The Annual College Football Business Update with Matt Brown
Hosts: Ty Hildenbrandt & Dan Rubenstein Guest: Matt Brown — Extra Points (ExtraPointsMB.com) Date: March 31, 2026 Segment: Annual College Football Business Update
[!note] Pre-recorded This episode was recorded a few days in advance, noted at the top of the show.
Key Topics
Revenue Generation — The Core Problem
Every athletic department, from Ohio State to Akron, is desperately searching for more revenue. Traditional sources are maxed out: stadiums are at 90–95% capacity, ticket/beer/parking prices are already at the ceiling. New revenue strategies include:
- Jersey patches — ~7–8 schools announced; ~60 more are looking. Better ROI than field sponsorships because they appear on every broadcast and every jersey sold.
- Field/stadium sponsorships — naming rights, ad real estate inside venues
- Licensed beverages — officially licensed alcohol (beer), coffee, food products
- Video game licensing — more aggressive pursuit of game deals
- Team TV channels — some schools trying to become their own Longhorn Network (athlete podcasts, behind-the-scenes docs, niche coverage of Olympic sports)
Matt Brown
"Everybody here is dramatically trying to find more revenue. And there's a limit to how much more revenue anybody can really generate from the traditional methods."
Is the Spending Worth It?
Dan raised the example of Virginia Tech pledging $229 million to renovate and modernize their athletic department. Matt's response: the question of "is the juice worth the squeeze" is fundamentally a question of values, not dollars.
Unlike professional sports, college athletic departments cannot turn a profit (excess revenue goes back to the university or gets spent). There's no liquidity event when you "sell the team." So the calculus is: - Winning → political capital, marketing exposure, enrollment - The "keeping up with the Joneses" problem drives a lot of spending with no defined KPI
Matt Brown
"If the only thing you're trying to do is generate revenue in excess of expenses, you should get out of college sports completely."
The "Blue Zone" Question
Ty invoked the concept of "blue zones" (places in the world where people live longest and healthiest) and asked: are there model programs doing college athletics sustainably and happily?
Matt's answer: most likely to be found in Division III or Division I-AAA (D-I without football), where the arms race doesn't apply and coaches can have a reasonable quality of life without chasing the brass ring.
The SCORE Act
The bill most aligned with NCAA interests. Would give the NCAA an antitrust exemption to enforce its athlete compensation rules (specifically, the House settlement). Without it, any NCAA attempt to cap NIL or enforce compensation rules is vulnerable to Sherman Antitrust Act challenges.
[!note] Why this matters Pro sports leagues get antitrust exemptions through their CBAs (collectively bargained with players' unions). College athletes are not legal employees and have no union, so the NCAA has no such exemption. The SCORE Act would create one by statute.
Charlie Baker was hired as NCAA president in part because of his relationship-building skills with lawmakers in both parties. But the bill has not come up for a formal vote — they don't have the votes yet, especially not in the Senate.
The Political Landscape
- Bipartisan concerns: agent regulation, sports gambling and its effect on athlete welfare (death threats over missed free throws, prop bet manipulation)
- Not bipartisan: employment status of athletes, collective bargaining, antitrust exemptions, healthcare
- Challenge: Razor-thin Republican House majority, unpredictable executive branch, constant distraction from other global events
- Most achievable legislation: Agent certification reform, gambling prop bet regulations
The Mark Emmert Counterfactual
If you could go back in a time machine, when would you change course?
- Fire Mark Emmert sooner. His adversarial relationships with coaches, ADs, Congress, and the legal community accelerated NCAA's legal losses. Led to the Alston decision ("an unmitigated disaster for the college sports status quo").
- 2012 Northwestern unionization / video game lawsuits. If the NCAA had ceded ground early rather than going to legal hardline, the transfer portal and much of the current chaos might not exist.
Full Transcript
Welcome to The Solid Verbal. The Solid Verbal. Come after me! I'm a man! I'm 40! I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day? Eat a steak. It's that whoop, whoop.
Now, Dan. Dan Rubenstein, welcome back to the show, my good friend. As people are listening to this, don't give too much away. You are actually not here. Whoa, time shift? You are not here. We are recording this a few days in advance. You are spending some time away from the home studio this week.
Yeah, this episode and next episode have been prerecorded. Recording these on the Friday before. Hopefully, that doesn't give too much away, doesn't ruin any of the mystique. We've got two great episodes planned this week. On today's episode, we're doing our annual college football business update with our great friend Matt Brown from Extra Points with Matt Brown, ExtraPointsMB.com. Never is there a dull moment in the world of college football business. I know it is not the preferred topic, certainly not between you and I, and definitely not out there in the Verballerhood. But if we are trying to paint a complete picture for what is going on, we'd be remiss to at least not bring this up.
Oh, I think, yeah, look, everybody likes talking about football nerd stuff as, you know, as often as humanly possible. But no, I think this topic is fascinating, obviously, with the uncertainty surrounding literally every area of the business of college sports and college football. That to have somebody on who does this day in and day out, I think is prudent. Four dollar word. So I'm very excited for this episode.
[Transcript continues — full discussion of revenue, the SCORE Act, jersey patches, blue zones, and congressional reform...]