Big Business on Campus Episode 6: Allen Green of University of Pittsburgh

On the latest episode of JohnWallStreet Presents: Big Business on Campus, a college sports podcast powered by Playfly Sports and sponsored by Shorts Sports Travel Logistics, JohnWallStreet Founder Corey Leff and Playfly Sports Chairman Michael Schreiber sit down with University of Pittsburgh Director of Athletics Allen Greene. In this 40-minute conversation, we touch on deepening relationships with donors and sponsors, the prospect of PE in college sports, Pitts off-campus home, and more.

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Welcome to Big Business on Campus, the John Wall Street Podcast, powered by Play Fly Sports and sponsored by Shorts Logistics.

So excited to have, esteemed guest here with us today.

Alan Green, welcome to the show.

Corey Leff and I are excited to chat with you, today, and talk a little bit about a whole bunch of stuff.

Not only your amazing career going through, whether it was Buffalo, Auburn, Tennessee, and now, leading an ACC, dominant player at the University of Pittsburgh.

But, we're, we're excited to chat about all the amazing stuff you've done since you've, been in the seat.

I think it's almost exactly one year, from now, at least from the announcement, of your, your, your ascension to this post at, at Pittsburgh.

So, love to, hop in and, and just dive into some fun questions and hopefully, educate our audience, that we, we have listening today.

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Mike, thanks for having me.

And Corey, it's a pleasure to meet you and look forward to the discussion today.

Likewise.

I- for our first ACC, guest, we're excited to have you.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, that's right.

All right.

Yeah.

So, I grew up as an ACC kid myself, so, the, the original ACC, you know?

Yeah.

But- Well, like, like, like all conference, right?

There's been some change over the years.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

I was a Maryland kid that went to Virginia, so I was, uh- all ACC.

Well, I know before we get into, like, the real deep questions, so I'm from, Seattle, from Washington, and I, grew up in the Pac-12, and my dad was like, "Well, I'm actually a Pac-6 guy."

I'm like, "Okay, man, flex.

Go ahead and flex, Pops."

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's all, it's all good.

So Mike brought up y- a couple of previous stops that you'd made.

Y- you've been a part of athletic departments in very different markets and conferences, right?

Buffalo and Auburn, Tennessee.

Those are Well, Auburn and Tennessee perhaps more similar, but Buffalo very different than those two.

Which of those stops i- is most comparable to Pittsburgh, I guess, the first question.

And then- kinda what lessons or best practices did you bring with you and kinda implement when you took the job?

Yeah.

No, excellent question.

I, I would say geographically, and culturally, Pittsburgh and Buffalo are, are very similar in the sense that you are in, what I would say a medium-sized, city.

The one difference is Pittsburgh is in, although not in downtown, it's an urban campus.

The University of Buffalo, at least the Amherst campus, was in the suburbs.

So that's a distinction.

I would say that it being a pro sports, lots of pro sports teams, so, football, hockey, and here baseball, Buffalo did not have that.

But also, like, the pride of the city, is very evident in these two.

I would say Pittsburgh and Buffalo both are, are Y- you feel, the Northeast tug, in terms of some culture, but you also feel some Midwest vibe as well in terms of just really salt of the earth individuals.

So you have a little bit of a mix, comparatively, right, to the South, where you don't have any competition relative to professional sports teams, and the university and, and the university sports teams are the ones who carry the weight.

They carry the news coverage, the whole nine.

So tho- tho- then there's, there's, I'd say, a little bit of a different passion in the SEC, and we see that play out sometimes, particularly if people happen to listen to Paul Finebaum.

So there's, there's some differences.

I would say the things that, I, I've probably carried with me as a leader to all these stops is understanding how important people are in the entire equation and recognizing that, building things from inside out, at least for me, in my experience, I have found to be more valuable than trying to build things from outside in.

Can you explain that a little further?

So what do you mean by inside out and outside in?

Yeah.

So, so every school, and any time an athletic director steps into a new position, you've got different sets of challenges.

And some of it is, okay, h- and most of it is, how do you ignite the fan base and how do you generate more revenue, right?

That's what lots of people and everybody's talking about in our industry.

And the way I have found best to do that is you have to spend time, understanding your organization.

You have to spend time understanding your community and understanding how your organization ticks, what modifications you feel like and what, what formation you want your organization to be in before you can actually run the play.

And so when you think about using a football analogy, right?

Play comes in, you know you're trying to score a touchdown every play, but you know, you look at the defense after you evaluated the landscape and then you put somebody in motion, or you shift this, or you move the running back to the other side of the quarterback for, for protection purposes.

