Wojnarowski’s Big Move, Bryce Young Benched, College Football's $10M 'Talent Fee' and more...

Welcome to the Sunday 7…

 A busy newsletter today, with some personal thoughts on a media star’s move away from media, last year’s top pick in the NFL being benched, more money madness in college football, the end of the WNBA and LIV Golf seasons, and an answer to a question from many readers this week about insurance and salary cap credits.

Settle in and learn from this Sunday 7 (actually Sunday 8, but who is counting)…

1. What I’m thinking of Adrian Wojnarowski’s retirement from ESPN to work in college basketball…

 “Woj” has been synonymous with breaking news about the NBA, using the expansive ESPN platform and his 6.5 million Twitter (X) followers to break news of the league’s signings, trades, and other transactions. He now leaves that, and millions of dollars, behind to become general manager of St. Bonaventure basketball, his alma mater.

 I get this, perhaps more than most. As readers of this space know, I am all about making the most of the limited time we have; time is our most precious resource. Life is really about not letting unimportant things hijack your time away from the important things. Woj has come to that realization; he has decided to live life more on his terms, not the terms of ESPN or his millions of followers.

The life of a media “scoop guy” is not one I would want for a family member or friend. I watched colleagues such as Adam Schefter up close for many years while at ESPN. They are attached to their phones, motivated by breaking news before others do, and constantly working their sources. They accept and embrace that priority in their lives. I never wanted to do that; when scoops came my way, I gave them to other people. Woj lived that life, but decided he had had enough.

Usually, going from media to being a general manager means more stress, but in his case, it will be the opposite. While there will be recruiting and roster management issues, there is not going to be a lot of NIL bidding at St. Bonaventure; he will be their NIL, their biggest attraction.

As someone who left a prestigious, high-paying job to live life more on my terms, I empathize with and applaud Woj. Bravo and good luck to him.

2. What I’m thinking of the Panthers benching Bryce Young…

 After a rookie season where Young struggled in leading the worst team to a 2-14 record (he missed one game), I cautioned those wanting to bury him with the “bust” label and, to some extent, still do. As it turns out, his new coach this year, Dave Canales, had seen enough after two games.

Young was the first pick in the draft last year, taken directly ahead of C.J. Stoud, now flourishing at the Texans. Yes, Young is small, but we all marveled at his weekly heroics at Alabama against players who would be NFL first-rounders. But Young has struggled and unlike other smaller quarterbacks with freakish athleticism (Kyler Murray) or escapability (Russell Wilson), Young does not appear to have any special skills at this level.

 I know they are an easy target with an unlikeable owner, but had the Panthers not taken him, Young would have been drafted very soon after the first pick last year, perhaps second to the Texans. Sometimes franchise-defining decisions are made for teams, not by teams. Would CJ Stroud have flourished on the Panthers? Would Young have been better on the Texans? We will never know, but organizations do matter.

With the way rookie contracts are front-loaded, Young has already made roughly $25 million of his $35 million guaranteed contract, $24 million of it in signing bonus. I don’t think this is the end of the line for him in Carolina. While they are now moving to Andy Dalton, Dalton is not their future; I think Young will have another chance at that.

3. What I’m thinking about the University of Tennessee’s ticket surcharge…

 In the latest “sign of the times” moment in college football’s Wild West, the University of Tennessee will now charge a $10 per ticket “talent fee” on top of the cost of the ticket to their football games. Its purpose? To pay the players. Tennessee hopes to raise about $10 million from this initiative, this for a football program that had $135 million in revenues last year.

 We are now at a point in college sports where the scope of NIL payments are limited only by the imaginations of the schools. We have seen QR codes on the back of the helmets of Oklahoma State players, allowing fans to donate to their players of choice (although the NCAA weighed in against that). And now we see Tennessee essentially charging a service fee to funnel more money to their players.

This is all part of the arms race of college football recruiting and retention. Now Tennessee can tell high school players and, more importantly, transfers about this talent fee, something that other schools don’t have, at least not yet. Also this week, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed an executive order prohibiting the NCAA from punishing Georgia schools from compensating athletes in any way. This follows a similar order from the governor of Virginia.

Until a proposed House v. NCAA antitrust settlement resolves, if it ever actually does, we continue in the Wild West of college sports. At this point, anything the lawyers and judges come up with will be more clear than the present anarchy.

4. What I’m thinking of the end of the WNBA season…

 The WNBA heads into the playoffs after their most successful season in history and it is not even close. They had a record-setting year in basically every category: ticket sales, merchandising, and broadcast ratings.

 I know there are other factors, but there is truly one that stands out: the Caitlin Clark phenomenon. And it is quite a phenomenon. Her Indiana Fever games sold out NBA arenas with several games being moved to those venues from the team’s usual home court. And Fever games were far and away the most viewed of any team, averaging 1.2 million viewers. For perspective, NBA games average 1.56 million viewers. Oh, and on the court, Clark has broken records on almost a nightly basis. Clark’s impact is nothing short of stunning.

