[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, this is Paul Solentrop. Just a quick note before we get started, there are some feedback issues which pop up occasionally during the recording. I wasn't able to get that fixed while we were recording. Apologize for the inconvenience. Now let's get right to athletic director Kevin Saul and a discussion of name, image and likeness. Thank you.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Welcome to the Roundhouse podcast with Paul Solentrop of Wichita State University strategic communications. Thanks for listening. We appreciate your time. Today's guest is Kevin Saul, and we are going to talk about name, image and likeness. Kevin is in his second year as director of athletics at Wichita State. This is a topic that seems to dominate a lot of the discourse on college sports. And so Kevin is going to answer some. Some basic questions. Tell us a little bit about how Wichita State is navigating this world, Kevin. So a lot of people are aware of nil, the policies. They know it's an important part of the landscape, but it's also something that is complex and changing. So let's just start with kind of an elevator pitch, a basic description to catch people up. What do they need to know about Nil?
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Yeah, of course, Paul, thanks so much for having us on the podcast. So, nil, in its basic form, is the ability for our student athletes to earn revenue off of name, image and likeness. And in that basic form, it is absolutely something that we need to be doing. And where it becomes complex is when it gets.
It becomes involved in recruiting and retention conversations, and that's where it gets the most complex. That's where you start to see the NCAA get involved in some of those rules. And so, obviously, we've got to put a fence around that, not only nationally, because it is a little bit of an untenable situation right now, but at the end of the day, Nil is not the most important tool in the toolbox, but it is a critical tool in the toolbox if we are going to put forth consistent, championship level programs.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: So let's make sure we're clear on Wichita State's role in this, which you hit on. What can the athletic department do? What can the athletic department not do?
[00:02:16] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So those rules have changed quite a bit. Niall started in July of 21, and I happened to be the director of athletics at Murray State in July of 21. And so we spent that first year, nine months, really building out the nIl program. So the athletic department could help to assemble a collective of folks in the community, could educate, could inform, could fundraise for an NiL collective. I got here at Wichita State blessed with this opportunity in July of 22. And for whatever reason, the institution, the athletics department, hadn't done a whole lot with it. So we were literally a year behind at that point in time. I will tell you that at some point over that year, armchair strategies mobilized Tyler Timber and Matt did a nice job of filling in a void there that we absolutely needed. And so when I came in in July, it was a lot of rinse and repeat from what we had done in Murray, a lot of education. If you go on to goshockers.com nil, you'll see one of the original letters that we wrote in July of 22 that explains the context, the background, the foundation of Nil, what it is, what it isn't. And so we may not need to go through that here today, but if you go to goshockers.com nil, you can see everything there is to know about the history of Nil and where we're at. And so we were. We spent from July of 22, literally, Paul, through December of 22, education.
It was a part of every discussion, every lunch, every dinner, every donor engagement was nil. And we didn't raise the first nil dollar until January 6 of 23.
So if you start to think about, just from a big picture perspective, dollars in the door to help us with recruitment and retention of young people, we were about 18 months behind. And so we are working hard to pick up the pace, and there's a lot of things that have been done. So we've set up some infrastructure. We've got an agreement with open doors that sets up a marketplace for our student athletes to connect with the business community.
We have advanced our relationship with armchair strategies. I'm sure we'll get into it. But we have recently talked about the. The merger of armchair strategies with blueprint sports, the rebranding to the Wheat shock collective and what that means.
And so we're trying to get ahead of it and we'll talk about it a little bit more in detail. But that's been our role. We can do everything as an institution, right up to acquiring the deal for the student athlete and being the mechanism that distributes the dollars to the student athlete. That's not permissible for us to do from an NCAA guidance standpoint.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: So this has become top of mind with fans as basketball season wrapped up. You've been outgoing on social media, answering questions, trying to, you know, talk with fans, explain why is that kind of outreach important?
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Well, I think clarity in this space is incredibly important. I think transparency is important.
