When Ohio State football players take the field on Sept. 5, their uniforms will display a Chase Bank sponsorship patch.
They're not only players, but promoters, and in some cases, wealthy athletes thanks to NIL deals. Such is the evolution of college football, especially at elite programs like Ohio State.
And while football garners the most attention, Ohio State has 35 other sports it self-funds.
There's the two-time national championship women's hockey team and Olympic gold medalist Joy Dunne.
We're talking today with Ohio State Athletics Director Ross Bjork, fitting in as much Ohio State sports news as we can cover in an hour.
Guest:
- Ross Bjork, senior vice president and Wolfe Foundation-Eugene Smith Endowed Athletics Director, Ohio State University
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. For Buckeye football fans, the wait is almost over. The home opener kicks off September 5th at 12.30 p.m. And when Jeremiah Smith, Julian Sayen, and other Ohio State football players take the field, they'll be wearing a Chase Bank sponsorship patch on their uniforms. They're not only players, but promoters, and in some cases, wealthy athletes, thanks to NIL deals. This is all a part of the evolution of college football, especially at an elite program like Ohio State. And joining us now to discuss the upcoming football season is Ohio State Athletics Director Ross Bjork. Welcome to the show, Ross.
Ross Bjork: Thanks, Amy. Thanks for having me on.
Juravich: I should note your full title is actually Senior Vice President and Wolf of Foundation, Eugene Smith Endowed Athletics Chair. How did I do with that?
Bjork: You did great. Did I get all the words? That's the official title. That means we had a very generous family make a nice donation to put their name on it. The Wolf family has been great. And obviously, Gene, his legacy.
Juravich: Yeah, so you still rain so you have to use that title when the wolf family's around or Eugene Smith is within Yeah, I'm gonna stick with athletics director though for now
Juravich: It's easier that way.
Juravich: I promised I would say the whole title at some point.
Juravich: Sounds good.
Juravich: So let's start by talking about JPMorgan Chase and the sponsorship. The logo will be on Ohio State's athletic uniforms, all the sports. Who approached who? Where did this Chase deal come from?
Bjork: Yeah, it's really, really a fascinating journey. You know, we, you know, in college athletics, we anticipated that there'd be a rule change coming really back in fall of 2024, early 2025. So we started testing the market. We're a robust sponsorship organization here. We lean in and trying to be creative. We've had safe light field, right, for four or five years. So I think Ohio State's always tried to be on the cutting edge while also making sure, I've said this too, protecting our tradition and our history and those sort of things. So...
Juravich: Ohio Stadium will stay Ohio Stadium.
Bjork: Ohio Stadium is Ohio Stadium, right? I got in trouble earlier because I said, well, everything's for sale when I first got here. And it's like, well, are you sure about that? So you do have to check yourself. But in this era where we don't really have cost certainty, one thing I know we can control is building revenue and being aggressive. So a year and a half ago, started testing the market. We put proposals in front of several companies here locally. National conversations start to happen. And then really about November, December, really hone in on two to three prospects that, because look, we can't give this away, right? It's Ohio State. We're the biggest TV viewership. We have the biggest fan base. We sell the most merchandise. We have all these metrics that say, we're number one in terms of brand value. We don't just say that, we have the metrics to back that up. So you can't just give this way. So let's test the market, let's cast a wide net, and let's make sure that we protect our value. And then after those two to three companies started, we kind of shift through different conversations and it's like, well, we think we could do this and maybe not this, but what about this? Those things become fluid. And then I would say about the middle of March is where JP Morgan Chase really started to emerge in terms of they can meet our value. Gosh, holy cow, their brand power, their marketability, their reach, they're the global financial leader. Again, they don't just say that. They have metrics to back that up. They're already in a relationship with Ohio State. They have a lot of commercial banking here where the university houses a lot of money with them. There's a lot of transactional things that happen.
Juravich: They're a big deal for central Ohio too. central Ohio, they have 18,000 employees. It's a fit that makes sense, yeah.
Bjork: You have the Bank One relationship with the McCoy family that started here in Columbus where it was City National Bank, which turns into Bank One, which then got acquired by Chase Bank and all this merger. So you have the history of Columbus banking and then JP, in all fronts, it just made total sense. And then again, we have to match the value.
Juravich: And it made sense and the money right so you're kind of setting the standard here with this announcement i mean ohio state um i saw it was a 17 million dollar figure
Bjork: um... Reportedly
Juravich: Reported oh, it's okay. Wait, who reported what?
Bjork: Yeah, there is a few sources that try to track these things down, and we're not going to release the financial terms, JP Morgan Chase has proprietary things that they need to protect, we have trade secrets as well. So reportedly.
Bjork: But what we've said is their brand power and our brand power, the deal matches that. Both parties are very pleased. So it is a comprehensive, large scale deal that matches.
Juravich: We'll go with it.
Bjork: Very, very good numbers.
Juravich: We'll go with the reportedly, but other schools also are issuing multi-year deals. Is yours just one year?
Bjork: No, it's a multi-year deal. OK, how many years? It's five plus years. OK. Five plus years
Juravich: Five plus years and do they have exclusivity because the NCAA does allow more than one patch right?
