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The skinny from Pac-12 FB media days, Commish Scott on how ESPN cutbacks could impact his league, "I'm glad we've got our deal done. I'd be more worried if I were the Big Ten coming up." Conference will show full replays of important plays in all stadiums that are the exact ones seen on the TV broadcast, Scott says it's important to make the fan experience as interactive as possible & thinks his officials get a bad rap, so he's pushing the transparency angle, Scott also says the 12-school model has worked well & has no plans for expansion - link, link, link
The Wall Street Journal reports an expectation for a ruling in the Northwestern-National Labor Relations Board case by August 27th as the date marks the end of board member Johnson's tenure, commonly a rash of decisions are reached before a member's term expires, more importantly, "close watchers of the NLRB predict the board, with its Democratic majority, is more likely than not to uphold the regional decision. If so, the players would be eligible to form America's first college-athletes union." - link
Chicago Tribune interviews 50 current & former Illinois FB student-athletes to get a sense of how HC Beckman has operated during his tenure given the current controversy, one of the overarching issues noted were those who were in the program & recruited by former HC Zook when Beckman arrived, current team members generally point to a leader who cares about their growth, some former players recount an approach that was too verbally aggressive, lots more - link
Southern Mississippi announces plans for the Jeff Bower Academic Excellence Center Campaign with $1.15m already secured toward a $2m goal that will see the Golden Eagles construct a new student-athlete academic support facility under the west stands at M.M. Roberts Stadium named after the FB program's second-winningest HC, new digs will double the size of the current space & include a litany of benefits, Bower honored to be involved & notes the academic success FB had on his watch - link (article), link (presser)
TCU's basketball arena, previously known as Daniel-Meyer Arena will get a new name, Ed & Rae Schollmaier Arena, thanks to a commitment from the Alcon Laboratories CEO, $80m renovation of the facility is due for completion this November in time for the 2015-16 campaigns, Schollmaier's also donated back in 2004 for a hoops practice center, AD Del Conte promises the new digs will be "the finest in the Big 12" - link
Wisconsin AD Alvarez details how the Badgers admissions system for student-athletes may undergo a reversal of individual decisions being made at the individual college level in Madison, not just by the Office of Admissions, who Alvarez says doesn't talk to coaches to understand the whole picture & only looks at scores, hopes to have edit in place by next year, interestingly Alvarez believes the current setup hasn't negatively impacted recruiting efforts - link
Ohio State FB HC Meyer on the suspension of four notable student-athletes for the program's season-opener against Virginia Tech, "It's a college mistake, whether it's social or academic, whatever it is, it's not a character indictment." On how he's dealing with the issue, "With honesty. It's not the first time a program has dealt with stuff. We try to educate and create a culture where stuff is not a part of it." - link
Sports Illustrated's Winn follows up his solid piece on transfer trends of MBB Top 100 recruits with a look at coaching movement within the game, average annual percentage of new HCs out-paces the incoming transfer rate of four-year players, for any four-year span within the last 10 an average of 190 HC changes have occurred, using the same context an average of 3.1 AC transitions took place per program, "In school hopping, just as it is with program-building... coaches are the leaders." - link
Interesting read from the Stanford Report in which notable economist Noll who says pro sports stadiums don't produce local economic growth despite that facet being a major calling card for such projects, cites the infrequent use of such facilities, does not have the same belief when it comes to arenas as they're used many more times per year, comes at time when a number of cities have proposals in the works, thinks the practice could dry up - link
Providence Equity Partners, majority shareholder of Learfield Sports, continues its push to own more key sports media entities globally, along with mega-agency WPP has bid $550m for London-based Chime Communications, WPP will keep an interest of around 20% in Chime with Providence holding the majority, Chime is the sixth largest agency in the United Kingdom & most renown for its sports marketing specialty - link
NBA Commish Silver says his league will continue to push for growth in Africa during comments from Johannesburg, where a number of high-profile players will participate in an exhibition on Saturday, went to the continent himself to check out facilities & get a vibe from fans, notes Africa as the next logical place to extend the NBA - link
UAB AD Ingram hires Cuervo as Senior Assoc. AD for External Relations, heads to Birmingham after most recently serving as GM of Learfield's Missouri State property, will oversee development, marketing, tickets, licensing, communications, video services & more, Ingram points to the benefits of adding Cuervo's experience that also counts stops at Southeast Missouri, Indiana, Missouri & Bowling Green - link
Northern Illinois AD Frazier promotes two on his staff as Sedevie gets bumped to Senior Assoc. AD for Collegiate Advancement & External Affairs & Rice receives title of Senior Asst. AD for Revenue Generation, Frazier says Sedevie "knows better than anyone I'm about outcomes" & that both have done an excellent job in moving the Huskies forward, both Sedevie & Rice were hired in DeKalb by Frazier - link
