It was announced just under 5 months ago that Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick would be retiring at the end of the 2023-24 academic school year and on Friday night October 13th the university announced that president Rev. John Jenkins, C.S.C. would also be retiring at the same time. Notre Dame also announced that former board chair of KPMG John Veihmeyer has been voted as the University Board of Trustees chairman effective June 2024, replacing Jack Brennan who has been in this role since 2015.
That’s a lot of change at once!
I see it written all the time that Notre Dame needs to care more about something, or place more emphasis somewhere, or commit more funding to stuff. It seems as though some fans define this push as either a return to yesteryear’s ways of doing things (we must recapture what was lost) while other fans define it as a need to modernize and get with the times (we must take steps for the future out of our comfort zone). There can be overlap in those positions but the prevailing sentiment seems to be that Notre Dame football can be better and it’s just a matter of decision making and will power from its leaders.
Yet, what are the questions that need to be asked to make Notre Dame football better and more successful as this new leadership takes over next summer? We have put together our best attempt at the most pressing issues facing the Fighting Irish today, in 2024, and beyond. Think of this as discussion for fans and readers, posed towards the University of Notre Dame administrators.
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#1 How much importance does the total value of a new media rights deal play when negotiating and how does continuing the relationship with NBC outweigh any other possible financial benefits from other outlets, specifically when most understand Notre Dame may not be serious in exploring other media deals?
#2 Outside of the presence of Mike Tirico, too often Notre Dame fans have felt like the NBC television contract has been a training ground for unproven or poor announcing teams. As the Big Ten increases its footprint with NBC is there a concern from the University to make sure Notre Dame home games are a competent broadcast to the rest of the country?
#3 Although Peacock has nearly doubled its subscribers to 24 million as of the last earnings report back in July, its losses are expected to pass $3 billion at the end of 2023. Does Notre Dame feel like its full steam ahead with NBC Universal’s streaming platform and will we continue to see more broadcast and football games on Peacock in the future?
#4 As this new leadership takes over there remains 13 more years of the current ACC Grant of Rights deal. As the conference remains on shaky ground in the realignment world, is there a plan for if the league disintegrates? Will Notre Dame be determined to make things work in a smaller ACC conference with a poor football pedigree?
#5 What does football independence mean to Notre Dame in 2024? With access to a 12-team playoff does that pretty much guarantee Notre Dame remains independent in football? If the ACC conference collapses will Notre Dame remain in the league for its Olympic sports because football independence may continue and takes priority?
Assessing the latest legal threats to the NCAA and college sports.https://t.co/VDdouCy53I
— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoAP) October 16, 2023
#6 Is there a way forward for Notre Dame athletes, and football players specifically, to be employees of the university within the current and traditional framework of the University?
#7 In the event that college athletes are allowed to be paid by the university, will Notre Dame be an industry leader in ensuring female athletes are treated equally under Title IX laws? Is Notre Dame prepared to support all of its current teams if more money begins flowing from the University to the athletes as athletic department revenue shrinks?
#8 Does Notre Dame see a workable future where academic-related payments to student-athletes becomes a major selling point for attending the University?
#9 After testimony on the Senate last week, current athletic director Jack Swarbrick proposed a collective bargained “carve out” between programs and conferences that will negotiate players rights and terms and conditions of their participation without being employees. If athletes are not considered employees through a legal understanding, how can Notre Dame agree to a revenue sharing model similar to professional sports while maintaining other amateur frameworks?
#10 If the NCAA, or more specifically the ACC, create a framework with college athletes at the Division 1 level as negotiated employees will Notre Dame drop down to a lower level of competition where such a structure does not exist?
#11 If legislation passes allowing universities to directly fund NIL to athletes and recruits will Notre Dame jump into the mix with competitive financial packages?
#12 Has the university considered substantially reinforcing the “4 for 40” recruiting pitch via novel measures such as tuition-free degree completion for former scholarship athletes?
#13 There’s been a groundswell of support, particularly in the NFL, of removing artificial turf from stadiums. Has Notre Dame considered bringing back natural grass to the football stadium and if more studies show the ill effects of field turf would the University be open to a multi-million dollar project to install a natural grass field system inside the 5-year old Irish Athletic Center facility?
#14 Notre Dame’s policy towards football transfers has long been a sticking point for fans well before the NIL and one-time transfer rules were enacted. Is there a way that the University can ease the transfer policy for non-graduates that would give the football program a more competitive advantage with the rest of the country?
Moments after completion of the 10th NIL Congressional hearing, Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick, one of the industry’s most respected, proposed a “radical” solution.
