Podcast Alert: Oliver Luck

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Oliver Luck: Every change has to have an underlying rationale that really is understood and accepted by football fans and by football coaches, right by, you know, the football sort of establishment. As long as that rationale is solid. I think people are willing to at least start to take a look at some of those changes.

[00:00:34] AJ Maestas: Hello, and welcome to the Navigating Sports Buisness Podcast. I’m your host, AJ Maestas founder of Navigate a data-driven consulting firm, guiding major strategies and decisions in sports and entertainment. We started this podcast hoping to share the interesting stories and experiences of the amazing people we get to work with at navigate.

[00:00:51] And even though they’re visionaries and famous in many instances, they’re true stories. Aren’t often heard since they’re not on the playing field. Our hope is you get to know [00:01:00] them better and learn from them as we have.

[00:01:14] Today, I’m, happy to be joined by Oliver Luck, former NFL quarterback, longtime sports, industry executive, and too many things for me to list right now on his resume. I have a feeling we’ll get to it all. How are you doing Oliver and welcome. Thank you, AJ. I’m doing great hope. You’re doing well. Also. I am.

[00:01:30] I’m working from home as we all are,

[00:01:32] I guess that’s right,

[00:01:33] but it’s good to see you. And, uh, it’s, uh, too long. I can’t resist touching on your football career. That might seem like a different lifetime for you, but it played at your high school ball. I believe in Cleveland, you go on to start West Virginia.

[00:01:46] uh, you’re one of the first quarterback selected, I think the second round and, uh, the 1982 NFL draft. These are all experiences, so few of us can directly relate. Do you mind sharing some highlights from that experience? From what I assume is starting in high [00:02:00] school to all the way to, you know, drafted into the NFL.

[00:02:03] Oliver Luck: Sure. It’s obviously a part of that portion of my life where, you know, football being a player was incredibly important to me. And I think my story was such that, you know, you play high school football and you get accolades, et cetera. And then all of a sudden college coaches start to come by. Of course, this is before the era of, you know, huddled and getting video and splicing your highlight reel. I mean, there was a lot of word of mouth going on where coaches would literally call up, you know, high school coaches, college coaches calling high school coaches. And Hey, you got anybody that can play at the division one level. uh, but I, uh, you know, did well in high school as a football player. And I actually had a, uh, w what was the, for me, at least a pretty difficult decision.

[00:02:48] Um, in terms of whether I should accept a division, one football scholarship and play a lot of schools were recruiting me or because of my academics and the sort of academic bent that my parents had provided me, you [00:03:00] know, or should I take an opportunity to go to one of the Ivy league schools? I took a trips.

[00:03:03] If I remember correctly, I took official visits to Harvard, to Yale and to Dartmouth and this was back in sort of the early eighties, late seventies, early eighties, and the Ivy leagues were still producing some pretty good football players. I mean, there was probably 7, 8, 9, 10 guys every year coming out of the obvious that were drafted.

[00:03:22] So, you know, it was clear that you could pursue, if you wanted to a professional football career while getting, you know, the benefit of the audience. Just like today ago, the Ivy’s weren’t offering academic. uh, I’m sorry. They weren’t offering athletic scholarships. So I’d be disingenuous. If I said that didn’t play somewhat of a role, uh, there were four kids in our family, all of whom went on to college.

[00:03:44] And my dad was a chemical engineer working in the Cleveland flats for DuPont, trying to use that salary to pay for four year and four years of schooling for four kids is challenging. So long story short,. I didn’t want to go to the big 10, uh, that was still the era of Woody Hayes and Bo [00:04:00] Schembechler and quarterbacks were really just fair to hand the ball off to running backs.

[00:04:03] You know, three yards and a cloud of dust took a visit down to West Virginia university, uh, which really, you know, Morgantown is only about a three-hour drive from Cleveland. You don’t quite think of sort of the geography as being that close. And, uh, but what’s interesting as you cross the Mason Dixon line and having grown up in Cleveland,

[00:04:20] in a relatively big, you know, at that point in his career, you know, sort of industrial manufacturing, kind of a city, uh, having attended a Jesuit prep high school St. Ignatius in Cleveland. I was quite honestly very interested in experiencing a state school and, you know, a big state school we’re Saturday afternoon.

[00:04:36] It’s a big deal when there’s a football game on campus, et cetera. So went down to Morgantown, had a remarkable four years, uh, enjoyed everything about it in terms of my football career there, the , the academic career, the sort of friends and colleagues that one makes you along the way and thoroughly enjoyed that.

[00:04:53] uh, it was a different era. You know, we were lucky to throw 15/20 passes, [00:05:00] you know, and, uh, some quarterbacks in today’s, you know, spread off offenses. uh, they’re doing that in the first quarter, maybe the first drive. So it was a different. But I think it was an era where the game was shifting a little bit to more of a passing game, where there were different concepts.

[00:05:15] That was, that was fun to be a part of. I never really anticipated having an NFL opportunity when I went to college and even, uh, I was a backup as a freshmen. And then was the starter, the remaining three years there, probably not until the end of my junior year that I really sort of realized that I might have a chance to play professional.

[00:05:34] I had never banked on it. uh, I’d never really sort of made that a goal of mine, but, you know, I delighted to have the opportunity to get drafted, uh, to go down to Houston, play for five years with the Oilers I could have played for three or four more years as a backup, I was primarily a backup to Warren Moon, but I started law school in the off season, finished my law degree at the University of Texas, and really faced a decision about taking the bar exam, uh, and going [00:06:00] back, I think it would have been my sixth season.

[00:06:02] uh, and at that point, the bar was really given the end of the summer and it was difficult to sort of prepare for, for both. So, uh, told the, the owners I was stepping back retiring. uh, took the bar exam and that’d be began a life, uh, connected, certainly to, to football, but outside of being a player or a coach, which I never really had much of a desire to do well, you know,

[00:06:23] I didn’t know some of that, that, that reminds me a lot of, of Mark Murphy story, because he was, uh, who’s now the president CEO of Green Bay Packers

[00:06:32] what was interesting.

[00:06:32] Mark’s a good friend of mine. What was interesting is that I can probably name seven, eight guys that I knew, uh, who were going, uh, to either law school or getting an MBA in the off season. You know, the NFL at that point was still sort of beneficial for guys like me who wanted to use the off season, which was really the spring semester, uh, to improve one’s self academically.

[00:06:55] uh, there were a bunch of guys that were doing that in the off season because there were, there were [00:07:00] very few off season conditioning, uh, events that were mandatory. I think there was one mini camp that, you know, I had to go to, uh, you know, for a day or two in, in sort of may or so, but that was really about it.

[00:07:12] So it fit perfectly in to somebody like me who wanted to, you know, I’m not a golfer, you know, I didn’t, uh, I wanted to sort of use my time in the off season wisely. So I, I, uh, that fit in with, with a bunch of other folks that were doing the same thing. In fact, I can remember a linebacker for the New Orleans saints, Jim Kovach, who was going to medical.

[00:07:32] You know, and using, doing the same thing with medical school. And I think Jim is now, uh, being an orthopedic surgeon somewhere. And there was also a fellow that was one of the backup offensive lineman for the, for the hogs, right. The Washington Football Team, I guess, I can’t say the other art word. Right.

[00:07:47] But the Washington football team guys when they were doing so well, and he went to, uh, I think Baylor Medical School and you all see. There were a number of players that I think were driven by two things. And these are the things that drove me. One, [00:08:00] we were all sort of fringe, you know, good players, good enough to play in the NFL, but weren’t necessarily headed to the Hall of Fame.

[00:08:06] And I can certainly say that about myself, but secondly, uh, we, you know, realized that, uh, it’s great to have a 40 year career in something other than just playing or coaching, which is what a lot, you know, a lot of our colleagues ended up doing. Many of us stayed connected to sports. I certainly did. Mark obviously did with his role in college athletics.

[00:08:24] And of course, with the Packers now for a long time doing a marvelous job, by the way. So there were a number of us that were doing that I think more, more so than, than today.

[00:08:32] That’s interesting because I don’t feel like that’s happening today in that transition for NFL players. And obviously there’s more demands on year round training, but, uh, we’ll be talking here in the next week or so with Mike Haynes who one of his jobs, and I think you two overlapped, uh, as executives at the NFL league office where, you know, when.

[00:08:48] of his core responsibilities was that transition from college to the NFL and then from the NFL to life after football. That’s impressive. I don’t know if you can attribute that to anything because I don’t feel like the [00:09:00] same rate of matriculation into sort of technical and advanced degrees is taking place, but I could be wrong.

[00:09:07] I do think there are some programs that, you know, both of the NFL PA as well as the league have started ,and I assume it’s not dissimilar in some of the other professional sports unions, as well as the leagues, which are these sort of executive programs, right. That are kind of crammed in for three or four or five weeks in the off season.