The offensive line is communicating.

You have to get yourself in the right formation in order to be able to run a play that, that you can execute well against the defense that you're running.

So I have found that it's easier to, get organized first and then go out and try to make a splash, make some noise, score that touchdown, as opposed to saying, "I'm gonna throw the ball deep," or, "I'm gonna run it here," in hopes that that gives us, the best opportunity.

So maybe from experience I've learned that and, I've carried that from, every job that I've been at so far.

That's great.

Is it part of that building your team when you landed there and how, who was gonna be around you?

Was that- Absolutely.

Yeah.

Personnel is, is absolutely a part of it, and we've gone through, some change in our personnel.

So there's personnel in terms of bodies, and then there's structure in terms of how these people are working with other people in the organization, what units are, like, what units are, what units are focusing on.

And as you work on getting that, that structure in place and building out the strategy to do so is when you typically, at least in my experience, have had more success in actually executing the play.

So personnel is, is, is critically important to being able to run the kinda offense or defense you wanna run.

And if you don't have the people who you need, then it's gonna be really challenging to do what you want So if you don't have that, then you have to audible a little bit and perhaps change how-- change what you're going to do because of the personnel who you have.

So now you're a year into the job.

You, you took it in October of '24.

Yeah.

You know, you have a better, you have a better read of the defense.

I, I guess what, what are the challenges that you inherited that you realized right at the, at the beginning I gotta address?

And then now a year in, what's kind of like the next step?

You know, what are you prioritizing and, and how are you going about addressing them?

No, excellent question.

Excuse me.

You know, I tend to think about challenges also as opportunities, and there's a couple of opportunities that were very f- at the forefront of the transition.

The first was managing NIL.

So this is before the house settlement, had, had been determined and before the CSC had been propped up.

So making sure that we were, number one, focused on that, which, I wanted to make sure that we did because of how critically important it is for talent acquisition purposes.

The next thing is just understanding where we had some opportunities to grow in our, in our space.

And most people think of growth in terms of revenue, in college athletics, and we were no different.

And I think to take it one step further, we had opportunities to grow on our external team.

So thinking about as we were building, building out our team, having someone who could manage the day-to-day operations of the department while I'm dealing with the larger picture, aspects of the job, and then also having someone thinking really critically about our ex- all of our external units, from ticket sales to fundraising to corporate sponsorships.

Anything and everything that has an impact on our ability to generate revenue and engage with, with our, our fan base, and our alums and our donors.

We wanted to make sure that we got those right.

So those were the first two positions I hired, and the efforts of NIL and the external operation were two opportunities that we saw right away that we knew we wanted to take advantage of.

And then where, and, and what's kind of next on the, the agenda?

Oh, next on the agenda?

This, this, and this.

Oh.

Too many to- You got You, you get it.

This is a document we actually, I actually just talked to with our executive team, no more than an hour ago, about here are the big picture items where I'm spending my time.

Here are the little, nagging things that I'm dealing with.

And to illustrate to them, number one, for professional growth, right, and development.

So they have an understanding of what I'm dealing with, so they have a better appreciation of why I have ADD, self-diagnosed.

And, also to help them realize, like these are the things that are important to me as, in my seat.

Here are the things, the other things I'm working on, and for them to think through, "Okay.

Well, how can I be of help to, to Alan in these things?"

And then also for me to be able to tell them, "If you're focusing on other things, that may not be as important as the stuff that we need you to focus on.

So let's make sure that we are f- um..." I joke when I think about this.

Yesterday was a pretty busy day, and someone saw it on my face and they said, "How you doing?"

I said, "Hey, man.

Just trying to keep the main thing the main thing."

I said, "The only problem is I'm not sure what the main thing is."

Mm-hmm.

There's always something happening.

Someone always needs your time and attention.

You don't really get a chance to singularly focus on one aspect of, problem-solving and critical thinking, and you tend to bounce around a lot.

So yesterday was one of those days where, the main thing was, was lots of main things.

So what are, what are some of those big, you know, big picture things that you have at the top of the list?

Yeah.

So for us, right, it's, it, it's start And, and in my opinion, it starts and ends with football, and always thinking about how we can support our football program and what things we need to do to make sure that they continue, to grow and to develop.

We as administration don't have control, over and, and don't necessarily want to have control over who the coaches are in terms of assistant coaches, who, who's on the roster, who's playing, what, what defense we're running, what offense we're running.

