Message board banter is gradually becoming coachspeak
As everyone in college sports—administrators, coaches, athletes and fans—focuses more on money, it’s becoming ammunition for the press conference troll.
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Today, we’re talking sh*t.
Spend enough time on college football message boards, and you’ll begin to notice a familiar pattern of insults.
Losing is still the ultimate weakness, but there are other things about your program that are guaranteed to earn ridicule. Your quarterback should be very private about who he’s dating, and your coach should be aware that he’s likely overpaid. Your fans shouldn’t destroy a TV in a video that gets posted to YouTube. And god forbid you hang a banner for anything other than a national championship.
In recent years, however, there’s a new insult that’s taken root across NCAA internet boards: “poverty program.”1 Now that money is front and center on the mind of college administrators and athletes, it’s apparently also on the mind of fans. And supporters of schools without it are being trolled by those that do.
In the past few years I’ve written quite a bit about Florida State’s varied attempts to increase athletics revenue, which includes private equity talks and a $327 million bond offering. Every time we publish, my mentions are flooded by people—often with usernames like @michael_gator or with a Twitter banner featuring a Miami Hurricanes jacket—calling the Seminoles a poverty program.
The rhetoric is now finding its way into official press conferences. Earlier this week Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy previewed his upcoming game against Oregon by highlighting the matchup’s money imbalance. Oklahoma State spent “around $7 million” on players in the last three years, Gundy said, before claiming the Ducks spent $40 million in the last twelve months. He then said Oregon should schedule teams with similar resources.
Oregon coach Dan Lanning fired back immediately. “We spend to win,” he told reporters. “Some people save to have an excuse for why they don’t.” Poverty program.
[As an aside, Gundy’s comments were similar to comments Georgia coach Kirby Smart made last year, telling reporters that he wished the Bulldogs “could get some of that NIL money [Phil Knight’s] sharing with Dan Lanning.” It’s got me wondering if, in America’s relentless culture war, Oregon is on the verge of becoming college football’s version of a rich, coastal elite, drawing constant criticism from many across college football’s more traditional southern footprint. If you’re curious: Georgia’s athletics budget in fiscal 2024 was $194.3 million; Oregon’s was $168 million.]
But back to the coaches. It feels like, in just the last few years, press conferences sound more and more like fan message boards. In Deion Sanders’ first season in Colorado, rival Colorado St. coach Jay Norvell trolled him by telling reporters, “When I talk to grownups, I take my hat and my glasses off. That’s what my mother taught me.” Sanders responded by handing out sunglasses to all his players.
Already this year, Tulane’s coach accused Northwestern of disrespecting “the city of New Orleans” in a disagreement over jersey colors.2 Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham drew the ire of Mississippi State fans in Starkville by talking about the lack of accommodations and good food in the “smaller towns” that his team travels to. And West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez described the secrecy around his play calling by invoking Michigan’s recent spying scandal.
In perhaps the dumbest example, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney assigned grades following his team’s season-opening loss to LSU—"They made a 65; we made a 58. Neither one of us were great.” Tigers coach Brian Kelly fired back the next day, telling reporters, “We dominated them in the second half, so he's either a really good grader for giving himself a 58, or he's a really hard grader on us. Or he didn't see the second half, which, that might be the case. He might not have wanted to see the second half.” Burn!
At a time when all of media seems to shifting to quick, easily-digestible viral snippets, I guess it makes sense that coaches are sounding more and more like fans.
You’ll know we’re fully there when Bill Bellichick starts calling his opponents Notre Lame or Chokelahoma.
Jacob’s 🔥 Take: I hope (and assume) Oregon’s elite digital media team is turning all of these jabs into recruiting fodder. Oh, everyone wishes they could pay their players as much as we do! They’re all jealous of our cool uniforms! Oh no, we’re soooo sorry for having the best-funded, most fashion-forward program in the country!
On the most recent Sporticast episode, Eben and Scott spoke with Marc Ganis, a consultant known in NFL circles as the “33rd Owner,” about the business of the world’s richest sports league.
Here’s what he said about the NFL’s media strategy, which pays the league $10+ billion per year, but is also strategically structured to support the companies that need the NFL the most.
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This sounds like something Brett Favre would steal from.
I wrote about this silly mini-scandal earlier in the week.