[00:09:25] And I think those are good, obviously. uh, but you know, if you really want to become a lawyer or want to become a doctor, or you don’t want to go through a rigorous, you know, MBA, program there’s, there’s no substitute for becoming a doctor, ,lawyer, et cetera. In fact, you know, I even took, uh, classes during the fall.

[00:09:44] …So. I was, you know, again, backup quarterback for the orders. And I attended south Texas college of law, which is a private law school in downtown Houston. Very good law school. uh, typically for folks that are working during the day taking classes at night, and I would shoot down there [00:10:00] Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for a couple of classes, whenever it’d be towards her civil procedure, criminal procedure, whatever it was Cornwall.

[00:10:07] And I would take those two classes every fall and then transfer the hours up to the University of Texas. I was a registrar’s nightmare because I kept going back and forth, but they worked with me. They were very flexible. And I found that, you know, even with this schedule, you have as an NFL player, uh, you do have a good bit of free time during the fall, right?

[00:10:25] At least back in the eighties when I played and was able to keep up with the readings and the papers and the, and the tests and all of that. And I was, I was the guy in the team, charter flight, going up to Cleveland or Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, you know, reading contracts. The book not, there was plenty of time for me to be able to get, I probably ended up taking 25 or 30 hours of, of, of law classes at South Texas.

[00:10:49] And then moving all those up to the University of Texas. Very smart. Well, there’s a, there’s a pretty consistent academic angle here that is popping up. I know you have a daughter [00:11:00] going to grad school at Stanford. You, you, uh, your son played football at Stanford. I don’t think there’s a lot of people that you’re going to meet that set all the records.

[00:11:08] AJ Maestas: I think you left West Virginia with all the records, right? Passing touchdowns yards, et cetera. So you, you made a wise choice there as far as putting the ball in the air and how you wanted to play. But if your alternatives were all Ivy league schools, there’s a reoccurring theme here. And if I remember correctly, were you a finalist or, or considered for a road scholar as well?

[00:11:24] I, I did. I applied for the Rhodes scholar. There’s a number of different sort of platforms you can use to apply. I got into sort of what one would call the final round, if you will. It took place at the very end of the college football season, my senior year, which would have been the 1981 season. We had to go to Baltimore and interview there in front of the panel.

[00:11:46] I was not chosen. I was a finalist, but not chosen to be a Rhode Scholar, which you know, which. You know, sort of a goal of mine. uh, and I, and I was disappointed, although, you know, the flip side of that was I had an opportunity to play professional [00:12:00] football. And one of the things that I did after I retired and took the bar, which would have been in 1987, uh, I accepted a legal fellowship, uh, to go to Europe, uh, for a year.

[00:12:13] uh, it was a program sponsored by then West German government. This was of course before the wall came down, uh, but spent a year over in Germany. My mother’s German, I speak to the language, studying European law and sort of the basic German code, if you will, that was imposed on, you know, the Germans after the war.

[00:12:30] So I got a chance to sort of do what, uh, what Rhode scholars do, which is go over to Europe for a couple of years. I was just there for one, but it was a great experience. I felt as though with that program, I was able to sort of make up a little bit of what, you know, what I wasn’t able to do in terms of being a Rhode scholar

[00:12:46] that reminds me, there’s this reoccurring German connection in your life, right?

[00:12:50] You, you led to the. What ended up being NFL European clubs that were German based you, I think you worked on the rebrand of the league, right? When it became [00:13:00] NFL, Europe, is this chicken or egg? Was there some connection or family, you know?

[00:13:04] Oliver Luck: Yeah, there is. Yeah, there are. So my mother was born and raised in Germany, came over to this country in the late fifties after the war and she helped her four kids get to some level of proficiency in German.

[00:13:18] We took a number of trips as a family over there. I’ve got, you know, aunts and uncles and cousins and friends over there. So when the opportunity arose. uh, to do this fellowship. And then the opportunity later arose with, uh, you know, with the NFL to go over and run initially the Frankford franchise and then the Dusseldorf franchise.

[00:13:37] I jumped on it because, you know, I, I spoke the language, I understand the game. I actually sort of had an idea of the success that the League could have in, in Germany and large part, because, you know, after the war, uh, we, we, the U S you know, had hundreds of thousands of troops stationed there, all those troops played football and basketball and baseball and, taught German kids.

[00:13:59] If you [00:14:00] will, something that, uh, was a little bit different than what they traditionally play, which is soccer and some other sports like team handball. But, um, yeah, so that, there’s a theme there. I’m a believer that when you’re an American going over to Europe to do business and to run a company, you know, it’s critical to understand the culture, and there’s no better way to understand.

[00:14:18] the culture, whether it’s Germany or France or Italy or Spain, then to understand the language, right. Languages, culture, and vice versa. So I found that to be just an awesome experience. Three of our four kids were born over in Europe, two in Germany, one in the UK. uh, we still have plenty of friends that, you know, from those, uh, from that era over there.

[00:14:37] So it was a special opportunity, particularly with young kids, you know, to travel throughout Europe and see things that kids who are five and six and seven and 10 and whatever age, you know, usually don’t see. Right. It’s because we were, we were there and he jumped in the car and he’d drive from Frankfurt to Paris for the weekend, or going to drive to Prague, or you shoot down to Italy for, you know, a three-day vacation or whatever those were. Those are really special moments for me professionally, but [00:15:00] also for my family as well. It is a pretty special country. I got to spend a decent amount of professional time in Munich. And, um, yeah, I, I feel like it might be a little overlooked, uh, culturally and otherwise it was a pretty, pretty, uh, special experience.

[00:15:16] uh, that’s amazing how that lined up. That’s just incredible because you ultimately, you ended up running NFL Europe for several years. Do you think that the game has a chance in Europe? Do you think there could be a legitimate European league for American football.

[00:15:29] AJ Maestas: You know, I think the game has a chance as a spectator sport, you know, to develop a market over, there are folks who are interested. The European sports market is pretty monolithic, right? It’s soccer, soccer, and then more indoor soccer, you know, and then there are people that obviously love the game and soccer is a great game, but you know, there are also folks who aren’t necessarily enamored with the sport of soccer. So we found that the NBA is doing good work over there with basketball and basketball.

[00:15:57] Oliver Luck: Traditionally has been, you know, there’s been some pretty good [00:16:00] talent that’s coming out of Europe, right? If you consider everything from the Scandinavian countries, all the way down to the Southern Mediterranean countries and over, so football has became fairly popular. The NFL at one point was doing preseason games, you know, over in Germany, they’re now doing the regular season games and.

[00:16:15] And the folks from the continent are traveling over there. We had crowds and Frankfurt, you know, 50,000 plus these were real crabs. They weren’t GIS. These were German folks who just loved the game and one of the better understand it and, you know, get a sense of, of the game. uh, so I think there’s an opportunity to present the game and build a fan base.

[00:16:33] I’m not sure it’s ever going to be a sport that. that we are going to recruit . I mean, there have been a handful of continental Europeans who typically end up in the U S on a high school exchange for a year playing for the local high school football team, then maybe decide to stay there and go to college. And all of a sudden, they’re, you know, six foot five Germans are big people, right?

[00:16:49] They’re six foot five and 250, and, you know, can play, you know, play football, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be sort of a pipeline of talent, but I do think there’s value in, in [00:17:00] the broadcasts and in the game, you know, on the ground, you know, with the removal of NFL Europe, I guess the, the NFL shut it down back in like 2007, 2008, there’s really nothing on the ground.

[00:17:11] Sort of speak that you can, you can kind of get excited about. There are a semi-pro leagues over there that every year pick up a couple of young Americans from, you know, typically smaller colleges to play for a year or two. And there are other games in London. uh, but you know, as I’m sure, you know, London and the continent, particularly now with Brexit, that’s not really Europe, the driving force in Europe, no matter what the, what the question is, the answer is usually Germany, right?

[00:17:36] Just because it’s the most populous than the wealthiest and probably the most technologically advanced, you know, society over there. So I do think there there’s opportunity. I saw it. We, we, we put games on, we had 40, 50, 60,000 people and I had good television ratings, you know? So, uh, it’s certainly doable the question.

[00:17:56] You know, where does it sort of stack up in terms of priorities for the National Football [00:18:00] League? And I’ve been removed from that for a while.

[00:18:01] So I can’t really speak too much to that. W well, we have the good fortune of having worked for the NFL many times over the years that there are, they were the first league to hire Navigate, and we have the deepest history with them, and we got to contribute a little bit to some of the long range planning.

[00:18:15] And what have you and Germany is on the short list. So you can feel better about that. You know, when you think about school options like Mexico City and London, and what have you, it’s, it’s in the next set of two or three countries as a priority, but it, but it’s hard to say, I mean, you know, having been an executive at the league and at the NCAA and what have you, how, how it all works, but, um, but yeah, just for fun, if you were the commissioner of the NFL, that’s not that ridiculous of a thing to say with your resume and experience and ability.