But our jobs are to support our head coach in the things that are important to him.

No different than our team's responsibility is to support the things that, that I think are important to, to our holistic success.

So thinking about football.

Basketball is about to start, so thinking really critically about, all the changes that we've made, on the off-season and really being excited to see those things play out.

Fundraising is usually at the top of the list of what we're doing.

So thinking about how I can help engage, with our, our, our donors and how I can help our fundraisers, be more strategic in how they are inviting people along on this journey.

Rev share is always a topic of conversation that, that is, that occupies our space.

And so thinking about how, how much we're gonna invest and where and what that strategy ought to be for next year.

I constantly think about our, our staffing, our department, our structure, our personnel, and are, are, are the right people-- Do we have the right people in the right seats?

And if we do, great, and if we don't, what do we need to make modifications?

And then there's a whole host of miscellaneous stuff, that pops up.

It doesn't always fall in those buckets.

Sometimes it's, you know, getting pre-game passes, to a Steelers game for somebody.

Sometimes it's, thinking about community service and how we can do our part to help, enrich our community.

The list goes on and on.

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So when- A-and I wanted to-- Mike, sorry, let me just f-follow up one quick question, 'cause Alan said one of the first things he did, it was NIL, and then it was monetization.

Wh-when you came in, wh-when you, you looked at monetization, what were some of, like, the new or under-monetized revenue gu- revenue streams that you guys were able to tap into?

Yeah.

So I would, I would say the first thing that we did was evaluate where there was opportunity, and one of the places where we had the greatest opportunity was just being more narrowly focused on our priorities.

So we narrowed down our priorities.

I don't know how many we had before, but we narrowed them down to three, and I'd say really two and almost one.

So the first one is the athletic director's fund from a philanthropic perspective to help us support, our collective in, in NIL money.

The second is coaches', I'll say, slush funds for them to be able to do the additional things that a budget wouldn't allow us to do.

And then lastly is scholarship.

People love supporting scholarship.

They appreciate, they appreciate the-- what that provides student athletes.

So I would say that was the first bucket.

Then we looked at, our, our relationship with our third-party MMR, JMI, and making sure that we're continuing to build on that relationship.

It's really important to us, and we want them to be successful.

And there are opportunities for us to have greater partnerships and greater synergies.

There were opportunities for me to be more engaged with our top corporate, sponsors.

Those were two things that we, that we looked at, very closely and spent a lot of time on, in the first few months of, of being here.

That's great.

That's great.

Just to pivot a little bit to, the ACC for a minute.

As, Corey mentioned towards the beginning, you're our first, ACC leader, a guest, that we've had so far, on the, on the, the podcast here.

So would love your thoughts on, generally what you see is happening with the conference, and then also how you're positioned within the conference, right?

There's some, you know, there's some large scale, fan bases and players.

There's some medium scales.

You guys are probably, and my guess is sort of in the middle of the pack, in terms of size.

Like, how do you get yourself, thinking like, you know, in a way to really drive more donor engagement, more fan engagement, in the sort of that, that middle sector of the, the conference?

And, is it more championships?

Is it You know, I would just be interested in how do you think about that.

Yeah.

Right?

It's, it's interesting and, and people, I think, watching this are, are, you know, are, are intrigued, right?

About how do you, how do you pull that off as, as, you know, Pitt Athletics?

Yeah.

All right.

So that's a fully loaded baked potato.

Let me, let me work to try to deconstruct that, particularly for the listeners.

So number one is, i- so the ACC is a tremendous, is a tremendous league, and we are, in my opinion, one of the best balanced leagues in the Power Four.

We, are deeply interested in winning and, and winning championships.

We're committed to our student-athletes' overall health and wellbeing, and we're dedicated to their educational pursuits as well.

And that's partly why I love being in this league.

But we also have to do a much better job of investing in football to help them be more successful.

And so that when we look at our-- we have not done good en- we have not done well enough in our Power Four, peer competition, right?

We tend-- We don't, we're not-- We need to win more against our, our Power Four peers.

So that's, that is a, a, a point, you know, of emphasis for us in, in our league.

And obviously it is here locally at our school.

I would say that Pitt is, in above average position, relative to our league.

We have tremendous support from our university.

We've got tremendous support from our fan base.

They-- This is the city of champions, and the, the alums, former football players in particular, know what it was like when we had Dan Marino here, and Mar- you know, and other, other tremendously, good athletes.

Aaron Donald recently, right?

Larry Fitzgerald.

