820
I'll get the cheesy one, and then I'll get the humorous, fun one that's like a cartoon or something.
00:05:27.180
And I'm like, this is the one I really wanted to get you.
00:05:32.880
So 25 years, I've got to ask you one last question.
00:05:35.540
I'm assuming a 25-year gift is like, you know me, my love language is gifts.
00:05:48.920
And I hope it was good because everyone's judging you otherwise right now.
00:05:53.980
We actually went to the jewelry store together and got the earrings, and she really likes the earrings.
00:05:58.160
They're nice earrings, and she really likes them.
00:06:01.940
And I, for a lot of vacations, jewelry is sort of my, like, for birthdays and Christmas, you know, I'd get a bracelet or a jewelry or something.
00:06:11.620
And so it, I think, she picked out the earrings and she really liked them.
00:06:16.480
See, you know you didn't go wrong if she picked it out.
00:06:22.900
I would say fully half of the gifts I've gotten her that she didn't see, she returns.
00:06:30.120
and and the first i don't know five ten years of marriage i'd get kind of hurt my feelings would
00:06:35.420
be hurt and then i was just like look this is an opinionated lady she knows what she thinks
00:06:40.000
yeah i i take a shot sometimes and and if i get something that i think's really nice and she's
00:06:45.500
like no thanks i just here's the gift receipt go take it back get something you want and and uh
00:06:50.340
and and you got it final question and i've i've let's see 16 years in so i'm behind you clearly
00:07:09.980
So just two years behind me when you hit your 25th.
00:07:16.320
Like, what is the advice you have the whole day of the ups and downs?
00:07:20.800
What's the one thing you would give for people on how to make it to 25 years?
00:07:24.620
Besides the fact that you need to almost always be wrong all the time.
00:07:27.520
Yeah, look, there are lots of things that are trite. I mean, marriage is work. It's hard work. It's a decision we're going to go through. There are times, I will say this is something I wrote in my card, that there are times when the highs exceeded anything we could imagine, and there have been times when the lows exceeded anything we could imagine.
00:07:47.160
And it's, you know, I remember as a kid, I used to watch soap operas and think soap operas were overstated.
00:07:52.680
And the longer I lived, the more I realized man is a fallen creature and this journey.
00:08:02.380
And look, part of going the distance is don't get too excited at the highs.
00:08:11.160
But I remember also when we got married, the pastor who married us, we got married in California, Santa Barbara, California.
00:08:17.160
California at the Museum of Natural History, because Heidi's a native Californian. She grew
00:08:21.480
up in San Luis Obispo, just north of there. And it was an outdoor wedding. Heidi's theme was
00:08:27.420
Midsummer Night's Evening. It was a beautiful wedding. I had nothing to do with designing it.
00:08:33.000
She designed everything. But the pastor who married us, he said up there, he said, look,
00:08:37.620
there are going to be times when you have fights and sometimes knock down, drag out fights.
00:08:41.500
And he said, if you're thinking, maybe I'm the one who should apologize, you're right.
00:08:50.040
And he said that to me, and he said that to her.
00:08:51.760
He said, it doesn't matter who's right or wrong.
00:08:58.060
Even if you're totally in the right and she's totally in the wrong, go and say, I'm sorry, and make the peace.
00:09:02.900
Now, we don't always do that, but I remember his words, and that's really good counsel for a long and hopefully another 50 years of marriage.
00:09:10.260
All right, Senator, before we get into this legislation, I do want to take a moment and just talk about something that's really important.
00:09:17.220
And some of you listening, I think you're going to want to know about, and that is Americans United for Life.
00:09:22.800
For over the past 50 years, AUL has filed more than 200 legal briefs and helped create at least 400 pro-life bills in over 50 states.
00:09:35.520
They're writing model legislation and consulting with the state legislators and defending their own laws and other pro-life statues in court.
00:09:46.580
Now, Americans United for Life has a dual front approach of not only writing, but then defending legislation.
00:09:53.120
And it's proved an effective one that could become even more impactful as pro-life state legislatures are moving to enact protections for pre-born babies after the downfall of Roe v. Wade.
00:10:09.040
And now they are also doing everything they can to fight on the legality of abortion that is returned to the states.
