Posted on the Insider board. Posting here as well.

So the Big Give is now live (9:00 pm Wednesday to 9:00 pm Thursday). As I believe I've mentioned in other posts, Cal needs to raise $6m from football donors to unlock $6m from the Chancellor specifically for football NIL. Ideally Cal would raise $9m from donors which would allow it to make the maximum payment to football under the House settlement. In addition Cal needs to raise $3m - $4m for MBB. These are major lifts . Possible but major.

I've been in discussion with Cal about joining with two other very important Cal football figures (far more important than me - and no I won't be naming them just yet) to do a major matching gift for Cal football. We would use our money to raise several million toward the overall funding goal. In a perfect world we would be launching that right now to coincide with Big Give. But as you all know better than most the world is not perfect.

I have told Cal they can have my money once Ron Rivera is officially hired AND we are told that he will be taking control of the Cal football administration (the budget, hiring and firing coaches and administrators, etc.). I believe this is the catalyst Cal needs to unlock its potential as a program. I will invest in that. But I will not personally be investing further in the status quo. We need to see a change.

This means this particular Cal football matching drive will have to wait until after March 19 when Ron Rivera is officially hired, Hopefully we will all receive the assurances we need very, very soon after that,

In the meantime, Mrs. Sebastabear and I are doing a much, much smaller challenge grant for the Basic Needs Center This is the organization that provides emergency food and shelter for the shockingly high number of Cal students who don't have access to either. First 100 new donors unlocks half the grant. Second 100 new donors unlocks the other half. If you want to give to a worthy Cal related cause while we all wait for a new day to dawn, this is a good one. Here is the link.

[url=https://givingday.berkeley.edu/giving-day/90821/department/91020?utm_source=scalefunder&utm_campaign=amb_share&utm_content=blou6u2a4fi507slfcz94a3&utm_medium=plain][/url]https://givingday.berkeley.edu/giving-day/90821/department/91020?utm_source=scalefunder&utm_campaign=amb_share&utm_content=blou6u2a4fi507slfcz94a3&utm_medium=plain

https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar25/govx.pdf

Thanks for Basic Needs Center funding and bringing it to our attention

you are a gift to Cal Athletics. Thank you!

Donated!

What is the source of this $6 million the Chancellor controls? "Cal needs to raise $6m from football donors to unlock $6m from the Chancellor specifically for football NIL."

In the context of Cal being at risk of losing $100s of millions in lost research funding it is hard to understand this kind of expenditure.

GoCal80 said:

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What is the source of this $6 million the Chancellor controls? "Cal needs to raise $6m from football donors to unlock $6m from the Chancellor specifically for football NIL."

In the context of Cal being at risk of losing $100s of millions in lost research funding it is hard to understand this kind of expenditure.

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I assume that is a rhetorical question. The rhetorical retort of course is what is the source of the Chancellor's and the University's investment in Optometry? History? English? All this money comes from the same place

If your question instead is what is the point of this particular investment, I think you need to focus it on the word "investment". The Chancellor obviously believes that this money will be returned to the University many fold if we can create a winning and championship caliber football program. You can reject that argument, but the real world examples of Oregon and USC and Alabama and the evidence of what they have been able to accomplish with their investments proves that this does work if done correctly. The question is will it be done correctly. I believe with the right management in place it will be.

Sebastabear said:

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I have told Cal they can have my money once Ron Rivera is officially hired AND we are told that he will be taking control of the Cal football administration (the budget, hiring and firing coaches and administrators, etc.). I believe this is the catalyst Cal needs to unlock its potential as a program. I will invest in that. But I will not personally be investing further in the status quo. We need to see a change.

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This is excellent. Built the leverage with the collective and now wielding it to try to force the needed changes.

GoCal80 said:

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What is the source of this $6 million the Chancellor controls? "Cal needs to raise $6m from football donors to unlock $6m from the Chancellor specifically for football NIL."

In the context of Cal being at risk of losing $100s of millions in lost research funding it is hard to understand this kind of expenditure.

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The source is presumably the university's football TV, ticket and other revenues to be spent on NIL by Power 4 conferences under the House settlement.

However, you have a point, unlike most of the Power 4, due to Christ's and Knowlton's incompetence, our short term revenues may not cover all our expenses (when the House settlement payments are included). This is hitting at the same time as Trump's huge reductions in education and research as well as his likely targeting of Berkeley for political reasons (like he is going after my grad alma mater, Columbia, now).

