Yesterday in an interview Geno Auriemma (UCONN WBB HC) was asked about the transfer portal. Geno being Geno was brutally honest, and accurate. He said “the transfer portal has killed mid major basketball”. He then went on to discuss how the transfer portal is evaporating opportunities that used to go to high school players. And Geno isn’t saying UCONN isn’t taking advantage of this. 2 of his key rotation pieces this year are transfers. But his answers were brutal and honest. Let’s step back for a moment, and just look at the bigger picture. Let’s not talk about Byers, Perry or any particular Miami player, but rather Miami as a mid major college athletics institution.
All of us to one degree or another have asked or postulated “what is Miami’s roster money bag this year”. Because you can talk all day about value of the degree, the campus whatever, but ultimately what it comes down to for these athletes, be they at Miami or Vanderbilt or Indiana, is what they are going to get paid or what they can do to increase the value of the money they ultimately will make as a college athlete. These other things sound great on a message board, but bottom line, for almost all these kids, not all (and honestly for most everyone) is how much am I getting paid. So then we come to the institution part. Let’s say Miami got all their major donors to chip in a large amount this year, and they got hordes of smaller donations and put together a really nice “bag” to buy players this year. Great. For how many years can you do that? Can you go back to the same donors next year and say, hey going to need that 100K again for BB plus need some for FB, WBB, etc. And the year after that, and after that etc. How long before at a mid major in particular, is donor fatigue, going to set in. I posit it will be quickly.
So either we need to find a select few of very big pocket money donors who can place a multimillion dollar seed amount into a good interest bearing account that can be drawn on soley for roster salaries, plus those same people giving additional money every single year, or/and we need to be cultivating new donors, and new big money donors, who haven’t been tapped the year before, to then replace those who have and are either tapped out or have donor fatigue. As the old die off the young step in. And this will go for high majors as well, but they have generally a bigger pool to fish from. Not because they have more graduates, but because they have a more sustained passion for athletics. I am not saying Miami doesn’t have a sustained passion for athletics. This year’s basketball season showed we have immense passion-when we are winning. The key is can we keep winning? And the key to keep winning is money. And don’t forget, those same people who are being asked to donate to Miami athletics are also being asked to donate to Miami University as a whole, to their local house of worship, the local theater and arts, food banks, political groups or causes they support and I could go on. I know for myself how much I am asked to contribute to various things.
Does this paint a pretty picture? No, it doesn’t. In some ways it is depressing. Very depressing. Because Miami showed this year with the right pieces, we can not only compete in the MAC but at the highest levels of college athletics. And when we did so the vibe on campus, at Millett, uptown, and nationally in the press was palpable. It made us feel good. And it should. But we are going to lose some key pieces, to graduation (which always has happened) but now also to the portal as well. And it is expensive to replace those pieces. One national sports economist projected that a player that cost 1 million this year will cost 1.35 million next year, a 35% increase. High school players are demanding to be paid. Rotation pieces, not starters, but rotation pieces, are asking for six figures plus. Donor fatigue is real, and it is going to happen. Some called him “a whiny bitch”, when Campbell’s head coach this week stepped down to take an assistant’s position, and said in his last press conference “Campbell doesn’t have the money”. I didn’t criticize him. He is stating the truth. Clearly institutional support was a key decision (along with locale) in John Groce’s decision to leave Akron. It was clear he was leaving because Akron doesn’t have the money to compete even with another mid major like College of Charleston. And Akron has been one of the bell weather programs of the MAC the last 10-15 years. I’m sorry but that is telling.
Can Miami compete? Can we raise the money year afer year after year? I don’t know. I hope so. Certainly the new arena will provide additional sources of revenue. How much? I have no idea, but at least it is something. And let’s not forget when we are funding roster money to fund roster money for women’s sports as well. I hope people are paying attention to what Glenn Box has done with women’s basketball in only 3 years. What Miami field hockey does year in and year out. Miami softball, despite coaching changes, continues to roll. But those players now expect to be paid as well. (I am not going into the discussion now of should we only fund certain programs, I am discussing what every program will need).
Do I like this system? No, I hate it. I didn’t create it. College athletics and the powers that be created a terrible, wholly unregulated system. A system that never cared about any except the HM upper echelon, and now they care about mid majors and low majors even less. And I am not saying college athletes do or don’t deserve to be paid like professional athletes (that is another discussion, I am simply discussing the system we now have). College athletics is a business, the sheet is off, pure and simple, and absent institutional changes, either at the top or from mid majors themselves, you will either find a way to live in the system or cease to function. I hope Miami can find a way to keep the majority of the nucleus of this team, and find the money to bring in replacements for those that we have lost so we can win at a high level next year, and keep the momentum rolling, because that is the only chance we have to stave off donor fatigue and fan apathy for a later day.