Like just there, there's, you know, Louis Reddick, Shady, like there's-- There, the, the list goes on.

Revis.

So Yeah, Revis, Revis Island.

Like there's-- The fact that I'm naming them means I'm missing somebody, so I don't wanna get in trouble for that.

But if I miss you, I love you.

I'm a big Jim Fritz, so we, we never forget Revis.

So when you, when you, when you think about the history of Pitt, we've done it before, but also recognizing that the landscape is different, so how we do it has to be different.

Mm-hmm.

We can't just roll into anywhere in, some Pittsburgh high or some Pennsylvania high school and grab these gritty players and say, "Come on, let's go."

We know you've got speed in the South.

You've got grit in the mi- you know, up here in the Northeast and the Midwest.

So we have to do better, in identifying Number one, acknowledge we know that we don't have the money to spend that Miami's gonna spend, that maybe Clemson's gonna spend, maybe Florida State's gonna spend.

But we're very fortunate in the fact that we just beat Florida State in football, right?

Yeah.

So spending money doesn't guarantee you success, but it helps.

But not having enough will guarantee you failure.

So we wanna be in the neighborhood of the mansions, but we don't need to have a mansion in order for us to have a, a great house, right, and a great family.

And the people, as I've mentioned before, make the difference.

And if we hire really good people, let them do their thing, and they go out and recruit other really good people who fit our culture, who aren't in it for the bag, who have something to prove, and we're able to invest enough to be competitive, and if we do what we do better than everybody else does what they do best, then we have a shot at being really successful, and we have a shot at, at maintaining that position in the upper echelon of our leagues.

I firmly believe that we can be there, we should be there.

We've got some room to grow, and that's part of the excitement of what we get a chance to do every day.

So I hope I unpacked some of that baked potato.

Yeah.

If there's, if there's more I need to cover, just let me know.

Oh, no.

You mentioned, you mentioned schools like Florida State and Clemson, where they're the only show in town.

And you mentioned earlier- Yeah in, in this conversation, you know, Pittsburgh is a pro sports town first and foremost, right?

You guys launched a Hail to Pittsburgh program when you took over.

The purpose was to deepen ties with local businesses.

How, how do you see local corporate partnerships evolving for you guys and, how central is it gonna be to driving revenue and engagement moving forward?

Sure.

So the first thing I'll say is, and I got no problem admitting I have blue and gold goggles on, but I think this is more than a pro sports town, this is a sports town.

And if you win, people will come out and support.

I have been told that.

I have seen that.

So there are pro sports teams in Pittsburgh, but believe you me, Pittsburgh loves their sports in general.

So we wanna make sure that we are, as a part of that conversation and a part of that experience, and a part of that pride-building in terms of our, our, our position within the city of Pittsburgh.

How that plays into, our need, the importance, the need, the desire, to engage local businesses is essential.

I mean, we're, we're not a large city, but we're a medium-sized city, and one of the, the advantages that we have is commerce.

So we're not in a small college town.

We're in a city that has lots of commerce, lots of prod, lot- lots of productivity, lots of output, lots of investment dollars, and we want to tap into that.

And we know that the market for the Steelers is different from the market from the Penguins or the Pirates.

But we have a space in the city of Pittsburgh to be able to leverage, our university, and we're working to do that.

And again, like, these are all the things that are super exciting.

It adds to my sheet of, of list of things to, that I have to deal with.

But it's just f- it's awesome.

And every time we notch, you know, a, a, a small victory, we celebrate the hell out of it, because we know it's all very difficult to do.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Let's talk, let's talk facilities, mixed use real estate.

Yeah.

Hot topic in college sports right now, of course, and, you guys are taking a leadership role with the new, $240 million arena and sports performance center.

W- how do you think about this, and how do you integrate all of those new investments that you're making into the broader, master vision of the campus?

And secondarily, how do you think about football?

Football, you know, playing in a pro facility and, you know, how do you think that evolves over time?

Sure, sure.

Victory Heights is a tremendous campus asset for us.

When we, we are currently in the Fitz, in the Fitzgerald Field House that is.

We call it the Fitz.

And we have a top five volleyball program who uses that as their home, and I walked in there and felt this is not up to the caliber.

I know there are some conversations in our local area about the funding of, Victory Heights.

The decision to move forward with that project predates me, it predates our chancellor.

So I just say the university is committed to that project.

We know it's a campus asset, and we're gonna make, we're gonna make tremendous use of it.

Mm-hmm.

As it relates to football, we are in a unique position where we're one of only a few schools who share, an, an NFL f- who share with an NFL team.