Bjork: We took the approach, we had many conversations, right, because this was a year and a half process, that just because you could have two different corporate sponsor logos on your jerseys, in addition to Nike, so you're really three, we took the approaches, we want to protect Nike the best we can, because they're a great partner, let's only focus on one partner, let's not have multiple, so we took that approach, and we actually think the value is actually larger, because we only have one partner like Chase, So you Promise them you're not going to have another second patch. And then they're also exclusive in the financial services category for athletics. So when you see advertising at the Shoe or the Schottenstein Center, it's only going to be JPMorgan Truss. No other banks. Huntington Bank keeps the club areas in the stadium, because that's a long-term agreement. So it's still the Huntington Club in both the Schottenton Center and the stadium. But as far as advertising, video boards, digital boards, jersey patches. All of those promotional elements, it'll be exclusive, JPMorgan Chase.
Juravich: Chase CEO Jennifer Roberts spoke about the financial education and resources for student athletes. Um, and she, she talked about exclusive fan experiences, game day offers, all of this stuff. But our Ohio state athletes going to get financial literacy lessons, bank accounts, like what, what does that mean? Whenever she says financial education.
Bjork: Yeah, this has been a trend, I would say, in the last 10 to 12 years. Since I've been an athletic director, no matter where I've be, we always want to give our student athletes the life skills beyond the field, beyond the court, beyond just, here's your degree, and you played for four years. We have to give them other skills. So the financial piece has actually been something that's been emerging, I'd say, for the last ten or 12 years, do you know how to open a bank account? Do you know to look at investments? Do you how to read the stock market? Do you know how? Now in the NIL space, do you know how to take that money and just set it aside?
Juravich: They have enough money to actually know about the stock market.
Bjork: And then at the same time, by the way, some of that money is 1099 income, not W-2 income, which means you have to save money for taxes because that is not net money, that is gross money. So teaching all those things. So we've had partnerships with other banks here that have done that with our athletes. JPMorgan wants to really take that to the next level and really have a really good robust package where they have people. Locally come in and talk to our athletes. We have people nationally that will come in from New York or Chicago. And then what we also wanna do is we really wanna partner with academic departments here on campus. Can we partner with the Fisher School of Business and use their resources along with Chase, along with athletics? So we're working with other partners on campus to really make this a robust academic endeavor, but also it is a sponsorship. Let's not be shy about that piece of it. But how is it integrated and collaborative across academics, across athletics, across, whether it's research things, community involvement, whatever it is, I think Chase is ready to lean in in a mass way.
Juravich: I have to bring up the color. Coach Ryan Day initially said no to this whole deal because the logo is blue, like Chase's logo is blue, so you went with white. Did that take a lot of negotiation?
Bjork: You know what, actually it's really funny, because Chase, they cannot have red, Scarlett in our case, right? Why? So, they're brand standards.
Juravich: Oh, because they say so, okay.
Bjork: Yeah, you know, our light here is red, right? Well, in the banking world, you never want to be in the red.
Juravich: Oh, I see.
Bjork: So their brand standards are not allowed to be red, which in our case would be Scarlett. So it was almost a funny conversation. It was like, well, we can't be blue. And they're like, we we can be red.
Juravich: And then you just sat there staring at each other. At each other.
Bjork: Everybody was like, well, let's just make this black and white. So.
Juravich: Okay, so when they wear the white uniform, it'll be black. It'll be Black.
Bjork: It'll be black, that's exactly right. And then if we have a black uniform, which we will have hopefully a night game this year at the shoe, black uniforms, then that logo would pop in white. So white and black will be the chase logos on our uniforms.
Juravich: No, which game will we see those black uniforms at a night game? I don't know yet. Hmm.
Bjork: We're prognosticating different game times throughout the year.
Juravich: Do you want to guess?
Bjork: No.
Juravich: Are you sure? Are you shure? Are you sure?
Bjork: We know Big Noon is a big deal, right? And we've talked about that a lot. But we also know that our TV partners, they want us to play at night. So hopefully, we'll have at least one Primetime game this year.
Juravich: Okay, we could guess. At home, I should say. At home. Okay, we could we could guess. So when you announced a new uniform design, I remember seeing a press release in like May or June, but that's before the Chase logo announcement. So did you have to buy all new uniforms?
Bjork: Yeah, we did, yeah. So this was a refresh year for us. So we always work with Nike on refreshing our uniforms. Typically it happens at least once a year. Sometimes it's every other year. So this is a year where we really wanted to bring back the heritage stripe. And I give all the credit to our equipment director, Kevin Reese. He knows the history of Ohio State. He's been here a long time. He's working on this for several years to bring the heritage striped. And so collaboration between Nike, our creative people. Kevin Reese in our equipment room, obviously Coach Day, the players.
Juravich: Did you have those striped uniforms already in stock and now you're adding this patch to them? So you're going to add a patch. You don't have to like start from scratch though.
Bjork: Correct. Oh, good. That's right. OK. And the patch actually is stitched on. It's a very durable patch. So yeah, those are in production. And then you look at our other sports, too. People keep asking, well, what are you going to do about the swimming? So some of these things are still fluid, right? It may be a cap in the swimming, right. Fencing has these elaborate uniforms. Is it more on the shoulder or on the sleeve? So our other uniforms, gymnastics, leotards, right, Wrestling Singlets So being creative on exactly where you know this chase logo will go is something our team is working on
Juravich: So every sport, all 36 sports will have a Chase logo somewhere on their person. Correct. Okay. Correct. We've heard a lot of fan reaction to this and some of it has been a little negative. I read one comment under a story that said, I didn't realize Ohio State was poor. Yikes, this is a bad look to make the kids billboards. What do you say in response to a comment like that?
