Risk & Resolve
The Risk & Resolve Podcast is your go-to resource for insightful conversations at the intersection of leadership, business ownership, and the insurance industry. Hosted by Ben Conner and Todd Hufford, this podcast dives deep into the challenges and opportunities that leaders face in an ever-changing world.
Each episode features candid discussions with business owners, industry experts, and thought leaders, exploring topics like innovation, risk management, and the strategies that drive success. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, executive, or insurance professional, you’ll gain actionable insights and inspiration to navigate today’s complex business landscape.
Tune in to Risk & Resolve—where leadership meets resilience.
Risk & Resolve
Hoops, Deals & Boilermakers: Dave Neff's Career Slam Dunk
Dave Neff, CEO of the Boilermaker Alliance, takes us through his career journey from sports administration to navigating the evolving NIL landscape at Purdue University. His experiences showcase how relationship-building became the foundation for career success while providing unique insights into how NIL is reshaping collegiate athletics.
• Early career in Pacers ticket sales building a professional network and work ethic
• Transition from sports to tech at ExactTarget/Salesforce through leveraging relationships
• Taking career risk to lead Edge Mentoring, teaching valuable leadership lessons
• Current role managing Purdue's NIL collective while balancing legal requirements
• Boilermaker Alliance requires athletes to serve nonprofits and promote charitable causes
• Challenges of adapting to rapidly changing regulations and court decisions in NIL
• Personal commitment to maintaining balance as a leader, husband and father of four
• Purdue's development-focused approach compared to transaction-heavy programs
You're listening to Risk and Resolve, and now for your hosts, Ben Conner and Todd Hufford. Welcome to another episode of the Risk and Resolve pod with our special guest today, Dave Neff, CEO of the Boilermaker Alliance. Dave, glad to have you today.
Speaker 3:Hey, excited to be on, Excited for your guys' new endeavor here. Risk and Resolve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so obviously a lot of our listeners will probably be excited. You know the old boiler up deal, especially, todd, as a Purdue alum, so they'll get to hear a little bit about your endeavors with Purdue and NIL here later. But I'm personally pumped to have you on, dave, just because of our history and knowing each other for so long.
Speaker 3:Yeah, by close to 30 years.
Speaker 1:That's crazy and kind of the thing of like you can't make old friends, you know. But I remember vividly early morning hoops driving across the street to pick you up get a basketball practice.
Speaker 3:And your blue Mustang with your Dave Matthews band bumper sticker.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right Making sure that everyone knew what my music affinity was for. But no, just really excited to talk about also your professional journey and how you know kind of weaving that together and I've had a fun seat to kind of watch that along the way. But let's rewind the clock before we get into the Boilermaker Alliance stuff. Obviously we went to school together at a private Christian school here in Indianapolis and then you chose to go to Ball State. Kind of share with me like what was your journey like and why did you select Ball State? You chose a major of sports administration, so tell me a little bit about your journey of choosing Ball State and going through the program there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wish I could give you some elaborate sort of plan here, but I think it. You know, at least for me at 17, 18 years old, thinking about a college, you know I was a good student, worked hard, got good grades, but didn't necessarily cast a super broad net at that time in my life. I'm going to go visit all these colleges and so, given where we went to high school here in Indy private Christian school I kind of thought I could go that route in college or try to broaden my horizons, maybe go to a public state school, that sort of thing. And so, as I was just taking a look around growing up, my father was a family practice physician and I didn't necessarily have a strong pull to go into medicine like he did. I mean it was great for him and our family and so being active in sports and not being necessarily that great of an athlete but enjoying it and working hard. You know I thought a lot about sports broadcasting and you may recall, ben, I think I was our senior year, my senior year of high school, as you're younger, but I was the PA announcer at our high school basketball game. So kind of dip my toe in there and you know, ball State's known for their telecommunications program, given David Letterman being an alum, and so that was really it. It Ball State's known for their telecommunications program, given David Letterman being an alum, so that was really it. It wasn't anything crazy.
Speaker 3:Went there as a TECOM major actually first my freshman year before transitioning into sports administration, and once I made that pivot I really never looked back. I didn't even know that was a major back in 2003,. Going to college, learned about it my freshman year kind of the blending of business and sports and different pathways from pro sports to college to running a YMCA lots of different pathways, should you choose to go into that. And so played club soccer. Ended up working in the athletic department a couple of years at Ball State, got some great experience, was president of our sports administration club and just did a lot as an undergrad to try to build my experience and start to build my network. Because that was the thing they always told us was that it's very competitive to break into sports and you're going to work long hours and not make very much money. So I was determined to get in. I might just have to work a lot and I'd have to kind of grind my way to make a career out of it.
