Season 2, Episode 19 feat. Lee De Leon

[00:00:07] Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Blue Raider Podcast hosted by Jake Bolden and presented by the Canseco Group General Contracting and Mighty Dog Roofing. Don't miss another Tuesday episode by subscribing to the podcast on all streaming platforms or catch our visual presentation uploaded every week on YouTube. Don't miss our next ticket giveaways by subscribing and following on all Blue Raider Podcast social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at Blue Raider Pod.

[00:00:41] Welcome back to another episode of the Blue Raider Podcast. I'm your host, Jake Bolden. And in today's episode, I have a very exciting, knowledgeable interview with the Deputy Athletic Director of External Affairs, Lee De Leon. Much anticipated interview today. So many questions really, as I preface for those that follow us on social media about the NIL conversation as well as the future of how athletes will get paid.

[00:01:07] So many questions that I've had for a very long time, I'm sure you have as well, can kind of get answered from the man within himself, Lee. Insightful as always. I want to take a second to, if it's your first time ever listening to the Blue Raider Podcast, make sure you're following us on our social media accounts so you don't miss our next uploads, as well as some future giveaways as baseball and softball season are around the corner. And I want to preview too. We will have Coach Jerry Myers on next week's episode to preview the baseball season.

[00:01:32] We've had a lot of excitement around that program this upcoming spring. And of course, the week thereafter, we'll preview softball. So, so much good stuff going on as well as basketball coverage as we're in the heat of things. And again, I want to applaud Blue Raider Nation for showing out not only in Murfreesboro for the men's game on Saturday night, but also making the trip to Bowling Green. I know that wasn't the result we were looking for, but as always, I'm very thankful for the faithful that showed up in Bowling Green to root on the Lady Raiders.

[00:01:58] And I expect the same crowd there this week to cheer them on against Sam Houston and Louisiana Tech. But before we get into the meat of today's episode with Deputy AD Lee De Leon, I want to take just a second to thank the sponsors of today's episode, beginning with Mighty Dog Roofing Nashville East. And when it comes to your home, trust Mighty Dog Roofing Nashville East for all of your needs.

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[00:03:20] If you're ready to build your future, contact the Conseco Group today at 615-298-9907. Or visit their website at theconsegogroup.com. Again, much appreciation to Mighty Dog Roofing and the Conseco Group. Been longtime sponsors of this podcast for the last six, seven months or so. So again, I can't appreciate them enough. And again, thank you for tuning into today's episode. And without further ado, let's get into that interview with Deputy AD Lee Day-Leon. Awesome.

[00:03:48] Joining the Blue Raider podcast now is the Deputy Athletic Director, Lee Day-Leon. He is in his fourth season here at Middle Tennessee Athletic Department. Lee, thanks for joining us. And Jake, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. This one's been in the works for some time. I'm really, it's a pleasure one to have you on. It's something that, you know, I offered this interview, I want to say a year ago. Maybe a little less than that to you. And you'd pass it off to Chris. And that kind of had a budding relationship there with me and Chris. He's done it twice.

[00:04:18] And now it's kind of your opportunity. And I bring that up because something that prior to that interview with Chris Massar, now he did one with Chip recently. The athletic department seems to be, the word I used was transparent. And that's something that we haven't seen in years past. We kind of get a deep dive into what's going into the athletic department. And I would like to, you know, give you some level of credit for that. You know, I want to hear from you. Is, is when I say that, you know, the department's being more transparent or they're kind of in the community a little bit more.

[00:04:46] Is that kind of a point of emphasis that you've kind of recognized within the department the last couple of years? Well, I think Chris recognized it. I remember when I, when I interviewed here about three and a half years ago, Chris had me in his office and just say, Hey, look, you know, honestly, things have gotten a little stale. We need somebody to bring in some new life and some new energy. And especially as it pertains to our donors and our fans and our community. And so he said, you know, that's not really my strength. And I'm looking to bring somebody in that could, could really energize our fan base and

[00:05:14] get in the community and build relationships. And I said, Hey, I love that stuff, man. If you're cool with it. And if you're comfortable with that, then I will gladly be out there spreading Blue Raider goodwill and getting people excited about our athletic department. So I'm happy to do that. So, you know, Chris has been here now 20 years. He's an outstanding athletic director. He's a great friend, a great mentor. But the thing that I appreciate about him the most is he lets me be me and he lets me do what, what I I'm going to do.

[00:05:43] I'm not great at looking at spreadsheets and budget forecasts and whatnot. I'm not a compliance guru or an academic specialist. But I am able to build relationships. And I do have a lot of energy in case you haven't noticed. And I just love people. I love people and I love communicating with people and getting to know people and understanding their backgrounds and what makes them tick. And so if nothing else, I think you've you've probably just noticed that I'm around a lot.

[00:06:12] I'm I'm out there in the community. I'm out there trying to build relationships. And and and that's something that has been an emphasis from Chris since the moment I interviewed, really. That's a great segue really into my next question for you. I know, you know, we know you as Lee. You're the guy that's at every sporting event. So it seems you're shaking hands, kissing babies. But, you know, to the fans that may not know necessarily what does Lee do for the athletic department?

[00:06:41] Can you kind of describe what the deputy AD position entails? Yeah, well, there's two deputy ADs. Diane Turnham is the deputy AD for internal affairs. She's been here for 43 years and she oversees the things that directly touch our student athletes. And so when you think of internal, think within the athletic department, people that that directly affect our student athletes. So she oversees strength and conditioning, sports medicine, nutrition, title nine, gender equity,

[00:07:10] really the things that directly impact our student athletes. I'm the deputy AD for external affairs, meaning outside of the athletic department. And so I deal with donors, fans, season ticket holders, sponsors, licensees, all the people out there outside of these walls of the Murphy Center that that impact our program. In corporate America, I'd be really viewed as like a chief revenue officer.