00:10:18.880
You now have the opportunity to overturn pro-abortion laws and advance pro-life legislation that attacks the most vulnerable in our society, from the womb to the tomb.
00:10:30.160
Together, we can shape the future of our nation through life-affirming legislation in every state.
00:10:37.360
A gift of just $25 helps hold abortion providers accountable and helps protect women and unborn children across the country.
00:10:50.960
You can donate securely at aul.org slash verdict.
00:11:03.540
Senator, I got to say, I have never felt like you had my back more than watching you do sports talk radio as shows over the last 24 hours.
00:11:16.380
and you did something that desperately needed to be done
00:11:23.040
and you did something that dealt with Lane Kiffin in his name,
00:11:26.760
the guy who used to be at my alma mater, Ole Miss,
00:11:34.200
but the Lane Kiffin rule is now going to become an actual thing, hopefully.
00:11:38.640
Let's break down the NIL, explain why this matters,
00:11:42.800
and this is really, I truly believe, about saving college sports.
00:11:46.000
I played in college. It was broken system for a long time. The pendulum swung a law far, far the
00:11:52.620
other way. And now we're trying to find a happy medium here. Well, listen, you're right. I spent
00:11:58.700
much of this week doing sports radio, sports TV, doing interviews with Sports Illustrated, ESPN,
00:12:04.620
Stephen A. Smith, and talking about college sports. And this week, I believe, was a really
00:12:10.160
consequential week for college sports. I introduced a major bipartisan bill that I wrote alongside
00:12:18.400
Maria Cantwell. Maria Cantwell is a Democrat from Washington State. I'm the chairman of the Senate
00:12:23.360
Commerce Committee. Maria is the ranking member, the senior Democrat on the Senate Commerce
00:12:27.220
Committee. And this is a bill that I've spent three years working on and thousands of hours
00:12:33.620
trying to bring Republicans and Democrats together. And we introduced it this week. I got
00:12:38.960
to say most observers thought there was no way Republicans and Democrats could find common ground
00:12:43.780
on saving college sports. We managed to do it. And so I want to break it down. And on this pod,
00:12:50.320
we're going to go into a little bit of depth because I think this topic really matters. But
00:12:53.800
let's start with, look, sports is an amazing, and college sports is an amazing institution in
00:13:01.280
America. It's something that no other country has the equivalent of college sports in their nation.
00:13:07.640
You know, today there are more than 500,000 college athletes right now competing. And you look at that and college athletics and sports generally is something that brings us together. In an era where we're so divided, we're so angry, you can go and root for your team and we come together.
00:13:29.280
It doesn't matter. You can be from different parties. You can be different races. You can be different religions. It doesn't matter. You're all cheering for the home team. That is an awesome thing. And over the years, college sports has been an avenue for millions of young men and women to get a college education, many of whom might never have had a chance to do that before.
00:13:52.120
And right now, I believe college sports is in absolute crisis.
00:14:03.260
You've got athletes that are transferring two, three, four, five times, going every year to a different school.
00:14:09.620
You've got at the end of the season, your school's team can be blown up as all the star players are recruited to other schools.
00:14:18.160
The kids who are doing that end up not getting a very good education.
00:14:22.120
you've got kids challenging every eligibility rule. So you have players playing seven years.
00:14:29.080
You have players playing college sports when they're 27, 28 years old. You have pros
00:14:34.160
coming back to college sports. It is messed up. And what is happening, Ben, every week,
00:14:41.580
a different college program across the country announces they're cutting a sport. They're,
00:14:47.380
they're cutting women's sports. They're cutting track and field. They're cutting Olympic sports.
1.00
00:14:52.800
They're cutting non-money-making sports, which, by the way, to be clear,
00:14:56.620
is the overwhelming majority of college sports,
00:15:00.160
just so people understand the economics of this.
00:15:06.380
If it's Division I, they make money off basketball.
00:15:09.880
And then the scale is just nosediving after that.
00:15:13.320
And there's so many sports that don't make money.