A lot of the folks that I talk to might have been, have received misinformation. And I think that might be the one piece that is maybe most detrimental to our efforts is the misinformation. Look, I will share with you this, and when you start to think about the importance of nil, nil does not guarantee you championship level programs. Let's use men's basketball, for example. There are ten or twelve high level nil involved institutions that are sitting at home watching the NCAA tournament. Okay? It doesn't guarantee you that recruiting is still recruiting. You're not gonna be 100% recruiting. Right? We're evaluating technical skills and abilities, cultural fit for young people. We're talking to AAU coaches, high school coaches. We're still gonna miss in that process.
But at the end of the day, what Nil has become is a cost of admission to get into that process.
And there are certain standards that have been set now where if you're going to recruit and retain elite level talent, you've got to have the dollars to be able to do that. And that's just the reality of what it is.
So I think that's really important for our folks to understand. Now, I believe, and coach Mills and I are unified in this, that nil is more of a valuable tool in retention than it necessarily is in recruitment.
Because at the end of the day, we want people that want to be here, and we want to create a student athlete experience where they're being developed, their education, the facilities, all the elements of that, where they see great value in that. And so they come to our program, they learn and they grow, and they feel it, and they see it from the inside. And then we want to be able to use nil to be able to retain young people. And so I think those are maybe the two most important pieces. At the end of the day, Paul, we can want championship level programs in this nil era, and we could also choose to take a look at nil and say, you know what? We don't want to be part of that.
I'm not in favor of that, and I don't want to be engaged in that. At the end of the day, those two don't necessarily live together in the same space.
Nil is not the most important tool in the toolbox. But I can tell you those basketball programs that are getting ready to compete in the second weekend in the Sweet 16 have heavily involved nil programs. So it is something that we do need to have to align with our championship aspirations, but it is not the most important piece.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: So the price of admissions, as you said, ballparkish. If you want to be NCAA tournament team two out of five years or three out of five years, is there kind of a general big picture number you can give people to give them an idea?
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question.
Again, it started in July of 21, and it's ramped up since then. So we really only have three years of data.
And what data that we can get suggests that in the American Athletic Conference, it's about a half a million dollar total for average for a team. So if you want to be in the top tier of that, we're going to have to do well. We're going to have to be in that seven, eight, $900,000 range. On the men's basketball side, we are going to need to be in the couple hundred thousand dollars range for baseball and softball. We're going to need to be in that three or $400,000 range for women's basketball. And I know those numbers are hard for folks to digest. At the end of the day, that is one of the most critical elements to us being able to recruit and retain because the wrongdoers in the space, there's a lot of tampering that goes on, and there has to be a fighting fund there to be able to combat the tampering that is going on.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: So the scenario player X, the third baseman or power forward, whoever really likes it at Wichita State, likes the coaching staff, is having success. Wichita State has to have enough nil to be competitive with. With someone else.
[00:09:38] Speaker C: That's exactly right. And I think what we're starting to see, Paul, and we talked about a little bit before we hit record on the podcast, is our student athletes perception of their experience at Wichita State is changing. We have a really unique tool that's called real response. But we do programmatic surveys with our student athletes every semester, and we ask them 40 different questions that pertain to 40 different elements of their experience.
It might be their strength and conditioning, academic support, athletic training, nutrition, the time demands on them, how they feel about the institution, several questions on that, their team, the head coach, position, coaches. So we ask all those questions, and we've been able to benchmark now for the last year and a half, we looked at 22, 23, which was two surveys, right? The fall of 22, spring of 23.
We compared that to these recent fall of 23 scores. And what we're seeing in our peer group now is in 33 of those 40 categories, we are above our peer group average. So the peer group average is 100 institutions that ask the exact same questions. 40 of those are power five institutions. And so when we are talking about being above our peer group average or in 33 of the 40 categories, we're above our peer group average. We're in a pretty good spot if we're performing better than 100 division one institutions, 40 of which are power five s. And so what that tells you is, I think we are headed in the right direction in terms of the student athletes perception of their experience here at Wichita State. Well, there's value in that. That doesn't mean we have to match other programs dollar for dollar and nil. But we do need a fighting fund to be able to retain so that.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Student athlete experience part, that's the part that Wichita State can really control. You're happy here, you're treated well, you're improving in your sport, your academics are going well, your mom and dad should like that. You should like that. Those are all parts that can then be augmented with nil money. Is that a good way to think about it?
