College Podcast: Talking College Sports Business With Matt Brown

On this episode of the Baseball America College Podcast, presented by Rapsodo, Teddy Cahill and Joe Healy are joined by Matt Brown, proprietor of the Extra Points newsletter, which covers the business of college athletics, to discuss that topic and issues that might affect college baseball now or in the future.

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It’s been a busy summer off the field around college athletics. Athletes are now able to benefit financially off of their name, image and likeness. Oklahoma and Texas made it official that they are heading to the SEC. The membership of a number of smaller leagues like the WAC, ASUN and Southland shifted. An NCAA constitutional convention, the result of which may significantly change the way the NCAA governs college athletics, was called for this fall.

That’s a lot of change to process, and not all of it will have a marked impact on college baseball, but Matt joined the show to help Teddy and Joe sort out what to make of everything that has gone on during this transformational summer.

Among the topics discussed at length on this episode are: 

• With all of the big changes in process or still coming to college athletics, what the end game is for the power players driving the change
• The possibility of sports being governed individually rather than as a monolith, up to and including baseball
• Whether or not it’s safe to say that the market in college athletics, most notably paying coaching buyouts and hiring new coaches, has bounced back after being down due to Covid-19
• The precarious financial status of many institutions that aren’t among the most prominent institutions in a specific state or region
• How the name, image and likeness marketplace has played out so far and where it might go from here
• How the recent news about Brigham Young’s football walk-ons having their tuition picked up by a booster could be a hint of things to come, especially in partial scholarship sports
• Matt’s take on the new college baseball model that was proposed last year by a group of coaches led by Michigan’s Erik Bakich
• How the advancement of college baseball, either through more paid coaching opportunities, increased scholarships or more investment generally, should be sold to skeptical administrators
• How the massive realignment in smaller leagues like the WAC, which now stretches from the Pacific Northwest to east Texas, is viewed by those involved in the less prominent sports sponsored by the conference