Oklahoma State University finally fired football coach Mike Gundy this week after another embarrassing defeat by the University of Tulsa. At least they didn’t fire him for telling the truth.
Earlier this season, I attended an ugly match-up between the top-10 ranked Oregon Ducks who trounced the Cowboys by 66 points – the largest margin of defeat since before Oklahoma was a state. Gundy got the blame, but in fact, he just said the quiet part out loud.
When Gundy pointed out that Oregon had spent over $40 million on NIL, while Oklahoma State had less than $7 million to spend, his comments were widely denounced and drew a wave of national blowback. It didn’t seem sporting to just come out and say that if you lose, it’s because your opponent paid millions to get a lot of good players and you couldn’t afford to buy better ones.
Oregon Coach Dan Lanning fired back, rightly pointing back that the objective is to win football games, not to whine about the process: “If you want to be a top 10 team in college football, you better be invested in winning. We spend to win.”
I was in Eugene for the game and before the kick-off, the Ducks ran the tape of Gundy bad-mouthing Oregon’s big NIL budget on the Jumbotron. It was met by thunderous boos as Ducks fans waved signs reading “We Spend to Win.” So now school pride also apparently means, “we’ve got more money than you.”
Everybody in college football knows what Gundy said is true. What they don’t seem to know is that without billionaire backers virtually every college football program in the country is losing money and because football is the only revenue producing sport, when football goes, every sport ultimately will go.
Cody Campbell, founder of Saving College Sports, recently published an op-ed in USA Today outlining what must be done to transform the regulations governing (and not governing) Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) payments to college players as well as other reforms that will protect all college athletes – including Title IX sports and those athletes who participate in non-revenue producing sports — which is everyone but the football team. President Donald Trump has also made saving college sports a priority. The answer is revenue which is why Campbell is calling for the reform of the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act.
Some see another irony in Gundy’s leaving the stage because Oregon might be on the same path as Oklahoma State, which was once bankrolled by the legendary T. Boone Pickens. Pickens built some of the finest football facilities in the nation in Stillwater, but he died before NIL rules were adopted so it is unlikely any financial provisions were put in place from his gifts to the athletic program that would ensure Oklahoma State would remain competitive.
Oregon’s entire athletic program, including football, was built and is maintained by Nike founder Phil Knight. Knight is a very active and engaged 87-year-old, so it is unlikely that he will leave the field without a plan to keep the Ducks in the Top 10. But what should he plan for? How much money will it take?
Unless the reforms that Trump and Campbell are calling for move forward, there will be more feast or famine situation games like what I witnessed in Eugene. Schools that can wrangle billionaire benefactors will have the resources to compete, while others will be resigned to doing bake sales and selling raffle tickets.
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.