From our 2 part interview with Bryan Felt
CR: What other updates do you want to share?
BF: There’s a few things donors ask me about and I’m sure folks on the Pirate Crew message board will want to know, too. Right now, a big thing is the Protect College Sports Act, which is something our fanbase should understand. Seton Hall, and the Big East in general, are caught in the crosshairs of these dramatic changes taking place. We’re a highly competitive league, especially in basketball. We don’t have football, so we operate with lower budgets and create lower revenue than power football conferences, and we’re all heavily reliant on university subsidies. The playing field isn’t level in that sense, and the gap is widening. We need congressional legislation to consider realities for a conference like ours, and that’s what we find in the Protect College Sports Act. Seton Hall and the Big East support it. I think it’s helpful that it’s a bipartisan bill. Although far from perfect, it addresses a lot of the key issues affecting sports today. The SEC and Big Ten are working to modify it, as is the Big East. Fans need to especially understand that the bill would allow the NCAA to create and enforce rules around NIL, revenue sharing, and transfers. Ultimately, we need help from the federal government. The most critical part is the transfer rules needing to be modified. We’re trying to find that middle ground where a one time transfer is permitted, but would sit if transferring a second time.
Regarding revenue sharing, some may have seen I wrote a letter in April to remind the fans we’re investing meaningful dollars in our basketball programs because we know how important it is to our school. This year, we have again increased our revenue share spending, specifically with the help of our President, Monsignor Reilly and our Board of Regents. The support from our University has been critical and we are fortunate our leadership understands its importance. In addition, we surpassed our goals with Pirate Blue fundraising and had a record year in corporate sponsorships, the latter up over 55%. We had a 205% increase in NIL dollars secured from corporate partnerships. You can see literally those partnerships on and around the court through national partnerships including Pepsi, Nissan, and Zebra Pen. We also had a lot of great local sponsors like RWJ Barnabas Health, MC Hotel in Montclair, and the Peter Davis Law Firm. We’ve grown, and I think we’ll continue to grow our rev share. We’ve been engaging with a lot of companies this summer about being our jersey patch sponsor, a new revenue stream opportunity. Our sponsorship team and Pirate Blue have both played significant roles......................
CR: What other updates do you want to share?
BF: There’s a few things donors ask me about and I’m sure folks on the Pirate Crew message board will want to know, too. Right now, a big thing is the Protect College Sports Act, which is something our fanbase should understand. Seton Hall, and the Big East in general, are caught in the crosshairs of these dramatic changes taking place. We’re a highly competitive league, especially in basketball. We don’t have football, so we operate with lower budgets and create lower revenue than power football conferences, and we’re all heavily reliant on university subsidies. The playing field isn’t level in that sense, and the gap is widening. We need congressional legislation to consider realities for a conference like ours, and that’s what we find in the Protect College Sports Act. Seton Hall and the Big East support it. I think it’s helpful that it’s a bipartisan bill. Although far from perfect, it addresses a lot of the key issues affecting sports today. The SEC and Big Ten are working to modify it, as is the Big East. Fans need to especially understand that the bill would allow the NCAA to create and enforce rules around NIL, revenue sharing, and transfers. Ultimately, we need help from the federal government. The most critical part is the transfer rules needing to be modified. We’re trying to find that middle ground where a one time transfer is permitted, but would sit if transferring a second time.
Regarding revenue sharing, some may have seen I wrote a letter in April to remind the fans we’re investing meaningful dollars in our basketball programs because we know how important it is to our school. This year, we have again increased our revenue share spending, specifically with the help of our President, Monsignor Reilly and our Board of Regents. The support from our University has been critical and we are fortunate our leadership understands its importance. In addition, we surpassed our goals with Pirate Blue fundraising and had a record year in corporate sponsorships, the latter up over 55%. We had a 205% increase in NIL dollars secured from corporate partnerships. You can see literally those partnerships on and around the court through national partnerships including Pepsi, Nissan, and Zebra Pen. We also had a lot of great local sponsors like RWJ Barnabas Health, MC Hotel in Montclair, and the Peter Davis Law Firm. We’ve grown, and I think we’ll continue to grow our rev share. We’ve been engaging with a lot of companies this summer about being our jersey patch sponsor, a new revenue stream opportunity. Our sponsorship team and Pirate Blue have both played significant roles......................