It is time for college sports, he tells @YahooSports, to collectively bargain with athleteshttps://t.co/XNDM33OUvO
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) October 17, 2023
A lot to chew on here, Eric. I realized I’ve posted my comments on many of these in the past, but will shamelessly give my take. –Notre Dame football will remain independent (or semi with the ACC games) if possible. –The autonomy of football independence is something every Athletic Dept would strive for if they could. No one but Notre Dame. –As far the Olympic/minor sports, I can’t see lacrosse for instance wanting to be elsewhere other than the ACC. Basketball and women’s sports benefit from ACC competition, too –college football today is where the NFL would be without bilateral negotiation between players and owners for periods of years. Few guide rails –I expect unionization is coming and not a bad thing for players to get a piece of the lucrative pie. The devil is in the details. –the only counterbalance to the two media companies (ESPN and Fox) controlling college football exposure is NBC. If they don’t want to pony up for possible conference expansion teams, it will only happen if universities accept less or no revenue —NBC dominated the others in fall prime time games both ND and NFL live and streaming ranking #1 in viewership on Saturdays and on Sundays.They’ve got the revenue to keep ND as a flagship. –the ACC contract is ironclad. If ESPN sees value in Florida State, etc moving to the SEC and increases that contract, they will have to renegotiate the ACC contract who will want significant compensation for losing those teams’ media rights –players unionization atmosphere has changed from the Northwestern case a few years ago with the huge amounts of revenues nowadays –the process on national issues today are the executive branch makes a decision, appealed to the judiciary who decides the case. Congress is inept but it really is their responsibility to provide those guard rails –what could change all of that is if SCOTUS limits the “Administrative State” in an upcoming case.The issue is the extent to which the executive branch can make decisions. If the NLRB can’t decide on criteria for players unionization, that impacts the USC/Big10/NCAA case –ND should go to a grass field. –Freeman is not Willingham or Faust. The next four games are winnable and ND would be 10-2 going into the bowl game. –The independence of ND football allows them to schedule games like Ohio State, Texas A&M, Alabama, Wisconsin, etc as well as USC. That autonomy and the benefits it brings to NBC or another media company all but vanishes by joining a conference. –I really don’t care to ever schedule Michigan again. -ND will always play Navy. We’ll see if USC wants to include us as one of three non-conference foes in addition to BIG play. Would travel also be one of their considerations? –Recruiting benefits from our schedule autonomy with the national exposure and games across the U.S. –I expect the retirement of Swarbrick and Jenkins is timely for their personal goals. I think Swarbrick is respected and is certainly… Read more »
All good thoughts.
Lots of good questions. I really wonder what Bevacqua thinks about most of these topics – or if he really cares about much right now beyond what is immediately in front of him (that is, the TV deal). Hopefully he’s spending his this interim period giving it some thought – and hopefully his instincts on at least some things are different than Swarbrick’s (at a minimum, the comfort with transparent nepotism).
At the very least, fix the NBC contract and make them at least appear to care about broadcast quality. Since the SC game was a prime time spot and generated pretty good ratings, a lot of casual CFB fans finally got to see the home NBC broadcast with the nepo intern and the failed coach, and boy was that reaction negative.
I feel like this can go one of two ways with Bevacqua.
One is that he knows what quality sports broadcasting looks like, knows how to make it happen, and will make it happen for ND.
The other is that he is cozy with his buddies and former coworkers at NBC and will feel zero pressure to change anything, and will keep the inside baseball gravy train rolling.
I have a guess, but I’m holding out some hope. As you said, the public attention that the SC broadcast drew was embarrassing for NBC.
With the new change in leadership, will it bring a modernization to the current recruiting academic requirements or will they stick with the present requirements?
I think I saw it on here first, but during the USC game, reddit was complaining about the broadcast volume – specifically that it sounds dead. I had heard here I think complaints about the mixing, and how they do not mix he crowd noise in well.
I dont think anyone at ND would be negotiating this, but maybe with the new BIG contract this gets fixed. The crowd and drums in the background is an integral part of the college football experience for me, and one of the things that sets it apart from NFL. NBC needs to figure this out as well as the announcer situation.
Oh NBC’s college football broadcasts are clearly the worst of the major networks and the gap is widening every year. Don’t think there is anything an AD can do about that (other than not sign with them, which, lol not happening).
Not to defend NBC, but FOX is pretty brutal. Gus Johnson shrieking and making up nicknames that nobody uses, endless commercials, games that start 20 minutes after the hour, the goofy scorebug.