I think it has a-- So not only do we share a stadium with an NFL team, we also share in some regards, but we are in the same space as an NFL team.

And when our guys have an opportunity and our coaching staffs have opportunity to be around the NFL guys, the, those who do it the best, those who spend so much time focused on every little detail, that can't help but to rub off on the things that we do.

So we feel like that's a competitive advantage for us that other schools don't have.

Mm-hmm.

When we also share a, an NFL, facility, and we are tremendous partners with the Steelers, and I know that there was, an issue with the field, the last time the Steelers played.

We change out the field, two times a year, and so perhaps the, you know, the, the Perhaps we were a week late in changing out the sod, but I'm not sure what other, there's n- I don't know if any other, football school changes out their turf twice a year, let alone once a year.

And maybe they just do, numbers or hash marks to hash marks.

Mm-hmm.

So w- we are, we're ahead of the game, in my opinion, because of this relationship and because we have a strong relationship with the Steelers.

It makes sense for us and it's an advantage for us, and the fact that w- we get to hang out and show, recruits that, that there's Aaron Rodgers' locker right there, and that this is where an NFL team's playing, you get to use and do the same thing, that's pretty attractive and, and we're glad we get a chance to do it.

So is there, just to finish Mike's question on mixed use, is there opportunity to build further around the campus, a- and around the sporting facilities specifically?

There's always opportunity.

Never, never ever is there a day where there isn't opportunity.

Is it practical, and is it practical now?

I think that's the question that lots of people wonder.

Those are expensive endeavors, and we all know that higher education is, facing financial challenges.

There are things that are, for us I would say are more important to do from an institutional perspective than spend time focusing on an on-campus venue, but that doesn't mean that it will never happen.

There, there's always opportunity and always the possibility.

So o- on that note, when you think about the money side of it, there's a lot of changes happening, in the world of, you know, capital investments and, thinking about even bringing in private capital, into institutions.

How do you think about that, for Pitt?

Is there, you know, thoughts about, We've been working at PlayFly with helping some of our partners and some, you know, some of our, different organizations that we work with to think about that and how to develop thoughts about, you know, how do you set up a te- perhaps a rights co and, and finance it in interesting ways to drive more of that capital to invest, in these projects.

So, just be interested in, in hearing how you- Yeah you think about that.

No, it's a great question and it's an excellent topic.

The precursor to that is, if you remember in 2021 or so, NILs a year, two years in, '22, and people talked about it not being sustainable.

And perhaps they were right, right?

With donor fatigue, with other things that that mechanism to fund college athletics isn't sustainable.

College athletics and college football in particular is absolutely sustainable.

It has to be sustainable, and better yet, we, our industry, will do whatever we need to do to make sure that it is sustained, right?

It means that much to the entire enterprise of higher education.

It means that much to these communities.

It means that much to politicians.

So college football, college sports isn't going anywhere, but that doesn't mean that it's gonna look the same, as you mentioned about this change.

I'm still learning about, PE, private equity, and I'm a finance major, so I know enough to be dangerous.

I know the concept, at least from my opinion, the con- the traditional concept of PE doesn't work.

It, it, in my opinion- Why?

It doesn't work.

Why?

It is In, in, in its current construct, it is not In order to extrapolate the revenue on an annual basis that the investors need, to have a return on their investment means such a sizable shift in the function of college athletics that it, it, it doesn't work now.

Like, there, there, there's, there's going to be a gutting of anything and everything that doesn't generate revenue.

So when people say, "You guys are-- you know, you athletic directors are running a multi, you know, a multimillion dollar business," I tell them we're not.

There's, there's no way we are, 'cause if we were, we would have made very different decisions.

We wouldn't-- We would only have football and maybe men's basketball, and we wouldn't invest the way that we invest.

So if you're running-- Like, if we're running a business, number one, we're really bad business people.

But we are, we're great enterprise runners.

That's what, that's what we do well, and that's what college athletics is.

I think what people are conflating is their introduction to the business of college sport and this, the ac- the, the and the additional business activities that are occurring in very high profile sports such as football and ar- the men's basketball.

That makes it seem as if we're running a business, but I will, I will contend that we are not.

But you have to have business acumen to do what we do because it is taking There are more and more business decisions being made.

There is more and more of a business attitude, being utilized, in order to, in order to keep the engine of this enterprise going.

And I think that's where people are conflating, and they are, they are not one and the same.