However, once we earn a full ACC share (in a few years) our football revenues will far exceed expenses.
Moreover, with a better coaching staff that does not finish near the bottom of the conference year after year, and instead challenges for championships, we can fill the void in East Bay sports (created by the departures of the Raiders, A's and Warriors), fill CMS and Haas, and make Cal Football and Men's and Women's basketball huge money makers for the university (as it is elsewhere).

Sebastabear said:

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GoCal80 said:

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What is the source of this $6 million the Chancellor controls? "Cal needs to raise $6m from football donors to unlock $6m from the Chancellor specifically for football NIL."

In the context of Cal being at risk of losing $100s of millions in lost research funding it is hard to understand this kind of expenditure.

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I assume that is a rhetorical question. The rhetorical retort of course is what is the source of the Chancellor's and the University's investment in Optometry? History? English? All this money comes from the same place

If your question instead is what is the point of this particular investment, I think you need to focus it on the word "investment". The Chancellor obviously believes that this money will be returned to the University many fold if we can create a winning and championship caliber football program. You can reject that argument, but the real world examples of Oregon and USC and Alabama and the evidence of what they have been able to accomplish with their investments proves that this does work if done correctly. The question is will it be done correctly. I believe with the right management in place it will be.

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Notwithstanding that "Optometry, History and English" generate no ACC media rights/national TV revenue, no ticket sales, and no bowl game revenue. And have no Collectives raising funds specifically from large donor fb supporters or, separately, Caliber. So there is also that.

https://instagr.am/p/DHMMQC9yQ-x
the BIG GIVE update from the con artist:

guess wut??

this **** didn't go well, only $2,178,600 wuz pledged of which a significant portion of this non binding pledge dollars will NEVER be actually collected, yeah cal athletic department fundraisers make up/exaggerate numbers to justify their bureaucratic existence (unlike shocky who collects 100% of all rescue doggy dog facilities bequests here in maricopa county within 48 hours of a pledge to him, not giving the monster a personal check made out directly to the beneficiary of ur choice is NOT an option)

chancellor lyons, you were hoping that "game on" that berkeley grads wuz gonna go all in to endow the olympics sports & now u got real time feedback that there is almost ZERO support for that initiative...it's clear that NOW is the time to rightsize the athletic department by:

1) terminating knowlton, jenny & markeisha
2) promoting andrew mcgraw to athletic director, FREE tixs for all berkeley students to football & basketball games!!
3) rightsizing the athletic department to 15 sport teams that compete for championships
4) hire a men's & women's basketball general manager that will fundraise nil & a dedicated basketball practice facility dollars with jaylen brown as the face of cal basketball
5) "sell" evans diamond & edwards field to the central campus for the greater good of the university in exchange for the elimination of the hundreds of millions of dollars of recent athletic department debt that will never have the future revenue streams for repayment

rich, we're waiting on you to do the right thing, there's a financial tsunami heading towards berkeley & ur savvy leadership is critical and huge props to you for the uc board of regents football general manager approval agenda item next week at 2:00 pm on march 19th re: ron rivera
https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar25/govx.pdf

https://instagr.am/p/CRywZvELCNt


the university of california, berkeley=#1 ranked public university on planet earth (but will it remain that way in the future??)

Sebastabear said:

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Posted on the Insider board. Posting here as well.

So the Big Give is now live (9:00 pm Wednesday to 9:00 pm Thursday). As I believe I've mentioned in other posts, Cal needs to raise $6m from football donors to unlock $6m from the Chancellor specifically for football NIL. Ideally Cal would raise $9m from donors which would allow it to make the maximum payment to football under the House settlement. In addition Cal needs to raise $3m - $4m for MBB. These are major lifts . Possible but major.

I've been in discussion with Cal about joining with two other very important Cal football figures (far more important than me - and no I won't be naming them just yet) to do a major matching gift for Cal football. We would use our money to raise several million toward the overall funding goal. In a perfect world we would be launching that right now to coincide with Big Give. But as you all know better than most the world is not perfect.