Bjork: Yeah, you know, when you read your opening that type of phrase would have never happened five years ago, ten years ago or twenty years ago. If you would have read that twenty years, people would have said, what world is she living in?
Juravich: Right?
Bjork: That is AI generated, right, from 20 years ago.
Juravich: I'm hallucinating.
Bjork: But that's the way of the world right now, when you think about, again, right now we don't have a lot of cost certainty when it comes to player NIL rights, player compensation, maybe we'll get into some federal legislation talk. I'm sure it's on your list there. And so, but what we have to do is we have drive revenue. And when this became available, Ohio State, what we said was, look, let's do it with the right partner, hopefully, let's get the right value, because the enterprise is not slowing down. And Here's what I tell people. People expect all 36 of our sports to achieve at the highest level. And for the most part, we do a really good job. We had 10 teams finish in the top eight of their sport this year. Other sports have a little ways to go to be a little more competitive. While at the same time, we also have the most consistent football program at least since 1999. We've won 10 games every year except for Trestle's year, the COVID year, a post-season or a vacated win year, and then the Luke Fickle transition year, every time we won 10 games. So we have to maintain this high-level football program, which costs resources, and then also have 35 other sports. So it is a cost, benefit, revenue, expense analysis that we go through, and this is just the way of the world. And if we didn't do this, we would have to look at other things, whether it's increasing ticket prices, whether it's charging more for donations to park, whether it's eliminating certain things that we don't want to do. We want to maintain 36 sports. That is the mission, that is the goal. President Belham Kanda, our board, we're all on the same page. Well, that means we have to drive resources. So it's a.
Juravich: And it costs more money to maintain all those sports, but especially football, right? So football is an expensive sport to run to keep at this elite level. But Ohio State football is certainly not poor. I mean, to go back to that comment, a record setting year, three hundred and thirty six million in revenue in the twenty twenty five season. So people are like, you need more money. Right.
Bjork: Right, here's what I say, we make a lot of money, but we spend every penny. And so every dollar goes back into our program. And I had a colleague tell me, gosh, it must be easy to raise money and generate revenue at Ohio State. And I said, you know what, it is when we open the doors, because people will come. But how do we get to the next level? How do we engage more people, all those people that wear the t-shirts at the airport, and people that I see all over the place that are Buckeye fans. How do we get them more involved? And so that's the journey that we're on. That's the chase. That's that's growth period that I think is next. And so.
Juravich: That's the chase. Oh, look at
Juravich: The chase. This is all sad.
Bjork: That was not intentional, but you caught that.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with Ohio State Athletics Director, Ross Bjork, about the new Chase logo on the team uniforms. And coming up, we're gonna talk about NIL deals in the upcoming football season. Just before we pivot to some legislation that's happening and also NIL deal, everything is stamped with corporate names and logos these days, except for the NFL. The NFL jerseys don't have them. Is it, does it feel weird to you and being in this college football space that the NCAA is allowing this before the NFL did?
Bjork: You know, does it feel weird? Well, the NCAA just has been.
Juravich: Well, the NCAA has been known, they're the, they are the rule makers. They had so many rules for such a long time and now everything is changing.
Bjork: And we protected amateurism and this whole sanctity, right? And we couldn't have commercial activity. And so I don't know if it's weird as much as, look, maybe the NFL is waiting sort of in the wings because they know the value on these things are going to continue to go up. I mean, I look at some of the international, the Premier League soccer jerseys. Now, it's plastered across the front. It's like their jersey. It's their team name almost. It's not.
Juravich: It's not four inches. It is the whole jersey. Yeah.
Bjork: Those deals command $75 to $100 million a year. Is the NFL on that par? Maybe that's what they're waiting on. So yeah, it's definitely a new era.
Juravich: Coming up, we are going to talk about some NIL deals, and we're gonna talk about some legislation that Ross Brewer has been working on in Congress. That is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. The ever-changing landscape of college football is changing faster than ever. Congress is working on what is being called the Protect College Sports Act. But while we wait for federal regulations, money is on the move. Corporate sponsorship has arrived on football jerseys and name, image, and likeness deals known as NIL deals are making top players thousands upon millions of dollars. This hour, we are talking about college sports because it's August. And right now, we're talking about mainly football at the moment. Joining us this hour is Ohio State Athletics Director, Ross Bjork. Thanks again for being here, Ross.
Bjork: Absolutely. Thank you, Amy.
Juravich: So I wanted to talk about some of those NIL deals. Money and sports is unavoidable. Name, image, and likeness deals are bringing even more money to the game. Here is Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith, ranked as the best wide receiver in the country, explaining why a $10 million offer to play elsewhere didn't lure him away.
Jeremiah Smith: It would be dumb for me to leave Ohio State and go to another team when I know the best office around the country, best quarter by the country and the best coaches in the country.
Juravich: And then here is former Ohio State and ex-NFL player Joshua Perry. He was on the Rushing the Field podcast recently, and he's commenting on Jeremiah Smith and the team trying to lure him away. And he also commended Smith for remaining a Buckeye and then added this.