So in order for PE to work, in one person's opinion, who I get it, I don't know it all, but I know that the impacts of it, and I don't know that our industry is fully ready to accept, the impacts, the implications, and potentially the consequences of going PE.

That said, I know that the Big Ten is looking at it.

They're taking a look at it from a conference perspective, but the investors are going to want their money, and what they are going to want to do in order to get that money may be too, may be too far for what college athletics wants, and that's the, that's the real part of the discussion.

Now, I will also say that these investors are also very intelligent, and if there's a way to find a buck in college athletics, they're-- they might find a way.

Right.

So it's not to say that PE never has a place in college athletics.

I don't know if now is the time for that to be the case, but I've made mistakes before and I've been wrong before.

So we will see.

Putting aside the idea that a lot is going to come with private equity and people have to get comfortable with that, putting that, all that aside, how does, somebody, a private equity firm coming into college sports generate a return on its investment?

Mm-hmm.

Most of the rights outside of broadcast rights are tied up at-- the valuable rights are tied up at a school level.

So we're talking about, you know, somebody coming in and investing at the Big Ten conference level.

How does, how do they get their money back?

Yeah.

Certainly I, I have not been a part of those conversations, so I'm, I'm, I'm not sure what's happening there.

But when I think about, a company acquiring another company, you tend to look for opportunities to cut costs and generate revenue.

In our space, there aren't, there aren't really new revenue streams necessarily.

There may be derivatives of existing revenue streams, so we think about jersey patches- Maybe you, you reimagine MMR.

May- maybe you think about fundraising in a, in a different way and, and philanthropic giving.

Maybe you think about naming rights in a different way.

Maybe you open up more opportunities for those things.

I mean, there's, there, there's, I, I do think that d- the derivative is the, the ap- the appropriate way to describe it.

If you wanna call PE a new equity-- or sorry, a, a new revenue stream, then maybe you categorize that, but that's in a, in a different bucket.

But there, there aren't, there aren't, there aren't many more opportunities than what we are already doing.

It's just maybe doing them a little bit differently.

Yeah.

I'll, I'll even throw out, I mean, I-- you mentioned ADD earlier.

I, you know, I have and I've pushed our firm at PlayFly to have, to have innovation ADD, right?

Yeah.

Continued thinking of new ideas.

You've got innovation ADD, Mike.

There's no question you do.

Appreciate it.

That's why I love you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I take that as a-- yeah, like that's something that I take pride in 'cause I, I do wanna keep thinking of new ideas, right?

And especially with revenue generation.

You're right.

These are all derivatives.

They're-- It's all the same concept, whether sports marketing, corporate partnerships, whatever you wanna call it, right?

It's all the same category, but it's these derivative ideas.

The most important thing that we've seen in our growth for each of our partners is to be able to close the gap between college and pro value in revenue.

So there's still a significant value, and it's much bigger than the actual difference in fandom.

So if you actually run the calculations, you can actually see that your revenue should be much higher based on your fandom, right?

So if you compare your-- the fandom of Pitt Athletics to the fandom of a pro team, and you look at your revenues compared to those two, it's off filter.

Yeah.

You can see opportunities, so you know there's value there.

So then you gotta go figure out how to attack that value.

But I love the concept of derivatives.

I think that's really interesting.

Yeah.

I'd actually argue, Mike, i- that the fandom for college sports is even more fanatical than pro.

All, all these people went to their school.

There's nothing that's gonna turn them to not be a fan.

Whereas, you know, I'm a Jets fan.

There's a lot of people- Yeah that have gotten tired of losing after 15 years.

So- You're right.

Actually, when-- and just to give you an example, in pro, and I'm not gonna point out any pros 'cause we work with pro too in the PlayFly Sports business, but when you have, a, a loss, sort of led seasons in pro, you have a significantly lower ticket sales and, attendance at your venues.

When you have a loss-ridden season in college, you tend to still have heightened attendance in your venues.

So the actual sort of the inelasticity, if you will, of attendance is much higher actually in college sports, which gives you a sense, and that's what you're building.

That's the currency for your corporate partnerships and your sports marketing and your, your, your all your sponsorships.

So if your currency is more resilient, then shouldn't that be more valuable, than a pro team?

So shouldn't college actually be higher than, than pro?

Maybe.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Yeah.

And, and I think that, that's, that's part of what my people like you, PE folks, like that's part of how in my mind they're going to get the numbers to work.

Yeah.

We just-- we haven't seen it yet.

And you know, maybe we will with the Big Ten.

If they decide to go forward with it, maybe we will see that.