[00:07:34] So I'm in charge of bringing in money for the department and allowing us to have the resources that will help our student athletes succeed. Right. So I am responsible for five or six things. So I'll just list them here. Fundraising, which is here at the MTSU, the BRAA, Blue Raider Athletic Association. Marketing. Licensing, which is, you know, merchandise, sales, gear, whatnot products.

[00:08:04] Ticket sales. Sponsorships. And then and then I also get to oversee NIL. And that's something that's new really since I started. It started. It became legal in July of 21. And I started in November of 21. And so that that's kind of been something I didn't have a lot of experience in because it didn't exist. But I've had to have had to be quickly become an expert on it.

[00:08:27] And so I'm very involved with our collective Raiders Rising and spend a lot of time with those guys in our football program and our basketball programs to try to generate more NIL for our student athletes. And so in addition to the external stuff, I get to work with with five sports. So I'm the sports supervisor, which means I'm kind of like the liaison between the head coach and the AD for baseball, men's golf, women's golf, men's tennis and women's tennis. And then Chris is the sports supervisor for football, men's basketball.

[00:08:57] But I kind of help him out on those, too. So I work directly with seven sports and oversee those external units that generate revenue for the department. So much goes on a man of many hats, which is evident, obviously, by everything you listed. And there's so many topics really that you bring up that your hand is in that I have a million questions about. And hopefully we can we can tackle as many of them as we can.

[00:09:20] But again, on the topic of getting to know a little bit about you, and I think, you know, this next question I have for you is one I kind of had posed for you a long time ago. You're you're and you've been here for four years. So this is not necessarily a timely question. But over your tenure as working in athletic departments and things that I really want to highlight for you, you know, you worked at Abilene Christian whenever they were doing their transition from D2 to FCS. You know, you worked there at Louisiana. I know I'm supposed to call them just Louisiana, but Louisiana Lafayette.

[00:09:49] I don't know how offended you are of that. But you're there in that transition period where that program with Billy Napier becomes a top flight college football program at the G5 level with his tenure there. What have you learned over that time in those two very particular situations that saw exponential growth in both of those young programs? Yeah, good question.

[00:10:10] And thanks for asking that you've done your homework, you know, at Abilene Christian, when I got got to serve as the AD for for four years from 2014 to 2018. We were, as you mentioned, transition from D2 to D1. We joined FCS in my second year. We were actually at the transition from D2 to D1 is a four year process. And I came in in year two, but we became full fledged members shortly thereafter.

[00:10:40] And so we got to build a brand new football stadium from scratch, which was probably the coolest thing I've ever had the chance of getting to do until now with the Student Adly Performance Center, which I just walked through with Chris Massaro. And it's unbelievable. I can't wait for y'all to see it. But that was a really incredible time of growth and momentum. And what I've learned from that and from my time in Louisiana when Billy Napier led us to the three best seasons in school history for the Raging Cajuns, is you just have to capitalize on the momentum.

[00:11:09] You have to strike while the iron's hot. You have to really, really be willing to invest in the success that you're having. Greg Byrne, the AD at Alabama, who was the AD at Arizona when I used to work there forever ago. Greg used to say, you have to invest in your success. Like, so when you win, you have, that's when you needed the double down to keep winning. And so like Louisiana Lafayette, we had those great three seasons with Napier.

[00:11:38] Or I think if I'm remembering correctly, my three years there, we won 10 games year one, 11 year two and 12 and year three. And, you know, that was when we started spending the most, you know, and we would pay Napier more to try to convince him to stay. We would build new facilities. We would invest in the program. We would invest money in the assistant coach's salary pool and whatnot and nutrition. Right. And so when you have success, that's the time to keep spending because you want to stay ahead of the curve.

[00:12:07] You can't rest on your laurels and say, hey, we're doing great. Let's just sit here and keep doing it. No, that's really the time where you got to say, OK, how can we maintain this and how can we continue the momentum that we built? And so at both Abilene Christian and in Louisiana, you know, I really was challenged and encouraged to to make asks and to close big gifts during those times so that we could continue to invest.

[00:12:35] And during Louisiana's my three years there, we raised, I think, fifty two million dollars and were able to just go out and make big asks, ten million dollar gift, fifteen million dollar gift. And to close some big, big gifts out there in a short amount of time, because that's when you got to strike while the iron's hot. And all this discussion really centered around the growth of those programs.

[00:13:00] And we're experiencing something like this now at MTSU, as you already touched on the SAPC. I guess I've got a few questions really ranging around that. But a lot of the excitement right now is when are we going to be able to see this thing in action? Like you said, you walk through it. You know how close what's the timeline on this first phase of that? Yes. So we should finish completion of the construction in June and we're scheduled to move in in July. And then obviously fall camp starts in August.

[00:13:29] And so it's a really tight window and there's really no room for for delay or for error. But just walking through there right now before I got on this call, Jake, I mean, you see all the walls, you see all the windows like, you know, it's you can tell we're getting close. And so the size of that project is really going to impress people. It's eighty five thousand square feet. And I remember my first year here, they opened the new concrete and construction management building across campus.

[00:13:57] And that's an unbelievable building, but it's sixty five thousand square feet. So take that and add twenty thousand square feet. And that's what the SAPC will be. And so, you know, Chris and I were walking around like, oh, man, this is this is really nice. This is really big. You know, we really did this the right way. And kudos to our our university leadership and approving it. Kudos to our donors for funding it. But, yeah, I mean, it's a sixty six million dollar building and it feels like it when you walk through. You're like, yeah, this is this is big time.

[00:14:27] This is elite. It'll be the best facility in Conference USA, bar none. And we're really proud of that. And when it comes time to to really because you can never equate the dollar amount to wins on the field. And that's always winning would solve everything in the world. And that's not really the discussion to have with the athletic director, in my opinion. But what I want to bring up to you now is a little bit about where do you see this program going with the addition of this phase?

[00:14:52] And I know that there's other phases to come in the future from your eyes and even Chris Massaro and speaking for the athletic department as a whole. What are you hoping to kind of this this SAPC will garner for the program looking ahead? I mean, we want it to be a statement that the MTSU takes athletics seriously, that we want to win, that we want to be the best. We want to dominate our conference. And I think this this facility gives us a chance to do that.