[00:11:39] Speaker C: I think so. There's value in that, right? So when we talk about 37 consecutive semesters of a 3.0 GPA or better for department wide, we've been doing that for 19 years. We've never had a three four in the history of our program, and our student athletes have done that the last two semesters. Clearly, our academic support and their time and efforts and energy is different than it has been here in the past. And it clearly is showing out that it's different with our peers. When you think about the quality of the head coaches that we have here, this is our student athletes perception, not the director of athletics perception.
We rate higher than the national average in categories like care, character, coaching style, communication, fairness, support of the student athletes goals, health management, honesty, knowledge of the sport. To give you an example, we are 15% higher than our peer group average in honesty compared to head coaches in other places. The point is, we have really good people that are leading our program. There's value. So if our student athletes are getting better as students, persons, players, we're preparing them to be professionals, okay? Not necessarily in sports.
If they're getting better in those areas they're developing, there's value in that. And I think that helps in the retention conversations, particularly as it relates to nil.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: A lot of this reminds me of discussions you would have with baseball coaches years ago when a high school senior would get drafted and they would say, well, yes, you can take a $75,000 bonus or $100,000 bonus, but here's what you'll get, you know, you come to Wichita State, you play baseball, you will walk out of here. Three years later, you're on your way to a college degree, you're better prepared than to go in professional baseball. And so you will, on the end result, perhaps make more money because you're better prepared for the next step in life as. Is that a similar way to think about the Wichita State pitch?
[00:13:37] Speaker C: I think so. So there's the value component to the individual, the student athlete and their families, but I also think there's the recruiting component. When our student athletes would recommend or refer Wichita state at a 38% higher clip than their peer group average.
We're doing something right here. If our student athletes again, and the response rates on these the 22 23 season, 82% of our student athletes responded to it. In the fall of 23, 73% of our student athletes responded to it. So an overwhelming majority of our student athletes feel really good about their experience. And Paul, I'm excited about these results. Number one, because it shows you quantifiably that you're headed in the right direction.
But number two, I think it's the first time I've ever seen in 25 years these ability to quantify days, the student athletes perception of their experience and compare it to your peers.
And so we'll use that and we'll test it every semester. And so there will be some semesters where categories may go down and we'll have to drill into that and say, well, what is that? But it's a regular touch point that I think is really helpful for us.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: And I've seen this on social media. So if you're a fan, you can look it up and see the results on this and how Wichita State is doing. You mentioned the recent announcement, armchair Strategies is rebranded. It's now called the Wheat Shop Collective. It is partnering with Blueprint Sports. Blueprint also works with schools such as Colorado, Kansas, Kansas State, Utah and some others. Tell us, what do these changes mean for nil at Wichita State?
[00:15:13] Speaker C: Well, Blueprint sports gives you exposure for your collective. Obviously they have a national staff that helps you in national, not only branding, but in marketing and promotions and communication. Blueprint Sports brings the IR's designation of a 501 on both the business. If a business wants to support a student athlete in nil or an individual does, those are both tax exempt through blueprint sports. So I think that's a very important factor for our fans to know and understand is that that partnership with Blueprint sports, amongst many other things, it guarantees a 501 status for those donations. So that piece has been very, very helpful.
The other thing that we're excited about is blueprint sports is going to be hiring a full time general manager that's going to oversee just the shocker collective, the wheat shock collective. So what has happened here in the last couple of years is you've got some tremendous alumni and supporters of Wichita State and Tyler Timber and Matt who have propped up and worked very hard at armchair strategies. There's a ceiling to that, right? Because those guys have full time jobs in other areas and they've got families as well. And so we felt like there was needed growth and to elevate that ceiling by hiring a GM through blueprint sports. So there's a lot of value to the blueprint sports. So what you've seen, just to break it down, really simple armchair strategy, partnering with blueprint sports and rebranding as the wheat shot collective. And we feel like that will tremendously help our nil program.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: So my next question was going to be, if you want to get involved, who do you contact? So it sounds like if I run a, let's say a doctor's office targeted to women, and I say, boy, I'd like to get involved with some softball players at Wichita State, these would be the kind of steps you might take if you have.
[00:17:09] Speaker C: Yep, absolutely. So there's several ways to do it. First and foremost, you can go to the wheatshotcollective.com.
