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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire (00:05):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Career Education Report, I'm Jason Altmire. With all the focus on elections, and higher education, and some heavier issues, I wanted to have some fun today with college football season upon us, and talk about college athletics and the enormous changes that have occurred in recent years, especially very recently regarding college athletics.
(00:31)
And we have somebody on that if you follow college football in particular, Sirius XM College Radio in particular, Chris Childers is, I don't think he would call himself this, but I consider him to be the voice of college football on Sirius XM. And he's somebody that I got to know because of politics. He's interested in politics. I don't think we're going to get into that today, Chris, unless you want to, but that's how Chris and I got to know one another. But I just wanted to have you on to talk about the current issues related to college athletics. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to be here.
Chris Childers (01:11):
Yeah, man. I always want to get into politics, so that's always on the table. But yeah, college football has been insane. College athletics has been insane. We have changed everything ever since the court ruling happened on June 21st, 2021. I think it's the most important day in the history of college sports, because it was the day the Supreme Court shoved it right to the NCAA and voted 9-0. And I'll never forget, Justice Kavanaugh, what he said to the NCAA. Pretty much it was like, we call it Dikembe Mutombo, when he swats the shot away, the old Nuggets player, that's what they did to the NCAA model. So since that day, that was the day the music died. You know what I mean? And we've been changing rapidly ever since.
Jason Altmire (02:02):
This has been several years now. The transfer policy, how you can move on from one school very easily, realignment that we're seeing, again, this is the first year of the new Big 10 and the SEC, and the big names that have moved over. Name, image, and likeness, which is a little bit different than paying players directly from schools. Both of those factoring in, I think the enormous growth in women's sports and the popularity is something. And then I did want to touch a little bit on gambling too, and maybe we can start there while I'm thinking about it.
(02:39)
But when are we going to see the first significant scandal related to college sports gambling? Because we're talking about 18 to 22-year-old young adults, so much money flowing around. I know schools do everything they can to prevent something from happening, but it just seems inevitable that at some point we're going to hear about some sort of scandal.
Chris Childers (03:06):
I don't think there's any question. I mean, and we've already had little nibbles with the Iowa thing where it looked like that was a setup from somebody who just really wanted to be John Wayne and be a hero, and he targeted all these athletes in the state. I don't think there's any question we're going to have a Pete Rose moment.
(03:24)
We had a weird situation a year ago with the Alabama baseball coach where there was a dude who was at the Cincinnati Reds ballpark, and they have a sports book there. And he put, I think it was the only bet in the country on an Alabama-LSU baseball game, and it was substantially large, I think several, several, several thousands of dollars. And it was flagged, and they figured out that he was talking to the coach about Alabama right before he was going up to the book before he placed that wager.
(03:55)
I think there was a pitching change that he was tipped to. So he went out there and put a big bet on it, and that led to the firing of Coach Bohannon at Alabama. That's probably minimal scandal compared to Pete Rose, and betting on baseball, and him getting banned. It's a matter of time because like you just said... And we all have to remember what we were like as 18 to 22 year olds. And I know for me, and not like I'm the greatest now, but I was extremely immature. I think about it all the time. I was just dumb. I made stupid decisions. The way that I thought about the world was completely different. I didn't know any better. I was a product of my upbringing, what my grandpa taught me, whatever. I didn't really have my own thoughts, didn't have my own feelings. I've literally flipped political parties because as I grew older, I figured out, hold on a second. I don't really think that's good.
(04:52)
So I think a lot of kids are like that. They don't really know who they are, what they are, what to do. They've been given access to money. I was just, during the summertime, we get around kids at media days, and I was at the ACC in July, and those kids walk in with diamond chains and fancy clothes, Louis Vuitton things, and I saw one kid with a Richard Mille watch, which is a lot of money. I mean, that is tons of money. So when you have that kind of money, we all remember how dumb we were. Now it's kind of amplified because you're walking around with resources and you really don't know your head from your you-know-what. So I think the gambling situation is something that's going to pop up because here's the deal, man.
(05:40)
I mean, I live in Tennessee, which is a legal gambling state. Anytime I put on a sporting event, anytime, it doesn't matter what it is, it could be Big 12 basketball on a Wednesday, or tennis, or whatever. I'm bombarded with ads from DraftKings, Sportsbook, and Bet MGM, and Caesars. And for a kid that has access to that and has access to spare money that doesn't have kids, and mortgages, and lives to support, damn right they're going to be tempted, and a lot of them are probably going to go through with it. And then if it's their own team, we could have some real issues. Could a White Sox 1917 scandal happen again? Probably, if the price was right.