[00:15:18] I've been to every school in our league, I think, so far, with the exception of the new schools like Delaware and Missouri State that's coming. But and I've seen their football facilities and this is this is going to be the best. And so I already think Coach Mason is recruiting at an extremely high level. I think once this building finishes, not only Coach Mason, but all of our coaches, because, you know, that that weight room is for everybody. The training room is for everybody. The nutrition center is for everybody.

[00:15:47] I think all of our coaches will have a new toy to sell and you'll be able to see our recruiting efforts improve across the board. And so, you know, Jimmy Bourne, Dave, tell you that they've they've recruited better since our tennis complex opened. And and I think that we'll see everybody recruit even better with the SAPC opening this summer.

[00:16:07] And so we want this building to really be a testament to how how much we care about athletics and we care about our student athletes and how much we're willing to invest in them. And I think that, you know, when you see phase two and phase three and, you know, we're not done yet. This is just phase one. We've got a lot more to go. And when all said and done, it's going to be well over 100 million dollars that we're going to spend on our athletic facilities.

[00:16:30] And you don't do that unless you really care about athletics, unless it's a priority for the university and for the president, for the board of trustees. And so I think that our fans, I hope that our fans and our alumni and our season ticket holders and our donors all see like, OK, from the top down, they're investing and they're willing to put money where their mouth is. And so it's an exciting time to be a Blue Raider. That's a big part of why I came here is I knew that that Bill Blue was going to transform not only the athletic facilities,

[00:17:00] but really the perception of MTSU. It's going to it's going to show how much athletics matters at this university. And so I'm proud to be a part of that. A little pit stop, as you mentioned, phase two and three. How close are we in regards to funding? When does that kind of start? Well, phase two, we've begun some temporary designs and not a lot of people have seen those. They're really right now being floated amongst the university leadership. And then hopefully they'll get in front of the board of trustees soon.

[00:17:30] But those designs are really, really spectacular. But we don't know what our budget is going to be. And so sometimes you get, you know, you get excited about certain things and you find out how much they cost. You're like, OK, we've got to pull back there. But, you know, the phase two planning process has begun. What we now need to do is price it out and formulate a fundraising plan, both private and public fundraising.

[00:17:57] So that means not just on individual donors, but on hopefully the city, hopefully the state, hopefully the university. We're going to need everybody to chip in to pull this off. But the Murphy Center is such a special place that matters so much to this community and to our alumni and to our fans. And that it deserves this renovation. It deserves this enhancement. And it is going to happen.

[00:18:27] It's just a matter of when and not if. And the win will be dictated by how effective we are in generating the funds to pull it off. But the designs have begun. Conversations with donors have begun. And university leadership is aware and involved and really supportive of what we want to do. And so I'm really excited about phase two. Now, phase three, which is the indoor practice facility, it's a little further off.

[00:18:57] But if somebody comes up and says, hey, I want to help build an indoor practice facility, we will gladly have that conversation. I'm sure you would feel that call in a heartbeat. But I want to get back to a little bit. You made the comment there about the perception of MTSU. And a guy that has really made that, I would say, different, whether that's good or bad, whoever wants to look at it that way.

[00:19:18] But Coach Mason, now being a part of the MTSU family, being the new head football coach after season one, a guy that I give him all the praise in the world just for his level of involvement, whether that comes in the community with people or what he does with his players and his athletes. Clearly, there's a level of respect with him on campus. How does working with a guy like Mason, you know, how does it change your job, having a guy that has that level of charisma? Oh, man, he's he's he's electric, man.

[00:19:48] That guy is lightning in a bottle. I love it. I love being around him. He makes us all better. He just has a level of enthusiasm and passion that is contagious. And, you know, when we take him around in the community to meet with donors or to speak at an event like it's not like pulling teeth, like he really enjoys it. And so that has, I think, inspired a lot of people in our department to to get out more and to be in the community more.

[00:20:16] And he's very quick to say, like, hey, we can't expect Murfreesboro and Rutherford County to support us if we're not giving back to them. And so he's done a really good job with what he calls the Blue Collar Project, which is a community service initiative within his football team to get the to get his athletes in the community. And he really he really values that. And that's important to him. It's not just coach speak like he he leads the charge.

[00:20:42] He's extremely involved with the Boys and Girls Club in town. That's that's something that is a passion project for him. And so he leads by example as well. You know, the thing that I really value about Coach Mason that I don't think a lot of people are able to see firsthand is like, I mean, this season was rough. You know, we went three and nine. None of us expected that or wanted that. But, man, he stayed positive the whole time. He never went in the tank. He never got negative.

[00:21:11] He never started blaming people like he has a really great ability to not get too high, not get too low. You know, I'm a passionate person and I'm an emotional guy and I kind of ride the wave a little bit. He doesn't mean he's steady Eddie. He's positive. And he does a really good job of saying like, hey, we were we had a bad year, but that doesn't deter from what his long term goals and vision are for this program.

[00:21:39] And he he doesn't he didn't go through this season and be like, OK, man, this isn't what I thought it was. It's like, no, like, hey, this is what we got to do different. Here's how we're going to adapt. Here's how we're going to change. You know, and so I think I think he's done a really good job of adapting. And I think we're going to see a lot of different things now with our football program. You know, NIL is one of them.

[00:22:02] He's really making some progress in helping us raise more money for NIL because that's necessary at this level. If we want to be competitive, if we want to be Boise State and get to the college football playoffs, which we all do, we've got to be more competitive in the NIL space. And Coach Mason has embraced that and his staff has embraced that. And they've put together a great plan that now we just have to go execute. So I love Coach Mason's energy.

[00:22:27] I love his passion, but I also love his willingness to adapt and adjust and his level of steadiness and even keel approach that he has. He's unfazed, man. He is unfazed and he still really believes in our future. And that excites me a lot. I'm glad you bring up the NIL aspect of what Mason does with football. And there's so many, I've got, again, a million questions that come to me about what is this program doing in regards to money?

