It's the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. fans of your team, and you can even jump into the national chats and talk about whatever's happening across the league. Tap the Everydayer Club link in the show notes to learn more. LSU just broke the bank on its football roster. A key booster explains if that spending is sustainable. It's Locked on LSU. Here we go. you are locked on LSU your daily podcast on the LSU Tigers part of the locked on podcast network your team every day okay let's get it it is locked on LSU your team every day I'm your host Matt Moscona thanks so much for making us your first listen we're free available wherever you get great podcast, of course, on YouTube as well. So please subscribe. And as always, one of the fastest ways to help us grow is by leaving your comments below. So thank you sincerely for that. Thank you for helping make the Locked On Podcast Network the number one sports podcast network. Have your cake and drink it too. Birthday cake flavor is back. No fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick and no sugar. It's party time. Order now at five hour energy.com or on Amazon. You all have, if you're an everydayer, have gotten accustomed to periodically LSU mega booster Gordon McKernan visiting with us here on the show. Well, had a chance this week to visit with Gordon again about a wide variety of topics. So as we customarily do, I'll chop up some of the sound bites from that interview, share them with you here and we'll discuss. The thing that I found maybe most interesting from this conversation, and Gordon does give you his opinion on Matt McMahon in the basketball program. I do ask him point blank about Will Wade, and we are going to dive into a little bit about some maybe concerning comments that Jay Johnson made to Tiger Ag Magazine. We'll get to that in a second, but the biggest question everyone is going to have is what LSU is doing right now in football is it sustainable that's to say 54 million dollars to buy out brian kelly a 91 million dollar commitment to lane kiffin then his staff on top of that and then more than 40 million dollars for this football roster when i asked gordon mccernan that question his feeling was that 40 players in the portal probably isn't sustainable but the revenue the money spent that dollar spend probably doesn't go down. And I think that is so interesting because I've said this in so many different ways on so many different platforms, but we are living in an era now where spending is dramatically outpacing revenue. You know this. We've been talking about this since RevShare came into play. And remember, RevShare is effectively a $20 million annual line item in the budget. So you look at LSU athletics, $200 million estimate, $200 million in revenue. They typically spend right at about $200 million, maybe a little bit of a surplus, maybe a little bit of a deficit. But right there, they spend what they bring in. Well, in one year, boom, here's $20 million in expenses added to the budget because now you've got to give $20 million to the players. Well, to pay for that, you're either cutting $20 million in expenses or generating $20 million in new revenue. Neither is easy necessarily to do, but both are essential to do if you're going to win and sustain winning. It's why when we talked about the Woodside Energy jersey patch, so many people pushed back against that because you're a traditionalist, and I understand that. If we could all live in this utopia, you wouldn't need sponsors or jersey patches or any of that sort of stuff. But if you want to win, you have to have these types of creative revenue streams, new revenue streams. Clay Harris literally, who many of you may not know his name, but Clay Harris literally is LSU's chief revenue officer. That man's job is find creative new revenue streams. So when you have a chance with like Woodside Energy, right, it's wonderful because it's a giant mega company that wants to have great synergies with LSU and respect the brand and it be this sort of symbiotic relationship for both. That's a best practice to do it if you got to do it, right? So how can you generate new revenue streams? Well, that's going to be the onus on LSU and Clay Harris and all the way up to LSU's president, Dr. Wade Roos. You know, Wade Roos, if you're not familiar, is an economist by trade. He spent 10 years at the Fed. He worked in private equity. He's a brilliant economic mind, and he's going to have to help throughout this system to find new ways to generate new revenue. It's why, by the way, I don't mean to completely deviate here, but it's why for 100 years, college athletics were so adamant against a college football playoff because of the bowl games. They had the history of the bowl games. They had the revenue from the bowl games. Well, whenever expenses started going up and expenses are outpacing revenue, they had to find new revenue. What's the surest way to drive revenue fast? The college football. Squeeze the juice out of that thing. Why did they go to four from four to 12? Now 12 to 16, maybe 24? Money. There's more revenue to be had the more TV products you have. And it's going to be great for the game, by the way, as well, as I feel. But anyway, so it was interesting to hear Gordon say that he thinks turning the roster over with 40 players in the portal, that's probably not sustainable. But the spending isn't going backwards. So he would say you're going to keep spending that much on your roster. If that's the case, then you're going to have to, absolutely have