00:15:15.180
And that's why Arkansas this year, they decided to get rid of the tennis team,
00:15:18.060
and then luckily somebody came in last moment and said,
00:15:20.220
we'll fund it for you. But they had shut down men and women's tennis and it was just like,
00:15:24.680
sorry, it is what it is. Yeah, that was just a few weeks ago. Arkansas canceled both men's
00:15:29.500
and women's tennis. I texted that to you. And as a former SEC varsity tennis player, you shed a
00:15:36.840
tear. Thankfully, a booster came in and saved tennis for them. But it gives a sense of what's
00:15:43.340
going on. And if anything, you understated where the revenue comes from. The overwhelming majority,
00:15:50.980
the vast majority is men's football. That is the driver of revenue. Second place is basketball,
00:15:59.220
but it is basketball makes a little bit of money. It is football that feeds the entire beast and
00:16:05.740
virtually no other sport is a moneymaker across college athletics. All of the other sports are
00:16:11.920
sports are surviving on the revenue from football. And what is happening is we're in a nonstop
00:16:19.420
spending war where the budgets are going up and up and up. And I believe if Congress doesn't act
00:16:24.980
in three to five years, we will see 30 to 50 colleges across America that will still have
00:16:33.320
football teams. And it'll basically be a mini NFL. It will be a pro football league,
00:16:39.180
kind of the the g league for the nfl yeah and and the rest of the and by the way many of the athletes
00:16:45.120
make more money playing in college now than they do if they get drafted yeah if they're not a top
00:16:50.740
draft pick you actually can make more money and that's part of what people understand is a lot of
00:16:55.620
these athletes are staying around as you mentioned it like till they're 27 28 and playing five six
00:16:59.540
seven years and transferring all the time they're making more money than going pro because the cash
00:17:05.020
is so big to play in college now that they're like, why would I go to the pros unless I'm a
00:17:10.200
top 10 draft pick? After that, the economics of it say stay in college longer. And listen,
00:17:16.400
I don't begrudge the athletes making money. And I think it's important. I think it's fair that
00:17:20.360
they make money, that they be fairly compensated. And this bill that we drafted does that.
00:17:25.520
But the system is broken. What is happening is there's a bidding war where the vast majority
00:17:30.580
of schools right now are losing millions and in some cases tens of millions of dollars on sports
00:17:36.100
and and it's why they're canceling all the other programs because they're just pouring money into
00:17:40.380
football trying to stay competitive and you've got these schools that that that are very rich
00:17:45.600
institutions that have big alumni donor bases that can fund that constant arms race but but
00:17:51.740
everyone else is losing so for example let's take you're in my home state of texas if the system
00:17:57.900
continues on the path it's on, there are only two schools that I am certain would survive,
00:18:02.140
University of Texas and Texas A&M. They have a big enough donor base that no matter what happens,
00:18:06.800
those two survive. But if we're sitting here three, five years from now and the other schools,
00:18:12.160
University of Houston, Baylor, TCU, SMU, Texas Tech, Rice, if the other college programs in
00:18:19.060
Texas go under, that's terrible for Texas. It's terrible for athletes. It's terrible for the sport.
00:18:24.660
But let me be clear. This is not a done deal by any means. We still have a long road to go.
00:18:30.500
We introduced the bill this week, which shocked people. They didn't think we could get a bipartisan
00:18:34.800
bill. And we introduced it with two Republican senators, two Democrat senators. So Maria
00:18:39.420
Cantwell and I introduced it. We were joined by Eric Schmidt, Republican from Missouri,
00:18:43.880
and Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware. So four of us introduced it. We're going to have next week,
00:18:49.320
I'm going to chair a hearing on the bill, and we're going to hear from witnesses about what's
00:18:53.080
happening in college sports. And then my intention is very shortly thereafter that to mark up the
00:18:58.440
bill, hopefully to vote it out of committee. But for this bill to pass, we've got to get at least
00:19:03.220
seven Democrats. We've got to get to 60 senators. And my goal is to get a lot more than 60, to have
00:19:08.040
a big bipartisan vote. But we've got to get it out of the Senate and then move it over to the House
00:19:13.020
and have the House pass it. And so the bill is designed to, number one, to find common ground
00:19:34.860
Lots of people were getting rich off college athletics,
00:19:50.360
student athletes were before we had nil they were modern day slaves that you could be lied to by a
00:19:56.460
coach you signed with that university they owned you and if you wanted to transfer and they didn't
00:20:01.420
give you a release they then made you sit out for a year which made you completely irrelevant because
00:20:06.760
a younger person would come along and they'd been playing and they had stats and you weren't on the
00:20:10.780
sidelines you you had to fix that and and that's what the nil did is that it was like okay we're
00:20:17.140
going to give some freedom. But then, as you mentioned, should you be able to, as a student
00:20:20.800
athlete, transfer every single year? You lose the team aspect of sports as well.