Speaker 1:So trying to sell the dream to you there on a lot of hours, yeah, money Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of people are going to sports I think are naturally competitive. Right May have played, and so maybe that maybe they know what buttons to push Right To kind of see who's going to rise to the challenge.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so you went to the, you went to the pacers after. Yeah, that's not like a dream, like hey, I'm, this is awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I'd intern in college for the rca tennis championships, which some of your listeners may recall if they lived here in indy. But you know that summer of 2006 it was not uncommon for me to be prospecting folks for you know the two weeks that tennis tournament was here to get some tickets for the tournament. They had no idea that we even had a tennis tournament here in Indianapolis, and so I learned a lot early on about the power of a brand, because, whether you like the Pacers or not, everyone's heard of them. In this city, right, there's only 30 NBA teams so I could be on a plane to Mexico or wherever. And that was always a fun conversation topic of oh, you worked for the Pacers and yeah, so that was a really fortunate break and I tend to believe things don't happen on accident and one of my classmates he's actually my co-president of the Sport Administration Club, Chris Evans. He had interned with the Pacers when I was interning for the tennis tournament.
Speaker 3:He ended up getting hired on full time and I went back for my senior year at Ball State and he called me midway through and just said hey, there's a role that's opened up and if you're interested, let me know. And so learned early on the power of you know relationships and classmates, quite frankly, being, you know, your biggest advocates. And so that was kind of what got my foot in the door, him lobbying for me, and I had to earn it through the interview, but at least he helped get me an interview and I was off to the races Ben before I'd even walked for graduation. I finished up classes finals about two weeks before came back and ended up walking for graduation. But I was already spring of 07 in the field that I wanted to be in in my hometown, in the NBA, arguably at the highest level of sports, but starting off very, very entry level. But I was thrilled with the opportunity.
Speaker 1:So your entry level at the Pacers? What was the initial experience like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think the first year going to work at the time what was it? Canseco Fieldhouse, now it's Cambridge, that was sort of a cool pinch me moment right to work at at the time. What was it? Canseco Fieldhouse, now it's Cambridge, you know, that was sort of a cool like pinch me moment, right. I mean, we'd play basketball down on the main floor at lunch a lot of days and especially like long days when we'd be there for home games at night seeing the likes of, you know, Larry Bird walking down the hallway. Obviously, if you grew up in Indiana that was, that was pretty special.
Speaker 3:But I think, more than anything, that first year out of school, especially working in sports anyone that's worked in sports would tell you the same.
Speaker 3:But just learning that pacing of I was at the field house a lot. It was a good time in my life to be that way, just because I was single and I wasn't married yet. Now I've got four kids, so in a different season of life, but the first year it wears you out. You've got to kind of get in shape, right, because during the six or so months of the NBA season it's not uncommon if you have three home games in a week that you're there I don't know 70, 80 hours a week, when you think about eight to five plus, and if you have a home game you're probably not getting out of there until nine, 30, 10 o'clock and then you turn around and do it again and so you learn to kind of just build that stamina, that endurance, and by years two, three and four I was there four years it became much more normal, right, just that pace and that tempo.
Speaker 3:Well, I feel like I had a strong work ethic, just from how I was raised and how I approached things. The first 22 years of my life, those next four years really, I think, continued to develop in me a motor that I think has stuck with me to today, you know, as of now being 40. And so for me a lot of my experiences and opportunities and relationships, all roads lead back to the Pacers. Like I'm so grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned the word relationships a couple of times already, with networking, even at Ball State, and I'm encouraging to do that and then just getting into the Pacers, getting the job at the Pacers and then, obviously, in your role at the Pacers. What did you learn about more or less the relationship game early in your career that maybe changed your course for the rest of your career?
Speaker 3:The Pacers was a really just unique platform. And look into the city you know I had grown up in Indy. I wasn't really wired into sort of the civic community and my family didn't go to a lot of Pacers or Colts games or things like that. Growing up and so working there gave me a really unique window into how the city works. You know, when we host the final four or, you know, a big 10 championship or eventually the Superbowl in 2012,. Like the various parties that work together. You know Pacer Sports Entertainment's in the middle of that with Visit Indy and the Capital Improvement Board and the Indiana Sports Corps.