to continue to generate revenue in new creative ways. But one thing is Gordon told us, and this was a peek behind the curtain, because Gordon, like many of these boosters who are contributing large funds, they get to go sit with Kiffin and Billy Glasscock and have the entire process explained to them. And Gordon did a pretty good job of sort of peeling back the curtain here. There's a really good team at the helm building this roster, right? And just watching the difference in the building and outside the building. I say in the building. When you talk to the people who've been there a while, not the coaches who get transitioned out every, you know, however many years when they have to do a new administration, but the people, and there's a different feeling. They look up and they see progress and they see the lane at the top and Billy below him and those guys doing the jobs they're doing, and it feels different. That's the first thing. There's just a feeling that's really different. And then you take Lane, right? He has a vision for what he wants to do. But then Billy is, you know, the modern-day Austin Thomas. And Austin did a good job, but there's just something a little bit different about Billy. A little more relatable, perhaps, you know. He's very driven, and he's very methodical on how he's doing it. I think when you look at this roster, you're going to see his fingerprints all over it. And when I first got to meet him the first time, I never had the idea that they would track metrics like he was doing. and he was talking about the metrics that made Ole Miss so successful. And he started talking about, well, you know, we had the 21st biggest payroll, but we were number one in playing time of the players that we had And he had the there was like 89 of our players that we got in the portal actually played on the field whereas a lot of times we getting these kids and they're not panning out, but they were very, very sharp in terms of who they selected and actually they performed on the field, how many plays. They track a lot of metrics. When we have talked about that throughout the course of the portal, if you're an everydayer and you found the show, then you heard me say the phrase, the term evaluation a ton, that this staff was so big on evaluation. Well, Gordon just gave you a little more color there to how they do it. And he actually dug in a little deeper on how they go through the evaluation of their players. Lane has got some Saban indoctrination in him, right? It's not all about the metrics, right? So there's the character aspect. And there was a lot more, it seemed like holistic in how they were evaluating kids. I know Ed Ogeron was very much a combine guy, right? Did he look right? Did he have the right numbers? It sounded like Brian Kelly had kind of just left it to the other guys to do, and he didn't have as much of it. This one seems more holistic, right? They're borrowing from Saban. They want the character kids, and they want good kids. But at the same time, they know you need some dogs in there to win. So it's a good combination from what I can tell. One of the things that I thought was really interesting that Gordon was talking about there, when he was talking about sort of the metrics that they track, and he was talking about the playing time of the guy. They were 20, Ole Miss was 21st in portal budget, but first as far as guys actually playing. Think about the LSU transfer portal class from this past year, which was the number one transfer portal class in the country. So they spent and had a lot of guys that were highly regarded. But when you think about the investment they made in certain spots, you had a lot of hits, okay? You had a lot of hits. A.J. Halsey was a hit. Montserrat Lane, obviously, was a hit. Bernard Gooden played a ton for you. Offensively, Barion Brown was a hit. You hit in a lot of places. But you also spent a lot of money on Nick Anderson, who didn't really play for you. And you spent a lot of money on the defensive ends who played, but didn't necessarily produce at a super high level for you. So there are varying degrees of that. So it's why the evaluation is so key, going back to the point Gordon was making at the beginning. So it was to say, you're going to keep spending the same amount of money. That's not going down. But you're not going to spend, you're not going to have 40 players a year via the portal. So you got to hit on the guys that you bring in who stay and then produce for you. The best example I can give you, I think, is Cam Coleman. So Cam Coleman is a guy who was the number one wide receiver in the portal coming out of Auburn. Everybody wanted him. Cam Coleman's asking price was $3.5 million. LSU spent a lot of money. They could have spent $3.5 million on Cam Coleman, but Lane and his staff went through their evaluation and determined we'd rather prioritize another position with that dollar spent. Would you rather spend that dollar amount on one receiver or go get a handful of receivers that could have multi-year impact for you? or spend that dollar amount on a receiver or a left tackle like Jordan Seaton, whatever the final dollar amount is. We haven't been able to report that number. But the point is they know where their financial investment needs to be position-wise and when to go all in for the top of the market type guys, and receivers aren't one of them. So the dollar amount, according to Gordon, isn't going to change. So the key, obviously, is generating new revenue. And then you have this other question of other expense line