I will tell you, Paul, I try to be one of the most accessible ads as well. And so obviously my email is on our staff directory. If folks have questions, they can go to goshockers.com and go to the staff directory and certainly ask those questions. But the wheat shot collective is a great website to start with. There are membership categories in there. And the way that we look at this, Paul, is if we can break it down, simply what it would take to get to that spot where we can consistently field championship level programs is that we would have 5000 living alumni giving dollar 500 a year.
And so that's about $42 a month. And that's not a small investment, but we believe that the $2.5 million that that would create annually on top of the 450 that we have raised since January 6 of 23, puts us in about that two and a half to $3 million range. And based on what we know in terms of what we're competing with with our peers, that puts us in a really good position.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: So I ask fans to submit some questions. We'll throw one of these in. Now, this is from Ryan Shocker fan 13. Are there any plans in motion to market the collective more like they do at other institutions? Constant visibility would be good.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's a great question.
There's no one specific tool that gets you there. It's a combination of many, many things. This week we have a quarterly letter from the ad along with a video that Coach Nooner, Coach Mills and I have shot that will be distributed again this week so that folks can hear again in a different way and from different people how important nil is to that program. For folks that subscribe to the the Morning brew, it's a three times a week email publication that goes out to about 80,000 emails and we are in the process of putting up a link, a button, an icon at the top of that. That is our drive for 5000, 5000 living alumni at dollar 500 a year so that you can go in there and direct link into the wheat shot collective webpage.
We will hit it on social media. Blueprint sports will hit it on social media. So we will take, we'll do podcasts with Paul Solentrop. So we will take a lot of different avenues to make sure that it is publicized. And the other piece is that I do want to be accessible on it because I understand the value and importance of it. And we have had some offline conversations with folks and in the community about just, hey, let's meet up one on one or hey, let's meet up 810 twelve people at a time. I'll be happy to sit down and answer questions for an hour and kind of walk through that in a transparent way. So there will be a lot of ways that we get to that. But yes, that is ramping up.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: I listened to Indiana state basketball coach Josh shirts. He was on a podcast.
He said he didn't want to recruit to earn more nil money than any of his, his returners saw. Video Iowa football coach Kirk Ferenc was talking about Nil. His view is more helpful in retention, which matches what you said earlier. Is that becoming kind of the industry consensus is that your dollars are best used retaining?
[00:20:46] Speaker C: I think so. And the reasons are, is, Paul, you know, I think without getting too philosophical, I think America is built on the fact that you work, you earn, you work for what you earn. And so a handout on the front end without having earned something doesn't sit well with most folks. And so again, for us, there is a certain level where you're going to have to be competitive. That's no different than having quality facilities to develop in weight rooms, gyms, competition facilities. There's a minimum standard standard there to be able to get young people into the program.
But in terms of rewarding at a high level, that reward has to come with performance.
And so those are all things that I think is really important from a retention standpoint.
The combination of transfer portal and nil can be dangerous. You gotta make sure you're getting the right people in your program, because as we've all seen, we have some young people that can transfer in and out year after year, and those are not the people that you're going to consistently build championship programs off of.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: So I, as I'm sure you have, you get a wide range of attitudes, questions from fans. Some of them are just really dismayed about the current state of college athletics. Some of them are just more questioning. Want to know more? I get a lot who say, you know, I enjoy chakra athletics. I think it's important to the university, to the city. So let's go. What do I need to do to help? But the one thing that seems constant is a desire for transparency, information about how much money is involved. How is the money being parceled out, which athletes get the nil funds, all that kind of stuff. How much transparency can there be with a collective? How do we kind of answer that question that I think people have?
[00:22:39] Speaker C: Well, because that information is housed inside the collective, you're likely not going to get to specific dollar figures per person, and I'm not sure you want that either, because there are certainly aspects to that that would be difficult to manage, whether it's a culture in a locker room or those sort of things. So those agreements between players and the collective are between the players and the collective. Right? Just like you would in a professional setting. We don't walk around here talking about our salaries now. It's open, recordable, and folks can find out what individual salaries are. But at the end of the day, again, there's got to be a level of trust there as well in terms of investing dollars. But I think what's really important is to understand, like, what are these nil dollars? I think the lack of transparency you might see is, you know, some folks might have a perception that we're socking these away in retirement accounts or we're putting them away in savings accounts or they're being frivolously spent. To give you an example, Quincy Williams. Excuse me. Quincy Ballard's family spent a little over $50,000 last year traveling around to see his games.