Speaker 3:And I've always been somebody that I think is pretty curious and wants to kind of understand how things work and having some great role models. Quite frankly, early that I was exposed to Guys like Jim Morris who had a big impact on me and unfortunately passed away last summer, 24. Jim was named president of the Pacers about six months after I started. I didn't know who he was and quickly got up to speed on just all the various things that he'd done over his career Pretty impactful roles in the city, a guy that prioritized, I feel like, relationships above all else. He was always playing the long game, always figuring out how he could be helpful and be of utility to others, and there wasn't always an immediate return in it for him. And I think when you do that, just like money right, relationships compound and time compounds. And now I can honestly see that, 18 years into my career, if you're really careful and thoughtful and you cultivate and nurture relationships, people don't forget that and I think it can lead to some pretty pretty cool opportunities.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, just seeing Jim's example and then having the platform that I did managing season ticket accounts my first couple of years, ultimately trying to renew those for both companies and families and then I moved into more suite sales, selling the corporate boxes and meeting a lot of the executives from central Indiana. That was just something I always tried to remember. I read a great book during those years the Pacers, probably around 2008 called Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, and it was all about building success one relationship at a time. And so, yeah, just sort of knew that it would have to be built brick by brick. There's no shortcut right In terms of building a meaningful network. I don't think it's about having the largest network, but I think it's about having the most sort of breadth and depth in terms of what makes it different.
Speaker 3:Deep relationships sounds like led you to the next opportunity.
Speaker 2:You know sports management, the ticket sales. That's a young man, a young woman's game, as you already mentioned. That's a lot of hours, yeah, Very condensed. So how did that next opportunity come about?
Speaker 3:Fall of 2011,. I took an opportunity with ExactTarget, which at the time I remember somebody characterized it to me as the Google of Indianapolis, right, it was sort of this hot emerging tech company. It'd been around for about 10 years. When I joined, I think I was employee 1,000. I didn't have a tech background, right, but the executives at ExactTarget I'd gotten to know because they'd bought a suite at the Pacers and so one in particular, the chief marketing officer, tim Kopp at the time, had just really taken an interest in me and had kind of become a mentor outside of just being a client. And so I had been approached by some other pro sports teams and I was probably about 26, still single, and kind of thinking I might spread my wings and move outside Indy for a period, Just because you know, I'd grown up here, went to college an hour away and was back, and so I was interviewing with some teams out on the West Coast down South and was starting to confide in some mentors about it. And, tim, when I talked to him about it he's like well, why don't you just come over here? We're looking for someone with your background that understands the sports and entertainment space and kind of manage all of our strategic partnerships at ExactTarget, as well as work with our sales team on how do we position and sell to this specific vertical. And so, yeah, I thought a lot about it, prayed about it, talked to some folks and, at the end of the day, ended up moving over there at 26.
Speaker 3:And some ways felt like I was starting over because I was going into an industry that I didn't really know.
Speaker 3:But I knew that this was a company that and I didn't know much about IPOs or anything like that, but I knew this was a company that was on just a pretty unique growth trajectory and so shortly after I joined like nine months after I joined we went public and then a year later Salesforce bought us. So I got to live through all that in a pretty short amount of time. I left maybe six months after the Salesforce acquisition but, yeah, in the two and a half years I was there got to do some really unique things that managed all of our partnerships with Andretti and IndyCar and the Pacers and the Colts and then kind of worked with our sales teams across all of our geos across four or five continents on how do we sell and position our email software to the sports, media and entertainment vertical. So it was a great, great experience, you know, went to Europe, went to South America, traveled all over the U? S. It was a ton of fun and just a really unique culture. That felt like lightning in a bottle those three years that I was at.
Speaker 3:You know exact target and Salesforce.
Speaker 1:Outside it looked like you took a really big risk. For you you took a right turn and had the opportunity for a C-suite position with Edge Mentoring. But that next change that was nonprofit, like starting entrepreneurial journey. Really, you're starting something from scratch, more or less. Tell us about, like that experience of going to a nonprofit world, starting something from scratch, like tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:I would say, you know, thinking about the name of this show, while some people might think going into NIL was risky or a dumb move, you know, a little over a year ago I think back to I think it was almost 10, 11 years ago now that I resigned from Salesforce and decided to go all in on edge, and that probably was the riskiest career move that I've made and it didn't make a ton of sense on paper. I think I was 29. I was newly married. My wife had just moved here from Louisville. She was a nurse at the time. We didn't have kids. And again I go back to relationships.
Speaker 3:Another key mentor in my life at that time, a guy by the name of Jeff Simmons. He's the CEO of Elanco Got to know him through the Pacers as well. I'd been involved in a mentoring group with him and a group of guys for three or four years and we called it our edge group after Proverbs 27, 17,. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. He called me one day in late 2013, about a month after I'd been married, and just said hey, this edge thing, we've cobbled together four or five other groups with volunteer mentors and a group of 20 something mentees and he said we need a leader. I feel like we just need to kind of let these groups run their course and that'll be kind of what. What edge was four or five groups and neat thing. But he's like I just feel like there's a lot more potential here and he didn't have time, obviously, to go run this full time. And so a lot of it was my relationship with him, my belief in him, my experience as a mentee in that group for three or four years. We'd have calls twice a month over Zoom and just the value I got out of that. It was kind of a third place. That wasn't my work and it wasn't where I went to church. It's sort of this what we now call whole life intergenerational mentoring.