Joshua Perry: And this is the part that I don't know if enough people are talking about. This kid ain't poor and he wasn't taking a big discount to come back to Columbus. I'm not exactly sure what they paid him. I don't think it was too far off of the numbers that he was being offered to leave. It wasn't $10 million to come. But if he, if he had offers on the table from programs that were competitive that were in the $8 million range, I wouldn't be shocked if he was making six or seven right now. So he's good. His money's fine, but he wanted to be in Columbus and he's in Columbus.
Juravich: So those are all some eye-popping numbers there, right? To think about that college athletes were not paid just a few years ago. Now we're talking eye- popping numbers in just a a few year. And that's what teams are willing to pay. Where does Ohio State come down on what it will pay to keep top-tier talent?
Bjork: Yeah, I think one of the things that Coach Day has really, really honed in on, and look, being around him, everything he does is very intentional. And then now that you're in this new era, you have to have a plan. So we have a general manager for football. So they look at positional value. We actually have great insight from Matt Patricia, who was a former NFL head coach, former defensive coordinator. He also served as a general Manager. So we had this whole sort of grid of Typically, the positions that are on the edge, the receivers, the defensive ends, the left tackle, they command a higher value. That's just the way it's gone. Quarterback commands high value. So we have sort of positional value analysis that you go through. And then coach today has to protect the culture of the team, which means how much are you willing to pay a newcomer, whether that's a high school athlete, whether that is a transfer athlete, how much do you need to really pay to retain players, right? So all of that is a balance, and I think what we've done here is we have protected our culture, where a guy like Jeremiah Smith, yeah, he could go on the open market. There was a lot of things coming his way back in January, and we saw a lot of that sort of firsthand, and Jeremiah's a great young man. He has a really small circle of people around him. They see the value in Ohio State beyond just his three to. He'll be here three years. We know he's leaving early, right? He's gonna command that. And so he saw the value in that. And so it's all a fluid process. And the thing about in the future is unless we have some regulation on a cap, on a true cap, the costs are gonna continue to rise because the market, we really have no insight. If Jeremiah gets an offer, his agent comes to us and says, look, here's what's happening. And then we have to react to that or not. And then if you don't react... Then is he going to leave and so.
Juravich: So if each team's allowed to pay their players, you know, whatever number of sports you've decided, it's like 20 million over four sports. Does that mean some team somewhere offered him half of the whole pot?
Bjork: Or they offered him third-party marketing opportunities, which we're involved in that too, we have Robust.
Juravich: So it doesn't this doesn't necessarily mean it was all university money, okay, or or
Bjork: they offered him money just not reported, off the books, right? That still happens too, right, in our industry. And so there's different categories of where, and then look, Jeremiah has his own team that is going out and securing deals. I mean, he has deals that are public, Adidas, Red Bull, those are separate from what Ohio State helped facilitate. So there's difference buckets of money, but these reported values that are out there, and there's lots of publications who report these things. That's the hard part about verifying, is you don't really know for sure, because there's not transparency in the third party NIO world. An agent can have all the leverage. If the athlete, if you don't have a good relationship, do they just take the highest offer? Those are all the things that play into the equation in today's environment.
Juravich: So do you want a salary cap?
Bjork: What we want is cost certainty, is what we want. So, which means, that means there's probably some cap. Now, here at Ohio State, because we index a large volume of revenue, I wish it was indexed to what we generate. That's not quite where the legislation is going, because what it is, it's based on the four conferences, the Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12. This whole cap is based on average revenue in those conferences. Well, if you took the Big Ten revenue, that number goes up. If you took Ohio State's revenue, that goes up, so we can always deal, we know if costs are gonna go up, we can plan for it. But if we don't really know exactly what they're gonna go to, it's hard to plan for. So cost certainty around caps, around the revenue that we generate, that's the best approach for Ohio State, but is that where the legislation's gonna land? You know, we'll see.
Juravich: I feel like when I'm talking to you, I'm talking to a businessman instead of an athletics director. I feel I'm in an MBA class instead of, there's, do you feel like a businessman instead of a sports guy? Gosh, you know, let's see, um, part of
Bjork: Part-time attorney, part-time government relations, part time business, parttime negotiator.
Juravich: Yeah.
Bjork: Right, part-time.
Juravich: So I'm not the only one that feels that way.
Bjork: Part-time general manager, and then by the way, we want to win games.
Juravich: Part-time lobbyist and associate lawmaker. So in Washington, D.C., Senate negotiators worked last week to try to resolve the Associated Press called it thorny differences with leaders of the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conferences on a bill to regulate college sports. So this bill is being called the Protect College Sports Act. I know you're involved in the negotiations. Do you feel like this bill, what's going to happen? Is it going to pass?
Bjork: Well, this is the last week before the Senate. So this is on the Senate side, right? It was introduced in the Energy and Commerce Committee by Senator Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell. He's the chair. She's the ranking member. We're going back to schoolhouse rock days of learning civics and understanding all this. If it doesn't get to the floor this week, then the earliest it could get to the floor would be September, when they come back after summer recess. Based on what we saw last night, based on what I've seen this morning, a lot of this is fluid. It looks like it would be really hard to get it to the floor this week. They're trying to deal with Russia. They're tryin' to deal with keep the government open. Oh yeah, by the way, that's probably a little more important, right, than college sports. So it looks like the road this week to get to the the floor is really hard. The good thing is a lot of the heavy lifting on the negotiation side with the Senate is done. That got done on Friday and Saturday. It got to a place where we can all agree that this provides us stability for what we need at this point in time. It would still have to go through the House. Who knows how they might look at it. They may change things. They may ask for things. They may negotiate certain things. So I believe that the bill has momentum. We wanna support the bill, but we also know that there's challenges just in the way things operate in the federal government that it may not happen. And then if it doesn't happen, what's plan A? It's really plan. Everything's plan a in my mind. Plan A has to be on the table.