We have young men that come to our program, and they don't have transportation and nil funds help them to either purchase a used vehicle or lease a vehicle or whatever the case may be, or afford the insurance on a vehicle.
They can help out with different elements like that.
Kenny Poto. Kenny had his mom and his sister and his sister's friend came over from Sweden in the middle of the season, and Kenny covered that out of nil funds. So it's not a frivolous spending of funds. It's really going back into the young people in our program and their families to help them maximize their experience. It could be transportation, it could be lodging, whatever the case may be.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: So there are lots of examples of transfers that work out for athletes. We can look maybe most prominently at the softball program at Wichita State in recent years.
Some of them don't. And I think you can both say, I support students, students having these kind of freedoms, but also I'm concerned about a 20 year old making these kind of decisions at times.
How do coaches kind of appropriately talk about risks, unintended consequences with an athlete when he or she might come into the office and say, I'm thinking about transferring?
[00:25:12] Speaker C: Well, I think the important thing to maybe understand at a global perspective is that college athletics has always been and will always be about the 18 to 22. Typically with COVID years, you're stretching into 23 and 24, but has always been about the 18 to 22 year old young person. And, you know, the science and data tells you that the human brain isn't fully developed until 26. And that's part of the reason why your college years are such formative years for you. And so that piece is really important to build a relationships with young people so that they have individuals that they can trust as they work through decisions and they work through how to evaluate decisions in their lives. So I think that piece is important.
I touch on it specifically with our student athletes, particularly at the beginning of the year, because, Paul, you and I both know that whenever you grow in life, there's discomfort associated with that. Whether you're trying to figure out how to swing a golf club differently or push yourself in training in a run, if you're going to grow, there's discomfort associated with that. And so the natural, healthy student athlete experience involves discomfort over time.
You're trying to figure it out socially, you're trying to figure it out in a locker room. You're trying to figure out how to improve hitting from the left side of the plate as a opposed to the right side. All the technical skills and abilities, the cultural pieces. And so that's hard. And there's discomfort associated with that. What the transfer portal has done, in essence, is provide an easy out. And so when we talk about our student athletes development with our student athletes, we talk about, it's going to be hard, expect it to be hard. It's going to be a challenge. Okay. And you might see this bright, shiny toy over here called the transfer portal at some point, and it might look pretty good, but what's on the other side of that hard?
You're going to have to grow and develop on the other side as well. So why not do it in a place where we're exceeding our peers in 33 out of 40 categories and the student athlete experience is clearly headed in the right direction and there's unbelievable donor support and community support. So we've got to do a really good job of continuing to sell which state to our current student athletes as we're recruiting the next ones as well.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: So these are conversations that coaches are having beginning of the year, throughout the year, that kind of thing?
[00:27:39] Speaker C: Absolutely. The coach's job has become much more difficult. And they are not only recruiting new and incoming shockers, they are recruiting existing shockers every single day. And that is a very fine art in my mind to go through the discomfort of growth and development, still have great relationships, and still be a mentor to young people that they want to be a part of.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: So no doubt, nil transfer portal has added a lot to the plate of everybody around the athletic department. As the athletic director, so you, and it's not like you no longer have two needs for salary, travel, facilities. How are you balancing the need to have money for those constant expenses? Now you've got nil on top of that. How do you think about that? That puzzle piece?
[00:28:28] Speaker C: Well, the overall revenue picture for athletics involves so many different areas. And I think before we get into this, obviously I have to express just genuine and authentic appreciation to so many that are a part of that revenue solution. From our season ticket holders to our donors, to our university, our students pay athletic fees, we're a part of a league that provides a little over a million and a half in revenue from our league, which is about triple what we were doing in the Missouri Valley conference concessions. All those elements at the end of the day, go towards aiding our program. And so what becomes a challenge with Nil is dollars. They're fungible dollars. With some folks, they're choosing to ask the question, hey, I've been traditionally giving $5,000 over here to annual operating funds or maybe scholarship support annually or hey, let's have you put that towards the softball travel budget. If they choose to put that over in nil, that's a challenge for us, obviously, because we still have to replace the dollars in annual operating. So what we tried to do is position this as anything that you do. Nil might be above, consider it being above and beyond what you're already doing.