Speaker 3:And Ben, I know you led a group for a number of years. You experienced that as a mentor, but you know it was just and like anything entrepreneurial, you got to bet on yourself, right. So I felt like you know my belief in sort of the guy that was asking me to come do it with him, more or less, and then the product, if you will, and I knew that it would all come down to getting high caliber mentors If we were able to do that. I think we could attract high caliber mentees, and so I thought honestly though I'd do it for like two years, maybe help get it off the ground and hopefully find some success and jump back to the private sector. And it turned in almost six and I learned a ton during that ride. We had our first two kids at home when I was there.
Speaker 3:We scaled it to mentees and mentors from, I think, 45 states. Several countries Got a grant from the Lilly Endowment. We put on six leadership conferences called EdgeX. We'd pack out a venue with 2,500 people, with speakers like Tony Dungy and Bob Goff and Mitch Daniels, and it was just a really, really unique experience to have in my early 30s leading a small yet growing organization.
Speaker 3:We were never more than a million dollar budget staff of five or six, but learning to manage a scorecard, learning to report up to a board and lead a team and hire and fire and do something that was pretty meaningful, right, we weren't just selling widgets, we were, you know, connecting mentors and mentees in these relationships, and I still get stories. You know I've been gone for what five years. I'll still, you know, hear from mentors and mentees, some groups that I helped put together, that still meet once a month, right, that I, quite frankly, may have forgotten about. That I even put together and these folks have been in each other's weddings and big part of each other's lives, so yeah, it was a super rewarding.
Speaker 3:But on paper I remember running into people those first couple months after leaving Salesforce, which is a household brand here in Indy, really nationally in the software space, and like what are you doing? I'm entering an organization and so you know I think God was humbling me a bit that like it's not about my brand. After my name you know I'd worked for two great ones at the Pacers and Exact Target Salesforce, and so having to build something and kind of not lean on that as sort of what gives me my identity and my wife is a great resource and support during that time, cause there were some I'm sure I was like, but I make the right decision because it was sort of a backwards move on paper but it became this platform that you know I was leading at a relatively young age and opened up a whole new world of relationships that you know still serve, serve me well to this day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are some other things? When you look back on that experience, where it was cloudy at the time of, like was this the right move, like it doesn't match what I've done before. What were some of those things? Now that you look back on that, you're like that really served the purpose in this way.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I think for me, like at that time in my life you know, basically 30 years old, early 30s a lot of my peers, whatever field they're in, they're learning to do one or two things pretty well and I feel like my capacity was really stretched because I was forced to do some things that maybe I, quite frankly, wasn't ready to do or wasn't prepared to do in terms of leading an organization and you know, you can't be good at everything Right. But being exposed to sort of things that I'm not a CFO, right, so I'm not somebody that that's not the greatest use of my time. When you're in a small org and having to understand how to read sort of a P&L and understand what questions to ask those sorts of things, it was humbling and sometimes had to be vulnerable. I don't know what the right answer is here. Right, lean on your board, lean on others outside the organization advisors, mentors, and so I think, just at the end of the day, like being pressure tested a little bit while I made mistakes and there's probably certain settings where I got a little defensive because I wanted to do well and we were coming up short in an area.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, like being stretched and being pressure tested and being a little bit a lot outside my comfort zone at times, like I had to get up and speak, as you know, ben, in front of, like, large groups of people, and in fact that prepared me well and served me well, because I have to do that now in various community roles I have, or even in my day job with Boilermaker Alliance. You have to get up in front of, sometimes, groups of very important people, both small and large, and be concise and deliver an engaging, you know, sort of message, and so learning to do that at 30 was super, super helpful, not to mention just being learning how to operate and lead and manage a scorecard and those sorts of things.
Speaker 1:What were some like interesting things learned? I've never been in a nonprofit setting like that. What were some interesting things that you learned about just that space in general that was interesting for you.
Speaker 3:I think running a nonprofit is harder than running a business, and I've actually talked to business guys about this that have tried to get into the nonprofit space. I mean, and there's really not that much difference other than it's a tax code difference. You still have to have money in the bank somehow, right. You have to pay your team, you have to have a vision, you have to. Whatever it is you're selling, you know whether it's donors or some nonprofits. It is a fee for service. So there's a mixture of sort of revenue sources, like you have to have a business plan right, more or less, even if it's a nonprofit. And so sometimes I think you know in business you have a product or a service, a widget or a benefit. You know your case insurance, you guys are experts and you've owned that. And sometimes when you're in a nonprofit, whether it's Edge or pick another, you know Wheeler Mission you're really trying to influence. You have to lead and influence people to give up their spare time right to choose to volunteer, to potentially get warmed up to where they might contribute financially to your organization, and so it's very intense relationally and so learning to juggle and manage a lot of relationships you know it's hard to do that well at scale and to still maintain that level of like personalization which I really put a premium on.