00:20:27.520
Well, so what this bill does, it protects, number one, the right of every athlete to get compensated
00:20:33.560
for real NIL, for name, image, and likeness. So if a quarterback is selling tennis shoes,
00:20:38.440
and if that quarterback can sell millions of tennis shoes, that quarterback should be
00:20:42.240
compensated millions of dollars. If you're producing that value, those contracts should
00:20:46.760
be fully honored. This bill protects that. It also protects the rights of athletes to participate in
00:20:52.080
revenue sharing. And there was a big litigation over college sports and a settlement that agreed
00:20:57.560
to a revenue sharing agreement so that universities now can pass on significant portions of the
00:21:04.300
revenue that is being earned to the athletes. And so that's protected. But what it doesn't allow
00:21:17.840
just to get that athlete to play at their school.
0.56
00:21:23.740
and just fake boosters trying to game the system.
00:21:39.440
until they actually see it i i tell the story i i had a buddy of mine who played football and his
00:21:46.100
mom traveled every game and his brothers came to every game and i knew their financial situation
00:21:50.980
i just asked him and we were friends like how does it work he was like you want to see how it
00:21:54.700
works like yeah he goes watch he goes after the game saturday walk with me afterwards meet me at
00:22:00.720
the lockers and i'll show you how it works and and i don't blame him i want to be clear this is
00:22:06.220
how it worked at every SC school in the country you had a bag he had his bag and it was his
00:22:12.120
locker room bag and it was about you know this big and you throw your sneakers stuff in there
00:22:16.100
he would walk into a booster's tent put that bag down the corner we'd eat a little food we'd leave
00:22:21.860
he'd pick the bag up and there was cash in the bag he was in knew which booster to go to next
00:22:26.840
they were told the boosters to go to and they would go to the next booster they put a little
00:22:31.360
cash in that bag same thing and work it and then we went back to the to the dorm room and we're
00:22:35.860
counting cash. He's like, yeah, this is going to get my mom's plane ticket, my brother's plane
00:22:40.700
ticket, my grandmother's plane ticket. Otherwise, they'll never see me play a game. It covers their
00:22:45.100
hotels and their meals. And that's how the system works. So like cleaning that up is great. And but
00:22:50.480
it's still happening. As you describe it, there's still bags of money coming in dark alleys.
00:22:54.620
And by the way, one of the things this bill protects explicitly is the ability of programs
00:22:59.420
to cover travel expenses for the family of players. So that's something that is explicitly
00:23:04.360
allowed under the bill and carved out as legitimate. This bill also ratchets up health
00:23:10.600
and safety standards for student athletes, and it puts in place rules that you can't just ignore
00:23:16.000
a concussion. You've got to have health and safety standards. It requires far more extensive
00:23:20.800
health insurance for student athletes than you have right now, including five years of health
00:23:25.880
insurance after playing for injuries or disease from things that occurred while playing.
00:23:31.980
Thank you, because the day you leave, I say this because I witnessed it.
00:23:41.100
It was clearly damage done during my time playing.
00:23:48.560
If you don't have great insurance, it's on you.
00:23:50.520
My buddies that played that had herniated discs, they had back surgeries afterwards.
00:23:56.940
And then you talk about the brain injuries of athletes and the concussion.