[00:18:39] AJ Maestas: If you’re the commissioner of the NFL, would you be moving the international game forward, or what would you do with the NFL? I mean, you’ve, you’ve been on the ground. You’ve seen it firsthand in Germany. I believe that London is, would be capable of hosting a club, right. Yeah. What would you do? Any, any predictions you’re willing to make or anything, any thoughts you could share with us?

[00:18:58] Oliver Luck: uh, this is all, all sort of [00:19:00] speculative, right? Because I haven’t really looked at the data and I’m not quite honestly, over the last 10 years familiar with the broadcasting trends, you know, outside of the U S I did attend a game in London. The Colts played when, when my son, Andrew was quarterback in the Colts they played the Jaguars over there.

[00:19:14] You know, if the league wanted to, they could put a franchise there, that’s the city that’s, you know, sort of wealthy enough and cosmopolitan enough to support, you know, uh, an NFL franchise. I mean, they they’re supporting what six or seven Premier League, French taxes every year. uh, and, and there’s certainly, you know, there’s certainly a chunk of the London area, that population that would, would gladly support, uh, you know, an NFL team, you know, how does that fit into an.

[00:19:39] The strategy. I do think that three or four regular season games sort of adding one more to London, you know? So the incremental value, how would say one would get more value out of that if you play in Berlin or play in Frankfort or play in Paris or whatever, right? Because there there’s a tradition in Europe

[00:19:57] comes out of the rugby game. It’s not just [00:20:00] all the UK, you know, plenty of rugby being played on the continent as well. So they, they enjoy that sort of physical part of it. But I’ve lost track of where the league is in terms of broadcast. And that, that that’s critical. I do think that one of the benefits that NFL Europe provided the league was, was not just having a good quality product in places like Barcelona, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, et cetera, Hubbard, Berlin, but was also providing, uh, training for players for referees or broadcasters.

[00:20:27] I remember doing, uh, being in Frankfurt and the Troy Aikman came over with Joe Buck, right? This was when Troy was just getting into broadcasting. And so he came over and did a couple of games with, with Jill was a broadcaster. And it was awesome because it was a training ground that otherwise the NFL really.

[00:20:46] And I think that’s something that, uh, as the league develops, particularly as we go through this whole COVID thing, you know, when you see, uh, near the need for quarterbacks and other positions, uh, so there’s there’s opportunities. I think for, for that league to [00:21:00] serve, you know, the NFL is some sort of a training ground.

[00:21:03] And again, not just for players, for coaches, for referees, for executives, for talent folks, for the broadcast partners that the league has, but obviously you have to put a price tag in that figure out what it’s, what it’s worth and, and, you know, does it fit into whatever overall strategy has? So I’m a little bit out of touch on that front.

[00:21:19] Well, I agree with you, and that’s a really nice segue into your time. As the XFL commissioner, there is a void and an alternative to college football. You have also been a senior executive at the NCAA. I would love to hear your perspective on what role an NFL Europe could play versus what the XFL could play as a spring league.

[00:21:38] Because I agree with you. There’s a gap in training. There’s a gap in pathway. There’s really only one pathway, which is college athletics. And, you know, there’s a three-year minimum sort of term of service, right? To be eligible for the draft. I dunno if you had a magic wand, knowing everything, you know, from the XFL and the NCAA and the NFL league.

[00:21:56] AJ Maestas: What would you do? What do you think is the right solution is, well, I do think [00:22:00] that, you know, the path that the traditional NCAA pathway for young men, you know, coming out of high school who want to play professional football is not for everybody. Right. It, it does, you know, the educational component is great and I’m, you know, I’m all about that.

[00:22:16] Oliver Luck: You and I talked about earlier, but it really is not perfect, right. For everybody. So, uh, having some sort of an alternative, and if you look at the other sports, obviously, you know, that an alternative pathway exists, whether it’s the G league and the NBA, or some of the foreign leagues that you can go to Europe, Australia, et cetera, whether you know, it’s baseball and the system that baseball.

[00:22:36] Yeah, with the minor leagues and then the independent leagues, and even being a plain wooden bat leagues in the summertime while you’re in school. So, you know, all of argued soccer has got just a, sort of a wide open, if you will, uh, you know, pathway for, you know, for young people. I mean, there are great American players right now playing over in the Bundesliga in Germany, Giovanni Reyna, uh, you know, who, you know, never considered college soccer and, you know, from age [00:23:00] 16 or maybe probably even younger than that, you know, was being funneled into a certain system because people realize that he had the, the talent and the mental wherewithal to, you know, play at the highest level.

[00:23:08] So I, I do think there is a space, you know, in the, in the market could plays for an alternative that alternative could be aligned with the NFL, or it could be, you know, not aligned with, with the NFL. I think there is a possibility for a spring league that’s that’s well-managed. And we were, I think, with the XFL, uh, you know, going down a pretty good path in terms of developing.

[00:23:32] You know, sponsorships and spectators and, and, and, and, and TV viewers, right, until the pandemic hit and the white, you know, wiped us out. But I do think that because football is so darn popular, people just love watching it, uh, that they will sit down and watch a guy like PJ Walker. uh, you know, it was now the backup with the Panthers, watch PJ Walker, quarterback, a team coach fight June Jones.

[00:23:55] Who’s known for his offensive sort of creativity and, and they’ll [00:24:00] watch those games and they’re affordable. They, we tried to sort of shrink as you know, you know, shrink down the game a little bit, pick up the tempo with a fast paced sort of approach. And we had our games down well below three hours, but still getting the kind of scoring we wanted.

[00:24:13] So I think there is. Yeah, the challenges, whoever does that needs very deep pockets, right? Because you’ve got a sort of whiskey and two or three years of losing a bunch of money before you even get to that point where you’ve stabilized and, and have a system. And as I said, a lot, going through the. The graveyard is full of tombstones from failed spring leagues.

[00:24:36] And you can add at least a, you know, the XFL version 2.02, the version 1.0, that failed. uh, but at some point somebody will we’ll get it right. And we’ll have the staying power. And again, that could be aligned with the National Football League. uh, but it also could be not aligned with the NFL. So there’s, you know, it’s a big, hairy topic.

[00:24:56] It’s fascinating, but I, I firmly believe there’s an [00:25:00] opportunity. Because it’s football and that’s what Americans love to watch. I wouldn’t say that if it were any other sport, right, but it’s football and Americans love to watch football. And, you know, there’s a, there’s a big group of very talented players that just aren’t quite good enough to make it to the NFL that are just, you know, they might play a year, might play two years bounce in and out.

[00:25:20] uh, the kids that we had, you know, the young men playing in our league, you know, whether it’s PJ Walker as an example, uh, cam phillips, and these, these were, these were solid players. They have, many of them, you know, are, are now on NFL rosters, earning, uh, you know, a nice livelihood. So, uh, it’s doable. uh, we, we just faced, you know, sort of the, the whammy of the, of, of COVID the double whammy of COVID and, and launching right in the middle of, of COVID that just made everything very.

[00:25:46] AJ Maestas: Yeah, it’s a real shame. Um, I hope, you know, we’ll always be grateful that you trusted us and hire, you know, Navigate for the launch of the league and all that. And we were cautiously optimistic and I was flipped as soon as I saw those ratings and the success and the TV product, it [00:26:00] was, I thought it was truly going to succeed.

[00:26:02] Oliver Luck: uh, you remove a pandemic and I know it means losing money, a lot of money in the early years and pretty much losing money for a long time, till at least the TV deals kept. But I, I thought it was disappointing for a bunch of reasons. There’s um, we spent the last three years working with the G league and they’re moving toward, you know, a team for every NBA team close to the facility.

[00:26:20] So it’s a quick transfer to the NBA, uh, eventually commercializing the business, you know, so that it, it can stand financially and its own two feet, which will allow them to pay those players closer to market, which will allow them to keep a lot of that talent from the European leagues right here, domestically, given the likelihood you could end up on an NBA roster, and I wish there could be that same pathway as you’re describing, because maybe the academics aren’t for everybody, or are there enough with hundreds of football playing universities?

[00:26:44] AJ Maestas: Are there not enough kids or young people to your point that would want to carry forward their career for a few years short of NFL compensation? And I think the answer is an easy. Yes. So I just, I really do hope it works out for him the second time, knowing everything you know about the NCAA, uh, you know, having [00:27:00] been an executive there, I’m sure you’ve paid.

[00:27:01] Oliver Luck: And I noticed you’re involved in and as an advisor to a business related to name, image and likeness, uh, for our listeners are not from the. Name image, likeness, and NIL has all referred to it going forward. That’s the a right to essentially control your, your marks, um, as an individual sort of professional, which is something that exists either through collective bargaining or individually for every professional and amateur athlete in the world with the exception of collegiate athletics.