Juravich: Yeah, members of Congress say they're trying to protect non-revenue generating sports, Olympic pipeline sports. They're calling them as well. I mean, do we need federal regulation here or do we instead just need a bill that like carves out college football and sets it over here on another pedestal or something?
Bjork: In some ways, the economics of football drive a lot of this. And so that may be a simple approach. If you just said, hey, look, football's its own little big economic engine, the rest of this can set independently and we can manage accordingly. That would be a lot simpler, honestly. But that's not where we are. Everything is code-meagled. Well, we just saw.
Juravich: Well, we just solved it. Just do that, just do that. We did, yeah, we did.
Bjork: So we had originally supported a bill on the House side that was called the SCORE Act. I couldn't even tell you what it stands for. There's been so many acronyms. Okay.
Juravich: Okay, we love acronyms.
Bjork: But it was a skinny bill. It was some antitrust protection to make rules. It was getting rid of all the different state laws. Because right now, I think we have 42 different state laws around NIL. It was codifying some academic standards, codifying the transfer windows that you could transfer one time, the second time you had to set out a year. It was a lot skinnier. When that failed, and it went to the Senate, it started to add in all these other things around when coaches could move, around scheduling. Did you like the skinnier bill better? The skinnier Bill, in our mind, was a lot better. OK. And all of us were trying to lean in on that. And then it just got decimated on the House side. So this bill is way more robust. It's way more prescriptive. And so when you add things like that, you have to be careful what you wish for. If you want these things, which we do, we want a cap. We want transfer legislation. But now we're going to have to live with some other things if it does pass, and you're going have to manage that. So it's a fascinating process that, again, five years ago, 10 years ago you would have said, no way do we ever want Congress in our business. But when you have all these lawsuits, and every day they seem to be popping up, and you have different state law where states can operate more aggressively than others, there's only one place that can solve it, and that is Congress. And then. Then you have to eventually, eventually we're gonna have to sit down with the players and say, let's talk about what that package looks like in terms of financial considerations, your scholarships, but there's no structure to do that right now, so this is the best pathway.
Juravich: Well, speaking of scholarships, I mean, how far away are we from football players being considered employees instead of students?
Bjork: Yeah, I think we're a long ways from that process. Are we? Yeah, there's so much money involved here. Yeah, and look, employment can mean different things, right? I mean, I just met a young lady when I walked in here. I know she's an intern. I don't know if she's getting paid or not, but.
Bjork: We have a lot of student employees on our campus. So is it that kind of employment, or is it employment that talks about?
Juravich: She's certainly not making Jeremiah Smith money, I can tell you.
Bjork: Is it employment talking about, well, here's when you practice, and here's you have to go to class, and here is when you have work out. Here's how much money you can make, those kind of things. So employment.
Juravich: Well, the NFL does it. They're employees, yeah.
Bjork: And right now, because of different state law, every state has different laws around employment status and collective bargaining, we do not have a national framework to have national standards around employment, and so therefore, I think it's got a long ways to go before we get to that place.
Juravich: Would you want it to ever happen? Would you push for a bill that made football players employees?
Bjork: Nationally, I don't think so, but I do believe that if we actually worked through our conference, if we had a Big Ten structure that said, you're gonna come to Ohio State, you love our offense, you love culture, you love history, yeah, you're going to make some money from Ohio State but you're also going to sign some agreement with the Big Ten because each institution negotiated through the Big 10 to have this structure. To me, that would get us to a good place. But right now, that's not on the table. So I would push for a linear approach through each conference where, if you go to the Big Ten, here's your package. If you go the SEC, here is your package
Juravich: So be a Big Ten employee.
Bjork: Potentially, or a Big Ten Ventures employee, or some sort of LLC or something like that. To me, that's a model that is out there that has been talked about a little bit. And again, we have to see where this bill's gonna go and we have continue to work on other structures, but that is something that could be out there.
Juravich: But as of right now today, they're all still students, right? So they have to go to class.
Bjork: Have to go to class. You know what does not get talked about? Our football team had a 3.4 grade point average over the last two semesters, the highest on record. We have 1,000 APR score, which means retention and eligibility with our football program. Us and Harvard, Harvard's had two out of the last three years. Alabama and us had 1,00 this year. It's amazing academically what our young men and women are doing across the board. And people just don't talk about that anymore.
Juravich: So if I follow around Julian Sayen or Jeremiah Smith on a random Wednesday in October, are they going to sit in a lecture hall somewhere?
Bjork: They are, or they're online.
Juravich: I, well I did, okay, are they?
Bjork: Are they?
Juravich: Well, I read, so I went to Reddit, which is, you know, not the best place source of information, but it has information, and they were saying that a lot of the football players take online classes because they're a distraction in the lecture halls. Is that true?
Bjork: We've heard some of that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I do know that all of our guys are gonna take an in-person classes at some point in time. I mean, they have to, I mean. But also...