00:24:00.580
that they knew and there was a clear decision made in college sports that we can use up your
00:24:07.320
body and duct tape it to success and as soon as you either graduated or were off scholarship or
00:24:14.260
walked out of that locker room for the last time we had zero liability so i i mean this when i say
00:24:19.460
thank you because that may be the most important thing you guys put in there five years is adequate
00:24:24.220
because i i know my shoulder surgery the rehab and everything else out of my own pocket that was on
00:24:29.580
me. And there's a lot of players that have to deal with that. It's unfair. Yeah. And look,
00:24:33.480
something like your shoulder injury, this mandates zero out-of-pocket expense for the
00:24:37.800
athlete for those five years, that it has to be covered by the insurance with no out-of-pocket
00:24:42.220
expense. It also creates a $60 million medical trust fund so that institutions that don't have
00:24:47.860
the resources to provide that insurance, institutions like historically black colleges
00:24:54.180
and universities, that trust fund is there paid for by the giant schools that are generating a
00:24:58.960
lot of money, and so it improves the standards, and it also has protections for scholarships,
00:25:05.400
academic protection, so a coach can't say to a player, you can't take that course, a coach can't
00:25:10.340
make a player not be able to go to class. There are lots of protections that are written in for
00:25:15.440
the athletes, but then the system, you mentioned the transfer portal. What the bill provides is
00:25:21.160
that every athlete is entitled to one free transfer, so you can transfer anytime, no questions asked.
00:25:26.200
for a second transfer it lays out specific reasons so number one if your coach quits if your coach
00:25:31.980
quits you can transfer somewhere else number two if your program is canceled well if your program
00:25:37.240
is canceled you can transfer somewhere else if you want to play in another school or number three
00:25:41.520
if you're a victim of sexual assault or sexual harassment those exceptions are carved out you
00:25:46.460
can have a second transfer but other than those exceptions if you transfer a second time you're
00:25:52.640
required a red shirt for a year. You're required to sit out for a year because look, my approach
00:25:58.300
focusing on this bill is I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about the superstars. I didn't spend
00:26:04.020
a lot of time worrying about the Michael Jordans or the Arch Mannings. You know, there are people
00:26:10.400
that are going to make millions in the NBA, the NFL, and they're going to be fine. But 99% of
00:26:15.580
college athletes are like you, Ben. They're folks who played in college, but never played in the
00:26:20.900
NFL, the NBA, 99% of the athletes in college are never going to play pro ball of any kind.
00:26:25.880
And my focus was on those guys, that I want them to be able to get an opportunity to get an
00:26:32.420
education. And for millions of low-income kids, many African-American or Hispanic, without
00:26:38.700
athletics, they would not have the chance. They wouldn't be able to afford college and to get an
00:26:43.420
education, to get a degree, but also to learn everything you get from sports, hard work,
00:26:49.120
discipline teamwork sportsmanship all of that can can help set them up for success in life
00:26:55.620
even if they don't earn a paycheck as a professional athlete and so look for for an
00:27:01.300
athlete if you end up going to four or five schools in in four or five years you're not
00:27:06.500
getting a good education you're just going from one school to the other and playing and playing
00:27:10.260
and playing at the end of your time you're done you're not a student athlete anymore you're an
00:27:14.500
athlete. You're an athlete that's getting traded from one team to another. So the transfer portal
00:27:19.280
reform is really important. And eligibility, we put in clear rules that every athlete's entitled
00:27:24.880
to five years of eligibility and a hard cap of age 24 is the oldest you can be. I love that rule.
00:27:32.180
You know, we're not going to have 27, 28-year-old guys. It's not fair for a 28-year-old guy to play
00:27:38.020
against an 18-year-old guy. There's just differences that make it not fair. My sports
00:27:43.240
brain's going insane right now i have a question what if you serve in the military is there a is
00:27:48.940
there a yes there is there is an exception for the military explicitly okay so if you're over 24 you
00:27:55.140
serve you come back you can play again all right i have another question you said it also specifies
00:27:59.760
pros can't go uh go in and play college sports i gotta admit i was joking with with charlie baker
00:28:06.400
who's the head of the NCAA, I said, I said, Charlie, I, for one, am really looking forward
00:28:13.180
to seeing LeBron James's college career. Because right now in the current system, he never played
00:28:17.940
in college. He could go back. Could you imagine being a 17 year old kid, a freshman in college
00:28:22.080
and discover that you're guarding LeBron James? Canadian women are looking for more,
1.00
00:28:28.560
more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
0.89
00:28:32.560
And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:28:38.880
And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:28:42.580
Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers,
00:28:48.380
So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:28:51.620
Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio
00:28:57.040
Turn someday into right now with Buddy by Jake Radio.
