So many of these figures are meaningless without the details. For example, Utah sports pay rent to the University to play in both the Smith’s ballpark, Huntsman and RES (I don’t know about other facilities). Which other schools pay those fees? If they don’t pay rent, is that institutional support? Utah athletic department pays the costs associated with scholarships, including housing, food, etc. Do all schools do that? If the athletic department does not pay those costs but they are paid from general fund or some other university budget, is that included in institutional support?
Coaches don’t get paid NIL deal money. They are under contract with the school. No doubt Smith made a major contribution to TSPP’s athletic department to facilitate the hire it wasn’t really associated with NIL.
Once you get past 20 or 25 programs, you are comparing a lot of really solid places with substantial upside but some warts. Even some of the programs that are dismissed are fantastic. Take Vandy for instance, who many automatically assume would be out with the creation of a new alliance.
Nashville is a fantastic city and Vandy is an elite institution with massive endowment, elite professional schools, and an elite medical system servicing a state with 10m people. I’ve recently attended some track meets there to watch my daughter run and Vandy is a really impressive place. They are completely renovating their football stadium and I have no doubt that it will be a great place to watch a game.
I suppose whether Vandy would be included would come down to whether the alliance would be based on whom university presidents would like to be associated with or which group of programs ESPN feels they can sell.
As much as I detest Zoob athletics I have to say that this has been an amazing sequence for them and I am really jealous. They had a coach good enough for arguably the most resource-rich program in the country to lure him away. Then they hired the highest-paid NBA associate head coach that has been linked with multiple NBA head coach positions. They are reportedly paying him over 4m/yr which would put him in the top 10 in the country- good enough to keep him even if he is successful. Oh and he is 42 years old, ambitious, and looking to prove himself.
Meanwhile our coach is rumored to not like recruiting- arguably the most important part of coaching college athletics. Anyone who has done any coaching at any level understands that the best way to look smart is to start with the best players.
Suddenly the Zoobs are in one of the best basketball leagues with possibly one of the best young coaches.
Oy Vey! I am in envy town.
Hopefully the weirdness of Provo will provide adequate road blocks to their success but my confidence in this has been shaken.
Not safe yet, prevailing smoke is Smith is trying to lure Burgess down there as associate head coach
Quannas White is the exact type of sneaky hire Dr. Chris Hill was famous for making. White is on his 8th season under Kelvin Sampson at Houston and was recently promoted to Associate Head Coach. The staff at Houston has proven to do more with less for years…exactly the type of coaching talent that’s needed at Utah. And Houston plays the most exciting brand of basketball that’s hard-nosed, up tempo, in your face defense…I think White would be my ideal hire to finally bring Utah MBB back to prominence.
College Basketball’s best assistant coaching staffs (Houston)
I don’t associate with Ute fans outside of this website and my immediate family, but I haven’t seen anyone throwing him under the bus. I haven’t seen anyone state he’s less than at least a top 20 coach.
Sure, some whine about certain things he does,but even those people know he’s a damn good coach.
Ranking of Sports Media Markets
Good post and I stand corrected. Here’s a link to the media markets that shows which schools are associated with each market. SLC at #27 is comparable to Indianapolis at #25. Kentucky goes with Lexington which is small in comparison at #63. As you pointed out, Illinois shares Chicago #3 with a list of schools but the 2 B1G schools are Northwestern and Illinois. However, my point still stands. Media market size isn’t as important as it was 10 years ago. More important in determining the value a school brings to the table is measuring Brand in terms of overall TV ratings. Another thing to keep in mind is that one thing Utah has going for it is geography. Because Utah isn’t competing with Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky for a spot. There is going to be a pod of at least 6 schools in the West, maybe 8 or 10. That said, Utah’s competition is with Colorado, ASU, Arizona, Stanford, and Cal. I’ve seen some media people pair Utah/Colorado with the current 4 B1G Western schools. Utah’s success over the past decade has lifted the brand considerably. Colorado has seen a meteoric rise due to the Coach Prime effect that there are concerns around whether that will last or not, especially if Deion were to leave Colorado. But the other big thing going for Colorado is it would bring back the Nebraska/Colorado rivalry. And rivalries are part of the whole Brand equation because rivalry games draw the largest amounts of eyeballs. It’s actually one of the reasons why TSPP is brought up because of the Holy War being one of the Top 15 ranked rivalries in CFB. From what I’ve seen, I’m most concerned with Colorado, Stanford, and ASU. I believe Utah has passed up Arizona and Cal. And it appears that although the B1G Presidents would much prefer to bring in Stanford/Cal due to their elite academics, the TV Networks will end up overruling them in favor of schools that bring better TV ratings such as Utah. For that reason, I like our chances over the Bay area schools. The one reason why Stanford concerns me is their long-standing relationship with Notre Dame. Maybe Notre Dame would advocate for bringing in Stanford in order to finally give up Independence and join the B1G. The B1G will do whatever Notre Dame wants if it were to join the conference. But for Utah to be in strong contention for being one of the schools considered out West is nothing short of a miracle and we have Kyle Whittingham, the entire coaching staff, and a long list of school administrators to thank for getting Utah to this level…truly REMARKABLE!
Wasn’t it something to do with personal family issues? The upshot is that he’s no longer associated with Utah. That being said, this article from last week’s Deseret News still has him as a transfer to Utah:
Which transfer players could make biggest impact for Utah in 2024?
Yeap. One of the referees last night was BYU’s baseball manager for a decade. I guess that because he’s no longer associated with BYU no one thought it was a big deal.
BYU @ 
Utah 