And so obviously we're trying to do those things. We're trying to grow revenues with season ticket sales. We've got some exciting initiatives coming up where we're actually going to reduce the cost a little bit of what one area of our season tickets. Because at the end of the day, this department can be incredibly financially healthy when we've got eight 9000 season ticket holders in Coca arena. And so everything drives towards that. There's a lot of pressure on basketball in terms of revenue and scholarship support through say so. And we've got to get that right. And Nil is an important part of getting that right.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Can nil and collectives be used to make tamp down the transfer portal? Are there ways that contractual ways or things like that?
[00:30:47] Speaker C: No, you can't restrict movement.
The collectives wouldn't restrict movement unless they're willing to get into, you know, multi year agreements. But at the end of the day, it's not a binding that student athletes have the ability to move.
And so I think it's important for us to understand that. But the collectives play a really important role, obviously, in what we're doing.
And it's important that we help facilitate trusting relationships with our student athletes and the individuals that are working in our collective blueprint. Sports is hiring that GM right now. So that's going to be a really important hire for us. I think what you're going to see, Paul, over time is the distance between nil and athletics departments is going to get narrower and narrower and narrower over time. Do we ever get to the spot where the athletic department can actually go out and obtain a deal for a specific student athlete? The answer to that is maybe.
And if that's the case, then you're going to see nil at some point is going to become a budget line item within athletics.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: I think Troy, Dan and new ad at Nebraska basically said that I've seen.
[00:32:07] Speaker C: That out there, that's where it's going to go. And then you're going to connect that into the larger revenue picture in terms of season ticket holders and fundraising and development conference revenues. It's just going to be a part of your picture and institutions are going to be able to do what institutions can do. So I think it's headed that way.
What we are doing with blueprint sports and armchair strategy rebranding to the wheat shot collective gets us out in front of that so that if it does become closer and closer under the athletics department purview, then we will certainly be prepared to take that on and connect it through fundraising and development, sponsorship and advertising, all those elements that already exist within athletics. And we are looking towards the end of the semester as we retool and reorganize our external division within athletics. Fundraising and development, marketing, branding and content, of having a position that would focus on maximization of nil and integrating that with all of the assets within athletics. We need to do that because we think that's where it's going from an NCA perspective and we need to be prepared.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Ex user TQ has a question I think you've answered. This will give him another opportunity. Grassroots efforts that they can do to raise nil money. Are there some out there that I am not aware? We've talked a lot about the wheat shock collective. Are there other opportunities for people to get involved?
[00:33:35] Speaker C: You know, I think the primary and the simplest way to do it is to do it through the wheat shock collective.
Because that ensures that from an NCAA rules perspective, that everything is adhered to. It's the simplest way to do it. Paul, if we're going to be successful with 5000 living alumni giving $500 a year, that's the the silver package on the wheat shot collective webpage. So folks can go to wheatshotcollective.com, they can go to the donate here, they can go to the $500 a year silver package. That's the best way to do it. From a grassroots perspective, I think that the education and the transparency can also be done through grassroots means. And you and I talked a little bit before we got on the recording today that I've had some folks reach out to me and say, hey, I'd love to bring in a group of eight or ten folks and sit down and let's share a pizza and let's talk about Nil. Because there's a lot of misinformation out there. And I've been willing to do that. I've been willing to spend an hour or so on a phone with somebody to walk through questions and concerns and highlight the importance of Nil to our programs. Because everybody that I talk to is united. They love the shockers. They want championships. And at the end of the day, one of the very critical keys to championships right now is being able to build up a fund in Nil for recruiting and retention.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Alan Cobb, longtime shocker fan I know Allen, what are the dollar amounts that other division one programs collectively and for individual players? We talked, we touched on that a little bit earlier. Do you have a range? Are there some schools that are maybe totally out on nil?