The unfortunate reality is that ABC/ESPN remains the gold standard of how to broadcast college football.
I would push back on only one point re: ESPN – get rid of the stupid ticker during games. No one wants it and it takes up too much space.
Plus they refuse to invest in hardware it seems. They still only broadcast in 720p. Not even asking for 4K but something better than 2008 would be nice
Some further random thoughts and responses:
What are you fighting for?
This makes it sounds like the current and upcoming decisions are a lot easier to solve and that ND specifically knows what’s best for its students and players.
From everything we’ve seen ND will be pushing heavily for the student-side of the argument and fighting any implementation of employment for athletes.
I’m not arguing that’s right or wrong (employment has a ton of issues that players should start coming to grips with ASAP, for example) but I think there will be a lot of cause for the players to fight for things (especially $$$) that ND will push against and that might not always be what’s in the best interests of the student-athletes.
Agreed. Assuming ND will always do what is best for students and student-athletes is…charitable, to put it nicely.
It is usually more accurate to assume that ND will do what makes ND the most money.
Rumor among the Illuminati in the bowels of the Admin Building is that ND football is for sale. That should bring in a pretty penny for the University who will keep a minority stake and rent out facilities and the stadium to the for-profit conglomerate.
Athletes will get big time salaries, perks, commercial connections and no longer have to live in on-campus rooms with (other) students for two years, be Catholic or meet standards for a university admission. A win-win for ND and the football athletes.
The ownership group wants the Notre Dame name with its cachet, the feeling of attachment to its history, and, hopefully, retain its loyal fans. The for-profit enterprises around Irish football should not be affected. But the price Notre Dame wants is higher than imagined in order to make the maximal profit. Talks continue.
MC — your posts have been quite good and informative, merci. But please, can you avoid this particular brand of dark humor? I literally grew up in the bowels of the Admin building — which is to say granddad who was a chemistry prof would take me there and walk me through the Columbus wall paintings. I can live with them not being shown any more… but oh my, this is way hard!
Point taken. I want to clarify my Reply was not meant to disparage anyone or their right to an opinion. You especially have always had my respect.
Thanks. Likewise. Actually, the nightmare for me is IMO a nightmare for Notre Dame. We have always tried to tiptoe that thin line of playing top level college football and being a top level educational institute. We’ve oscillated around that balance point for a century. The Rock got called to order. Elmer Layden got replaced. Fr Hesburgh shut Leahy down. Lou Holtz’ brilliant recruiting couldn’t last five years. Every time the team gets poor though we try to fix it. Now with the current landscape, I don’t blame Jack S for calling the current climate “catastrophic” — it is for our brand.
Considering your typically straightforward and factual posting style, this is one of the funniest posts in this site’s history.
But, (maybe) contra to this and certainly contra to the implications of Q7: if ND decides to pay all student athletes the same, in the absence of a rule applying that to everyone, that will be a surefire way to turn ND into a Lesser Stanford in terms of athletics generally and maybe even football-wise.
Question number 12 implies that people like Jaylon Smith, Josh Allen, and Jerome Bettis paid tuition to finish their degrees. Is that really the case? I have a hard time believing the university is charging professional football-playing alumni to finish their degrees.
As far as I’m aware, former players cannot come back to campus and finish their degree for free. There are a lot of tuition assistance programs, though.
Bettis at his graduation:
Others who came back to get their degrees: The Rocket, Tom Carter, Darius Walker, Jimmy Clausen, Julian Love, Cole Kmet, Stephon Tuitt, with Troy Niklas, Josh Adams and Jaylon Smith working towards their degrees. I wonder if those who left after three years get their equivalent fourth to fulfill Notre Dame’s commitment to their educaton.
I’ll credit my brother for this but years ago he came up with the idea of disconnecting the 4 years of football with the four years of classes. I played DIII sports (badly) but it was still a big time drain. Can’t imagine the load of DI sports.
If you want to combine them, great. If you want to take a half load and finish later, great.
I’m just imagining a world where the FBS splits into an upper tier and all football programs become somewhat divorced from the NCAA and their universities.
I don’t hate your brother’s ideas at all. I think the caveat I would make it so that with summer school that they are hitting a minimum of half the normal credits and that schools are getting these kids legitimate degrees.
You would have to give some teeth to the governing body and they would have to actually enforce it so things like what happened with UNC there 10-16 years ago don’t happen. My suggestion would be to kick those programs out of the league for 5 years. I know it’s a pipe dream.