I-- That, that, that, that's, that's beyond my mental capacity.

One, one thing that I'd love to point out here is just, before you hop into the, the next topic, Corey, is you, you said something really interesting, Alan, which is, which is if you really looked at what the athletic director asked to do, it's not really running a business.

Part of it is, right?

But you have community, right?

You have s- you have student athlete experience.

You have academics, right?

Kids-- These, these are students that are, that are focused on their learning as well, right?

You have all these other things that you're stewarding as a leader- Mm-hmm in this experience.

It's not just the business.

So it's interesting when you look at saying-- When you look at PE and say, "Hey, PE money going into college sports," it doesn't really fit, you know, sort of square peg into the s- into the circle hole, right?

It doesn't fully fit, right?

Because, because it is different.

It's not purely a business person.

You have to have that background, and with your finance background, et cetera, you, you've got a lot of that.

But it's not really exactly what a PE is investing in when they're truly investing in a capitalistic for-profit business.

Sure.

It really is different.

I think that's one interesting, really interesting tidbit that you threw out there to, help people understand why it's not so simple- Yeah just to throw capital.

You know, it, it, it's interesting, Mike.

So, when I'm having conversations with, you know, people in the community or friends or whatever, and they start talking about PE and they start talking about NIL- when I ask them, "Well, what s- what sport are you referring to?"

Mm-hmm.

And then-- And so they, they pause and like, "Well, I, I guess I'm talking about football and maybe I'm talking about men's basketball."

Right.

And so like the, the, the starting point of where people are when you're having these conversations is very different than an athletic director.

When we're thinking about things, we're thinking about all 500 of our student athletes, all 15 of our head coaches.

When most other people are talking about, they're just talking about football or men's basketball or maybe both.

So I, I think there's a, there's a disconnect there with, with what college ath- with the enterprise piece of college athletics, and that is all the other stuff.

Yep.

The academics, the mental health, you know, the community service, the development of young people.

I mean, we have to remember, right, un- until, unless and/or until college athletics is no longer focused on the development of young people and the education and the pursuit of holistic maturity, if you will, and evolution of young people, which is what college is If, if when that ceases and then we become a business, then I think the conversation shifts, and then I think we are more willing to say, "I don't care if, if anything other than football is successful.

I don't care if anything other than men's basketball is successful.

I don't even care if we have it."

Mm-hmm.

Right?

That's That is a very different conversation, and part of what I think we are exploring as a country right now is we're testing the limits and the boundaries of the foundation of the interplay and the interconnection of co- of sport and higher education.

And we're the only country that does that, and we're the only country that uses higher education, sport and higher education to train Olympic athletes.

So this is, in my opinion, when we think about the future of college athletics, it's so much more than driving additional revenue, trying to determine whether PE is it, what's, you know, NIL is ruining college sports.

Like, this is actually a national matter, it's an international matter- Mm-hmm because of the way our structure is.

So my, my hope is that the people who are listening to this, start to think a little bit broader than their college football team, their quarterback, their point guard, their conference, their region of the country.

It, it is, it is so much bigger than that.

And we have-- we as practitioners are responsible for being the caretakers of this industry that has provided so much to so many.

Beyond football, beyond basketball, but to any student athlete, any band member, any spirit squad member, it, it is-- this is a soapbox moment for me, and I, I, I get emotional talking about it because I'm a product of that.

And as that begins to erode and as we begin to have less opportunities for young people to grow and develop and compete and represent, then we're, in my opinion, we're doing a larger disservice to our country.

Not just for the Olympics, but because we're not preparing people, for, for life, and we're not creating the type of leaders that we need to be creating to sustain and help take care of us when we're old and decrepit.

I'll stop.

I'll stop there.

Uh-huh.

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A-and I wanted to circle back.

Yeah.

You know, you might have forgotten, Mike probably did 'cause he's got, innovation ADD, but, I wanted to circle back on innovation.

There is a lot of it going on in college athletics, like, you know- Mm-hmm tech and storytelling, in venue experience.

What has you most excited?

I am-- I have been on an, an artificial intelligence kick for the past probably three years, and I'm, I'm nowhere where I need to be with understanding it, and utilizing it, and nor is our department, but I think there's real opportunity there for us to increase engagement, increase efficiency, increase creativity, and, that, that's something I don't know if I, if I'm e- more excited about it or, or j- or just, mesmerized by all the capabilities of the entire world of AI.

And we, you know, we not just at Pitt, but even in college athletics, like, we've used AI before.

Like, we've been using it for a long period of time.