items like, what do you do with Matt McMahon? I did ask Gordon that. We'll get to that as we continue here. It's Locked on LSU, your team every day. Welcome to the 5-Hour Energy Flavor Draft with 18 different flavors to choose from, including new options like Confetti Craze, Furity Rainbow, or Cotton Candy. There's something for everyone. The board is set. The flavors are ready. I've got my number one pick for the five-hour energy flavor draft. How about Confetti Craze? One that I just mentioned. It is a delicious blend of rich and buttery, freshly baked confetti cake, smooth vanilla frosting, and a sprinkle of sweetness in every sip. Sweet birthday cake-inspired flavor with notes of vanilla frosting and sugary sprinkles. It's smooth, dessert-like profile. It has rich, indulgent sweetness from start to finish. So find your favorite new flavor over at 5-Hour Energy. 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But I do want to remind you, you can get Locked on LSU ad-free with the Every Day or Club, plus members-only Discord access. So join with the link in the show notes. We talked to Gordon McKernan about the LSU basketball situation as well. And if you're not familiar, the McKernans have a deep love and history, both with Gordon and with his father, with the LSU basketball program. He was honored. Gordon was at an LSU basketball game a few years back with a game of framed jersey. they've been big time supporters of LSU basketball for many years. And so I brought up this situation because if you're an everydayer, a few shows ago, we talked about EJ Kuyper, who is the president and CEO of the FML Health System, which is the single largest corporate entity benefactor of LSU athletics. And EJ Kuyper publicly endorsed retaining Matt McMahon. And very clearly there, as I have said here so often, There is no consensus there. There are certainly people in high places that want to make a change. Among them, the governor of the state, the new chairman of the board of supervisors, Lee Mallett. Overwhelmingly, I think the fan base is ready for a change. But all this conversation we're having about sustainable spending is rooted in this basketball conversation because it will cost close to million if LSU is going to buy out Matt McMahon and his staff And then you got to hire a new coach and then pay a roster and all that stuff. So if you're talking about presently operating at a deficit and you're adding all these new expenditures that you have to pay for, you can say, well, what's $11 million more? The other part of the question is, well, at what point does it stop? Like if you're going to try to cut that debt that you owe, the $54 million to buy up Ryan Kelly, the $91 million that you're going to have to pay Lane Kiffin, at some point you have to stop spending to be able to get your finances in line, to let revenue catch up. So do you want to just throw another $11 million on the scrap heap of dead money? Well, I did ask Gordon McKernan if he thought it was time for a basketball change. It's interesting. The crossover and the donor basis doesn't exist like you would think it would, right? all the football donors don't necessarily give to baseball, don't necessarily give to basketball. There's some that go through all of them, but obviously football is the biggest donor base, and that's where the concentration of the money is. I do think there is an appetite among some of the donors that something has to be done. We're losing too much money. Our name ID, so to speak, in the college circles is suffering a hit. You don't like to see your brand ever get hit, especially basketball, which is still really relevant in today's times. So I do think that it's there. There's an appetite to do something, but it's not as deep and as wide as with football. I mean, football is, we've got to do something now. This is burning down the whole house. We've got to fix this, right? I think you're going to see some moves afoot here soon. Remember when Gordon was with us after Brian Kelly was fired? He made a comment that caught a lot of people's attention because the comment he made then was with respect to the $54 million buyout, you could ask the question, can you afford to pay that buyout? And he answered by asking another question, so as to say, can you afford not to? And that's what he's alluding to there. Football is the cash cow. Football has to be good at LSU because it pays for everything else. You cannot afford to have football not be maximized. So they felt like they had to make a decision. With basketball, LSU was a two-win team in conference a year ago and still profited $2 million. The question is, if you invest in men's basketball and have a great year, make the tournament, what's the max amount of revenue, profit, that you could stand to make? That $2 million could go up to what? The estimates I've heard is that it could add another $4 to $6 million. So you would go between $6 and $8 million that men's basketball could make. Is that worth, like the top end being profiting six to eight million dollars worth buying buying out that big man now um well i think there's one name that would be unanimously celebrated that would inject life back into the lsu basketball program and it's will wait and so after gordon mentioned the unfortunate a word apathy i did ask him point blank about will wade returning and i agree with i think that's we have some apathy out there in the basketball base now. And I don't blame him. 20 years since we've done something. But I do think that Verge and the administration and