BAMANEWSBOT
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No one will ever replicate Nick Sabanās 5 football national championships in 9 years. His success has been a rare combination of leadership talent, university commitment, and revolutionary tactics at the right moment in time that will be copied in style but not outcome.
Itās hard to appreciate great moments in business as they happpen in real time. Take the example of Steve Jobs and the creation of the iPhone. It was only 11 years ago but did anyone truly appreciate the magnitude of that development in 2007? It takes time to piece things together and see the whole picture. However, there are some general concepts that apply in most situations.
One way a business starts to dominate its field is by creating a product that is truly revolutionary. That was Steve Jobs and Apple. Another way is when an existing business figures out a revolutionary way of producing an old product. Thatās Nick Saban and college football. Both situations require rare levels of leadership along with the financial backing of people who believe in the vision of the leader.
Saban invented the modern college football industry. His use of what he calls The Process, which Sports Illustrated wrote about here, is widely known. Other schools hunger for his lieutenants who can bring that approach to their program. As his disciples, and his methodologies, spread the industry is being altered to such a degree that dominance by any single school will become impossible. Instead, the industry has an opportunity to have long-term, broad-based growth unlike it has ever seen before.
The Creation of a Growth Platform for College Football.
As Saban was building his powerhouse at Alabama he was also creating a template for success for the entire industry. Football is not immune to the vagaries of the normal business world. As a revolutionary business succeeds, it attracts other talented leaders who want to be part of the enterprise. Soon thereafter it attracts competition. Executive talent gets developed inside the leader and the competition hires them away. The leader now has powerful competitors led by people it trained. The overall management team talent required to staff these businesses becomes scarce and more expensive. An arms race ensues. The playing field starts to level out. This is happening in college football before our very eyes.
As it unfolds we can identify three major trends driving this engine of growth
Trend One: Universities and Conferences Recognize Football as THE Major Product Line
What does any business do when it sees a product that can drive direct and indirect revenue, increase the standing of the company in the marketplace, build a national brand, and produce profit that can be used to build every other product line? It invests. Over the last 20 years college football has truly become a big money business. Astute university presidents recognized that football was, or could be, their premier generator of revenue. Conferences recognized this as well, especially the SEC and the Big 10. TV deals have gone through the roof, conference television networks have been created, palatial facilities have been built, and coaching staff size and salaries have gone to near NFL levels.
Look at the ways that successful football programs benefit their schools:
1. Ticket sales, concessions, apparel, and TV revenue. No sport matches football. For instance the SEC Network, only in existence since 2014, recently distributed approximately $40 million per school from its earnings.
2. Growth in applications and admissions. A large university has a lot of fixed costs. Every extra student they add brings in highly profitable marginal revenue. Successful football programs attract more students, itās that simple.
That extra profit can then be plowed back into other new programs that can create compound growth for the university.
3. Donations. Wealthy donors like sitting in boxes watching football teams win. They like to claim their team to their friends. They see football success as evidence of commitment and good management and generally want to support it as well as other university associated endeavors. Can there be a better person to help land the big gift than the head coach of the winning football team?
Alabama saw this sooner than others and went after it. The secret is out though, and any number of large, well-heeled schools are trying to take the very same approach.
Trend Two: A New Supply of Leadership Talent
One of the major limitations in the growth of any new industry is a sufficient pool of qualified leaders. The two most successful coaches in recent years, Saban and Ohio Stateās Urban Meyer (3 national championships at 2 schools), have coaching trees that have produced a number of highly sought after coaches who now run powerhouse programs. Saban assistants Mark Dantonio (Michigan State), Kirby Smart (Georgia), Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M), Jeremy Pruitt (Tennessee), and Mario Cristobal (Oregon), are all highly capable of building winning programs. Meyer assistants like Tom Herman (Texas) and Dan Mullen (Florida) are on that track as well. Dabo Swinney (Clemson), who played at Alabama, already has one national championship and seems poised to be in the hunt every year. Everyone of these coaches is a proven recruiter and is backed by a university committed to the investment required to build a big-time program. There is a long list of other schools with highly capable coaches who have also made big commitments to football. This would include UCLA, USC, Washington, Penn State, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Auburn, Miami, Florida State, and others. The leadership talent pool is growing and spreading out. Their competitive drive will be relentless, as will the expectations placed on them to succeed.