Speaker 3:I think scaling a startup nonprofit is just really difficult. Right, because there's times where it almost felt more manageable when it was smaller and then as we were gaining some velocity without more resources. Right, not that you just throw people at problems, but it became a lot. Right, not that you just throw people at problems, but it became a lot. Right when you're like man, it's only a five or six person org with maybe a million bucks in revenue, but you're thinking about it all the time and it can be hard to find ways to sort of disconnect and recharge. Because I felt like a lot of times a lot would have to run through me because I was the glue with board or with donors or with mentors and sometimes you try to not be the cog. I believe in empowered leadership and getting out of the way, but at the end of the day, people want to talk to you, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can relate to that on scaling a small business, of when most of the throughput runs through you or in some way connected to you, of how do you scale and empower others, and certainly the journey that we've been on over the last several years of growing our business and that sort of thing. Well, I want to spend some time digging into your current role with the Boilermaker Alliance. Tell us a little bit about how the opportunity initially like came along for you and like kind of what you also saw with this opportunity in like Wild West, where all the cowboys live, is now NIL.
Speaker 3:Yeah, again, a bit kind of how my career has gone for somebody that's pretty goal oriented. I've learned, you know, you kind of can only really focus on maybe three years at a time and you've got to take what the wind gives you and certain opportunities come along. And so you know, after Edge we didn't talk about it but I went to Prolific, which was a consulting firm, as a chief revenue officer. You know had some pretty good scale to it and that was a great four years that I was there. But you know, I got contacted in the fall of 23, ben, by a executive recruiter who I've known for a while and is a friend, and he'd been hired by the board of the Boilermaker Alliance to find their CEO. And so obviously I'd heard about and paid attention to NIL by no means was I an expert, but when I thought about just the opportunity to get in more or less on the ground floor of NIL it's been around for three years essentially now, and so this was a little over a year ago to get in, to learn the space it's not going away but it is evolving pretty rapidly and to do it at a Big Ten school, at Purdue, where obviously I'm not a grad but think the world of it, especially after the decade of Mitch Daniels' leadership there.
Speaker 3:Purdue's on a tear and has a great reputation globally, and so to be able to work alongside an institution like Purdue still do it from Indy, where we're pretty rooted, and I get up there a couple of times a week and just to learn and to meet. I mean I work with so many different stakeholders from not just our athletic department at Purdue but head coaches and their staffs. Obviously we work with student athletes, work with the board of trustees. I've got my own board at the Alliance and so, for those that don't know, I run Boilermaker Alliance, which is the collective that sits outside of Purdue University. Legally we have to, but we are the exclusive collective of Purdue University Athletics, so I view it as really we're an extension of the team.
Speaker 3:Again, there has to be sunlight between the collective and the university legally, but any student athlete that receives NIL money at Purdue, they're on contract with us and so we probably work with a hundred student athletes from seven or eight different sports. Obviously we work a lot with football and men's basketball, given that those are the two revenue generating sports that sort of carry all the other programs. But the entire women's volleyball team's on contract with us work with some women's basketball, some baseball, tennis, golf. It's been a great experience. Obviously, I joined four months before Purdue went to the Final Four in Phoenix last April, which was a great experience, and then we had a pretty rough football season. So I got to experience both extremes of the good and sort of the tougher times and got a new football coach a month or two ago. So rebuilding there.
Speaker 3:But you know, at the end of the day the collective is out working with individual donors as well as companies in some cases that sort of see the value that our student athletes at Purdue bring to the university, and so any student athlete that is on contract with us they're 1099 employees at the collective they're required.
Speaker 3:Their obligations and their contract stipulate that they have to serve at nonprofits certain amount of times a month and then leverage their platforms, their social media, to promote those charities in return. And so we manage all that through a software and documentation process so that we're doing everything above board and we take that very seriously, so that it's not just pay to play, as some people might call it, at other schools where they're just paying kids and they don't have to do anything for it. We really believe that while we're trying to build champions on the field or on the court, we also want these formative years to be champions in their community and really finding things that they're passionate about, whether it's the Boys and Girls Club or reading at elementary schools, or showing up at a varsity blood bank drive and again leveraging sort of their brand, their likeness, to bring benefit to the charities and causes they care about.