the entire administration and administrations are intent on seeing a better product on the floor. Do you think hiring Will Wade is a realistic option? Well, there are certain people, powerful people, who want that. and I think some things have to fall in place correctly for that to happen. But I think there's a certain gentleman who would love to say, see, I told y'all, he's here. I mean, I've talked about it openly. I mean, last year the governor and Lee Mallett tried to make this happen and it got cut off at the past. And now who's our board chair? Lee Mallett is the board chair. Who's still our governor? I ain't no doubt. You can want something. I agree. Will it actually happen? I don't know. You're right. And I don't know the answer to that. I don't know either. And would Will leave NC State after one? I have no idea. Genuinely, I'm not trying to be coy here. I just really don't know the answer. Agreed. He has a fondness for LSU, South Louisiana, but you're right. We don't know how he's loving and living in Carolina. How cool would that be? Yeah, that would be something. It is the thing that would be unanimously celebrated, singular. I don't know that firing Matt McMahon, because if you think of it this way, if you fire Matt McMahon, who are you going to hire? Another mid-major, an assistant coach somewhere, a retread? Who are you going to hire that's going to get people excited? Meaning, which marquee coach is going to take the LSU job? I don't see that. but will Wade who loved it here and LSU fans love him would absolutely inject that life back into the program. I mean, you want to see that whatever the basketball equivalent is of the Kiffin hoopla, the national attention, Wade coming back, ticket sales, all the sorts of the LSU being branded a villain, whatever that would do it. it uh that that would that would generate the interest again i don't know how realistic that is i know the governor wants it i know the board chair wants it i know lsu's new president wade roos was the president that mcneese and he is raved about what will wade did will wade uh sort of reinvigorating the basketball program did for the university as a whole that he would endorse it certainly is it possible? I don't know the answer to that. But again, it starts with, are you willing to make a move on Matt McMahon? And I don't think you make a move on Matt McMahon unless you've got your ace in the hole for who the next coach is going to be, because you can't just throw that 11 million bucks of dead money back onto the ledger and then start a search and say, let's see what happens. It would feel like it would have to be done already before you started making those moves matt mcmahon returning or will wade returning those are your two options um be fascinating to see how it plays out um we're also going to be fascinated to continue watch what goes on with lsu baseball in part because um jay johnson made some really interesting comments on the record to tiger ag magazine that tells you he may not be super thrilled with the investment in his program right now. We'll wrap up with that next. It's Locked On LSU, your team every day. Coast Pay is giving Locked On College listeners up to $2,000 credit for your business when you get started today. 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You get fraud protection with employee check by text no shared pins It built for operators who don have time to chase paperwork And unlike old fuel cards there no contracts or commitments just smarter expense control Right now, Coast Pay is offering our listeners up to $2,000 credit when you get started at coastpay.com slash locked on college. That's coastpay.com slash locked on college to see how you can earn up to a $2,000 credit. Terms apply. The Coast Visa Commercial Credit Card is issued by Celtic Bank. All card accounts are subject to credit approval. Jay Johnson has won two national championships in the last three years. He is undeniably the best coach in college baseball today, and no sign of slowing with the roster he has right now and what might be ahead. The one thing that potentially could slow Jay Johnson, though, is LSU's commitment or lack thereof to the baseball program. Now, go back to what we talked about at the start of this show, where we talked about sustainability in football. And I mentioned expenses outpacing revenue. Well, in this era of revenue share, remember, each school gets $20.5 million to spend across its student athletes. 75% of that is going to football at LSU, 15% to men's basketball, 5% to women's basketball, and the remaining 5% is divvied up among every program. So that means Jay Johnson, the baseball Tigers, just by math, are getting less than a million dollars of rev share each year. And Jay Johnson gave an interview with Tiger Ag Magazine, and he said on the record about teams that are going to decide what they're going to be good in. He said, quote, what I'm going to say is schools are going to decide what sports they want to excel in. All I'm going to say is schools are going to have to decide what sports they want to be really good in. And there are some schools that are all in on baseball. And we need to be one of those schools. We're not there yet. Now, I will tell you this. I have been told that Mississippi State is at the top of the SEC in their revenue share commitment to baseball at $3.5 million. So understand what I just said. Mississippi State and its rev share, before we talk about a dollar of NIL third party, is committing $3.5 million to baseball. LSU is less than a