[00:35:23] Speaker C: Yeah, there are plenty of schools that are in the low five figures in terms of what they're distributing to their entire team. In nil last year, the collective had the ability to distribute about 320,000 through men's basketball.
They had the ability to distribute that. I don't think they got quite there. But what we're hearing this upcoming year is that about 500 is going to be about the average for an average american athletic conference school, 500,000 for their basketball program. And so how do you get to the $2.5 million that we've talked about is that we are trying to position our programs in the top, top third in our league. And nil is most critical for men's, women's basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball. We're not seeing it as much in the Olympic sports. We are seeing a commitment to Allston educational funds, which we have a phase in plan for Allston educational funds within athletics that will help the Olympic sports.
And so those numbers vary. And because there's not a true clearinghouse and reporting mechanism nationwide, it's tough to take those numbers to the bank in terms of 100% accuracy. But our partner, Opendorse, who manages the marketplace for our student athletes, connecting them to the businesses and community, they do that for dozens and dozens of athletic departments across the country, and they print summarized data for us so that we can see how other members in our league are performing.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: So you can benchmark pretty confidently, pretty accurately. Here's a good question from Talon Shin Talon, a former basketball manager at Wichita State. So when you donate to an NIL program, can you earmark which program you want your money spent on?
[00:37:22] Speaker C: You can, there's a location on the website and the forum where you can input. It's either a sport specific or you can input it in the notes. If you have a desire for those dollars to go to a specific program, you can earmark those.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Are there schools out there that Wichita State is modeling its approach after?
[00:37:41] Speaker C: Well, I think what we do, and you're an industry expert, Paul, and you get the d one ticker every twice a day. And we certainly have a really good gauge for what our peers are doing. And I think understanding what Wichita State, you take pieces and parts from your peers that you think would be relevant and useful at a place like Wichita State. And so I would say it's kind of a collection of a lot of different things. But at the end of the day, the necessity, the way the rules are right now for a collective is it's critical. You have to have a collective that is active, that folks know the collective trust, the collective trust piece is incredibly important.
And ultimately, the trust to allocate those dollars in a way that's going to help us build competitive programs.
So that piece is important. We've talked about the marketing and the promotions and all those elements.
We also have to stay ahead of it. And so whether that's talking to my peers, that might be on various NCAA committees, other ads across the country, hey, where do you think this thing is heading?
I think, for all intents and purposes, in six to nine months, that nil will be folded solidly under athletic departments. And so how is that going to work? So we're spending our time thinking about what will that look like in six to nine months? Well, it's going to be connected through fundraising and development and through shocker sports properties. And so how do we set up the GM with blueprint sports with a potential integrated and collaborative position within athletics so that when that time comes, that we can pair those two up and we can maximize nil, the marketing, the promotions, the education, the training for our student athletes so that we can be ready to roll as soon as those rules do change.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Okay, it's complex topic. A lot going on. Have I missed anything? Is there anything that you feel like people need to know that I have touched on?
[00:39:40] Speaker C: Well, I think at the end of the day, Paul, that comfort comes with clarity, transparency and trust. And I obviously will commit to shocker nation to be clear, to be transparent, and to be somebody that they can trust as we work our way through this, because there's nothing more than that I want, number one, is always going to be the development of our student athletes. We're 50% 1st generation college students. They're doing things that have never been done before in their families and couldn't be done without the athletics aid and the things that we do, Paul, that piece hasn't changed. And that's what fires me up every day is the opportunities that we're providing for young people. At the end of the day, we want to win. We're all competitive. We're all type a. We want to position in our programs in the top third in all categories, whether that's travel, recruiting, coaches salaries and benefits, facilities, nil. Whatever it is, we want to be positioned in the top third so that we can align our championship level expectations with championship level resources. And there's nothing greater than, I think about it almost daily about both of our basketball programs, our baseball program, our softball program, lifting conference championships, participating in regionals, hosting super regionals, and watching the joy in our fans. And it is a long journey. It's a hard journey. It's become more complicated, but we certainly understand the elements that it takes to be successful, and we want to build the trust amongst shocker nation to be able to build those.
[00:41:20] Speaker A: So you're getting close to wrapping up year two. What are you most pleased with? What are you happiest about these two years?