Speaker 2:So, dave, we're obviously in Indianapolis, home of the NCAA. So then, this topic floating around here, probably longer, or at least more more loudly, give our listeners just a little bit of background on, like was there a law? Was it legislation? What actually enacted this that we'll today call NIL, which of course stands for name, image and likeness? When did it roughly start? When did it heat up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so on July 1st of 2021. Yeah, so what's that about? Three and a half years ago now, there'd been several court cases and culminating in one that really allowed, as of July 1st 2021, student athletes to financially profit off of their own name, image and likeness, their personal brand, right? And you could go back to a lot of people recall Ed O'Bannon, who was a basketball player at UCLA. A lot of this started with you think about video games or jersey sales. Schools were making a lot of money off of jersey sales and none of that money obviously would flow to the student athletes, right? Or video games, ea Sports, those types of things where their likenesses are being used, but they don't see any of that and probably the old school thought is well, they get a scholarship, be enough, right? They're amateurs. And I think the reality is that college athletics has become an economic machine. You see that, with the rising salaries of football coaches, basketball coaches, support staff, administrators, I mean, well, we've got college football coaches making 13, 12 million a year. It's become big business, big money. And does that mean that student athletes should get paid that same amount? Maybe not, but I think them sharing in a slice of that pie, you could argue makes sense.
Speaker 3:And so a couple of things converged that probably weren't originally designed to converge, and that is NIL, from three and a half years ago to the transfer portal right, which, when I took this role a little over a year ago, the rule was still that you could transfer once as an undergrad and once as a grad student. And then, a few months into me taking the job this was probably spring of 24, there was an injunction, another court case, where basically just stayed the fact that, hey, student athletes can now transfer unlimited, as much as they want. So now it's almost like become anytime. There's an open portal window which those are designated times throughout the year, depending on the sport. It becomes this yeah, in some cases it feels like you hear about, read about bidding wars, right, where so-and-so is throwing their name in the portal, and just because you know the portal doesn't mean you're going to switch schools. Sometimes people enter the portal and end up staying at their school, right, but schools then are, you know, once they're in the portal, you're legally allowed to contact that student athlete.
Speaker 3:And again, when I started, you couldn't be specific about what you could pay them. In NIL you could kind of use generalities and say, hey, we have someone over here that is in a similar position as you and here's what their package looks like. We see you in a similar package. Now you can be very direct and specific. So it's like, hey, if you come here, we're going to put you on full ride. We can pay you X amount of dollars a month in NIL.
Speaker 3:And it's just evolved very quickly just in the last year. And then, as we look forward to this summer, july 1st, revenue sharing is set to begin, where and this is as a result of the House versus the NCAA settlement again, which was not in motion until May of 24. There was preliminary approval granted in October of 24. And then April 7th is sort of the big date coming up that the judge will either approve the settlement or maybe not. But the Power Four conferences are certainly planning on revenue sharing to start July 1st, which means schools can now start directly compensating student-athletes which, again, to date it's all gone through collectives.
Speaker 2:So how will that change? Will Purdue adjust to have some money pay athletes to the collective and some directly from the university? Based upon this, yeah, we're working through that right now.
Speaker 3:I know every other school, especially at the Power 4 conference level and the settlement.
Speaker 3:Without getting into too much legalities, they're really trying to rein in the donor piece of collectives, the charitable contributions, because that can get a little bit all over the place, but they do. It will be permissible, is our understanding, to keep really a for-profit collective that's focused on true endorsements and NIL deals. And so we're working through that right now what that could look like at Purdue, whether that comes in-house, whether that's still a third-party collective that's again just focused on working with brands that would want an Eli Lillian company or a Roarman Just using a couple of local examples that may want to partner with Purdue student athletes, a Braden Smith, a women's volleyball player, something along those lines. So it's a pretty dynamic time and while that's in what five months we're actively kind of working on plans towards that end. We're actively kind of working on plans towards that end. But we got to obviously get through April 7th, which is this big sort of date on the judge's calendar, to see if this settlement does in fact get approved.
Speaker 2:So what role, if any, does the NCAA still play? Because everything you've said, it sounds like all the rules are being promulgated via court cases. It's kind of like the outcome of the court case then kind of tells you what you can't do and then you kind of then figure OK, well, then everything else is what you can do. Does the NCAA play a role in this today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question and they do. And I think this House v NCAA settlement I know the NCAA obviously hopes that it does settle so they don't have to go to court will help to probably rein some things in to where the NCAA is obviously adapting and their goal is to. Obviously, I mean they still administer a lot of college championships. They don't obviously do college football right, I think that was 10 years or so ago that college football playoff started, but men's basketball is obviously a huge revenue driver for the NCAA the March Madness tournament, but then they do all you know a bunch of other championships that don't often get a ton of airtime and so they still wield a lot of influence.