Jason Altmire (06:27):
I agree. I think it's inevitable that you're going to hear, I mean, just picture a 3-6 Virginia Tech playing a 3-6 Boston College at the end of the year, somebody gets hurt in practice, it doesn't make it out, whatever it might be, and somebody lets it be known. And I could just see all types of scenarios.
Chris Childers (06:48):
Well, it's like a weather pattern, right? If you have certain different things that line up in the weather, tornadoes can happen, or whatever natural disaster, a hurricane. And that's what we've done as human beings with the gambling stuff. We've put all these things in place, and eventually we're going to get a storm.
Jason Altmire (07:06):
Oh, for sure. Explain the difference between name, image and likeness, which involves paying players from outside entities, and the actual ability now of schools to pay players directly for schools to use, tuition money or other revenue, your revenue generated from the sport, to pay players above and beyond their tuition.
Chris Childers (07:31):
Well, that's had to happen. The latter part of it, NIL I'll get to in a second, but the latter part of it is a part of a settlement and agreement. There was another lawsuit. I mean, the NCAA has them stacked up like airplanes on a runway right now.
(07:46)
And there was another lawsuit that was significant, and there was a settlement in play where several, several millions of dollars was going to be paid to athletes in the past that said, "Hey, you used our NIL. You made a fortune. You owe us back pay." So that's going on right now. And as a result, because of the substantial amount of money that these leagues are making with TV revenue from ESPN and CBS and NBC, as a result of all of that, they say, "Hey, you got to give us a piece of the pie." And that's going to be a part of a settlement. That's going on right now as we speak, and it's going to take a while to get it all ironed out and settled, but that's what's going on.
(08:28)
So that is a direct result of that Alston ruling that I mentioned earlier from 2021. The NCAA has lost all power, which means they are a loser in the courtroom. So they can either continue to go through this and double down, triple down, quadruple down on amateurism, but I think we all know that's dead. It worked for years. It worked since 1984 in a different Supreme Court ruling that gave them all this leeway to have amateurism be what it turned into, which was abusive. And certainly they were making money hand over fist on the backs of these student athletes, which I think a lot of us saw as wrong. And eventually the Supreme Court told them unanimously that it is, but that's why we have that now, because of a settlement.
(09:14)
The NIL, the point of that was once they lost the Alston case, they could not fight it anymore where a kid could make money off their name, their image, their likeness. And so as a result, there was legislation that was popping up. I believe Gavin Newsom in California was the first one to propose it, they had something on the books. It was not the first one to go into law, I think that might've been Florida. I think Marco Rubio was a big proponent behind that, and Florida, I believe was the first one to go live. And it was July that year, I think July 2nd. And in that moment, the NCAA realized they were going to have to let everybody do it, and it was going to go live. So the point of it was, if you're a star player, you're going to be able to make money off of your celebrity. For example, we just had the Olympics and Suni Lee was the all around champion and went to Auburn, and she's had some health concerns since then that made her retire from college gymnastics.
(10:14)
But when she first got there, the reason she was able to pursue collegiate athletics was because of NIL. In the past, you couldn't do it because it would rob you of your chance to make money off of your ability as a gymnast, and you'd have to go pro. She went to Auburn and she was making substantial money. She was getting advertising for restaurants, and for clothing companies, and all kinds of stuff. And that was the point.
(10:40)
She's a celebrity who's an all-around champion that's going to college, that's getting paid for her celebrity like any other celebrity would. What it turned into is that they started all these collectives with these football programs, and essentially now the kid is going to the highest bidder. So instead of it being, "Hey, I'm a celebrity, I'm on campus, some clothing company wants to hook up with me, or some pizza company, and I can do commercials and make money," that's not what it became.
(11:11)
Because the NCAA has zero ability to legislate it and zero ability to control it, it's become romper room. And it became even greater romper room when they tried to control Tennessee, and a signing of a quarterback by the name of Nico Iamaleava. And what happened with Nico was, and this was a classic pay for play, and they tried to stop it, and the attorney generals in both Tennessee and Virginia stepped up and stood against it, and they eventually won. And so Tennessee kind of became this folk hero against the NCAA.
Jason Altmire (11:49):
And when you talk about paying players, the NIL, the collectives that pay, I think it's safe to assume now whenever you see a jersey out there with somebody's name on it, that player has financially benefited from that, right? That's not free anymore for the player.
Chris Childers (12:08):
Absolutely.
