You need to worry about more than the NBA. Oats is not happy with Bama right now. He had to beg for a salary bump for Murphy and he does not like how much of our NIL goes to football.
Kansas is the one to watch. When Bill Self gets tired of losing like this year, he will be gone.
I'm not saying you are wrong. But I am curious where you are getting this from because it's the first time I've heard CNO is not happy at Alabama.
As a matter of fact, I watched his post game PC after the Duke game and I got the impression that he's more driven, focused and personally committed to bringing a NC to Bama than he's ever been! IOW, he didn't sound like a guy looking to leave.
All it would take is for his agent to float out he's unhappy and he'd be getting phone calls from top programs immediately.
KY wanted to hire him. Supposedly, Texas wanted to hire him. I'd bet UNC would fire their coach and hire him immediately.
FWIW, I know nothing, but I know he's one of, if not, the hottest coaches in college basketball. Seems like if he's unhappy we'd be seeing his tail lights already.
I am clearly not going to divulge where I get my information from but it is legit.
Good move not divulging good sources. Takes years or decades to build them. But the tap of an 'Enter' key can destroy them forever
and trash your name amongst other good sources -- there aren't that many of them, and they tend to know each other.
Regarding Oats, I actually think you're both right. I've heard some rumblings about Oats' disappointment with basketball pay-for-play. Hadn't heard the thing about Murphy, but I'm not doubting.
Otherwise, I think Oats is happy in Tuscaloosa. Likes his money, likes Byrne, likes a lot of stuff. But not the pay-for-play distribution.
Now, put yourself in Byrne's shoes:
1. You have a football team that really needs some players and your whole Athletic Department depends on that. Trash football -- or even hobble it just a little bit -- and all umpteen sports crumble.
2. You have a basketball program that unquestionably deserves more money.
3. You have just gotten heat by announcing that even though the NCAA is essentially lifting caps on scholarships, you can afford only 40 new ones.
4. You've also just wiped the mud off your face for sending out a statement of reality that was widely construed as begging.
5. This last one overlaps Byrne and the new President. Athletic success has fueled a lot of out-of-state student enrollment. Which results in a lot more tuition. Which, given that higher education is a high fixed cost / low marginal cost proposition, is huge in offsetting the Alabama State Legislature's lack of support for higher education.
What do you do? Where do you get the money to keep football the unquestioned locomotive, make basketball happy, fund a bunch of other scholarships for non-revenue sports, do it without begging, and keep the rest of the University operation humming?
It's easy to trash. It's infinitely harder to build an effective response.
So you're Greg Byrne for a day. What's your move?
Since I'm notorious for asking for a better solution, I'll offer mine.
Taking money from football is a non-starter for a lot of reasons. Despite the 9-figure budget, they need more money too. So here's how I'd raise it for the Athletic Department as a whole:
1. Faculty and Staff pay face for football and basketball tickets. 100% of it goes to the pay-for-play collective.
Late Add: Those folks can be a bit reactive and ornery, so maybe phase this on over a couple of years. Or offer payroll deduction 1/12 each month to ease the pain.
2. Reduce student football tickets to 10,000, awarded based on combination of GPA and credit hours earned. Empty seats indicate they either don't show up at all, or don't stay. So they'll yell, but their actions have been so loud I won't be able to hear what they'll say.
For basketball, keep student allocation as is. The student group (Crimson Chaos) makes a huge difference in close games. Thanks to Fluffapotamous for that, RIP. Plus, removing a couple thousand student basketball tickets wouldn't raise much money and would affect the atmosphere tremendously. Tradeoff just isn't worth the money.
3. Allocate the newfound football tickets to Tide Pride. Use the money for athletic scholarships, especially non-revenue sports.
4. For both football and basketball, impose a fee of 20% of the Tide Pride membership, including those in #3 above. 100% of the fee goes to the pay-for-play collective.
5. As a last ditch, cut some non-revenue men's sports. It would save some money, though not a ton, and wouldn't run us afoul of Title IX.
No, none of that is perfect. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. I'm open to other ideas that solve the five problems Greg Byrne and the new president, whoever he or she is, faces.
Disagree with the proposal all you want. Just come up with a better combination of options that raises the funds necessary to be athletically competitive in today's world.
I'm all ears.