Speaker 3:But it's also, I know, been probably a challenging few years. Right, you've got all these individual states have their own NIL statutes or laws. Now we don't have one in Indiana and I don't claim to know why that is. Maybe it is because the NCAA is in our backyard, but you know, you've got 50 states and they probably, if they do, have an NIL law. They're all a little bit different. So that's why you hear about the NCAA lobbying Congress to say we need to get some uniformity here, right, as we move into the future. But for me it's been fun because I'm probably not somebody that would thrive just in a very normal boring nine to five. So to kind of be on the leading edge and cutting edge and learning and having to adapt. Yeah, it can be stressful at times but it's been pretty rewarding and fulfilling, especially to do at a place like Purdue.
Speaker 1:It kind of just makes me think of, like the Hamilton play, where he talks about just being in the room where it happens, you know. Yeah, you mentioned Purdue's. You said it was our strategy or our belief of Purdue is that, you know, obviously we were believers in NIL, or if it's just a pay to play or if there's a different strategy, is there a lot of different things that universities are pursuing at this point?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say it definitely varies institution to institution, you know, I think obviously I can only speak on behalf of the collective, I can't speak on behalf of the athletic department. But you know Purdue has, I think, 600,000 living alumni and I've learned a lot about just sort of the makeup. Obviously a lot of people talk about Purdue being a STEM school. Pumps out, I think we have 10,000 engineering majors of the 50,000 undergrads, big ag background presidents. We obviously put people on the moon like Neil Armstrong astronauts, and so that lends itself to be in a more just, conservative sort of alumni base and so sometimes they're one of the more just, humble, educated, passionate sports fan bases that I've interacted with.
Speaker 3:I mean we had a rough 1-11 football season and Ross-Ade Stadium was full almost every game. I think it holds 62,000. Last game against Penn State, last home game of the season, they had 58,000 people there. I mean it's a pretty remarkable loyalty in terms of the fan base. Obviously, men's basketball, women's volleyball was in the Sweet 16. We've got some tremendous programs right now at Purdue and so they care, they're loyal.
Speaker 3:But it's not just wins and losses at a place like Purdue, some schools it probably is just that I think when you go to Purdue you're choosing hard a little bit right West Lafayette is not the South and it's not always the easiest place to get to if you're not from around the Midwest. You're going to be pushed academically right. It's a rigorous academic institution as a state school. But you're going to also leave with a elite education and a great network of alumni that'll support you and so, yeah, I mean I think we are.
Speaker 3:Purdue was probably a little late to the game in NIL because they weren't you know I won't name other schools, they weren't paying folks previously under the table. I think some schools probably just brought their operation from under the table to above the table, so they had infrastructure already in place but we've had to catch up a bit. But I think Purdue alums can be very proud that we've done it the right way. You know we've done it with high character, integrity, excellence and I've really tried to mirror what Purdue is all about in terms of their core values.
Speaker 1:That sounds a lot like that thread that you even talked about with edge mentoring, that it's whole person care, it's not just about this or that. So it's not just about the athletics, you care about them involved with community, how they handle themselves as people. As a student, that's pretty cool. This is something I've thought about a lot lately. How does this change the landscape of college athletics?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. Obviously I'm not in those rooms, but something that we've worked hard, we've partnered up with. There's a former student athlete at Purdue, young guy, he's getting his master's in accounting. He'd been in the locker rooms right where guys were getting NIL payments and just really developed a passion for how do we equip these young men and women with financial acumen, right? $50,000 or less, sometimes more, from the time of 18 to 22.
Speaker 3:Or now it feels like you read about 25-year-old college student athletes because, hey, if you can stay, if you can get a fifth or sixth year and make a little bit more money and you know you're. I mean, the reality is 99% of these student athletes won't play at the next level, right. But if you can make a handsome six figures or in some cases seven figures that early in your life, right. I mean, just let the power of compound interest do its thing and don't touch a lot of it, right. And so we've partnered with this young man who came to us and also came to the athletic department and he had been working with a couple professors in the Daniel School of Business at Purdue and they've created like a nine class course that they've been kind of rolling out and meeting with the various varsity teams at Purdue, everything from the basics of personal finance, saving, investing, accounting, taxes, all those sorts of things.
Speaker 3:And we feel like again, that's in line with who Purdue is as an institution and could be a real arrow in the quiver as this gets rolled out for recruiting right and still confidence with parents that are thinking about their son or daughter coming to Purdue. And you know, I think at the end of the day, relationships, culture, chemistry, leadership, those things still matter right. And there's kids, that young people that I think hunger for that. They're not just about where can I go, get paid the most or secure the bag right, as young people say. And so I think you know, knowing that Purdue is going to kind of look for people that fit, that are program guys and girls that fit sort of the Purdue brand it's not going to be for everyone.
Speaker 1:Doing that over the course of four years. How does this change the coach's dynamic and what decisions do they have to make?