[00:27:27] So there’s these steps the NCAA is taking where you see these rights ending up, back in control of the athlete. That’s just a one little step closer to professionalism, right? Or free market compensation. If you could wave a magic wand, if you were the czar of all American football and it crosses the NFL and collegiate and whatever becomes of maybe another attempt at the XFL, are you willing to share what you would do?

[00:27:51] AJ Maestas: You know? I, I think that, um, name, image, like this is a fundamental right that a student athlete has, and just because you accept a [00:28:00] scholarship to play football or be a swimmer, or, you know, playing the golf team doesn’t mean that you give up your right to, again, those fundamental aspects of your being, your name, your image, your likeness.

[00:28:11] Oliver Luck: uh, as you know, you know, for the past 15, 20 years, there has been a little bit of a battle primarily in the courts. Now it’s kind of spilled over if you will, into state legislatures and perhaps will spill even further into a, you know, our federal legislature into the us Congress. It’s a fundamental right that a student athlete has.

[00:28:28] And I think the, the right to monetize that with, within some regulations within some sort of guard rails, uh, is appropriate. I think the time has come, you know, for that to happen. Certainly I think the general public believes that it’s appropriate for student athletes to be able to monetize his or her name image and like, and so the NCAA is have proposed as you know, legislation.

[00:28:51] They released that proposal a couple of weeks ago. It’s being sent to the division one council, which is a governing body for band division one athletics [00:29:00] they’ll they’ll debate it. That council has 40 members on it. Practitioners, athletic directors, conference commissioners, they’ll debate it, kick it around and then vote in January. The idea is that they’ll pass this bucket of legislation, uh, and there’s some restrictions in there that need to get fleshed out, but then the marketplace will go into effect in the summer of 21. uh, the student athletes can use agents, brand advisors. I think that’s fine. And an agent can do everything for that student athlete except negotiate his or her professional contract.

[00:29:32] uh, so I think that’s great. I do worry about certain aspects of it, even though overall. I think it’s very much. I worry that the student athletes who are spending too much time, you know, monetizing their age, their name, their image, and likeness, their academics may suffer. Their athletics may suffer. You know, you know, this, our student athletes are busy people.

[00:29:52] I mean, it’s, you got a lot of academic work that you need to keep up on. You got a lot of athletic work that you need to keep up on there’s pressure on [00:30:00] these kids. And, you know, if you got two or three hours in the evening, when you should be maybe preparing for class or writing a paper, doing your homework, it’s one thing to do that.

[00:30:08] It’s another thing to say, well, I got three hours I can spend on social media and prove my, the number of likes I get and do, do a, you know, an endorsement for, you know, company X, Y, Z. So, you know, like everything. Student athletes have to learn to keep that in balance. Right. And that’s, that’s going to be a, an important thing.

[00:30:23] I also worry that, uh, you know, there could be, uh, some not so scrupulous agents, you know, who, uh, you know, sort of take advantage of a kid, kids, all of a sudden signs, uh, maybe a contract or an agreement that, you know, it’s not that, you know, student’s best interest. I don’t want to beat up on agents. I’ve worked with them for years and there’s some great agents out there, but, you know, there’s a possibility with 500,000, almost 500,000 student athletes, that there’ll be some, you know, some mistakes that are made, but that’s all part of, uh, a new marketplace developing.

[00:30:55] One of the things that I find fascinating as we all watch this unfold [00:31:00] in 2021 in the summer is how this market develops. Well, this is a brand new marketplace with all of a sudden, you know, almost 500,000 student athletes, you know, millions of brands, theoretically, that could get involved. There’ll be some restrictions, you know, in other words, student athletes probably won’t be able to, uh, endorse any sports wagering companies or, or liquor companies or cannabis companies.

[00:31:22] There’s going to be some restrictions, but, you know, I, I’m just sort of interested in seeing how this marketplace develops and, uh, you know, what needs to be tweaked by the NCAAs. You go into the first, second, third, fourth year of this marketplace and who really is able to take advantage of it. Is it just the star players to Trevor Lawrence is of the world, or is it the lady on the field hockey team who has a special gift as an artist you know, and sort of uses that platform is a field hockey player to talk about art or sell art, or, you know, have an online presence that would allow her some serious. I don’t know if you saw this, [00:32:00] but today in the New York times, they had a fascinating article, but cheerleaders, cheerleaders, it’s not a sport that’s sponsored by the NCAA.

[00:32:09] So there’s no restrictions on the ability of a cheerleader to, to monetize his or her name, image and likeness. And the number of the female cheerleaders primarily have been very busy over the years, doing that and sort of news to me. I just hadn’t thought about that. uh, but you know, uh, a football player or a basketball player or soccer player is going to have those same rights as that cheerleader had.

[00:32:29] And it’ll be interesting to see, I assume those young people that hustle and do it intelligently and get good advice from a brand new advisor and have a, you know, a good, strong social media presence. I think they’ll end up benefiting and not just the stars, but I think it’ll seep down into sort of the, you know, the lower levels, if you will, of, of the profiles of those student athletes who are swimmers or gymnast’s or volleyball players or soccer players, and some will choose not to do anything.

[00:32:58] Right. They’ll choose to say, [00:33:00] I don’t have a social media presence. I don’t want one. I’ve got enough to do, to focus on my academics and athletics and that’s fine as well. You know? So, uh, I, I do think all in all, it’s very much a positive, uh, the very interesting thing. Last thing I’ll mention AIJ. And as you, as you know, cause I know you follow this very closely is whether there will be any federal legislation or whether the states, you know, will ultimately in the summer of 2021, uh, be responsible for name, image, and likeness rights in that particular state.

[00:33:32] Most NCAA people say, oh my gosh, we need to have a uniform law across the country because we, the incident layer active in all 50 states, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The counterpoint to that is. Sports wagering, it’s driven state by state. They all have different rules that hasn’t seemed at this point, at least, you know, to cause any real problems with the national collegiate athletic association.

[00:33:56] So it very well may be that in the summer of 21 that [00:34:00] you’ll have, you know, Florida with its own law, which it’s already passed and you’ll have California and then you’ll have Texas and all these other states, they may sort of have the same general thrust, but there may be specifics that are a little bit different.

[00:34:12] So that’s going to be sort of a fascinating sort of approach to watch that’s uh, uh, because I don’t know, you know, there’s enough momentum right now, uh, within the United States Congress for there to be a bill that’s passed and enough to, you know, senators and house members can agree on, uh, because it is a little bit of a political issue.

[00:34:31] uh, the senators who’ve come out strongly against the NCAA overregulating this market are typically Democrats, you know, Corey Booker who played football at Stanford. Of course, Richard Blumenthal, Chris Murphy, the vice president elect, you know, Kamala Harris was, was part of that as well. It’ll be interesting to see how this, like everything else in apparently today’s world gets politicized and whether there’s enough momentum for there to be some sort of national standard.

[00:34:58] I’m not convinced that the, that the [00:35:00] feds will really take a look at this. And I think we very well could end up with, you know, a patchwork of state laws that we all have to follow. And some states may not even know. You know, which will be an interesting sort of issue as well. To that point. It’s interesting, California was the first, you know, which is a very liberal state, but that’s a very good point.

[00:35:17] What are the odds that one would bet that Congress would come together in an efficient manner, but they’re also the ones that drove us to where we are right now. Right? I mean, those that oversee the leagues, the sport are reacting to, you know, the action of these, of Congress, you know, an individual state’s laws.

[00:35:35] And I really appreciate your point about the representation for these young people. I mean, what are the odds? I actually recall you were leaving our office from a meeting to head to the airport and I interrupted you. And a discussion you were having with what ultimately became your son’s agent, uh, NFL agent.

[00:35:50] And, um, and, uh, we had a little quick chat about it. uh, Jeff Nelson, our president, and I had a quick chat about it in our conference room, sorta thinking interesting. How many kids have an attorney for a [00:36:00] father who’s a professional sports executive to act as that broker to make that choice on who will represent, you know, their son, most of the super talented athletes that have big visibility, you know, basketball and football in particular probably don’t have that support network or anything close to it.

[00:36:15] So, um, it’s a little scary. You’re absolutely right. There’s going to be a premium on education of all these student athletes in terms of knowing what they should look for in any kind of a brand representative or an agent, you know, the 10 things they shouldn’t agree to do if you’re a fairly. High profile athlete, even a, you know, a starter on an SEC football team.

[00:36:37] For example, you know, odds are, you’ve got a decent opportunity for an NFL career and know you have to keep your options open. You don’t want to get tied in too long, too, in terms of giving up your name, your image, your likeness, you know, none of these deals should ever apply outside of the college space, if you will.