Missed earlier in the week, but Georgia has recruited Lebron away from Ole Miss to serve as Assoc. AD for Development after three years in Oxford, also honed her fundraising chops at Cal & Florida, Bulldogs AD McGarity impressed with Lebron's personality & determination, "we know she will be an outstanding leader for our program" - link
Tennessee's momentum evident in record haul of $48.4m in cash & support during the 2014-15 fiscal year, tops the previous high water mark of $47m back in 2007-08, Tennessee Fund membership nearly hits 13k, annual giving makes up 58% or $28.3m of figure, an increase of $3.65m year over year, capital project commitments equaled $12.6m, Campaign for Comprehensive Excellence launched in the Fall of '13 & counts more than $112m raised - link
Rice's Owl Club also on the board with a top grossing year as a goal of $2.2m was exceeded by over $100k, $2.304m in total a 52.6% increase compared to last year's $1.51m, previous top mark was $1.81m from 2013, 582 new donors in the fold, AD Karlgaard, "It's great that we've grown so much, but we're by no means satisfied...We have a long ways to go." - link
Houston is set to enhance the wi-fi situation at TDECU Stadium in time for the 2015 FB campaign thanks to its partnership with Boingo Wireless, Boingo's distributed antenna system will be leveraged by T-Mobile, latest move by the Cougars to upgrade the fan experience that also includes the Fan Experience Headquarters that can be visited Monday through Friday & on game days, UH also now has a Fan Experience Committee - link
Coincidental or connected? Three former Virginia grads are suing Rolling Stone over the super high-profile & later redacted story of campus rape while news also breaks that Managing Editor for the magazine Dana will exit, the article's author is also named in the suit, Dana has been with Wenner Media for 19 years & "has decided he is ready for a change and a new challenge" - link
Virtual reality continues to be a hot top & this read from Techcrunch covers NextVR's fan VR platform as author Matney watched Manchester United versus Barcelona up-close via headset while actually at the game, five cameras were strategically located in Levi's Stadium for the match, co-founder Cole notes more advances to come including "full positional tracking," so if a referee is standing right in front of a camera, a user could literally look around the exact spot to see what the ref sees - link
Two of three parts from an interview with Florida AD Foley (with one segment behind a paywall), recounts some details of former FB HC Muschamp's tenure including a curious comment by the former boss that he was brought in to clean-up the program, interested to see the new vibe & attitude around FB more so than an exact number of wins, excited to implement full cost of attendance & says "we can't do enough for student-athletes," reiterates that he doesn't think about his own legacy with the Gators, even after 39 years, more - link, link
Contract details for new Florida A&M AD Overton include a $185k base salary, a $25k lump sum payment within 30 days of his start date, courtesy car & a handful of incentives that are based on "team, academic and departmental revenue performance," set to officially begin with the Rattlers next Monday & will be working with an $8.717m budget for 2015-16 - link
Utah FB HC Whittingham may have spilled the beans a bit at Pac-12 media days when he said the Utes are looking into the possibility of expanding Rice-Eccles Stadium by 10k to a total capacity of 45k, mentioned a timeframe of three to five years, though he also noted having seen renderings of what the facility would look like, AD Hill has downplayed the possibility of expansion in previous comments - link
Add Denver to the list of schools that produced record-setting fundraising results from the recently-completed fiscal year (sidebar: we need an enterprising intern to create a fundraising results chart from 2014-15 for all DIs), Pioneers counted more than 2,700 donors as an all-time high, as well as 100% giving from student-athletes & athletics & recreation staff, growth has led to 11 new endowments - link
The San Francisco Giants may have the most revered digital & social teams in all of sports & division boss Srabian passes along some key tips, starts with the importance of telling a story within a story & using all outlets & their unique positioning tools at your disposal, not afraid of stealing ideas from other teams who think of something creative, thinks posting the same content on multiple mediums can work, more - link
Insomnia is costing your department money as Harvard research has found corporate America losses 11.3 days of productivity per employee annually costing $63.2b in total, experts mention 24/7 connectivity with modern tech, over-bearing bosses & lean staffs, one notable quote, "In our Anglo-Saxton work ethic, there's this concept that sleeping is cheating," sleep consultants argue for a paradigm shift, some companies are trying to address the issue internally - link
Presidential updates: Iowa's process is moving along as search committee members will start vetting 40 to 50 candidates & identify some they want to bring to campus, Parker Executive Search's Wilder preaches confidentiality (link); Bradley's search is down to four, though they're not named, committee interviewed seven then cut the list, new Prez to hopefully be named by September (link); In NYT opinion pieces Harvard boss Gilpin Faust argues for the importance of a liberal arts education & not antithetical to STEM pursuits, while Lafayette Prez Byerly turns back unbundled higher ed (link)
Click the link for the 'First 4 Out' or four key developments that didn't quite make the email, powered by tears (that keep you from being traded) - link