Jason Altmire (12:10):
So this happens both a high school kid being recruited. I'm assuming that the money aspect is part of the recruitment process, and then again, in the transfer process, you hear about the transfer portal. How much of the NIL aspect, and now being able to pay players moving into the future, how much of the recruitment is going to be based upon money versus certainly educational experience, and campus experience, and the football aspect of things. How much does that weigh in versus just it coming down to who writes the biggest check?
Chris Childers (12:46):
It doesn't. I mean, I think 99.5 will say, we'll give a little leeway for some kids that don't need the money and come from affluence, and really do care about what school they go to, but the vast majority of them are doing this for whatever paycheck. I've had many conversations with people, this is a bidding war. This is about, what can you give me? They will easily leave your school if you're not giving them what they want, and somebody else is willing to. I mean, that is what this is coming down to.
(13:14)
In the past, and really the reason I fell in love with the game was that association with your university. Was when I grew up a Notre Dame fan, not so much anymore, but I grew up a huge one, and Notre Dame, it was one of these things when it came to the Irish. It was so kind of cool, and it had this mystique, and it had this lore, and it had this nostalgia to it, and all this kind of stuff when you look at Notre Dame.
(13:42)
But the thing about it is, I mean, you look at where we're at right now, and this NIL landscape, and the way that we're just kind of pouring money into it and all of that. I mean kids... Really when I would go to Notre Dame, I would always see Tony Rice sitting at this bar, who was the 1988 national championship quarterback, and he was so associated with the university. Jerome, I see all the time when I go back and do shows for, we've done a few before the USC game, and he's always around. Tim Brown is a guy I've worked with at events, and he loves the school, and it mattered to these guys. It's a part of their DNA, it's a part of who they are. Bobby Carpenter, who I work with, went to Ohio State, lives in Columbus, talks about the Buckeyes every day on the radio for local radio.
(14:30)
I mean, these guys have lived it. They love it, it's a part of who they are. And they went to those schools because what it meant to them, their family, the FIP, the academics certainly mattered. For some of them, they were going to be the first one to ever get a degree in their family, that mattered, it mattered to mom and dad. It was big.
(14:48)
My co-host on Full Ride on SiriusXM, Rick Neuheisel's son Jerry is a wide receiver coach at UCLA, and he says, "We don't have those conversations anymore. We don't talk about degree, we don't talk about fit. I mean, they don't care." The first question they get is, "What do I get paid?" And for a place like UCLA, their collective is not that big, so they're in harm's way.
(15:13)
But that's where we're at. I mean, the purity of it, the, "Hey, I want to go to college here. I dreamt of it." This is my Notre Dame, this is my Alabama, whatever it is, that's not what we do. For as long as we're in this world where collectives will reign and there's no way to fix it, and Congress hasn't done a damn thing, then that's going to be the conversation that we have. It's about the money first, and fit, and campus, and facilities are secondary, truly. I mean, that's as sad as it might sound. And again, that's a lot of the reason I fell in love with the game, that Notre Dame mystique of all these guys that would go back and love it, it's not there anymore.
Jason Altmire (15:54):
I was in a meeting recently, a few months back now with Charlie Baker who as you know, leads the NCAA, and he's the former governor of Massachusetts, so he is a politician by background as well, very successful politician. And he was getting into... The meeting was with the American Council on Education, which is the overlying group of all of higher education, and it was a meeting with the association heads from the various sectors within higher education, that was the context of why I was there.
(16:26)
And the governor, Charlie Baker talked about the concerns he had with paying players as employees, with then players becoming employees. And as he described it, because this is a big part of the argument regarding paying players, of whether or not they should be considered university employees. And he was saying to the players, be careful what you wish for. Because then you start getting into overtime rules, and paid time off, and having to request leave, and all the things we all know as people who are employed by organizations, what that looks like. It's very different than the setup that a college athlete has today, and may not be as appealing once they get into it. What are your thoughts on where it's going with regard to them actually being employees rather than just student athletes?
Chris Childers (17:15):
Well, I find that a little bit insulting that Baker would take that perspective, and I know he is new. Mark Emmert was the previous president, Myles Brand before that, and those guys were fierce advocates of amateurism. They were fierce, I call them advocates of greed. Essentially, that's what it was. It was advocacy of greed. They wanted their cake and they wanted to eat it too, and they wanted to hoard the money, and they were making money hand over fist. And that's exactly what they did, it's how they operated, and quite frankly, it was a very successful business plan. If you don't have to pay your athletes, if you don't have to pay the people that make you money, if you just give them a little stipend, a little scholarship, when they're worth way more than that, yeah, I mean, that's a hell of a business plan, and they were able to really benefit off of that for a long time.