00:29:05.820
Search Body by Jake Radio and stream it for free right now.
00:29:09.340
Awesome health and wellness tips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
00:29:14.040
When your heart is hit, it's when things seem worse that you must not quit.
00:29:21.460
Search Body by Jake Radio and stream it for free.
00:29:33.860
This is the first time in my life I've ever wanted to be a witness in anything in government
00:29:39.220
As a witness, I would ask this question to the body, so I'll ask it to you.
00:29:43.940
If I go to a school freshman year and the coach recruits me, he quits, disappears, leaves,
00:29:51.820
What if I go to another school and then that coach takes another job?
00:29:56.760
Anytime your coach quits, it's not fair to you to punish you.
00:30:00.180
If you were recruited for a coach and the coach leaves.
00:30:04.180
In that exception, because that's a legitimate reason to leave.
00:30:07.400
And that's not going to happen as a widespread matter.
00:30:09.500
That's not going to lead to, you know, every starting basketball player being recruited away at the end of every season from a team, which is what we're seeing sometimes now.
00:30:20.600
There's football teams now where there was like zero members from the prior year on the football team.
00:30:27.100
So who is against this legislation, and where's the pushback coming from?
00:30:32.840
Well, I have to say, so we introduced it this week, and there's been surprisingly little pushback.
00:30:38.960
As I said, people were astonished that we could get there.
00:30:41.800
Things are so broken down and partisan that they just believe there was no way Democrats and Republicans could come together.
0.99
00:30:48.080
I mean, Coons, let's be clear, pretty liberal guy.
0.99
00:30:50.280
Like, you and him, y'all are not usually one-on-one like this.
1.00
00:30:53.020
Well, actually, Chris and I work on a number of things together. Maria Cantwell is my lead partner on this. She's the ranking member on commerce. And we literally have been negotiating for the last month. We've been spending six to eight hours a day in a room negotiating directly provision by provision. It has been painstaking.
00:31:10.720
And we had to reach middle grounds where there are provisions in there that don't go as far as I would like, but don't go as far as she would like.
00:31:23.380
Number one, the extreme far left, and number two, big money.
00:31:28.360
The extreme far left, to date, only one senator out of 100 has publicly criticized that.
00:31:33.760
That's Chris Murphy, the very liberal senator from Connecticut, who's blasted this.
00:31:38.380
says this doesn't do enough for athletes and it just helps millionaires. And it's,
00:31:43.180
look, the far left is listening to union bosses and trial lawyers that want a system
00:31:51.620
where number one, they're constant lawsuits. Every university is being sued nonstop. Every
00:31:56.980
conference being sued nonstop. Every league is being sued nonstop. And number two, every student
00:32:03.900
athlete is an employee. They're unionized. They're union members. They're paying union dues. Those
00:32:08.320
junior dues are going to fund Democrat candidates. Both of those are terrible outcomes for college
00:32:14.260
sports. And a whole lot of the programs, the historically black colleges and universities
00:32:18.760
have said if that happens, they'll shut down their entire athletic department. I mean, that's the
00:32:22.960
consequence. That would end up taking away athletic opportunity for over time, millions of kids. So
00:32:30.340
that's a terrible outcome. But that's one area of pushback is the very far left. The other area
00:32:35.840
pushback is big money. And, you know, I mentioned that we're on a path to consolidation in 30 to 50
00:32:41.900
schools. In college football, there are two conferences that account for more than two
00:32:47.040
thirds of the revenue, and that is the SEC and the Big Ten. That's where the eyeballs are. They
00:32:52.480
generate massive revenue because, look, that's where most of the best football in America is
00:32:57.140
being played is the SEC and Big Ten. Not exclusively, but very heavily, those two conferences.
00:33:02.540
There has been a lot of talk in those two conferences about merging and forming a Super League.
00:33:11.620
You'd end up with the rich getting richer, but all of the rest of college sports would be left behind.