[00:36:54] Right. They should really only apply to when, you know, student athletes in college and once he, or she gets out and as, you know, [00:37:00] playing professional soccer or football, or, you know, or volleyball overseas, you know, all those rights should sort of revert back to that student athlete because, you know, there’s just, there’s ways to lock up the NIL that I don’t think would be in the interest of the vast majority of student athletes.

[00:37:14] There’s lots of pitfalls as there is with anything, right. There are things that the student athletes need to be aware of. And I, I. You know, we’ll see once the spring time rolls around, uh, that, uh, the, the NCAA and the variety of partners will really gear up their educational efforts.

[00:37:28] I certainly think that’s the right thing to do, but there are certainly exceptions to the rule, right.

[00:37:32] Um, you know, Zion, uh, when he’s playing for duke last year, I think he signed something in the 10 million per year range, you know, apparel deal. uh, it wouldn’t have been zero or even a million or 2 million if he’d done it a year earlier. I mean, he could have signed a pretty similar deal. Can you imagine, well, you ran for Congress actually coming out of law school in West Virginia.

[00:37:51] If I know it’s a long time ago, but if you put your hat back on and say, you could have been in the seat serving in Congress, could you imagine yourself putting a restriction or [00:38:00] constraint on that athlete saying, you know, that those rights expire at the end of term? I mean, it would be tough to do, right.

[00:38:05] I mean, now you have the perspective.

[00:38:06] Yeah. That that would be, that would be difficult to do. There’s no question about that. uh, ironic. uh, one of the gentlemen that I’ve talked to, who has been, he is the co-author of one of the bills is Anthony Gonzales, uh, who attended the same high school I did in Cleveland, Ohio St.

[00:38:20] Ignatius high school. He went on to play at Ohio state, played for the Colts, great, you know, wide receiver. He’s now a member of the house of representatives. And he, uh, put forth a bill that actually was pretty favorable to the NCAA. So that’ll, it’ll be, and Anthony, I’ve talked about sort of his vision of what, you know, what Congress needs to do, what it doesn’t need to do.

[00:38:40] Right. I, you could argue that, uh, Congress has more pressing issues and to deal with, you know, the, the world of intercollegiate athletics in this country, but it is important. Right. And, you know, Congress gets involved in all sorts of things. So, uh, that, that’ll be one of the big questions, certainly, uh, as you lead into January and that this new Congress gets sworn in right in [00:39:00] life, sort of goes back to normal after the induction of the new president.

[00:39:03] So we’ll see how that, how that plays out the incident, like cannot. Um, federal legislation, which is why they’re moving forward with their own packages, you know, proposal legislation that we talked about earlier. Yeah, no question. Well, it’ll be interesting to watch, uh, by the way you mentioned St. Ignatius.

[00:39:19] I had no idea you played there, a mentor and friend of mine, Jim Kaler from Ohio University, at least once a year, I get to hear about St. Ignatius and how the season is going in Cleveland. uh, he’s also his Alma mater. So, um, Jimmy grew up right downthe street I delivered newspapers. He’s probably 10, eight years younger than me or so, but I delivered newspapers is one of my jobs.

[00:39:44] I had to make a couple of dimes to his, to his family. Like Ignatius graduates. Aren’t shy about telling you about the greatness of Cleveland’s and Ignatius high school. It’s one of those Notre Dame type things, right? Yes. They’re going to tell you we’re we’re insufferable. I wouldn’t [00:40:00] describe it that way.

[00:40:00] I love the pride. I love that kind of connection. You know, the idea that you’d have that, which I know you have for West Virginia too, and that’s pretty special. I should have known that. And I didn’t, uh, but what a small world I’ll mention this to him. So if you don’t mind me skipping back to the XFL, I’d love to know what it was like to work with Vince McMahon, uh, you know, and, and the formation of that league, what you would do different.

[00:40:22] If you could speak to what you would do, if you own the league and we’re launching it again, it sure seems like the new ownership group or the XFL is going to take another shot at it. uh, is there anything you’re willing to share? Change or do different? Well, I guess I, you know, the way we started the league was really based on.

[00:40:40] Getting feedback from football fans, from experts, people that are involved in sports tech, people involved with producing games, et cetera. You know, w we believe that there was space in the spring for, you know, league that had a high quality that played a fast tempo [00:41:00] up pace game. I mean, anecdotally, we have.

[00:41:02] Folks who say, oh my gosh, I can’t watch an NFL game. It goes on for four hours sometimes. And it’s just so long, you know? So we wanted to compress that action, but not give up scoring and, you know, in big plays and all of that. But I spent the first 6, 7, 8 months of my tenure with the league, uh, convening various groups, you know, we wanted to more or less sort of re-imagine what the game could be without being gimmicky.

[00:41:26] Right. Which was, I think the challenge that the XFL had in its first incarnation back in 2001, you can change sport a little bit, but if you change it too much, all of a sudden people say, wait a minute, this isn’t what, I’m what I bargained for. I don’t understand this is I’ll use it again. Canadian football league, right.

[00:41:43] Been around for gosh, 75, 80 years, lot of great talent up in Canada. I mean, dozens of players that have played up there, come down and played in the U S and played very well. Warren Moon and, you know, being perhaps the best example. But as soon as, and they’ve made umpteen efforts to get their teams [00:42:00] established in the U S to have a television product, that’s attracted to Americans, but as soon as an American football fan, and then I found NFL or college fancies, the 12 men on the field and the guy running towards the line of scrimmage.

[00:42:11] Right. You know, uh, in motion, if you will. Right. But not horizontally the other way they say, oh, I don’t understand that. You know, because it’s a little bit too different. So we wanted to, uh, to really fix the things that we believed we could fix. And I’ll be honest, as we look back on, on the five weeks of play and the feedback we got from, you know, our broadcast partners, Fox and ESPN and others, uh, I think the tweaks that we made, the 25 second clock, the double forward pass rules, a different kickoff, right?

[00:42:41] I think all of those were tweaks that were made with a very solid underlying rationale. And if you sat with a group of football fans, which we did, we had dozens of focus groups. If you sat with those fans, they would say, oh, that makes some sense. Now I understand why you’re doing the kickoff differently, right?

[00:42:58] Because the kickoffs [00:43:00] becomes sort of a wasted play in the NFL. A bulge is, you know, whatever 95% of the time kicked out of the end zone, I’m seeing run backs now. And, you know, we had two kicks taken back for touchdowns in the relatively short time we played. So I’m not sure that there’s anything we would do differently.

[00:43:15] I loved our. You know, with, uh, uh, broadcast that with a broadcaster, uh, being able to talk directly to the head coach with the TV viewer, being able to listen to what the head coaches calling, that’s all sort of getting inside of the huddle. And that’s what people want to do. I couldn’t tell you how many times as a quarterback, people would say to me, Hey, what are you all saying?

[00:43:35] The huddle, can you call a play? Like it sounds and do people, is it bad language in the huddle? Of course, you know, are there any jokes in the huddle? Absolutely. You know, do do receivers say to the quarterback, Oliver, Hey, throw me the damn ball. Well, you’re absolutely right. Yeah, but people want to know what’s being said.

[00:43:52] So having access to that I think was, was great, you know, miking up our referees, uh, so that, you know, the fan could listen in on the [00:44:00] referee discussion. After a play was thrown at, there was review, uh, putting the, you know, the sort of sky box referee in place in stadium to overturn a call. Right within, I think we said 30 seconds, you know, uh, so doing all those things, I think ended up helping the league.

[00:44:16] I’m not sure that I would change any of that. I’d also be hesitant to say that they all worked perfectly because we didn’t have that big of a sample size. Right. uh, we ended up playing five weeks of football. That’s four weeks, you know, four games per, you know, per weekend. So we had a total of 20 games.

[00:44:33] You could argue. There just wasn’t enough time, not enough snaps, not enough game time to really track on all of those things. But we would take all of our data every Monday. I’d take my football staff, we’d look at it, discuss it, you know, make sure we were going in the right direction. And we liked, you know, sort of the directional tendencies of all that data.

[00:44:53] The other question I think is could there be another league that would adopt those things or, you know, [00:45:00] could the colleges, or even the end of the. It’ll take a look at some of those, uh, you know, differentiations and apply those to their game. Um, you know, we don’t like to change our sports too much. I mean, look at baseball, they’re trying to speed up the tempo of, of, of pitchers.

[00:45:15] That’s that’s hard or you’re just fighting decades and decades of tradition. So you have to be smart, but I’ll emphasize this, every change has to have an underlying rationale that really is understood and accepted by football fans and by and by football coaches, right by, you know, the football sort of establishment.

[00:45:33] And as long as that rationale is, is solid. I think people are willing to at least start to take a look at some of those changes. Well, I love that innovation just so you know, I know. Biased because we had the chance to work with you on a lot of this stuff, but getting a look behind the curtain, to your point in the huddle, the replay Bluth, believe it or not was my favorite.