(18:02)
It's truly interesting to me because the NCAA did this to themselves. This was greed. They could have seen that the way they were acting, if they would just get their head out of the sand, that this was anti-American, it was anti-capitalism, it was anti every American Western value that we operate within, the way that they were doing their business. It really was. I mean, it was quite frankly, disgusting when you think about some of the injuries these guys would have, and the lack of healthcare down the road, and the money that the schools was making. It was completely an utter anti, at least everything that I believe in from a business perspective. And the funny thing is, I bought into it. They had us all in a trance. They had us all hypnotized that, you remember the Terrell Pryor scandal at Ohio State? All the guy did was get tattoos, and we made him like a villain because he, "Oh my God, he broke NCAA rules. My goodness."
(18:55)
I mean, nothing he did was illegal, not even close. He traded his property for a tattoo, so what? I mean, I could do that right now, walk down the street and go do that if I wanted to, and nobody would bat an eyelash. So it was so counterintuitive to who we are as a society. They got away with it for a long time until they didn't, until they had Alston case that is just, for anybody that wants to look at it, I've read it through it several times. I've done research papers on it, and it's fascinating. The language in it is absolutely fascinating, and I really get emotional reading it, because it's sad what the NCAA was able to do, and taking advantage of these kids for such a long time. I mean, it was astounding when you think of the revenue that was coming in.
(19:37)
For me, it's quite incredible that we have gotten to a place that we're at now, but I think it's irresponsible for the NCAA to say, well, you know what? You could have taken care of this a long time ago and you could have shared revenue, and we wouldn't have been here. We wouldn't have had these lawsuits. We wouldn't have had to go to the Supreme Court. We wouldn't have had any of this crap. And you guys could have done the right thing a long time ago and fixed this.
(20:00)
But you didn't, so now we're here, and probably the best option to protect these kids is to be an employee. I mean, I'm an employee. I've been an employee a long time. There's certain protections that come with it. There's certain benefits that come with it, and there's certain risks that come with it, but guess what? That's life. But this is professional sports, so we got to act like it, because the money is astounding. I mean, again, I was just in Charlotte in July at one of those media days, and these kids, I mean, they're wearing Chanel, they're wearing, I mean, these are not your normal run-of-the-mill, get a six-pack of ramen noodles to stay alive college kid. You know what I'm saying?
Jason Altmire (20:38):
We talked a little bit earlier about the rise of women sports, and I think with Caitlin Clark, and Nebraska, I think it was held the volleyball game in the football stadium and drew 80 or 90,000 people. I mean, is this something, I get the impression this is here to stay. This is not something-
Chris Childers (20:57):
Oh, I think so, and I've been on this for decades. I've been a huge fan, a huge proponent. I've talked about women's sports more than anybody on Full Ride. I've done it for years. I've done it when people would yell at me and say, "We're changing the channel." But I refused to back away because I knew the product was excellent. And I watched the product, and I cared about the product, and I had hoped that a Caitlin Clark would come around. Because the thing about it is, people noticed Caitlin, but everything else in the WNBA is up. Everything. All the ratings, I mean, they're realizing the product is what I've said the product was for decades, and it's outstanding. Women's soccer is incredible. I am a massive women's soccer fan. US team, I've traveled all around the country to watch them play in World Cup qualifiers, and different tournaments and stuff like that.
(21:45)
Got tickets to see them play Iceland in Nashville here in October, can't wait for that. The quality is fantastic. I think it is... You know, Kaitlan Collins said this one time to Donald Lemon on CNN, and it was one of the things that got Lemon in trouble, but he was commenting about women's sports and nobody having an interest, and Caitlin's like, "Well, it's because people haven't invested in women's sports the same way." And it was the first time I really pondered that and I said, I think she's absolutely correct. Great Alabama mind, by the way, I'm a grad student at the university, so very proud of Kaitlan and Mr. Scarborough at MSNBC, both Alabama grads.
(22:19)
But I'll tell you what, it's something to me that we're getting it now, we're investing in it, and I've always said this with anything. I mean, I'm a huge feminist that invest in women and see what happens. Look at Taylor Swift, right? I mean, I think that applies to anything. I think women are more than capable of doing anything, and doing it maybe better than a lot of men, you just got to give them a chance. So we're seeing that right now. I mean, look at Simone Biles. You tell me a man who could flip like that.