[00:22:56] How does that work? You're still, you said yourself, learning the steps that come with it. So as far as what you have learned and what maybe Mason is learning along the way himself, because this is his first time as a head coach dealing with the same NIL, Wild West, as I like to describe it right now. What have you guys learned internally as a program? What is Mason kind of learning? How are you kind of attacking it this first full year where Mason's again kind of had his hands in the sand?

[00:23:24] Well, let me, if you don't mind, I'll give you a long answer with kind of a detailed timeframe of how we got from where it started to where we are today and kind of what our plan is moving forward. So feel free to interrupt with questions at any time. But when it was launched in July of 2021, NIL was intended to only pay athletes for use of their name, their image, or their likeness. And there was no pay to play. And there was no involvement with the university.

[00:23:53] And so collectives were starting to populate. Collectives had to be separate. Collectives couldn't really communicate with the athletic department. They had to operate on their own. And they were out there getting deals done and improving stuff without the university necessarily knowing about or being involved with it. And that was really complicated. Well, fast forward three plus years now. And the university can be involved with the collective.

[00:24:22] In fact, a lot of universities are absorbing their collective and taking them in-house. And we are not. We're choosing to keep it separately. So Raiders Rising is still a separate entity from MTSU. But I meet with them every other week. We talk all the time. We're putting together a kind of plan of attack for different prospects to make sure we know who they're talking to, who they knew who we're talking to, and we're cohesive about our approach to different donors and potential sponsors.

[00:24:52] And so – Sorry. And strategically, what's kind of the difference from saying your collective being in-house versus external? Well, that's a good question. If you take it in-house, then you have to probably hire people and pay people to run it. If it's separate and it's a separate LLC like ours is, then they have their own staff or board. In our case, board. We don't have any full-time staff.

[00:25:21] We have board members – four board members who have other jobs. But they do this kind of on the side because they love the Blue Raiders. And so when you have it separate, there is still a level of separation that allows the board and the LLC of Raiders Rising to control the money a little bit more.

[00:25:44] And we don't have, as an athletic department, to worry so much about equity or Title IX or some of those things if it's separate and if it's all funneled through the collective, if that makes sense. If it is funneled through the university, then there's certain rules and structure in place that we have to abide by. And so I think that there's a little bit more flexibility and freedom by keeping it separate, if that makes sense.

[00:26:14] Yeah, no, that makes perfect. And it seems to be, at least from someone like myself on the outside looking in, that seems to give you a little bit more freedom per se where you put NIL funds, if that's a good way of putting it. Exactly what I'm getting at. But if you keep them separately, the thing that you have to do, which we're fleshing out on a daily basis, is we got to know who they're talking to and they have to know who we're talking to. We have to know what they're asking for and they have to know what we're asking for.

[00:26:42] We need to tell them what we need and then they need to help us go out and get it. So, you know, there's just so many things that could go wrong. Think about it this way. I'm just going to make up a hypothetical. This is all completely imaginary scenario, but like, let's say they want to go out and get $100,000 for this quarterback at whatever high school.

[00:27:07] And so they go out and they raise money and they say, hey, we're going to offer $100,000 to this quarterback at X high school. Well, Coach Mason may have found somebody that he likes better. And he thinks, you know, we can get that quarterback for $50,000 and he'd rather use $100,000 to go get a left tackle to block for the quarterback. And then all of a sudden there's this, you know, disconnect between what the coach wants and what the collective has. And so you can't have that. There's got to be synergy between the two organizations.

[00:27:36] And I think we have that. Coach Mason has developed a great relationship with Raiders Rising and the board. And the other coaches have, too. You know, the coach that's killing it the most out there right now is Rick Enzel. I mean, Rick Enzel and women's basketball are really proactive in the NIL game and they're doing a fantastic job. And they have a great relationship with the Raiders Rising collective and their board. And so one thing that's important to know is not every coach or every team needs NIL.

[00:28:04] Right now, NIL is still not allowed for international students. So like Jimmy Borenday in our men's tennis, every player on his roster is international. We don't have any Americans. So men's tennis actually can't do NIL unless the NIL is earned in their home country. And that's obviously hard to do when they live here.

[00:28:22] And so not every team has to do NIL or wants to do NIL, but the ones that really need it have got to have a great symbiotic relationship with our collective. And several of them do. And Chris's job, my job is to just kind of referee that and make sure everybody's talking and communicating.

[00:28:45] Well, the other part of NIL that's kind of become a recent development is this house settlement with the NCAA, where my understanding, again, you probably know way more about this than I do. But the NCAA is going to back pay. At least the settlement was they're going to back pay $1.2 billion with a B over the next 10 years. You know, how does this change the dynamic of NIL moving forward? What the NCAA can, can't do. To students potentially becoming state employees.

[00:29:15] I mean, like I said, when I say Wild West, this is just stuff that goes through my head of, you know, where do you draw the line from these kids becoming a semi-professional athlete? You know, our hope, and I think every athletic department in the country hopes this, that we can continue to maintain a level of amateurism for college sports. These are not professional athletes. These are kids that are in school that have to go to class. They have to go to study hall. They have to meet with their tutors that are working towards degrees.

[00:29:44] And so there is a huge fear amongst several administrators across the country that this college sports amateurism model is going to go away. And so we have to preserve it and protect it. And so I think there's a lot of good efforts to try to do that. But I don't think that the employee status is gaining a ton of traction because if we're going to employ these kids, then we could fire the kids.

[00:30:14] And I say kids when I'm talking about student athletes. And then, you know, they're going to get a payroll. But if they're on payroll, then they have to pay taxes. And there's all kinds of employment law and stuff like that that would come into play that would just really complicate things. And so I've read about employment and the possibility there. We read articles about this stuff every day, as you can imagine.

[00:30:42] But I don't feel like there's a ton of momentum right now. Maybe we're headed that way eventually. Maybe it's inevitable. But right now, I don't feel like that's pending or, you know, coming in the near future. What is coming, though, and what we're all prepared for to hit our industry in July is using institutional dollars to pay athletes. That has never happened before.