[00:45:51] I mean, what is this mystery? And what’s taking so long for them to, to spot a ball in which we all see, you know, it was a fumble and we all see where it took place. Getting a look [00:46:00] inside of that, you know, removes that sort of, uh, anxiety and that impatience of what is happening in this process. And is it trustworthy?

[00:46:07] I think someone will get to stand on the shoulders of your commissionership of the XFL and, and make great progress as we all did for the 20 years earlier time for basil DeVito. And if you look at, uh, the NFL, there was a great number of things, the sky cam, and what have you that were adopted from those innovations.

[00:46:24] I hope and believe that we’ll be again. And, um, I really do hope these that’s the one thing that was th this is a small story, but sort of fascinating, you know, Played maybe that first weekend, maybe it was two weekends. Not exactly sure anymore. And we got a handful of calls, cause this was mid to late February.

[00:46:43] We got a handful of calls from college coaches that said, Hey, can we use your kickoff for our spring? Right. And they were looking, you know, spring practices, spring practice. And, but they were looking to do something a little bit different. Right. You know, to jazz things up [00:47:00] there. I guess some of the kids had watched the XFL broadcast and went back to their coaches and said, Hey, did you see that exit hell game?

[00:47:05] You see that kickoff? What they’re doing? I think we could try that just for the heck of it. And there are no rules, you know, the rules that you use in a spring game, that’s really a university’s decision. If they want to do the XFL kickoff or a different punt, or responded to one of the schools and sent one of our football ops persons down there to sort of teach exactly how the kickoff works.

[00:47:25] Right. Because there are some, you know, some rules that we had in terms of where people line up, how deep they can drop, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So I thought that was. Right that even within a couple of weeks, we had some of the colleges and you think of all the schools out there that are doing spring practice, you know, power five and the group of five and FCS and all the way down to lower levels.

[00:47:46] You know, if, if that really had gotten going, I think you would have seen a lot of schools sort of play around with some of these ideas and that’s innovation. And I think that’s what Americans are great at doing right, is, is, is know, looking at things and innovating. And some were, as [00:48:00] somebody was going to have a great idea about, you know, the best way to do the kickoff or a way to improve on what we had new decided.

[00:48:07] I, I did really appreciate that. There’s the excitement for a run back and open play an open field without the, you know, full speed, 40 yard collisions. uh, I’d be surprised if we don’t see something similar in the future to your point, right? The, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, this right now, football, uh, along with a couple of other collision sports really has to make sure it’s doing everything it can to keep the players safe.

[00:48:30] Right? The health and safety is paramount. And so that, you know, that was one of the reasons we came up with our, with our kickoff because, uh, you know, we, we believed in at least anecdotally from all the medical folks, we talked to all the, uh, you know, concussion experts. They believed as well that it would, uh, you know, cut down on concussions and, you know, through the first five weeks, again, short sample size, small sample size, we didn’t, I don’t believe have any concussion issues coming out of.

[00:48:57] Amazing then mission accomplished, right? Exactly. [00:49:00] Well, if I could take us back a second, I think we were originally introduced by Sean hundred long time, uh, president of AEG, when you were leading the sports commission and developing all these new facilities in Houston, the whole skyline changed. It was a pretty incredible period of change for that city.

[00:49:15] Is there any lessons that we can take from that? Anything we could learn from all those new facilities? I believe it was very specifically the dynamo that we were introduced about, but, but any lessons we can take from what Houston went through when you were running that process. Well, you know, I think there are some, some lessons and one of those lessons is for any community, don’t let your NFL team or your NBA team or your MHL team or your MLS team, et cetera.

[00:49:43] Don’t let them. Right. You know, sort of the tragedy and Houston was triggered by of course the Oilers moving. So it’s hard to imagine in the state of Texas, the largest city, arguably the most important city in the state of Texas, uh, booming growing [00:50:00] fast, Houston, uh, not with w with an NFL team, right. We’re not without of that.

[00:50:04] That’s hard to sort of imagine, but that’s what happened when. uh, but Adams, uh, the auditor’s owner, from the sense, you know, the days of the franchise being created the old American football league that he moved the team to Memphis. And then initially of course, to Nashville after that, but it was all proper, uh, you know, sort of promulgated by a public fight, uh, that he was having with the local authorities in Houston governor and the county judge two very important, the two most powerful political figures in Houston.

[00:50:32] So, you know, as a result, uh, you know, the, the Astrodome is still sitting there vacant, but, you know, people were shocked when they realized that, uh, an NFL team was, was leaving. So Houston decided, wait a minute, we’ve got old infrastructure, old, outdated infrastructure, the Astrodome where, uh, the Astros were playing in the owners and the rodeo, which is.

[00:50:54] Powerful organization in Houston, uh, the summit Beale compact center, where the rockets were playing in the minor league [00:51:00] hockey team play that people realized that, uh, that was not acceptable at the status quo needed to change. And that the government quite honestly needed to put some public money as virtually every community was doing, you know, into, uh, upgraded facilities.

[00:51:15] So that was the Genesis of that. And in-state was created with taxing authority. So that group, that Harris county, Houston sports authority used both a hotel. As well as the car rental tax to raise the revenue, to build minute maid park, of course, home for the Astros and still I think a great ballpark downtown, a beautiful setting, uh, the football stadium where the Texans and the rodeo, you know, do their events.

[00:51:38] And it’s obviously opened all their events, soccer and, you know, big concerts, et cetera. And then of course the Toyota center, uh, where the rockets played and, uh, lots of other, you know, events there as well. So those three venues I think, have been well accepted by Houstonians. uh, of course, when you say to them, Hey, you’re talking about a hotel tax and a car rental tax, probably something as you, [00:52:00] a Houstonian don’t really have to pay.

[00:52:02] That’s not always the case. You know, when, when some of the big floods happen in Houston, people have to go out and run cars because the cars have been flooded out. So in a sense, uh, there was some sort of local. But I think, uh, it was a great time for Houston to unleash those venues. uh, the Astros, you know, made it to the world series and had world series games there.

[00:52:21] The Texans hosted the super bowl. A couple of times the Toyota center has been home to, you know, rockets play off games and an NBA, all star games. Right? So it put Houston sort of back in that upper tier of cities, Chicago, LA New York, Atlanta, Dallas. And I think that’s where Houston, you know, belongs to the infrastructure for your sports teams.

[00:52:42] uh, it’s part of what a city has to do, right? And I think Houston sort of recognize its mistake and allowing the orders to leave. uh, it’s easy to be principled and, you know, no state money for the facility, but, you know, I think, uh, setting up an entity, working with the professional team owners, hammering [00:53:00] out lease agreements that we believe were fair, more or less to every entity.

[00:53:05] uh, those, those are all steps that, that had to be taken and there were important steps and you know, that that’s been recreated more or less all across the country, but even still think about, you know, the Raiders moving to Las Vegas. They had challenges over the years, dealing with the city of Oakland.

[00:53:20] And I guess Alameda county was, you know, the Alameda, I don’t know all the details, but, you know, but the complex there, the A’s kind of hung in there and they’re about to develop their new ballpark. You know, the waterfront Jack London, waterfront in the city. As opposed to the real lesson is, uh, we all love professional sports.

[00:53:37] You know, don’t take them for granted don’t cave in either to a professional sports teams, but they are a very important part of the fabric of any city, right? That’s water cooler talk. And a Monday often involves, you know, how the Astros and the Texans or their lawyers, or even the dynamo did. And just one last thought and the dynamo, that was a little bit of an [00:54:00] afterthought in a sense, you know, because all of a sudden we looked around, we had built those first three venues I sort of had, you know, the next 40, 50 years taken care of in terms of infrastructure and then realized, oh my gosh, Houston’s the largest city without a professional soccer franchise.

[00:54:14] And Houston’s a very multicultural city. The ethnic makeup of Houston today is what the United States will be 50 years from now. So we quickly went to work again with the sports authorities, city county officials, and were able to put together a package to build BB VA compass stadium, which is home. So the dynamo also where Texas Southern university plays its home football games.

[00:54:36] So, you know, a multiple use venue, you know, being a part of that was a great experience for me, but also a great learning experience in terms of understanding how public private partnerships can, can work together and get stuff. Well, I agree with your statement on cities, you know, supporting these teams.

[00:54:53] There’s even times I look at football stadiums and I think about what is the real economic impact of, you know, eight regular season home games, you know, in a [00:55:00] billion dollar facility, or now I guess they’re eclipsing 2 billion, but we had the good fortune of working with the NFL league office on those sort of, um, relocations.

[00:55:08] And we’ve been working with AEs as well. The last couple of years, you know, w. Some nice inside looks at these processes. And, uh, it’s tough to look at a private business being subsidized by the public, but there’s also a few things in this world that bring a community together. And really the only one that’s really a positive event that I can think of is sports.