00:33:16.660
It would basically transform the other schools into essentially high school.
00:33:23.120
You wouldn't be able to compete at the same level.
00:33:27.240
Anybody that cared about football and wanted to play at the highest level and play for a national championship
00:33:42.700
Every other school in America is a loser now.
0.91
00:33:46.880
because they lose essentially all of their TV revenue,
00:33:49.520
which funds the rest of their athletic department.
00:33:51.680
So the other schools cancel all the non-revenue torts.
00:34:00.320
not being able to go to school to play sports, and it's not just those kids, because an awful
00:34:07.960
lot of eyeballs, people learn about a school by watching March Madness, by watching sports,
00:34:13.440
and they end up applying to the school, and, you know, a Gonzaga, you know, I mean, and they end
00:34:20.280
up, it drives, when your school does well in athletics, your applications soar, your donations
00:34:25.160
from alumni sore. And so you end up badly damaging a bunch of schools, not just in sports, but
00:34:30.700
altogether and hurting universities. So what does this bill do? Number one, it explicitly prohibits
00:34:37.000
a Super League. It prohibits the Big Ten and the SEC from combining. It just says, no,
00:34:41.900
that's bad for sports. It's bad for athletes. It's bad for football. That is prohibited. Now,
00:34:46.920
you know what? The leadership of the SEC in particular is not happy about prohibiting a
00:34:51.900
Super League. But secondly, so the way I looked at this problem, there are two elements. There's
00:34:57.880
a cost element and a revenue element. On the cost side, you want to slow down the out-of-control
00:35:02.800
spiraling that is bankrupting most of the programs so that the programs can stay vibrant and kids can
00:35:08.180
keep having these opportunities. But on the revenue side, we looked hard for how do we grow the
00:35:13.580
revenue that is available to fund college sports. And what we do is we allow colleges to join
00:35:19.260
together and negotiate for media rights jointly, that I believe will significantly increase the
00:35:26.220
revenue. So for example, the number one source of eyeballs and revenue in TV is the NFL. It's
00:35:32.460
massive. The number two is college football. And yet amazingly, even though a lot more people
00:35:37.700
watch college football than the NBA, the NBA makes billions more in its media contracts. And there's
00:35:44.500
a reason. The NBA negotiates as one unit. You don't have the Houston Rockets negotiating against
00:35:49.920
the Knicks and fighting each other, and yet in college conferences, that's what you have.
00:35:54.340
So this allows conferences to come together. It's voluntary, so no one's forced to come together.
00:36:00.060
But it lets them come together and negotiate jointly for media rights. I believe that would
00:36:05.720
expand by billions of dollars, the money coming in, which means that there's more money for the
00:36:11.460
other sports. And we write in that if you do this, if you get joint media rights, you must maintain
00:36:17.500
every single roster spot and every single scholarship spot for women's and men's sports,
00:36:22.880
for Olympic sports, for track and field, for tennis, for all the non-revenue sports. You got
00:36:28.000
to maintain them if you're getting a lot more money through football. And so it's designed to
00:36:32.080
be a win-win for everyone. But look, the leadership of the SEC has said that they're not interested.
00:36:39.320
And look, Greg Sankey, I know well, Tony Petitti, who leads the Big Ten, I know him well.
00:36:44.460
I've talked to both of them, and I've said, listen, this is voluntary.
00:36:47.420
It only works if you guys choose to participate.
00:36:50.240
That means the other schools have to offer you a good enough deal that y'all are making a lot more money, and so are they.
00:36:58.620
That's the outcome I hope we see, because I want to see college sports continue to be an amazing thing for athletes, for students,
00:37:06.680
continue to be an amazing thing for universities.
00:37:10.800
Look, it is an awesome thing to cheer on your school.
00:37:15.740
It provides that coaches cannot be hired away during the season or during the playoffs.
00:37:21.380
We adopt the same rule as the NFL, which is you've got to wait until the offseason.
00:37:25.960
Because it's not fair to do what happened to the fans of Ole Miss to take their coach right going into the playoffs.
00:37:33.140
Don't forget we do this show as a podcast three days a week.
00:37:37.980
and we'll see you back here on this radio station as well next week.