[00:31:07] But that's the other part of the settlement, not the back pay, but moving forward, how you can use what they call revenue sharing. So the money that we generate through the areas I talked about earlier, ticket sales, sponsorships, fundraising, licensing, all those things. We can use those dollars now to pay athletes. And so you can take basically and I was sitting down with a donor the other day. And hopefully this makes sense, Jake, is we can pay athletes in one of three ways.

[00:31:36] One, they could have the traditional NIL where they go out and they negotiate a deal with a business or a company to pay them for their name, image and likeness. So you've probably seen the boulevard across the street who pays our athletes to promote on social. Hey, make sure you go to the boulevard after the game. And those individual athletes have contracts directly with the boulevard. And the boulevard pays them through meals and through cash to promote and be brand ambassadors for the boulevard.

[00:32:05] Right. So that's an individual NIL deal. That's that's number one. Number two would be through the collective. Right. And so they could they could make money and get paid by Raiders Rising. And Raiders Rising would have them do something in exchange for that, whether that's promoting Raiders Rising or promoting a certain company.

[00:32:25] But they could have a contract between the athlete and Raiders Rising and Raiders Rising would pay them for their NIL or pay them to to play for the Blue Raiders. Right. And then the third way, and this is the new way, and this would be starting in July one would be to get payment through institutional NIL. That means money that the university generates through other ways, other revenue that they disperse amongst their teams.

[00:32:53] And so I've seen I've seen Power Four schools come out and say, hey, we're going to we're going to do revenue share. And so they break down their their numbers and their percentages of revenue share based on the size of the sport and the amount of revenue that that sport generates. Right. So football generates the most revenue at 98 percent of schools across the country. So football players are going to get the largest share. Now, I'm not saying that's how we're going to do it here at MTSU, but that's a model that exists out there.

[00:33:22] Or people are going to break down their revenue distribution on percentages based on the amount of revenue generated by those sports. And so we we have a plan that we're formulating with Chris and Dr. McPhee. And, you know, we are still in discussions of what exactly that's going to look like.

[00:33:41] But it's really interesting now how these student athletes can make NIL dollars through individual partnerships, through a deal with the collective or through the actual university revenue sharing distributions that are coming starting in July. I want to interrupt the interview for just one second to clarify a little tidbit that has changed over the weekend since this recording with A.D. Lee De Leon.

[00:34:08] One thing to note about the Department of Education, they released a memo, a.k.a. a fact sheet over the weekend that focused on the Title IX application. One thing that is very in particular about this memo was the revenue sharing payments, much like Leah touched on the three different ways that athletes can be paid.

[00:34:26] The one thing that has changed drastically about the revenue sharing is that Biden's Department of Education has released this memo to say that now universities, as opposed to basing their revenue share on the percentages that those sports bring in, much like Leah touched on, 98 percent of the universities across the country.

[00:35:12] Football is their number one revenue sport. We split 50-50. 50 percent would go to men's athletics and 50 percent would go to women's athletics. Now, I don't want to overcomplicate this any more than it already is. However, it's not necessarily a 50-50 split. The one caveat to it is it's based solely on the percentage of student athletes that are in your university. So if you have a 60 percent male student athlete body, 60 percent would go and then obviously the 40 percent would go to women.

[00:35:39] But because of Title IX, most schools are already operating pretty darn close to the 50-50 split. So for all intents and purposes, it is a 50-50 split with revenue. This does change a lot for these universities, much like Leah has already touched on, because you're already operating at 70 percent of your money is going to football. Derek Mason, the football program, are preparing to receive 70 percent of the revenue.

[00:36:02] Well, now things have changed. That's going to be cut drastically because they're not even going to receive 50 because they have to share that 50 percent with other sports in some capacity, including men's basketball. So things have changed drastically over the weekend since this interview with Lee. So I want to add a little bit of context to this conversation. However, another little additional piece to go along with this is this is something that that Biden's Department of Education has decided to implement this last weekend of in office.

[00:36:28] Now that we have had the inauguration last night of Trump into the White House, things may change in the coming weeks where it gets reverted back to the original plan of the 70 percent revenue to football, 15 to men's basketball, 10 to women's, so on, so forth. So there's still some things that are up in the air in regards to this revenue sharing. Obviously, this is a huge deal for all of college athletics because that does allow universities to dip into 21 million dollars more money that they can now give to student athletes.

[00:36:56] However, Title IX does change the dynamics of how that money is now spent. So something to keep eyes on in the coming months now that we have a different president in the White House. But as it sits today at the release of this episode, this Title IX implementation from the Department of Education does require a 50-50 split. So without further ado, let's get right back into that interview with Lee. I guess where my head goes now, and this is kind of a two-part question.

[00:37:25] One, I know you say you're still formulating a lot of it. How much of this, how much of it does it come down to an individual basis? I know you talk about the programs individually, like a higher chunk would go to the higher revenue earning sports. How does that then go about each individual athlete? So if I put it into football's perspective, how does that go to the quarterback or the left tackle or the linebacker? And then my second part question, kind of back to circle back onto Bourne Dame's situation,

[00:37:54] does this still apply to international students? Because that does play a big role, obviously, in the men's tennis, but even our women's basketball team, per se. No doubt. No doubt. And so my understanding, and I'm not a compliance guru, as I mentioned earlier, but I think institutional NIL dollars could still go to international student-athletes. But I need to double-check with our compliance office, so don't quote me on that. But each coach will have a plan of how they want to distribute those funds and who they want to distribute those funds to.

[00:38:24] And it could be formulaic-based, okay, so we're going to have 60% of our institutional NIL revenue share money is going to go to our quarterback and our running back and our wide receiver, and then we'll distribute through it, whatever. Like, each coach will be able to determine how they want to divide up their funds amongst their program. So I think it's going to be a lot of money ball type stuff, you know?