Yeah.

I don't know that we've used it intention-- I don't know how best to say this.

I don't know that there are new ways to use it and be more intentional with how we're using it that help us be better at whatever it is, is That whatever it is, is-- Sorry, let me rephrase that.

We can use AI in a way that makes us better at whatever it is that is a priority to us.

So, l- give us a good example of somewhere where you guys have been able to plug it in to date.

So we were just-- So chatbots, right?

We use them as consumers, or we experience them as consumers when we deal with global international companies.

But utilizing them for engagement with, either season ticket holders, season-- or sorry, single game ticket holders, people who are trying to get to buy tickets, that's a possibility.

You can use it in sports data and analytics and sports science.

You can do it, use predictive analysis.

There's so many things that you can do and, and, I'm definitely not one to ask.

I'll tend to ask ChatGPT what, what it's best used for.

But it, it allows, it allows us to, I think, tap the outer boundaries of our creativity and all- allow us to be so much, so much more productive.

There's a risk, right?

There's always a risk.

But I, I, I think that the benefits outweigh the risk.

And, on that note, what-- how do you think about, like, content and storytelling as an innovation?

How are, how are you guys using, that concept?

Like we build, different types of content plays for different partners throughout the college ecosystem.

Just be interested in seeing what you're doing there, in that space.

It shifts.

So I have a son who's 18, and he doesn't watch an actual game.

Mm-hmm.

He only watches the highlights, and that's foreign to me.

Mm-hmm.

And nor does he know what a channel is, meaning ABC, CBS, like, you know, so the, the ma- the, the, the networks and then the cable networks, it's just YouTube.

Mm-hmm.

And so when you, when you, when you think about the importance of engaging the younger generation and how, how opposite that is of the older generation, and how both of them kind of start to influence others a little bit, we have to cast, in my opinion, a much wider net in how we engage in using different, I won't say channels, but using different mechanisms and methods to reach different constituents, and that takes time, right?

It takes bandwidth, and so being able to try to figure out how to do that more efficiently and more effectively, is something that we're constantly tracking on.

Yeah, no, we've talked a whole bunch about private capital and professionalization.

What's the one thing that the industry is not talking enough about, that we're going to be hearing about in the next three to five years?

Wow.

Okay.

So we also know there's potential for conference realignment.

There's potential for additional legal entanglements.

The one thing I don't know that we're necessarily talking about, or maybe we're not talking about it in this way, and I don't know that it's gonna impact us in five years or maybe beyond, but we have to not be too arrogant in our industry, or maybe just arrogant in general, thinking that we are, that we are not going to be impacted by all of this change.

So I think we know that in five years, college athletics is gonna look different, that, that we've, we've seen that happen over the past five years.

But if we start thinking that no matter what we do, that college athletics is going to remain as popular and profitable and valuable to, to us, to, to our, our country, and our culture, we need to, we need to be very thoughtful about that.

I think about boxing, and boxing at one point in time was the premier sport, and I don't know if they got arrogant or not, but boxing is no longer the premier sport.

And so we have to be thoughtful about managing the ebbs and flows of our culture and make sure that we maintain the essence of what makes college athletics so attractive, and Mike, to your point from before, so valuable, that we don't, that we don't ruin it.

And we as collective.

We as, we as ADs, we as presidents and chancellors, we as fans, we as politicians, we, w-we as, we as everybody.

We, we all, in my opinion, have, a responsibility and an obligation to, keep what is so special to us, special to us.

I like that.

Let's not ruin college sports.

I agree.

I'm on, I'm on the same page.

Let's, we, we have so many great partners in this industry.

Let's keep it healthy and, uh- Mm-hmm and growing, and let's get more kids into more seats to play athletics, 'cause that's the most important thing here at the end of the day.

So I love that.

So we're gonna wrap here.

This is, this has been a amazing discussion.

Lots of interesting different elements within college sports that we talked through and, and Alan has given us, such amazing insights today.

So thanks for joining us on the "Big Business on Campus John Wall Street" podcast, powered by Play, Play Fly Sports, and sponsored, by our partner at, Shorts Travel Logistics.

So thanks, Alan, for joining us today.

We had a lot of fun.

We appreciate it and, a lot of insights and, and congrats on your one-year anniversary, Oh, Mike, thanks so much for the time.

Corey, thanks for the insightful questions.

Appreciate what you guys do for college athletics, and hail to Pitt.

Hail to Pitt.

All right.

Awesome.

Cool.

Thanks, Alan.

We appreciate you.

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