I have told Cal they can have my money once Ron Rivera is officially hired AND we are told that he will be taking control of the Cal football administration (the budget, hiring and firing coaches and administrators, etc.). I believe this is the catalyst Cal needs to unlock its potential as a program. I will invest in that. But I will not personally be investing further in the status quo. We need to see a change.

This means this particular Cal football matching drive will have to wait until after March 19 when Ron Rivera is officially hired, Hopefully we will all receive the assurances we need very, very soon after that,

In the meantime, Mrs. Sebastabear and I are doing a much, much smaller challenge grant for the Basic Needs Center This is the organization that provides emergency food and shelter for the shockingly high number of Cal students who don't have access to either. First 100 new donors unlocks half the grant. Second 100 new donors unlocks the other half. If you want to give to a worthy Cal related cause while we all wait for a new day to dawn, this is a good one. Here is the link.

[url=https://givingday.berkeley.edu/giving-day/90821/department/91020?utm_source=scalefunder&utm_campaign=amb_share&utm_content=blou6u2a4fi507slfcz94a3&utm_medium=plain][/url]https://givingday.berkeley.edu/giving-day/90821/department/91020?utm_source=scalefunder&utm_campaign=amb_share&utm_content=blou6u2a4fi507slfcz94a3&utm_medium=plain

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Your stated goals represent the last, best hope for a D1 level "Cal Football", granted. The thing is, Professional Minor League Football cannot be seen to have ANY financial link to the University, or there would be hell to pay. Granting "scholarships" to paid professionals would have to be an ongoing Football Inc. business expense. Since the players would be instate employees, resident rates should apply, but the money will not be there for much else.

When the Musk/Trump hammer falls, there will be massive cuts across the board, and entertainment activities will fall to the bottom of the priority list.

Go Bears.

I think what is happening to our major universities including Cal has not sunk in yet for most people. A pretty good analysis was published here. Already the loss of predictability and stability of research funding is causing departments at Cal to take a defensive posture, cutting back in the number of graduate students admitted for next year, for example. The cuts to indirect costs and the potential cancelation of grants to give the Trump administration leverage over how our campus runs have the very real potential to result in loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to the campus. Trump says that his administration is only getting started with what they did at Columbia and Cal is on the list of schools they are focused on. Given all of this, it is not a good look for the Cal Chancellor to be committing major sums of money to sports teams. Our research and education excellence, for which Cal has gained worldwide recognition, are in serious peril.

Bobodeluxe said:

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Sebastabear said:

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Posted on the Insider board. Posting here as well.

So the Big Give is now live (9:00 pm Wednesday to 9:00 pm Thursday). As I believe I've mentioned in other posts, Cal needs to raise $6m from football donors to unlock $6m from the Chancellor specifically for football NIL. Ideally Cal would raise $9m from donors which would allow it to make the maximum payment to football under the House settlement. In addition Cal needs to raise $3m - $4m for MBB. These are major lifts . Possible but major.

I've been in discussion with Cal about joining with two other very important Cal football figures (far more important than me - and no I won't be naming them just yet) to do a major matching gift for Cal football. We would use our money to raise several million toward the overall funding goal. In a perfect world we would be launching that right now to coincide with Big Give. But as you all know better than most the world is not perfect.

I have told Cal they can have my money once Ron Rivera is officially hired AND we are told that he will be taking control of the Cal football administration (the budget, hiring and firing coaches and administrators, etc.). I believe this is the catalyst Cal needs to unlock its potential as a program. I will invest in that. But I will not personally be investing further in the status quo. We need to see a change.

This means this particular Cal football matching drive will have to wait until after March 19 when Ron Rivera is officially hired, Hopefully we will all receive the assurances we need very, very soon after that,

In the meantime, Mrs. Sebastabear and I are doing a much, much smaller challenge grant for the Basic Needs Center This is the organization that provides emergency food and shelter for the shockingly high number of Cal students who don't have access to either. First 100 new donors unlocks half the grant. Second 100 new donors unlocks the other half. If you want to give to a worthy Cal related cause while we all wait for a new day to dawn, this is a good one. Here is the link.