[00:38:50] And each coach can decide, like, what do they value, the cornerback versus the safety, right? What do they value, outside linebacker versus a defensive end? And how do they want to distribute those funds amongst their team? And so each coach will formulate a plan, and they'll run that by Chris, and they'll come up with something together that everybody feels good about, and we'll implement it. And so what's crazy is just that, you know, Jake, I'm in my 20th year working in college athletics,

[00:39:19] and, you know, for the first 17, 16, 17 of those years, it was like, don't pay athletes. Make sure none of the athletes get paid. Make sure that everybody is not giving them unfair treatment or perks that other people can't get. Well, now it's like, hey, let's make sure we pay our athletes. Let's make sure that we get extra benefits to our athletes to make them want to stay. And, you know, we haven't talked about this yet, but the elephant in the room is the transfer portal, right?

[00:39:48] Because if you don't pay your athletes and you don't give them certain perks and benefits, then they're going to hop in the portal. And so not that we need to let the tail wag the dog per se, but you've got to make sure that you don't have too much turnover on your roster or it's going to be impossible to win. You've got to recruit great talent, but you've got to retain great talent. And to retain great talent, you've got to prevent people from going in the transfer portal. And to prevent people from going in the transfer portal, you have to pay them. You have to compensate them.

[00:40:16] That's the reality of the world that we live in. And so we have to come up with a great plan to compensate our athletes in a way that's going to prevent them from getting in the transfer portal and leaving us, because we can't win if our rosters get decimated every year. You can win if maybe a portion of it. I think men's basketball is a good example. I think they lost three players to the transfer portal, but the national average is five to six. So we were half of that.

[00:40:42] And that's why you're seeing a lot of the success that we have in men's basketball this year, because we were able to add some pieces from the transfer portal, but we still maintained our core. You know, Justin Porter and Cam Weston and Justin Buford and those guys, Tori Alston that we were able to retain, Chris Loof, those guys that we were able to get back. And so there is going to be turnover. It's inevitable. You can't contain it, but you can reduce the amount of turnover by having a great NIL program.

[00:41:10] And that is a combination of those three things, individual NIL, the collective NIL, and the institutional NIL. Where I'm going to go with this now is you talk about the revenue sharing, institutional money. You know, how much does that, because I know you're talking about institutional, so you're talking more, correct me if I'm wrong. This is more MTSU money, less the athletic department, BRA money necessarily.

[00:41:33] So does that affect the amount of revenue you necessarily need now to operate that portion of NIL? I'm not sure if I understand your question, Jake, but BRA money is institutional money. That's money when I talk about revenue coming in. That's BRA, that's tickets, that's sponsorships, that's licensing, merchandise sales, concessions, parking.

[00:41:57] Any way that we generate funds, including the BRA, becomes university dollars and could lead to institutional NIL. So when I say that, really, I guess I'm talking from the endowment. Like I say what the university itself as a college necessarily brings in separate from the athletic department. Are you able to utilize that money at all in the athletic department? Well, okay, good question. We do get money from the university.

[00:42:22] Most, if not all, public institutions do where it's called institutional support, where they use part of mainly tuition revenue and allocate that towards the athletics department to help with our budget. And so you take that institutional money plus the revenue that I mentioned, plus like conference revenue that we get from being in Conference USA and from teams advancing in the NCAA tournament.

[00:42:48] By the way, yesterday they announced that money from the women's basketball tournament will contribute revenue as well. So you add all that into one big pot, which determines our athletic department budget. And then we spend that money, we can allocate a portion of that money to the athletes. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm going with this now is in MTSU as a public university. I guess my fear is that as someone that does not care, but if you were someone that does not care about athletics, I'm here to get an education.

[00:43:18] Will I see my tuition rise? And again, maybe this isn't necessarily this conversation between us in the talk and athletics. But would I see a rise in my tuition fees there? And then my second part, how does private institutions, how do they, how do you know, this isn't us, but how do you see that playing out? Like I think about the schools like Liberty in particular, someone that we compete with in Conference USA.

[00:43:40] How does something like that not get out of control where Liberty now their funds because their endowment is significantly higher than anyone else in Conference USA? And then how do you see the separation of public and private institutions in the future playing out because of this institutional money? Well, one thing I neglected to mention earlier is that in all this revenue share and institutional NIL conversation, there is a cap. There is a cap and there's a formula of how they created that cap.

[00:44:09] But the number this year is about like 21 million. And then that could grow over time. But the numbers that I keep hearing is 21, 22 million a year right now for the next few years is going to be the cap on how much money each school, whether you're Alabama in Florida or your MTSU in Western Kentucky, that you can't spend any more than that on your athletes. And the revenue share cannot exceed those those dollar amounts.

[00:44:38] And so when I say on your athletes, we're talking about their increased any increased scholarships that we could give out institutional NIL, like I mentioned, the Alston Fund, cost of attendance, the stuff that we directly give to the athletes is capped. And so even if you generate 200 million, you know, you can't go out and spend 50 or 100 million on student athletes in NIL payments, it's capped.

[00:45:08] So that's one thing. And so I hope I answered that part of the question. The other thing when you're talking about liberty and private schools, liberty is always going to be an advantage over us and the rest of Conference USA because of their online students. They have like 100,000 online students and they get tuition revenue from them and they're able to use that tuition revenue to help fund athletics. And so their whole funding model for the athletic department is different from the rest of us. And that's why they're able to spend a lot more.

[00:45:38] You know, their football coach makes a lot more than our football coach because they have that money through the online student tuition revenue that they receive as a school. And we don't have that that we don't have 100,000 online students. Right. And so that is a factor as well. So I do think that, you know, the schools that can generate more revenue and invest that revenue in athletics are going to be at an advantage,

[00:46:05] whether that's through their endowment or through tuition or through other fundraising. And I can't speak, Jake, to how the university is going to allocate tuition dollars or any type of fees. Those decisions are made well above my pay grade. But I do think that university funds can be used to pay student athletes. That's the the broad, all encompassing regulation that's about to change starting in July one.

