Opportunities ahead for Tech

Ryan Ivey knows transformational change is coming to college sports – stormy waters he’d prefer to get ahead of rather than let it wash Louisiana Tech away.

After three months on the job as Louisiana Tech Athletic Director, Ivey is far from oblivious. He can sense where college sports are headed – players getting direct compensation, conference gaps widening, and revenue streams becoming essential if Tech and other Group of 5 programs want to stay afloat in the crashing waves.

In a one-on-one conversation with the Leader on Tuesday at the Tech’s in Town event at Great Raft Brewing in Shreveport, Ivey spoke on Louisiana Tech’s course of action and pathways to generate additional revenue in an industry that has and will continue to run where the money is.

Goodbye to Conference USA?

No, this isn’t about realignment.

However, Conference USA’s identity may be up for sale – literally – to generate alternate revenue streams for member institutions in the face of athletes set to receive direct compensation from the House v. NCAA federal class-action lawsuit.

Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reported on June 13 that a multimillion- dollar sponsorship move could be coming within the next year for CUSA, with the conference exploring selling its naming rights to Globe Life, an insurance company based in McKinney, Texas.

According to Dellenger, “possible names include Globe Life Conference USA or Globe Life Conference.”

Globe Life owns the naming rights to the Texas Rangers’ stadium in Arlington, Texas, where the 2023 CUSA Football Media Day was held.

Ivey confirmed the process has begun to potentially find a naming rights partner for CUSA and believes it’s a necessary step for the league to pursue.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to look at every opportunity we have. The name of the game is money,” Ivey said. “We’ve got to create opportunities for us to be a part of some additional revenue streams that are non-traditional. That’s one of them. There’s a little bit of nostalgia in me that doesn’t want to go down that road because I do think there’s some goodness with what is used with the conference name. But at the end of the day, it’s just a name. If you can still create good experiences for your student athletes, for your teams, I think we have to look at every opportunity to generate additional value.”

The Big 12 is also exploring a naming rights partner, according to Brett McMurphy of Action Network, with the league talking with Allstate.

Stratification is coming

In the not-so-distant future, Louisiana Tech may have to make hard decisions about which sports to value more than others in a concept known as stratification.

Stratification, also called tiering, is viewed as the path forward by many in college sports, including departing Ohio State AD Gene Smith, who told Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports that schools will have to tier their sports to save money.

According to Smith, the bottom tier would be for non-scholarship sports, meaning no financial aid. As a result, those sports would be played more regionally. The middle tier would be a mix of nonscholarship and scholarship sports. The top tier will be fully funded, with football and basketball secure, along with a sport of the school’s choosing that is worth full funding and national competition.

Ivey didn’t comment on creating those specific tiers but believes stratification is coming to college sports, whether fans and administrators like it or not. Tech will have to be ready.

“I think there is going to be stratification in our sports, and that’s OK,” Ivey said. “It doesn’t mean we can’t have good experiences for our student athletes in every sport. But there is going to be stratification in that aspect. I think it’s about how we create opportunities to have success and how do we make sure our expectations equal our investment and resources spent.”

The idea of some sports being fully funded and continuing to compete nationally for championships, while others go small and play regional foes is a concept Ivey knows can come off as drastic.

And he also knows, should that day come when Tech and other schools must make those calls, he and his department will have to educate fans with transparency.

“I think there will be some of that,” Ivey said of fan worries. “I think it’s about education and we’re being transparent in what we’re doing. It’s why we have events like this so we can have transparent conversations about the future of college athletics. Here’s what I’ll say, there are a lot of negatives surrounding college athletics. But there are a lot of positives still. We still get the opportunity to be involved with young people. We still get the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of 18- to 22-year-olds. It’s just going to be different.”

“I’ve said this before, there was college athletics before this time and there’s going to be college athletics after it. It’s just going to look different,” Ivey added. “Our job in this period of time is to make sure we position ourselves to make sure our student athletes are at the center of our decision making and create opportunities for us to have success that equals the expectations and investment levels that we have and make sure we communicate that.”

NIL progress

Louisiana Tech needs more NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) support.

That’s the bottom line for Ivey, who spoke on the progress of Bulldog Community Outreach, the official NIL collective of Tech Athletics, now active for four months.

With the House v. NCAA settlement coming down, Ivey said Tech will need to bolster its NIL resources, along with internal revenue, to have enough funds available to pay athletes.

“Obviously, we don’t have enough. You probably never do when it comes to that,” Ivey said. “I do think you’re going to see some of that shift with the House settlement and it’s going to create some opportunities to bring that in-house a little bit. It’s going to allow us to have some different strategy and tactics of how we approach NIL moving forward.”

For those unaware of the House v. NCAA lawsuit and fallout, here’s a quick rundown.

House v. NCAA was a classaction lawsuit seeking back pay for Division I athletes who were barred from earning NIL compensation prior to the NCAA changing policy in summer 2021, while also pursuing a cut of future broadcast revenues for athletes to be paid from the NCAA.

The lawsuit was settled in May, paving the way for athletes to be paid close to $2.8 billion in annual revenues. The process of when back pay begins and how much is required per conference awaits a process expected to take several months.

In short, the last traces of amateurism in college sports are coming to an end.

Ivey said Tech needs to prepare itself for the incoming reality.

“I think ultimately what you have to look at is total compensation,” Ivey said. “What is it going to take for us to look at the whole compensation aspect of what we give to student athletes? We gotta focus on that effort. There’s no question NIL is going to be a part of that. And we need people to be a part of that. I do think it’s going to shift in the priorities of it. But ultimately, it’s going to be there for us to create some opportunities. We’ll see what it all looks like when we get more clarity.”