Juravich: Maybe not in season, maybe in the spring or summer.
Bjork: Summer. That's right but also Ohio State offers a lot of online classes that will fulfill a degree so so our academic people do a good job managing that.
Juravich: Okay, so if you follow them around, they may be sitting with a computer in a class instead of sitting in a lecture hall, where everyone in the lecture hall is asking for their autographs. Right, right. Yes.
Bjork: That could happen.
Juravich: Yes, this is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News and we are talking with Ohio State Athletics Director Ross Bjork and we're going to start talking about the upcoming football season. Here is returning quarterback Julian Sayen at Big Ten Media Day in Chicago last week talking about the upcoming season.
Julian Sayen: Yeah, as a team, we want to win the next championship. That's the goal every year. And so I'm excited about this season. It's going to be a lot of fun. We have a lot good games. We play Texas in week two. We play Oregon at home. We go out to USC. We play Indiana, so it'll be fun.
Juravich: So he notes a tough schedule, tougher than last year. The coaches poll that just came out, Ohio State is ranked in the number one spot. Did that surprise you to be ranked number one?
Bjork: You know, a little bit. It seems like there was a lot of attention being paid to Oregon and Texas. But it really doesn't matter. I mean, if you're a coach, you probably don't want that bullseye immediately. But that's Ohio State. We know the standard. Everybody embraces that. I think that's what you sign up for when you come here. And look, at the end of the day, it's about how you finish, not necessarily the preseason piece of it. So I think Coach will probably use that as motivation. Of not letting anyone have any complacency, not that we do. But if any of that would set in, it's like, OK, guys. We have a bullseye now. We're always a target anyway, but now you have this preseason target. So I think it'll just be a good fodder between now and the first game.
Juravich: Do you think they have, is it a really tough schedule compared to the past couple of years?
Bjork: If you look at, if you just look at the, take the five road games that we have. Again, at Texas, at Indiana, both top 10, 12 teams, whatever, Indiana was ranked. Texas, I think, was four in that poll. At USC, top 25 preseason team. At Iowa, top twenty-five preseason teams. You just take our road games in general. Those are really, really hard. And last year, look, in the regular season, we weren't tested. The Texas game, we were, but we pretty much controlled that game, you know, the Texas made a run at the end, but we weren't tested. This year, we're going to be tested. Coaches talked about that, where we're gonna have to win games in the fourth quarter. So just take the five road games, and then the home games. Illinois, Oregon, the team up north, right? That game's always tough, right, so it's a gauntlet, but again, that's what you sign up for, that's where our guys have been preparing for all summer. Practice starts tomorrow. Here we go.
Juravich: Yeah, and you say, and one of those games that you just listed as the home games you say you're hoping will be a night game.
Bjork: Yes, we hope so.
Juravich: Okay. Oh, I didn't get you to say it. No.
Bjork: No, no, no. Maybe not the Michigan game. That's always on Thanksgiving weekend. That's already been set.
Juravich: Okay, so we can eliminate Michigan from the list. I'm making a little list. Okay.
Bjork: All right, so you got Illinois. Well, let's just take the Big Ten. Illinois, Northwestern, Maryland, Oregon. Those are the remaining four home game, Big Ten games. Big 10 games.
Juravich: Yeah, all right. So talking about TV rights, people are not happy to have to pay for more than one streaming service to watch all the games. TV contracts are lucrative. They dictate the game times. Fans were upset last year with so many noon games. Do you feel like you're losing people who really can't afford these streaming services? I've heard anecdotally, elderly fans are just so upset when they can't figure out what service they need and they don't want to pay it to watch these games. Yeah. You know...
Bjork: I love watching live TV, live sports. It gets aggravating. Like what channel, is it on the ESPN app? Is it on The Big Ten app? Is it the YouTube app? Is it old YouTube or is it YouTube TV? Or is it Hulu? Is it Prime?
Juravich: I have no idea, yeah.
Bjork: And I think when all these apps started coming, they told us that, oh, you're going to be able to package this in smaller bundles. And well, now we all have everything. Or we can't afford to all have that right. That part is frustrating as a consumer myself. And so what I do believe that the Big 10 has every network covered. So you have Fox, CBS, and NBC. So you do have a robust platform from like a linear perspective. I think I read the other day where there's only 18 million households still left that are just on linear TV. The rest of us are all on some streaming service, whether it's YouTube TV or whatever the device is. So you think about 130 or so million TV households in the US, that 18 million is shrinking. And so how do we continue to adapt to that, evolve to that while also still offering, hey, you can still get this over the air. If that's even a thing anymore. I don't even know if that even a thing anymore
Juravich: I will admit I do watch it over there. Yeah, I have an antenna. Yeah Yeah.
Bjork: Perfect. So you're one of the 18 million. I am.
Juravich: I am so that's what I like. I will say I like the Fox noon games because I can see them
Bjork: or an NBC night game.
Juravich: Yes, I can see it.
Bjork: Yeah, so I think as these next round of TV negotiations go, I think you're gonna probably see a balance. You're gonna have the streaming folks be more aggressive, and then I think it's our job to make sure we always have some sort of linear option while that's still a thing. So, to me, I'd say the next 10 or 12 years. 10 or twelve years. Before you're going to see.