[00:46:34] And so when I say university funds in that sentence, those can come from a lot of different ways and they can come from tuition. They can come from fees that can come from revenue generated through athletics. They can come through online students in their tuition. There's lots of different ways that a school can allocate university fund, can generate university funds and choose to allocate university funds.

[00:46:58] But there is a cap that can't be exceeded per year on money spent with the athletes. Just it's just a wormhole. You can really open up and really deep dive into a lot of this stuff. And there's I guess as you're kind of putting it like there's still a lot to figure out even internally within MTSU, but across the landscape. And I want to take a we'll just we'll put a we'll put a pin in this because there's so much really we could continue to talk about. And I want to applaud Lee, too, because a little behind the scenes here.

[00:47:27] You weren't prepared for this. You didn't you weren't giving notes. Lee knows this. These are off the cuff for him. And I'm impressed. One, how educated you are on, to my opinion, a very a very new thing. And obviously the university is is in a position right now where they're already having these conversations. You're already moving in those directions to kind of tackle these issues when they come to us. And so for one, I applaud that. That's always positive to see. But get back a little bit more internally, MTSU and what you're doing there with the athletic department.

[00:47:56] Really, my introduction to you was through your your fan experience focus group that you have thrown together. And I had, again, the pleasure of sitting in on one of those meetings recently before football season. We need to have you in more, first off. Well, I appreciate that. And and not only myself, there's plenty of people that provide tons of insight.

[00:48:16] And one thing I love about it is there's people from different walks of the community that are in this focus group that give you so much valuable feedback that I myself, again, as a younger guy that just graduated and I'm big in athletics. But you have people that are from all walks. And so I want to hear again, as this is still a relatively new focus group you've been doing. What over a year now, what are you learning from from this focus group? How are you how have you applied the things you've learned into changing the fan experience?

[00:48:43] And as well as I'm sure you're capitalizing on some marketing as well. Yeah. So one of the reasons why I was so attracted to this job is that my last school, Louisiana Lafayette, I was the deputy AD, but I was only in charge of fundraising. And I just felt like I could do more and I could help more. And I had other ideas. I started my career in the marketing field. I was a marketing major in college. And so this job allows me to be involved with marketing and fan experience. So I was really excited and drawn to that.

[00:49:13] And then when I got here, I realized, you know, like, hey, we have some really good people with really good ideas. We just need to get them in the room and allow them to shine. We have an associate for marketing named Chelsea Floyd that's incredibly talented. And she leads those fan experience committee meetings and does a tremendous job with those. The idea was it came from another school. We joke that that in college athletics, this came from Crystal Conti, the AD of Texas, that there's a lot of R&D going along. Rip off and duplicate.

[00:49:44] And so I saw another school do this. And so we applied here at MTSU. And so we allowed people, we put out a press release asking for people to apply to be on the fan experience committee. And we were going to meet quarterly and they were going to get some insider information in the athletic department. But we really wanted to get their input on the fan experience experiences that they have at football, basketball and baseball. And so we had a really good turnout of applicants and we narrowed it down.

[00:50:09] And I think we've got like 15 people on the committee and we meet every once we meet once a quarter. And we just basically say, all right, what are you experiencing? Are the lines long? Is the music too loud? Is the food cold? Whatever. Give it to us. Help us to learn and to listen. And so that's been extremely valuable, Jake. I mean, it's extremely valuable. As you said earlier, my job on game day is to just walk around, shake hands and make people feel special. And I love it.

[00:50:36] I love hugging, high five and pointing to people, waving to people. There's a lot of people that don't really understand why I do that. I do that to make people feel special. That's my whole goal because I want them to know that when they come to games, we notice them and we appreciate them and we're glad they're there. And so that's really what I do. So I'm not really paying attention to the music or to the concession lines or to the temperature in the club level, whatever. And so we really lean on these valuable members of our fan experience committee to give us that feedback.

[00:51:07] And so every time we meet, I give a little update on the athletic department and then Chelsea leads a discussion on how can we get better? What do you think about this? You know, I'll tell a funny story. Like, I like cheers. I like traditions. I went to school at Notre Dame. We got all kinds of stuff that we do every game. And so I wanted to try to get the crowd to say MTSU, like in each corner of the stadium. M-T-S-U. And I thought it was going to be awesome.

[00:51:36] Well, we did it and the fan experience was like, hey, Lee, we love your heart, but it sucks. It's not working. All right, well, let's pull it. We pulled it. We stopped doing it. But now, you know, we've got other traditions that we have tried that have stuck and that are working. And they were one of the first people to say, hey, we need a DJ at our games, a live DJ. So we've done that for football and basketball. And that has worked. And then, you know, Chris Massaro had the idea about having live music at football. And we do, you know, we've seen that at the Preds games or at the Titans games.

[00:52:05] So we tried it this year. And the rain messed us up a couple times. But our fan experience was like, yeah, no, we like that. Let's keep doing it if we can. So we're going to try to keep doing it, budget permitting, right? But all that being said, it's just a great – it's great to have a sounding board of people from all walks of life and all areas of the community and all ages just to be able to say like, yeah, you know what? I really like that. Or, hey, I don't really like that. Another outcome of that committee has been food trucks. You know, we have food trucks at every football game.

[00:52:36] And we used to do it just like one game a season. Well, now we do it for every game. And people love our food trucks. And so that's another thing that came out of that committee. And so each year we do kind of like a recap of everything that the fan experience committee helped us create and help us implement and change. And so it's been really rewarding and really fun. And I'm glad you're a part of it and hope to see you at our next meeting. I know I missed the last one. And if I could throw in any bit of advice here for the public, and I'm sure everyone here would agree with me,

[00:53:05] if we could just create a little maybe a phase 1.5 where we get a dome for football so we don't have – the thing is when I came to that first meeting, and there's so much that was talked about that we're going to kind of roll out this first year. And that first game comes with Tennessee Tech, and then it's just – I felt like it just – all the momentum got washed away quite literally. Literally, yeah. And then the next game is Duke, and the same thing happens, and it's like unfortunately –

[00:53:34] and really you're kind of at the mercy of – and this is again an unfortunate side effect of a first-year coach. You're kind of at the mercy of results. You're a results-based business at the end of the day, and you don't get to see a lot of that stuff get put on display because now you're – what, the next home game was six games into the season, and you lose that momentum. And I look forward to, again, hopefully a lot of that stuff catching on next year to say that – I want to compliment Chelsea Floyd in particular. You've already spoken about her.