Trend Three: Dividing the Spoils of the Recruiting Wars
Here is the great equalizer. It has been proven over and over that if you donāt continuously recruit classes predominantly composed of 4 and 5 star players your chances of winning a national championship are slim to none. However the pool of players of that caliber is not expanding as fast as the demand for their services.
All of the top coaches are great recruiters but they are fighting over a slice of the same sized pie. As a result, a fairly static supply of players with championship talent will get divided up between more and more schools thus making it impossible for any single school to consistently dominate the recruiting competition. In addition, smaller schools are now getting on the bandwagon. This year the University of Central Florida (Scott Frost) and Florida Atlantic University (Lane Kiffin) proved that the leadership talent is out there and knows how to succeed regardless of location. They will nibble at the talent pool as well. The top schools will always wind up with top-tier classes, but the talent difference between 1 and 10, or even 1 and 20, will continually shrink.
So, whatās next?
If youāre a school that just spent mega bucks on a new coach and staff and you think heās going to make you the next Alabama youāre going to be sorely disappointed. But donāt feel too bad, since he is highly likely to deliver strong winning seasons and occasional entry into the Football Final Four.
If youāre a conference that hasnāt built a successful TV network and hasnāt committed to a broad football strategy then you are way behind and better start running fast. Failure on this front represents a major strategic blunder that can haunt these schools for years. The conferences that are ahead of you are already investing in basketball, baseball, softball, and other TV friendly sports that will accelerate the differences between the haves and the have-nots. Donāt believe me? Just check out the sudden appearance of SEC basketball as a conference powerhouse. Does anybody think that would be happening without football money behind it?
And if youāre a fan you need to get your expectations in line with the new reality. Even as I write that I am reminded that the college football fans Iām talking to have no interest whatsoever in reality. They are called fanatics for a reason and I love them and the sport because of their passion. They are convinced their guy is the next Saban.
No. He. Is. Not.
However, because of the platform created by Saban, many more schools and their fans will now have the excitement, and the occasional heartbreak, that comes with big winning seasons and championship chances every year. This is going to be so much fun.
The End of College Football Dynasties
Itās hard to appreciate great moments in business as they happpen in real time. Take the example of Steve Jobs and the creation of the iPhone. It was only 11 years ago but did anyone truly appreciate the magnitude of that development in 2007? It takes time to piece things together and see the whole picture. However, there are some general concepts that apply in most situations.
One way a business starts to dominate its field is by creating a product that is truly revolutionary. That was Steve Jobs and Apple. Another way is when an existing business figures out a revolutionary way of producing an old product. Thatās Nick Saban and college football. Both situations require rare levels of leadership along with the financial backing of people who believe in the vision of the leader.
Saban invented the modern college football industry. His use of what he calls The Process, which Sports Illustrated wrote about here, is widely known. Other schools hunger for his lieutenants who can bring that approach to their program. As his disciples, and his methodologies, spread the industry is being altered to such a degree that dominance by any single school will become impossible. Instead, the industry has an opportunity to have long-term, broad-based growth unlike it has ever seen before.
The Creation of a Growth Platform for College Football.
As Saban was building his powerhouse at Alabama he was also creating a template for success for the entire industry. Football is not immune to the vagaries of the normal business world. As a revolutionary business succeeds, it attracts other talented leaders who want to be part of the enterprise. Soon thereafter it attracts competition. Executive talent gets developed inside the leader and the competition hires them away. The leader now has powerful competitors led by people it trained. The overall management team talent required to staff these businesses becomes scarce and more expensive. An arms race ensues. The playing field starts to level out. This is happening in college football before our very eyes.
As it unfolds we can identify three major trends driving this engine of growth
Trend One: Universities and Conferences Recognize Football as THE Major Product Line
What does any business do when it sees a product that can drive direct and indirect revenue, increase the standing of the company in the marketplace, build a national brand, and produce profit that can be used to build every other product line? It invests. Over the last 20 years college football has truly become a big money business. Astute university presidents recognized that football was, or could be, their premier generator of revenue. Conferences recognized this as well, especially the SEC and the Big 10. TV deals have gone through the roof, conference television networks have been created, palatial facilities have been built, and coaching staff size and salaries have gone to near NFL levels.