Jason Altmire (22:46):
None, man or woman. I was going to ask you, you referenced Alabama, we'll conclude with this. You are a graduate student, in addition to having an incredibly busy job, where you're talking about different sports, and different channels, and traveling around the country. You're a graduate student, which I find incredibly interesting. So talk about what you hope to move on to with regard to your graduate studies, and what that process is given your job.
Chris Childers (23:15):
So it's difficult. There's a lot of balancing family, and job, and writing papers, and doing grad-level work, which maybe a little bit underestimated when I started, but it's going great. I only have two semesters left, so pretty soon I will have that degree, knock on wood, and will be walking across the stage there in Bryant-Denny, Stadium, which will be kind of neat.
Jason Altmire (23:37):
And the degree is a master's in-
Chris Childers (23:40):
Journalism. So the reason I got it, and it's weird because I've been on the radio for a couple of decades now, but the reason I decided to get that degree is because I want to teach. I want to be, and they make you at least have a master's to be able to teach at a university, which is crazy. Again, I probably know more about how to do radio than a lot of people that are in a classroom, but whatever.
(24:03)
It's the system. Here's what I will say. So my intention when I started the program was to just get the piece of paper and be able to have the ability to teach. I did not realize when I started, how useful it was to go back, especially 20 years later, and after all the technology's changed. Let's just say I get fired from SiriusXM tomorrow, which could happen. The industry's changing, and certainly you never know where things are going to go. I took an incredible entrepreneurial journalism class, which has given me confidence to start a business if I had to do my own thing from a media perspective, which it's a fertile market. I mean, it's easy to fail, but there's certainly ways to succeed. And just learning how to YouTube, learning how to use social media effectively. Things that nobody talked about when we were journalism students 20 years ago.
(24:58)
It's funny is that I will say this, when I was 18 years old, obviously I wanted to be a broadcaster, I wanted to be a journalist, and the profession felt so much more noble. You were going and you were going to serve the community, and you were going to have this level of power because you were a trusted voice, and that was the motivation to get in the industry. Now, everything that we read is like, people hate us, they don't trust us, fake news, Donald Trump.
(25:31)
I will say this. If I was an undergrad, I would choose a different career, based on what I've been going through as a graduate student, and the fact that journalism just flat out, because of the internet and social media, and it's just not what it used to be.
Jason Altmire (25:51):
Well, we talked about that offline before we got started here. And you are politically active in Nashville. You're on the Democratic Committee in Tennessee. You're politically active and interested.
Chris Childers (26:04):
Yes, very.
Jason Altmire (26:05):
You have had disputes online over the social media, and presumably in other ways, with people who are concerned about that or whatever. How has that aspect of things impacted your journalistic career?
Chris Childers (26:23):
I try to separate the two lives the best that I can. And here's what I will say. I mean, if you think about my audience, so here's my life. I go to Alabama. I host a college football show which is predominantly popular in the Southeast, and I do an hour of NASCAR every week on SiriusXM NASCAR radio. So check all those boxes, and you would probably say, "This guy votes for this party."
(26:50)
That's not how it goes with me. I defy that norm, but I'm around so much of people that disagree with me, and vehemently disagree with me, and are in love with somebody that I just cannot, in my right conscious understand thinking the person is fit for office, let alone the presidency. And we have so much evidence to suggest that what I'm saying, right? I have no issue with conservative and liberal.
(27:19)
I have an autographed picture of George W. Bush at the 9/11 site on my wall. I used to love the Bush family and what they stood for, but that's not where we're at right now. And so I like to shut up when I'm in my professional life, social media, I don't say a damn word. I've done it before. I've got into it with some media people on the other side, and then they put my conversation up on their show, blocked out my name, and I'm like, it's not worth this, this is ridiculous. My fan base is certainly not interested in my political views. It's a tricky thing because I care so deeply, but I also know where my bread's buttered, and maybe that makes me a coward in some respects, but that's kind of the line that I've toed.
Jason Altmire (28:07):
If somebody wanted to find out more about your shows, college football, how would they find you?
Chris Childers (28:14):
SiriusXM.com, and you go to the college sports page. Full Ride is the show that I do on that channel, which is on from 9:00 until 12:00 eastern time on Channel 84 with Rick Neuheisel. I do a show called Backstretch Banner on NASCAR RFK Racing on Wednesday at 2:00 eastern, and then on the weekends I do Mad Dog Sports Radio. I'll either do a Saturday or a Sunday show where I talk about everything. So, always busy.
Jason Altmire (28:45):
Our guest today has been Chris Childers. Chris, thank you for being with us.
Chris Childers (28:49):
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks for asking me.
Jason Altmire (28:52):
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org, and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's @ C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.