[00:54:03] She's great at what she does. I think one thing too that I compliment is your willingness to change when things aren't going. Like you said, the MTSU chant, that's just kind of a microcosm. But I think it's just a testament to you guys listening to what the fans are saying, and it's changing in the atmosphere also at game day as we're seeing now with basketball really picking up, getting into conference play. The team has really turned around kind of the season I anticipated them having. I know you did too as well.

[00:54:32] To kind of close up our conversation here, Lee, the season as far as athletically from, I guess, August all the way to when baseball concludes, hopefully well into May, what is kind of the eye of success for the athletic department? I'm sure the easy one is every sport wins a national championship. But I guess in a more bigger picture, what is something that you personally, and maybe you can speak for the athletic department, what does success look like when this 2025 athletic season comes to an end? Great question.

[00:55:01] We want to be conference champions. And we want to win four or five conference championships a year. We haven't won any yet this year. And so we're really hoping that basketballs can each win. We hope tennis, golf, baseball, softball, that we can have a really good, strong spring track and field. And so we want to win. That drives all of us.

[00:55:28] We're extremely competitive people, as you can imagine, and we hate losing. So we need to win championships. We need to go to NCAA tournaments. We need to make some runs in NCAA tournaments. You know, men's tennis, one of the teams I worked with, they've made it to the tournament, you know, every year, the last several years, won the first round the last three years, but they're dying to crack through and get to the Sweet 16. That would be huge. Women's basketball, same thing. You know, I don't think we've ever been to the Sweet 16 in the history of the school.

[00:55:56] What a breakthrough opportunity and moment that would be if we could pull that off. And when you get back to the NCAA tournament, men's basketball, you know, I still hear almost daily about the Michigan State and Minnesota wins and Kermit Davis and the momentum that that got the entire athletic department, but also how it galvanized the whole community. So we'd love to make a run like that again. You know, and we need to see progress in all of our sports.

[00:56:23] And in football, as we've talked about, you know, we've got to make sure that we're onboarding these new student athletes. I think we have 20 plus transfer portal athletes that start school on Tuesday. So getting them acclimated and adjusted and continuing to change the culture of our football program and get that where it needs to be. You know, we're putting in field turf at our football stadium after spring practice ends.

[00:56:51] So that's something that's going to look and feel like a huge win. We're installing a new sound system at the Murphy Center. We need to get that completed and across the finish line. And that'll be a huge win. We've got to finish the student athlete performance center and move our football program into that new building. And then, you know, backfill the spaces in the Murphy Center that are now vacated. Once football moves out, that'll be a big win. So we have a lot going on, Jake.

[00:57:18] And it's an exciting time to be a Blue Raider, as I mentioned earlier. You know, one thing that we are doing great that isn't talked about enough is academics. We have an incredible graduation rate. We have a wonderful GPA as a department. And we need to continue to do that. So I would be negligent if I didn't mention our academic success as well. So we need to continue to maintain that while winning more conference championships

[00:57:47] and completing some of these projects that I just mentioned. And a lot of that comes back to you, the fans that are listening to this episode and their ability to not only support these kids as they are both athletes, but more importantly, student athletes. But to give to the BRAA, I'm sure I'd be doing you a disservice if we didn't take just a second for you to kind of give us the plug on where we can give. What can fans do to help all the issues that we kind of talked about today? What can they do to give? Well, thanks for saying that, Jake.

[00:58:17] There's three ways that you can step up and support us in such an important time as this. Number one, you can give to the BRAA Champions Annual Fund that supports all of our student athletes, all of our teams, it helps pay for their scholarships and provide the resources for them to be successful. It helps with operating budgets and recruiting budgets. And so the BRAA is really the foundation of all that we do. And we need to continue to raise more money for the Champions Annual Fund,

[00:58:45] which is the primary fund within the BRAA. Secondly, is the Build Blue Campaign. We've got to continue to make progress on these facilities and get our facilities to be at an elite level. Again, Student Athletic Performance Center will be the best in the league, but we need the Murphy Center to be the best in the league. We need an indoor practice facility that will be the best in the league. So we've got to continue to elevate our facilities.

[00:59:10] And the Build Blue Project, I mean, Build Blue Campaign is part of the BRAA as well. And that will help us elevate this entire footprint of campus, this northwest corner of campus that needs to be elevated by these upgrades to our facilities. And then the third way that people can help us is through NIL and through Raiders Rising and our collective. And so, you know, that is the new world that we live in. It's not going away.

[00:59:39] If you don't like the concept of paying players, I understand it. But we've got to get used to it. And we've got to keep up with the Joneses because the other schools in our league are paying their athletes more than we are right now. And we have to improve in that regard. So those are the three ways people can help. They can give to the Champions Annual Fund through the BRAA and give to the Build Blue Campaign also through the BRAA. Or they can give to our collective Raiders Rising, which is directly supporting our student-athletes

[01:00:06] and putting more money in their back pockets and helping keep them out of the transfer portal, making their experience here at MTSU as great as it can possibly be so that they stay here, they graduate from here, and they win championships here. Insightful stuff, as always, with Lead A. Leon. I, again, I praise you and the work that you're doing. Again, I hear great things within the community for good reason. For what we saw here in the last 50 minutes of this recording. Lee, I appreciate you taking the time to join us today.

[01:00:35] And, again, give us your piece of the athletic department. My pleasure, Jake. Thanks for having me, man. Keep up the great work. We're so grateful for all that you do to promote the Blue Raiders. I love this podcast and I'm really grateful for your support.