Look at the ways that successful football programs benefit their schools:
1. Ticket sales, concessions, apparel, and TV revenue. No sport matches football. For instance the SEC Network, only in existence since 2014, recently distributed approximately $40 million per school from its earnings.
2. Growth in applications and admissions. A large university has a lot of fixed costs. Every extra student they add brings in highly profitable marginal revenue. Successful football programs attract more students, itās that simple.
That extra profit can then be plowed back into other new programs that can create compound growth for the university.
3. Donations. Wealthy donors like sitting in boxes watching football teams win. They like to claim their team to their friends. They see football success as evidence of commitment and good management and generally want to support it as well as other university associated endeavors. Can there be a better person to help land the big gift than the head coach of the winning football team?
Alabama saw this sooner than others and went after it. The secret is out though, and any number of large, well-heeled schools are trying to take the very same approach.
Trend Two: A New Supply of Leadership Talent
One of the major limitations in the growth of any new industry is a sufficient pool of qualified leaders. The two most successful coaches in recent years, Saban and Ohio Stateās Urban Meyer (3 national championships at 2 schools), have coaching trees that have produced a number of highly sought after coaches who now run powerhouse programs. Saban assistants Mark Dantonio (Michigan State), Kirby Smart (Georgia), Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M), Jeremy Pruitt (Tennessee), and Mario Cristobal (Oregon), are all highly capable of building winning programs. Meyer assistants like Tom Herman (Texas) and Dan Mullen (Florida) are on that track as well. Dabo Swinney (Clemson), who played at Alabama, already has one national championship and seems poised to be in the hunt every year. Everyone of these coaches is a proven recruiter and is backed by a university committed to the investment required to build a big-time program. There is a long list of other schools with highly capable coaches who have also made big commitments to football. This would include UCLA, USC, Washington, Penn State, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Auburn, Miami, Florida State, and others. The leadership talent pool is growing and spreading out. Their competitive drive will be relentless, as will the expectations placed on them to succeed.
Trend Three: Dividing the Spoils of the Recruiting Wars
Here is the great equalizer. It has been proven over and over that if you donāt continuously recruit classes predominantly composed of 4 and 5 star players your chances of winning a national championship are slim to none. However the pool of players of that caliber is not expanding as fast as the demand for their services.
All of the top coaches are great recruiters but they are fighting over a slice of the same sized pie. As a result, a fairly static supply of players with championship talent will get divided up between more and more schools thus making it impossible for any single school to consistently dominate the recruiting competition. In addition, smaller schools are now getting on the bandwagon. This year the University of Central Florida (Scott Frost) and Florida Atlantic University (Lane Kiffin) proved that the leadership talent is out there and knows how to succeed regardless of location. They will nibble at the talent pool as well. The top schools will always wind up with top-tier classes, but the talent difference between 1 and 10, or even 1 and 20, will continually shrink.
So, whatās next?
If youāre a school that just spent mega bucks on a new coach and staff and you think heās going to make you the next Alabama youāre going to be sorely disappointed. But donāt feel too bad, since he is highly likely to deliver strong winning seasons and occasional entry into the Football Final Four.
If youāre a conference that hasnāt built a successful TV network and hasnāt committed to a broad football strategy then you are way behind and better start running fast. Failure on this front represents a major strategic blunder that can haunt these schools for years. The conferences that are ahead of you are already investing in basketball, baseball, softball, and other TV friendly sports that will accelerate the differences between the haves and the have-nots. Donāt believe me? Just check out the sudden appearance of SEC basketball as a conference powerhouse. Does anybody think that would be happening without football money behind it?
And if youāre a fan you need to get your expectations in line with the new reality. Even as I write that I am reminded that the college football fans Iām talking to have no interest whatsoever in reality. They are called fanatics for a reason and I love them and the sport because of their passion. They are convinced their guy is the next Saban.
No. He. Is. Not.
However, because of the platform created by Saban, many more schools and their fans will now have the excitement, and the occasional heartbreak, that comes with big winning seasons and championship chances every year. This is going to be so much fun.
The End of College Football Dynasties