Clark’s impact has become so regularly dramatic that it has almost become ho-hum. Another statistical record? Nice. Another attendance record? Cool. It’s uncanny.

Clark has changed two sports over the past couple of years: women’s college basketball and women’s pro basketball. It is hard to find any kind of comparison in the modern history of sports. Tiger? Perhaps. Jordan? Well, the NBA was pretty well-established by then.

The Fever are underdogs in the first round of the playoffs against the Connecticut Sun. Like most fans, I hope Clark’s season does not end there.

5. What I’m thinking of the end of the LIV Golf tour season…

 As LIV Golf heads into its final event this weekend in Dallas, there are hopeful reports on the continued talks of a merger with the PGA Tour.

One of the sticking points of the merger talks is that the PGA Tour reportedly wants LIV golfers to return some of their LIV riches. I see that as a non-starter and, frankly, an unreasonable ask. The competition from LIV Golf resulted in inflated prize money on the PGA Tour, with some events moving to $25 million purses for the first time. Would those PGA Tour players who benefited from LIV Golf’s raised stakes give back some of their money? Of course not.

Having witnessed the LIV tour up close a couple of times, and having hosted a couple of their caddies, I liked their more fan-friendly format, with team play and shotgun starts. And as the LIV Golf season ends, there is also relegation. Of the 57 players who played this season, those below the top 24 are subject to being relegated (although captains such as Phil Mickelson, who finished 47^th, and Bubba Watson, who finished 53^rd, can decide to keep themselves around).

I have said from the beginning that the PGA Tour would be better of working with LIV Golf than against them. I still believe that; let’s hope it happens.

6. Answering this week’s subscriber question…

This article about insurance and potential salary cap credits — https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/41274295/nfl-insurance-policies-star-players-aaron-rodgers-tua-tagovailoa-jared-goff-joe-burrow-christian-mccaffrey — raised a lot of questions, such as this from Peter Robson: “Can you explain this? Have you done this? Seems like a loophole in the cap system.”

I was interviewed for the article, although my comments did not appear in it. I do understand the intrigue around this, but to me, this is really a risk/reward analysis conducted by every team, with some teams more willing than others to invest for what may be little to no return. A few teams buy policies on several players and some teams buy policies on their star quarterbacks but no one else. Some don’t enter this market at all.

 The key questions about insurance on player contracts are (1) what type of insurance, and (2) for how much? There is permanent total disability (PTD) insurance, where the premiums are quite reasonable, and then there is temporary total disability (TTD) insurance with, in a sport with a 100% injury rate, much higher premiums, and potential exclusions for pre-existing injuries. As per the article, the TTD premiums for a $50 million contract could be up to $2 million. And payout is not as simple as getting back money for missed games on a pro-rata basis; there are deductibles, exclusions, and other hurdles. As everyone reading this knows, insurance companies do not part easily with their money.

At the Packers, I purchased PTD policies for a couple of our larger contracts but did not see the cost-effectiveness of the high premiums for temporary injuries. Having said that, if the goal is purely cap credit, regardless of cost, the idea of paying non-cap dollars to perhaps pay off with future cap credits does have some value. And as NFL team cap departments have more people than ever and try to separate themselves from other teams, this practice may be more popular.

 Rather than a “loophole,” I see it more as simply a future cap credit, similar to other future cap credits. When a player doesn’t earn a workout bonus that was previously counting on the cap, that triggers a future credit. When a player doesn’t earn an incentive that was previously counting on the cap, that triggers a future credit. If a team receives money from an insurance policy, it presents proof of those funds to the NFL in order to receive cap credit for the following year.

 Is this a practice that has been going on for years with NFL teams that has been under the radar? Yes. But is it a massive loophole in the cap system? Not really, just a tool that some teams and owners allow for — with some debate as to its cost-effectiveness — as a way to squeeze back some cap room in future years.

7. My tweet of the week:

8. Quote I wish I said:

"People need to relax, but if all you do is sit on the beach, it gets old. People find meaning in work, but if all you do is work, it gets exhausting. People benefit from exercise, but if all you do is exercise, it gets unhealthy. Happiness will always be fleeting because your needs change over time. The question is: what do you need right now?” — James Clear 

My Podcast…

 My weekly whip-around featured my take on Tua and retirement. I don’t think he will retire and I get it: No one 26 years old is prioritizing how he or she will feel in 25 years:

 Nice Gesture:

After signing his contract extension with the Penguins, Sidney Crosby personally delivered some season tickets:

Thanks for your continuing support and I hope you’re enjoying the new format; your feedback and questions (answered here) are always welcome, send to [email protected].

 Have a great week…

 Andrew