[00:55:27] You know, you could say will, or other sort of factors that bring us closer together as a country. But I do think it’s a pretty important part of health and wellness and culture and the world we live in. And it is crazy to think about Houston and Texas just being, you know, such a center for football and leaving that giant fast-growing market.

[00:55:44] So good job. The season I think for the orders was 1996 in Houston and Texas came back in 2002, that five, six, whatever was your period was, was challenging. Right. And you know, here’s a city that has great ambitions, the [00:56:00] energy capital of the world, a very affordable place has a place where folks really do get along with each other.

[00:56:06] You know, I’d mentioned the, the great diversity down there, you know, but to lose your national football league team in a state that worships football is almost incomprehensible. So it’s like everything else, you know, you’ve got to find the right way and sort of put deals together that don’t make anybody happy.

[00:56:24] And everybody is kind of putting in what most, you know, reasonable folks would consider to be a fair share. And I’ll tell you what if, if you look back now, We spent about a billion dollars at the sports authority, you know, the, the baseball and the basketball arena, each cost about 250 million. The football stadium, you know, with a retractable roof cost about 500 million.

[00:56:46] Those are bargains in today’s world. If you look at what was spent in last year, uh, you know, on the Raiders new stadium or what was spent out in Los Angeles, you know, and so far, which is, must be a gorgeous facility, but you’re talking, you know, [00:57:00] significantly more money. So, uh, you know, I think folks can look back and say, yes, we maybe, you know, had to bite our lip a little bit and, uh, and swallow some things we didn’t want to swallow.

[00:57:09] But I think now, you know, the folks in Houston would look back and say, yeah, it’s important. We, we upgraded that infrastructure and it’s, you know, it’s allowed Houston to be in the running for hosting a, you know, a world cup game in the world cup comes back, uh, to the U S you know, there were some of the biggest crowds that reliant now, NRG stadium were when the Mexican national team came into play, uh, whether it was, you know, kind of COVID Oro games or, you know, friendlies, I mean, some incredible shows that just wouldn’t have come to Houston, but for that beautiful facility designed, not just for football and for the rodeo, but, you know, for, for international soccer, Well, I agree with you.

[00:57:45] I seriously doubt anybody in Houston regrets having an NFL team right now, the world series, those facilities. If you look at what ustan has become and what it is becoming, uh, it just wouldn’t fit without it to be perfectly honest. So good work, great work, honestly. [00:58:00] One question I meant to ask you earlier, was it difficult to leave West Virginia for the NCAA you’re at your Alma mater your, this, you broken all these records.

[00:58:08] You’re the athletic director, you know, you’re almost kind of back home in a sense. I always thought as an outsider, maybe it was because your son was playing for the Colts in the NFL, in Indianapolis at the time. Or is there a story there that I can’t see as an outsider? Well, I’ve yeah, a little bit. I mean, it’s certainly, you know, Andrew playing in Indianapolis, my wife and I would drive over, you know, as often as we could on Sundays for his games, Morgantown, which was like a six hour drive.

[00:58:32] So that was, yeah, that, that, that played a role. My real desire though, was not so much to leave Morgantown, you know, I’d think very highly of the university and the people I worked with and we were able to do a number of things, you know, including moving from the old big east and the big 12. uh, we were lucky enough to be able to do a tax increment financing, baseball stadium, you know, big 12 baseball is great biggies baseball.

[00:58:55] Wasn’t very good. So we were facing quite honestly, a decision. Do we keep [00:59:00] baseball and massively upgraded or do we drop the sport? You know, like I was state had done, it’s tough to play baseball in the spring and some of the Northern climates. uh, so we, we were able to accomplish a number of things. We farmed out our multimedia rights for the first time we’d been monetizing them in house and ended up with a very healthy guarantee from, you know, from IMG.

[00:59:21] And I was able to add a men’s golf team, which was really cool. I, mostly ads are faced with cutting sports. We were in a position where we could add up, we had to add a sport unit to meet the big 12 bylaws, but I wanted to better understand sort of the regulatory aspects, you know, from the NCAAs headquarters, I’m a lawyer and lawyers are sort of trained and, you know, regulatory matters.

[00:59:43] Right. How firm of a thumbprint do you have on the marketplace? If it’s too far to stifle innovation, if it’s too. You know, things can get out of, out of control. And, you know, the NCAA was often a little bit of a mystery to a lot of folks, you know, kind of what Churchill said about, uh, [01:00:00] you know, a mystery wrapped up in an enigma wrapped up in something else, you know, so I, you know, it was, it was interesting.

[01:00:06] I really wanted to better understand how legislation came to be the various committees. There were the levers of power, you know, really were you, you don’t really necessarily, even as an Ady have, uh, have, uh, an insight, right. A look into, into how that, how that works and given some of the challenges that we’re facing, not just, you know, college athletics, but the incident.

[01:00:29] At, at large, with all the lawsuits that had gone, you know, gone through the court systems, uh, with this NFL thing looming, uh, with antitrust issues, I thought it was w was, was going to be, and it was a fascinating time for me to better understand the levers of power that exists within the NCAA and how that affects, you know, college athletics writ large.

[01:00:51] You know, I was there for four years. I ran the regulatory side of the business, uh, learned a lot, right. Changing things at the incident delay [01:01:00] is a little bit like the proverbial, you know, oil tanker, you know, turn it around. It takes a long time and that’s not an excuse. It’s just sort of a fact, you know, the answer w really only responds to serious change.

[01:01:11] If it comes extra. You know, from a court decision or, you know, from the federal government, should they decide to implement their idea of NIL uh, certainly, you know, from state legislatures as they pass those bills. So it takes, you know, it takes a very public and significant push impetus from, you know, from a third party, uh, you know, for the incident blade to move the, you know, much like Congress to slow things down, not speed things up, right.

[01:01:39] You know, be prudent be responsible, take a look at it. Let’s make sure that the values of the NCAA, which is really about education and giving young people an opportunity through sport to get an education. Right. Because we all realize everybody at the association realizes very few kids go on to make any money being professional athletes.

[01:01:58] It’s all. You know, the [01:02:00] opportunity to go to school, get a scholarship, do a sport. uh, but most importantly, you know, get walk away four years, four and a half, five years, whatever it is with a degree and set yourself up for the successful life. So I I’m glad I did it. I, I, thoroughly am glad I did it. uh, it did give me some of that insight that I had been looking for.

[01:02:18] Then again, nothing against Morgan time. I loved it now, but this was sort of a once, once in a lifetime opportunity to put all the regulatory bodies, which was enforcement eligibility center and AMA, which is academic and membership affairs. Those three units put it all under one when leader and again, enjoyed it.

[01:02:37] AJ Maestas: Well, I appreciate that analogy. Also come down on my Sunday commute. I could walk, I could walk 10 minutes to the stadium, right. Lucas oil and not either get in the car and drive for six hours and then turn around and drive home. So not an irrelevant factor to watch Andrew play football. Right. I appreciate your analogy with the Congress.

[01:02:53] Oliver Luck: And if I could add to your Winston Churchill quotes, one of my favorites, if I could paraphrase it too, was that [01:03:00] democracy is the worst political system ever, except for all the others. And, uh, he goes on to yeah. And he goes on to essentially explain that, yes, this moves at a speed that is maddening to people on both sides of any given issue, but that’s by design, but that’s a good, and he said it was, it was an enigma and a mystery.

[01:03:21] Right. And I’m not sure what he was referring to maybe, you know, sort of how decisions get made in Russia or something. But, uh, that, that was it’s very much like that when you’re even, even as an a D even as a conference commissioner, it’s, it’s, it’s very difficult sometimes to get a look into how the system works and where the, you know, again, where those decisions are made, as something works its way through the legislative system at the.

[01:03:44] AJ Maestas: Well, and it’s a healthy perspective that I think you’re sharing with all our listeners, which is, you know, as you mentioned, very public, the law is passed. There’s these external factors that move it forward, and then it reacts to that. And if that’s the reality of this tanker and the speed at which it will turn, then you could [01:04:00] just be at peace with the reality of that process and how fast it will or will not move.

[01:04:04] I can’t resist going back to the west, Virginia. I don’t know how. I didn’t think about that impact. It was a very bold move to find yourself in the big 12 and to make that move and, and risky. And again, very bold at the time, but you’ve done a generational favor and gift to West Virginia. Can you imagine if they’re on the outside of the power five right now in the situation of a UCS or USF or a Cincinnati or even worse, look at, um, some of the challenges, you know, faced at Connecticut.

[01:04:32] Oliver Luck: There’s a lot of ways in which you look at West Virginia and say, what is it doing in the big 12. To have missed the opportunity to be a part of the power five. I think that alone would be one hell of a legacy for your time as athletic director at West Virginia. Yeah. It was a challenging time and I, you know, became very close to the president at WVU at the time Jim Clemens, who’s now at Clemson.