million dollars in rev share. That's what Jay Johnson's looking at. He's saying, you expect me to win national championships and compete for them every year, but you're not giving me the resources to do it because you haven't decided you want to be good in baseball. See, LSU, if you're going to keep committing 5% of your revenue share budget to women's basketball, it's going to leave less for baseball. So should you? Now, women's basketball loses $8 million a year. But I've also argued that's a loss leader. It's going to be read on the balance sheet, but the awareness, the attention, the notoriety, that Kim Mulkey, the women's basketball program brings to LSU far exceeds the $8 million you lose on the balance sheet. Does baseball match that? Here, we love baseball and we expect baseball to be great, but in a national sense, no, it doesn't. It doesn't match what women's basketball has brought, which is why you see this spending investment be what it is. Now, me, just on a personal level, I love LSU baseball. I have since I was a child, far more than I do women's basketball. Kim's program is amazing. They've won a national championship, and Flaugé is awesome, and Angel Reese was a household name, and it's incredible. It's just not something that I'm super passionate about. You may feel differently. It's not good, bad, right? I love LSU's gymnastics program. My family have become real big gymnastics fans over the last decade. I also understand that they pack the PMAC, and they won a national championship, but it's also not going to be one of the premier investments. I love Beth Tarina and LSU softball program. Beth has been one of my favorite coaches I've covered in 20 years at LSU, and I want all great things for Beth Tarina and LSU softball. I also understand that's not going to be at the top of the list of where the investment goes in revenue share. But baseball is one that's an outlier because they've had so much success, and the expectation is that they become great. And the investment, though, hasn't been there. Burge Osbury said in this same interview, over time it's going to be about who's winning and doing well and who's not. when you prioritize these things, you got to sit there and say, hey, look, what are we going to be great at? What do we have to be great at? And that's the football team. So Verge is telling you, the investment will always be there in football because you have to be great in football. You have to be great in football to be able to pay for everything else. But after football, how do you determine everything else? Jay Johnson's telling you, LSU is not committed financially to being great in baseball. They're great in baseball because Jay Johnson is committed to being the best coach anywhere. And he's gotten a great salary and he recruits tirelessly, but they lose players that they want because of finances. The team that won the national championship a year ago was not the most talented team in college baseball. They were around the middle of the pack in the SEC in spending a year ago and won the national championship because Jay Johnson is incredible. How do you make sure that's sustainable? You have a greater investment. Well, how do you do that? You find new revenue. How do you find new revenue? That's the challenge Clay Harris Wade Roos so they're not calling guys like Gordon McKernan and Todd Graves and the Spade Brothers and all the premier boosters, Pepper Rutland and Richard Lipsy and you can go down the list of them, many of those that you know and I'm leaving guys off but many you know and some you don't and it doesn't really matter but the bottom line is you cannot sustain this level of spending just by increasing ticket prices and going to the same few boosters. In the same interview, Virg Osbury said this. He said, quote, we realize there is donor fatigue. This is LSU's AD. We realize there is donor fatigue. There is NIL donor fatigue, ticket price fatigue from our customers. We can't just keep going up, going up and asking donors for this and that. We're straining the whole system. This system we're sitting in today is not sustainable, not at all. It's not me saying it. That's LSU's athletic director saying it. So the question is, how do you generate new revenue? You've seen Venture Global on the field, Woodside Energy on the jersey patches, but that's not enough. That's got to be the beginning. So what does LSU have ahead? They were very forward-thinking with NILSU Max, very progressive. Because of NILSU Max, they got the Nike deal for their student athletes. LSU has been at the forefront, and I don't suspect they're about to stop because Verge is telling you it's not sustainable. Jay Johnson is telling you that they're not yet fully committed in baseball. I'm telling you, this program, despite as bad as they've been in basketball, you have a key booster telling you he was in favor of running it back instead of paying Matt McMahon and his staff 11 million bucks to buy him out. and then you have Gordon McKernan saying that you're not going to reduce spending on this roster. So how do you pay for it? That is the story that's to be continued. Okay, glad you're aboard with us here. Thanks for hanging out. If you're on podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Rate us, leave a review. If you're on YouTube, smash that like button, subscribe to the channel, hit the bell so you're notified whenever we post a new video and let a friend know if they love the Tigers. We got you every single day for Locked on LSU. It's your team every day. Thank you.