[url=https://givingday.berkeley.edu/giving-day/90821/department/91020?utm_source=scalefunder&utm_campaign=amb_share&utm_content=blou6u2a4fi507slfcz94a3&utm_medium=plain][/url]https://givingday.berkeley.edu/giving-day/90821/department/91020?utm_source=scalefunder&utm_campaign=amb_share&utm_content=blou6u2a4fi507slfcz94a3&utm_medium=plain

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Your stated goals represent the last, best hope for a D1 level "Cal Football", granted. The thing is, Professional Minor League Football cannot be seen to have ANY financial link to the University, or there would be hell to pay. Granting "scholarships" to paid professionals would have to be an ongoing Football Inc. business expense. Since the players would be instate employees, resident rates should apply, but the money will not be there for much else.

When the Musk/Trump hammer falls, there will be massive cuts across the board, and entertainment activities will fall to the bottom of the priority list.

Go Bears.

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Going further, I have been saying for years the solution may be for Cal to outsource management of the revenue sports to an alumni run non-profit. Donations would earn voting shares. Players and coaches would be employees of the newco. Newco would handle everything Learfield does. Newco could borrow against future revenues. Any profits would be donated back to the university to cover non-revenue sports.

Cal would keep only the bare minimum number of teams for ACC membership in the ACC. Those would be the ones managed by the newco.

All the other sports would be placed in local conferences (Big West or WCC) to reduce travel. Importantly, they would retain amateur status. No athletes would be employees of the university. The Athletics Department could be gutted as it is only managing non-revenue sports in local conferences. Non-revenue sports would be largely supported by donations, including from the newco. The AD would be paid no more than what other university administrators are paid.

GoCal80 said:

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What is the source of this $6 million the Chancellor controls?

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IIRC, the chancellor has a "discretionary fund" that the chancellor can dip into for anything on campus, academics, athletics, whatever, and that fund consists of a very small percentage of all donations made to the UC Berkeley general fund.

BearSD said:

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GoCal80 said:

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What is the source of this $6 million the Chancellor controls?

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IIRC, the chancellor has a "discretionary fund" that the chancellor can dip into for anything on campus, academics, athletics, whatever, and that fund consists of a very small percentage of all donations made to the UC Berkeley general fund.

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Better that than from tuition or research grant indirect costs. I just hope this Chancellor has what it takes to lead us through the most challenging time Cal has ever faced.

You know, all those Cal alumni who attended games as students during the Tedford glory era are in their prime earning years now. If athletic success drives donations, you'd expect some "bounce" from that.

HearstMining said:

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You know, all those Cal alumni who attended games as students during the Tedford glory era are in their prime earning years now. If athletic success drives donations, you'd expect some "bounce" from that.

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It's a good point. I guess the question is kind of one of sports psychology: how much winning do you need in the interim to maintain the interest?
Second part and not necessarily unrelated to the first: what part of the Cal sports "fandom" is involved in their day to day culture of their home, work, and social interaction?
Not going to cite the examples I have experienced, (especially seeing I have lived outside of California since 1980) because it's not hard for all of us to speculate how this plays out at other universities.

Sebastabear said:

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I have told Cal they can have my money once Ron Rivera is officially hired AND we are told that he will be taking control of the Cal football administration (the budget, hiring and firing coaches and administrators, etc.). I believe this is the catalyst Cal needs to unlock its potential as a program. I will invest in that. But I will not personally be investing further in the status quo. We need to see a change.

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Looks like the very critical "AND" portion did not materialize. Thank you for all that you have fought for. Hard to imagine any further success without your backing. I really don't understand how the admin and Lyons in particular witnessed all that went down the past few years from the implosion of pac-12, potentially being left out of big time college football/basketball, seeing the latent passion for Cal sports via GameDay and ending up with a lukewarm change.

Econ141 said:

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Sebastabear said:

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I have told Cal they can have my money once Ron Rivera is officially hired AND we are told that he will be taking control of the Cal football administration (the budget, hiring and firing coaches and administrators, etc.). I believe this is the catalyst Cal needs to unlock its potential as a program. I will invest in that. But I will not personally be investing further in the status quo. We need to see a change.

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Looks like the very critical "AND" portion did not materialize. Thank you for all that you have fought for. Hard to imagine any further success without your backing. I really don't understand how the admin and Lyons in particular witnessed all that went down the past few years from the implosion of pac-12, potentially being left out of big time college football/basketball, seeing the latent passion for Cal sports via GameDay and ending up with a lukewarm change.

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Yeah, unfortunately if this is how it's going to be then I think people just need to withhold their money. While Knowlton still runs the show it's not going to improve.