Speaker 3:Well, take, for example, our new football coach at Purdue, barry Odom, got here middle of December, right, so he's not even two months in on the job. There was a December transfer portal for football. We added 40 guys okay, 29 from the transfer portal meaning they were at other colleges 11 high school guys okay. And you know I can speak obviously pretty candidly on our men's basketball program. Matt Painter is obviously one of the best college basketball coaches there is currently and he didn't even touch the transfer portal this past men's basketball portal, which is kind of unheard of in today's culture, and so he is still running, and I believe Barry Odom, our football coach, will do the same. A development oriented program right where they're recruiting high school guys, becomes a two-time national player of the year. Now is the number nine pick in the NBA and having a great rookie season. I mean, that's all Matt Painter and his staff right there.
Speaker 3:And so you know football is a little bit different because you have 85 scholarship guys compared to 13 for men's basketball. So the nature, just the volume of guys on the roster, it's naturally going to be more transactional right, where I don't care if you're Ohio State who just won the national championship or Purdue. That was one in 11, we're probably both having to deal with the portal, right, for various reasons. Guys at Ohio State that want to play more and I like to have a solid field. Guys at Purdue because we had a coaching change or because we had a rough season. I want to go elsewhere and I think they have a better chance of winning or playing and so, yeah, football is probably a little harder to do. That's my perspective just because you have so many guys. So to keep all 85 sort of in a development oriented, it's just harder, right, because there's a lot more cooks in the kitchen versus. You can be a little bit more contained with 13 guys and some walk-ons on your basketball program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been interesting. On football broadcast I feel like 20% of the time they're saying who was in the portal and where they were last year. It's like 20% of the broadcast. Well, dave, thanks for coming on today and having a conversation and teaching us some of the lessons you've learned along the way and talking through NIL. It's also a great pleasure from my perspective, knowing you for so long and just seeing you continue to just excel in everything that you do. So we end our show with two questions that we have for every guest that I want to ask you. So the first one being is let me get to my note here what is a risk you have taken that has changed your life?
Speaker 3:I'll go back to that decision at 29 to resign from Salesforce and go all in on edge.
Speaker 3:Mentoring Felt a lot riskier than what I just did a little over a year ago jumping into NIL.
Speaker 3:I felt a lot riskier than what I just did a little over a year ago jumping into NIL just at the season of life, and it was a pay cut, it was a benefit cut, it was a startup nonprofit and it was risky, like I said, on paper, but just felt like it was almost like a calling for a lot of reasons that I felt I that got affirmed in so many ways over the six years that I was with Edge and again learned so many lessons, got humbled.
Speaker 3:But I think I wouldn't again have some of these leadership opportunities both in my day job now at Boilermaker Alliance and in the community, had it not been for sort of taking that leap of faith and going all in on edge. You know I could have stayed a cog at Salesforce or a great brand like that, but that really forced me to have to really become an entrepreneur right and not just kind of hide behind whatever the brand of the companies I worked for, the pedigree of the schools you went to and like okay, what can you actually do? Right and I think that's a great lesson in entrepreneurship right, like you have to drive outcomes daily. It feels like so, versus having other people sort of do it for you.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and we haven't really talked about this much, but you mentioned it today. It seemed like you got a lot of external like not challenge, that's probably not the right word but like well, what did you do or why did you do that? So, probably finding that affirmation was in the quiet places, I would imagine. So, yeah, probably finding that affirmation was in the quiet places, I would imagine. Yeah, exactly. The second question is what's unfinished for you that you have the resolve to complete in the near or not?
Speaker 3:so near future? Yeah, and I don't even know. As I was thinking about this, I don't know if there's a my mind didn't necessarily go to a professional sort of thing, it was more like me personally, you know, turned 40 a little over a month ago, and so that obviously causes some reflection of just how's life going. And I've got four young kids, the oldest of which is eight, and so, you know, really working on myself, and not just physical things or professional things, but as a husband, as a father, even my own internal landscape, right, as guys we don't talk a lot about our feelings or emotions often, but making sure I'm healthy, right, because there's a lot pulling at me right now in this season, and I know I've got a pretty narrow window where my kids actually want to hang around me. I don't think it's 18 years, your kids are older, it's probably like 10 years and then they want to hang with their own friends, right I'm sorry Already seeing that with my son who's almost nine, but you know, so I think, while I'm kind of living in the tension of being the best professional and best community leader and those sorts of things, places where it's easy to get a lot of affirmation like working on myself so that I show up as a, you know, just a healthy husband, father, friend and kind of live at peace within myself, as there are a lot of just like pressures and things pulling at you right now and making sure I don't get tripped up by any of the landmines that you see folks in midlife sometimes deal with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that. It's part of the role, but also fun to go to some of those basketball games or whatever. I love seeing you with your children taking them chances. You get to enjoy the experience with you and I think that is incredible. But, dave, thanks for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for having me on. Guys, Love that you're doing this. This was fun.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to Risk and Resolve. See you next time.