[00:41:28] Speaker C: Wow. I love being back in my home state. I love being a part of a brand that I've followed for 46 years, let's call it 40 years, because I probably knew about the shockers when I was six, seven or eight.
That part's been really good. I think from a professional standpoint. One of the pieces that makes me most excited, Paul, is there's been a lot of adversity in this program over the last five or six years, whether that's conference transition, whether it's basketball coaching transition, presidential transitions.
There's been a lot of things, a lot of water under the bridge the last five, six, seven years. And, you know, the institution at one point implemented an athletics policy and culture task force to study the policies and the culture within athletes. That's not a good sign when that's going on. And so when you walk into that, you understand there's some real needs in terms of areas where we're developing our student athletes as student person players. Culturally, what's going on in the department, and there's a lot of heavy lifting. We've got an unbelievable staff, as you know, and you included, that are doing some really good lifting. What I am probably most excited about here in the last two or three months is the data that we're getting back from our student athletes regarding their perception of their experience at Wichita State, and that is improving.
There are several categories where we were below our peer group average in 22, 23, and now we're above our peer group average in 23. We've made significant investments in performance and mental health, in athletic training, strength and conditioning, and we're starting to see those results quantifiable in terms of our student athletes reporting about their experience. So, to me, that's the most exciting piece because we truly are developing leaders of character, competence and consequence for athletics and life, and I want to provide an unbelievable environment to do that. And our staff has been able to do that. It is an improving. We're going to continue to improve. We're going to track it, and we're going to get into all the uncomfortable conversations that allow us to grow as we move over time. So, just really excited about the progress that's been made up to this point and anxiously looking forward to hosting championship trophies.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Those things are all great. I was hoping you were going to say the outfield Hill and the Kosich corner.
[00:43:59] Speaker C: Very good. Additional, we've had the opportunity to build some unbelievable relationships.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: Hi, this is Rick Newma, president of Wichita State University. Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different guests from Shocker nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:44:50] Speaker C: Paul, I will always say from my first day to my last day here, our mission is to develop young people and programs. It's that simple. We're here to develop young people, to develop our programs. And how we do that is through first class service to our student athletes, our coaches and shocker nation. And I say that again, our student athletes, they're the center of the bullseye for us, our coaches and shocker nation, it is. I think it's important for our fans to understand we spend a great deal of time within our department of how we can serve shocker nation better in everything that we do. And that's important to us.
[00:45:28] Speaker A: Whose idea were the K's slipping the ks into the Kosich corner? I enjoy that.
[00:45:33] Speaker C: It was a collective deal.
A lot of creative thought goes into that. But I think what I've seen and what Brian's seen and others have seen is anytime you can create a tradition where the fans are a part of it, the execution of it or the operation of it, whether that's students tearing up newspapers and throwing them up in the air on a visiting team lineup at a basketball game or slipping K's in at a baseball or softball game, when you can get them engaged in that part of the game, it gives energy to our players, our program to game days, and people want to be a part of it. So we literally, Paul, just put a stack of ks out there on the deck, had a couple of conversations. Now we've got three or four guys that show up every game and they do the case. Well, that's you're just connecting and you're getting people there and we're gathering people, and it'll continue to build and grow.
[00:46:26] Speaker A: People will enjoy that. Kevin Saul, director of athletics at Wichita State, I'll put the nil information in the show notes here, so if you have questions, want to get involved, you will be able to do that. Kevin, thank you very much for your time.
[00:46:38] Speaker C: Thank you so much, Paul. I appreciate it. And thanks to Shocker nation for embracing change in college athletics and wanting to be a part of, of the solution. We look forward to journeying with you.
Great insight, as always. Thanks for listening to the Roundhouse podcast, courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can always find more roundhouse
[email protected].
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Down to a three two pitch with two men on, two outs in the 9th stretch by Tyler Green. Here it comes. Suck him out. A no hitter for Tyler Green.
A strike three call on the outside corner. And Tyler Green has pitched the fourth no hitter in Wichita State history, the second in his Venice years, as he joins fellow classmate Charlie Jindrome as the author of a Wichita State no hitter and in the process struck out a career high 13, including all three outs in the 9th inning. Tyler Green completes a no hitter and Wichita State defeats New Mexico twelve to nothing.