Juravich: Because you're in all these contracts, so yeah. 10 or 12 years. I actually am such a radio person. If I can't watch it, I listen to it on the radio. How about that?
Bjork: Jim Lachey and Paul Kears.
Juravich: Well, because yeah, and then my son anyway, we listen to it on we listen on the radio if we can't find it on the TV Coming up. We are going to take a look at some other sports besides football on Ohio State's roster including the women's hockey team We're gonna talk joy done women's basketball and more that is when all sides continues on 89 7 NPR news
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Even though football is the sport that garners the most attention at Ohio State, there are 35 other varsity programs vying for funding, attention, and attendance. They're looking for their place in this world of the college football elite. And one of the most exciting stories in Ohio State's sports involves the women's hockey team earning two recent national championships. Plus, forward Joy Dunne won an Olympic gold medal for the U.S. Women's National Team. Here she is on ABC 6 after winning the gold medal, which she's wearing around her neck in this clip.
Joy Dunne: I don't think words will ever describe it. I think like I was saying I cried after we won and there was just so much emotion of how much work had been put on amongst the group. Like there were tears being shed from all of us, tears of joy, and so it was just, I mean it's still surreal. It will never not be surreal.
Juravich: It's a pretty amazing accomplishment. What did you think about bringing a gold medal here to Ohio State? Ohio State.
Bjork: What's really fascinating about that sport in that time frame during the year is she had to leave our team for four weeks. So we actually lost five of our current athletes. There's some on other countries. And then Joy enjoys our best player. And we were down five people. Now, when we played Wisconsin, they were down 5 people, too. Minnesota, I'll have the same issue. But what other sport really has to do that? I mean, the NHL, I think, had to do it a little bit, too, But.
Juravich: You think about yeah, don't they they suspended the the season like they took a break this year to let people play in the Olympics Yeah
Bjork: Yeah, we kept playing so to me just talking to Nadine coach Mazaral about how do you balance that? How do you stay competitive we we stayed in a rhythm luckily and then when they came back, you know We really didn't miss a beat. So I thought that piece was fascinating and then the young ladies in that program I mean joy every time you see her. She's got a smile on her face again She's she's rugged on the court and she's tough-minded and then you talk to her off the court And she's like the most professional young woman I mean, she's going to have a bright career whatever she decides to do. So it's really fascinating to be around him. And then she's so humble about the she's, should I bring this to an event? Should I wear the gold medal?
Juravich: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bjork: She's so humble about it and we're gonna celebrate her and our other Olympians this fall during a football game and so give them their cheers and so it'll be really neat to see that.
Juravich: So Ohio State has decided that they pay football, men's and women's basketball, and women' volleyball. But, I mean, are you toying with the idea of hockey now? I mean pay, you know, pay?
Bjork: Women's hockey team. Yeah. One of the things in this bill that is carved out is sort of a pool of money that would be for non-revenue sports quote unquote. So once that gets on the table that's what that's the bucket of money that we'd like to look at to say can we spread that out to other sports. Because look we're we're top four in men's and women's tennis right. Our women's soccer team was in the elite eight you know last year.
Juravich: Your dance team are cheerleading. Our dance team, both.
Bjork: Our dance team both won the national. Brutus won the National Championship. So we have other opportunities. But when this started, we know we have to feed football. We know we had to be competitive in basketball. Let's start out with four, and we can always grow. So hopefully, this gives us a little more headspace to, and financial space to spread the wealth.
Juravich: While we're talking about women's hockey, though, and spreading the wealth there, you have talked in the past about the women's hockey team needing a new rink. Where are we with that?
Bjork: Yeah, we've got to get that off the ground. So we're working on, here's the final cost of what the project could look like. Here's the finally scope of it. How many seats does it have? Does it have a second sheet of ice? That's a big deal. Can we afford that? We really have to map out the financial plan. We've been talking about this. We need to go. But you don't have.
Juravich: But you don't have the answers to any of those questions.
Bjork: We don't have all the answers. And so we have some money set aside. We have some fundraising in the pipeline where we've had conversations. We need to show those donor prospects a final plan. Hopefully, they'll give something, and then we have to continue. We're probably going to have to raise $50 to $60 million. Most likely, it's a $100 million plus project. We're trying to see, can that be 80? Can that be 90? Is that 110? What's the number? And then we can really put a financial plan together. But it's time to go, we need to be off the ground.
Juravich: Two time national champions and having a gold medalist on the team, that's enough to raise the money.
Bjork: It should give us the fuel, right, and the momentum. So that's what we want to do later this fall. We hope to announce several projects. The ice rink, the Woody Hayes complex. We want to bring our academic building into one building. The OSU golf course is a crown jewel in our community. We own it, we operate it. It is a profit center, but that clubhouse is aging. It's not really efficient. That gives us an opportunity. And then we've got lots of other projects around tennis. So there's a lot of things that we want to get off the ground and but the two most marquee will be the Ice Arena and the Woody Hays Project.
Juravich: While we're waiting for the ice arena. I mean the men's hockey team plays in the Schottenstein Center can't why can't the women play there?
Bjork: Dates, scheduling, basketball, basketball hockey, concerts. We've tried before. I've had them look at it, and it frankly does not fit. And that's the shame, and that's why we need a new arena.