[01:04:53] And he had come out of the towers in university. He had been the provost at Townsend university, so he knew the Maryland system pretty well and had some [01:05:00] good connections, you know, at the president level, you know, throughout the ACC, we had, I had good connections at the AAD level, but it quickly turned out that was not going to be an option for West Virginia university for a whole bunch of different reasons.

[01:05:12] uh, so, you know, we really had to sort of create the rules as we went along. And, uh, you know, the question of being in a power five conference was. I mean, there’s no ifs, ands or buts about that. uh, the good news that I think was, was that, you know, WVU in the state of West Virginia, you know, it’s often referred to as the Northern most Southern state, the Southern most Northern state, the Eastern most Western state, the Western most Eastern state.

[01:05:35] So it did have some sort of flexibility in terms of being on the edge of the Southeastern conference, the edge of the big 10, although we weren’t at the Carnegie institution, right. In terms of the ranking, we were pretty far quite honestly, from the big 12, I think the closest schools I was. You know, 600 miles or whatever, but the culture at West Virginia, big state rural, you know, driven school, uh, it was [01:06:00] very similar to the schools we found in the big 10.

[01:06:02] I mean, it’s very much like a, a Texas tech or an Iowa state or a Kansas state, or probably any of the public schools aside from the university of Texas, which is just in its own category. Right. But we found that our culture really fit in well with. With the folks that we found Oklahoma state or Oklahoma.

[01:06:20] Right. Did you know there was a big state schools, a lot of rural kids coming from farms or ranches? No, not too many big sort of, uh, you know, metropolitan area kids attending school. So I think at the end of the day it was a great move. I’m still very appreciative for, uh, both the work that Bob Bowlsby did, you know, but also Chuck Ninas, who had been the interim commissioner at the big 12, right.

[01:06:42] When they were going through their own sort of issues when Missouri left and Texas a and M Nebraska, right. They had their own new Colorado, they had their own challenges, but a lot of fun, it, it did teach me a lesson when there are no rules, there are no rules. And you figure out what you got to do by hook or by correct.

[01:06:58] Right. To, you know, to [01:07:00] serve the much larger goal, which was to make sure that my Alma mater the Alma mater of hundreds, of thousands of people was going to remain in a power five conference, because that was, I think, ex existential to, uh, you know, not, not just the mission. You know, the athletic program, but really the mission of the university.

[01:07:15] Well, I agree there are limited windows and opportunities to do so, and to miss one is, uh, generationally painful. So, so one last thought, and then I’ve got to run. The only thing that, that Mountaineer fans might be more appreciative of for me having done with selling beer in the state. That was a pretty popular thing as well.

[01:07:34] The big 12 move was nice. They would say that’s great. Yeah. Thanks for setting. Put beer in the stadium at the ball park and it’s the basketball arena. We really need that. Well, every wind counts and I don’t necessarily disagree with them. I had three or four quick hitter questions that I think we can do in three minutes, maybe four minutes.

[01:07:52] Could you have enough time for that? Yup. Yup. Okay. What advice could you offer to a young person that wants to follow in your foot’s. [01:08:00] Look for the soft skills. Those may not have. I mean, one of the reasons that I think my career got started was my ability to speak German. That’s not something that you find very often.

[01:08:14] uh, so, you know, I was able to go over to Frankfurt as a 30 year old, you know, with some business experience, but not a whole bunch. And, you know, and, and lead lead that team, right. We had the best, not results, not on the field, uh, but the best results in terms of sponsorships and ticket sales and all of that.

[01:08:30] And then, you know, I had to build a business. So, you know, look for skills that other folks, you know, may not have. And that could be a foreign language that could be, you know, a bit of experience that you had as a high school student, you know, you know how it is, right? When, when positions become open to the sports field, thousands of resumes come in and it’s very difficult to sort of.

[01:08:50] Those. So look at developing skills that will sort of set you aside, uh, and are relevant, right? To, you know, to a particular job that not everybody [01:09:00] would have, you know, give you something a unique selling point, right. To go back to an old phrase from the nineties. And just, so we get to know you a little better outside of business, outside of sports.

[01:09:09] Do you mind sharing some of your top passions and hobbies? Sure. I, um, I’m, I’m an avid cyclist, um, and this surprises, some people I’m, I’m actually a very avid gardener. uh, part of that is just, you know, I love being outside right now. Nothing better than riding a biker or putzing around in your, in your, in your garden?

[01:09:29] uh, I’m an avid reader. uh, I probably. uh, I am, as well-versed in, in politics and in history, I was a history major, um, you know, public policy as I am in football, right. A sport that, you know, I know pretty well over the years and a surprise for some people while I kind of grew up. Like we all, did. You have folks of our generation grew up on rock and roll the rolling stones and the who and, you know, all the great bands, uh, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve really become, and I’m probably taking after my [01:10:00] mother, I become much more of a classical music fan and, you know, would attend concerts at Carnegie hall or, you know, at Lincoln center in Indianapolis were where we were living.

[01:10:10] uh, so I’ve become, in fact, when we lived over in Europe, uh, did the same as well as some of the great concert halls throughout Europe. So had become, uh, quite a fan, not so much of opera, uh, but more so of classical music, the Germans Beethoven, Mozart, you know, as you can’t get those out of my system, Yeah, that’s that’s fair.

[01:10:27] AJ Maestas: And I wouldn’t have guessed a few of those. I wouldn’t have guessed classic music. I wouldn’t have guessed guarding, but it could be, I could see it as very therapeutic and meditative and grounded. Is there, is there a life hack you’re willing to share? Is there something you do that just leads to your success, your productivity, your resume’s unbelievable.

[01:10:42] Oliver Luck: Your life experience is, has been extraordinary. Is there a trick that we can borrow from you? No, I don’t. I don’t know if there’s a trick. I, I do think that at times you, I think it’s very difficult to plan. Right. uh, you know, life changes, business changes. I [01:11:00] think it’s very difficult to plan a career like maybe my parents’ generation, you know, we’re able to do.

[01:11:05] uh, so I think at times you have to, you know, keep your eye out for things. uh, you have to take risk every now and then I had no idea going over to Europe, uh, would mean that we would, my wife and I would be there for 10 years. I had no idea. I ended up, you know, wishing we had stayed longer because I thoroughly enjoyed the.

[01:11:24] Um, but I think sometimes you have to roll the dice a little bit and sometimes you get rewarded. uh, sometimes it doesn’t work out, you know, and you’ve got to sort of start from scratch, but I do think you have to be open to new things. Don’t be afraid. You know, people would say when I took the dynamo job as president of the club, oh my God, Mr luck, what do you know about soccer?

[01:11:43] You’re a football guy, right? And, uh, you know, I knew very little about soccer beyond, you know, it’s a round ball, 11 players, and there’s a goalie and he can use his hands. Nobody else can, but you know, don’t be afraid to, to, to go into a different sport, right. Don’t be afraid to take a different segment maybe within the sports business and you’ve [01:12:00] been marketing or promoting, well, you know, maybe, maybe she’d go in and look at tech and see what you can do on the, on the tech side or, you know, don’t, don’t be afraid to sort of embrace new things.

[01:12:09] I think that’s very important. The older you get, right? You don’t want to get pigeonholed as just a PR person or just a marketing person, or just a, you know, a team personnel, uh, person, I think, uh, you know, be open to things. Most things you can learn, right? This isn’t rocket science, what we do, you know, most things you can learn and don’t be afraid of that learning process.

[01:12:29] AJ Maestas: Exactly. Thank you. That’s good advice. And my last question, what is next? Are you willing to give us a sneak peek into your next chapter? I’m 60 years old. I think I still have a lot to offer whether it’s pro sports or, or, you know, college sports. I got other interests outside of sports that I’ve been thinking about, you know, based on sort of this whole COVID shut down and the opportunities that may present themselves.

[01:12:54] Oliver Luck: So at this point, I’m not really sure to be brutally honest. I do know that I might be out skiing this [01:13:00] afternoon for a couple of hours, uh, in the, in the Colorado mountains. That’s probably my only from plan in the future. uh, but you know, we’ll see where, where, what happens in how I, how I end up. I appreciate that.

[01:13:13] The only thing we have for sure is right now, so please enjoy the slopes this afternoon. I’m so grateful you joined us again. I’m with Oliver luck, one of the true greats in the business of sports, having done a little bit of everything it feels like, and, uh, please have a wonderful afternoon and thank you for joining us.

[01:13:28] Hey AJ, my pleasure. Thank you.

[01:13:43] AJ Maestas: thank you for joining our podcast this week. If you’d like to join the conversation, email us at info@nvgt.com or check out our website at NVGT.com I’m AJ Maestas. Join us again next week for navigating the sports business.[01:14:00] .