Juravich: Okay, I was gonna say it's a shame, but you said it's shame. No, it is, yeah, we gotta get going. What about NIL deals? Because we spent a lot of time talking about Jeremiah Smith having NIL deal, Julian Sand, football players. Does Joy Dunn have NILs?
Bjork: She does. And actually, one of the things about the Chase agreement that we have that's really, really powerful is that an athlete from each team will have an NIL deal with Chase. And in fact, when we did the announcement over in the stadium.
Juravich: One athlete from each team or what do you say that again? I'm sorry Say that again. I'm sorry.
Bjork: One athlete, at least one athlete from each team. And so on last week, Joy Dunn was at the Chase announcement. So she will have an NIL deal with JP Morgan Chase. So we worked with all of our coaches to make sure we picked the right athletes. So things like that where Chipotle has across the board, every athlete has some NIL stuff with Chipotle. And they get a free gift card and things like. So those are the kind of really cool things. And now, again. Whatever happens with this federal bill, but we can actually help facilitate these third party NIL agreements. So every time we're talking to a sponsor, we're always building in an NIL component and they want the female athletes because female sports are more popular than ever and we gotta keep driving that.
Juravich: Well, yeah, I mean, the mayor wants to make Columbus the women's sports capital of the world, I believe, right?
Bjork: We have the NWSL women's hockey team coming in in 2028. I think we're trying to host maybe some World Cup games. I think were hosting some Olympic games in 20 28. So we want to be on the leading, in Ohio State we should be on leading edge of those conversations.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We are talking with Ohio State Athletics Director, Ross Bjork, and we've been talking about the upcoming football season. We've been taking about other sports at Ohio State. And I mean, I wish I had time to talk about all the other sports. You know, there's 36 total sports, and football gets a lot of attention, basketball gets a lots of attention. How does that compare with other universities of our size? Do they have 36 sports?
Bjork: Yeah, in the Big Ten, Penn State has 32, Michigan's around 29, Stanford has 36, I think the Naval Academy has 38 or 39, somewhere there. Not many other programs have over 30.
Juravich: Can can maintain it so so recently you got a new boss or your boss's boss or however I don't know how the flowchart works. Yeah, you report. Do you report to Robbie? Okay, so you've report to President Belinconda. So Unexpectedly you got any boss how our talks going with him about sports
Bjork: Yeah, I love Ravi's energy, his personality. He's a people person. He's got great vision. I think he and I see things very similarly in terms of when Ohio State opens the doors, we're really good. And we're top 15 public university. We're a great athletic department. But there's another level. There's another gear that Ohio State has. And so I love the way he's leaning into those type of conversations. Having an experience that's extraordinary is something that he's going to lean into. So all of those things, I love the passion, and he loves sports, right? And so whether it's tennis that he wants to talk about, I think he had a golf lesson recently, he wants be around, he wants to be energized by our athletes, he loves the storytelling around it, it's powerful. He's mentioned athletics as one of the pillars, right, obviously research and academics and medicine and athletics.
Juravich: And the money, and so...
Bjork: He's been leaning in on the federal legislation. He's be leaning in big 10 initiatives. He's very, very curious about this, which means we're gonna get all the information. We're gonna be really, really organized. We're going to collaborate. So I just love his spirit. I think it's been so fun to work with him the last six months.
Juravich: With or without this protect college sports legislation in Congress, can Ohio State maintain 36 sports?
Bjork: I believe we can for the time being. I mean, that's really what we've been saying the last couple years is we have to look at it every two to three years and say, look, where's the status? What's our financial viability? Where's the revenue coming from? How are we managing expenses? So we want to continue to lean in and we have look at on a two to 3-year analysis every single time to say, can we do this? And if we can't, does it just look different? And we've done some things, whether it's expenses, whether it travel, whether its scheduling, we've already modified a few things to make sure that we can maintain the same type of experience. So we have to continue to lean in on that.
Juravich: Does that mean having some teams maybe not travel as far, or when you say cut down the travel expenses?
Bjork: Yeah, regional scheduling. Should we send certain teams to the West Coast? Forget the Big Ten schedule, but non-conference. Should we stay more regional? Those kind of conversations have taken place, and we've done some things. And then even within the Big 10, we should look at a more regional scheduling base to, again, just be more efficient.
Juravich: We have 90 seconds left. So it's like making you pick your favorite child. Give a pitch to a sport that someone listening who maybe doesn't have football tickets, what sport should they go watch instead?
Bjork: You know what, I really think they should come watch both of our soccer teams, both men's and women's. I mean, the men's team was in the final four just a few years ago. The women's team, Elite Eight, we have a lot of returners back in both teams. So I just think it's, again, with the World Cup this summer, I just our soccer, plus it's a Friday night typically, it's Sunday afternoon, it's weekend. So I think our soccer teams are something that people can, and then I'll get in trouble because I didn't mention field hockey, I didn't mention women's volleyball this fall or cross country, so.
Juravich: I set you up for that. Yeah, I did. I did but this is all sides on 89 7 NPR news And we've been talking this hour with Ohio State athletics director Ross Bjork about the upcoming football season And about the other 35 varsity programs at Ohio State. Thank you so much for your time today
Bjork: Thanks, Amy, thanks for having me on.
Juravich: This has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News, and be sure to listen back if you missed any part of today's show. Listen back at our website, wosu.org slash all sides or subscribe to the all sides podcast. You've been listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. Thanks for joining us.