Orlando, Florida – whom Democrats and Republicans vehemently debate President Donald Trump’s merits putting the controversial Elon Musk in charge of the Ministry of Efficiency of the newly created government, but I am here today to cross through the aisle and present a non -partisan idea, I think we can all agree.
Instead of taking charge of reducing bureaucratic fat in Washington, let’s betray it by taking a chainsaw in the swollen and sprawling industry of university athletics. Even more than the federal government, university sports for years have passed with reckless abandonment, based on obsolete commercial models and ignoring the effectiveness in favor of the useless status quo.
It is time to transform Musk and his servants into bulk to fight against the financial absurdity of university football, in particular, and university athletics in general. What better person than Musk, who is known to defend efficiency, to provide budgetary responsibility to the big milk cow in the process of university football.
Musk could start with the most ridiculous waste of money in university sports – the buyouts of exorbitant coaching contracts, according to which schools sign football coaches to 8 -year contracts worth 10 million dollars per year, only to dismiss the coaches two years later and pay massive sums.
Musk could consider Florida State as an example of this stupid practice. In 2019, the seminoles hired Willie Taggart to replace Jimbo Fisher and dismissed her after only 21 games and paid for a takeover nearly $ 20 million. The seminoles then hired Mike Norvell to replace Taggart and set an extension of $ 11 million a year of $ 11 million after displaying consecutive winning seasons. The seminoles then went 2-10 last season and, if they wanted to fire Norvell if he had another bad season in 2025, it would cost them around 55 million dollars in buyout money.
Musk would undoubtedly fire these massive buyouts in force immediately and would declare that university coaching contracts cannot be more than three years. Coaches who achieve expectations above a season can be added a year to their contract, but coaches that operate below expectations could be removed from a year of their contract. Imagine that: coaches must really earn their salary over one year to the next.
Then, Musk, who is famous (or sadly famous) for having eliminated the excess intermediate management in his companies, could reduce the absurd number of assistant sports directors, associate sports directors, Senior associated sports directors, analysts, advisers, assistant force coaches, quality control coaches, time management coaches, nutritionists, recruitment consultants and other posts innocent in university athletics.
When I asked Steve Spurrier a few years ago how many nutritionists he had in his staff in Florida in the 1990s, the head coach of the ball replied with a little laugh: “We had one, and it was me. I used to go around during meals and tell the players to stop eating just meat and potatoes and go to put something green on their plates. This is how we managed nutrition at the time.
Musk’s mandate: immediately get rid of positions such as the deputy coordinator of the distribution of helmet stickers, the main consultant of Gatorara Flavour Analytics, the vice-president of the social media in charge of the inspiring hashtags and the junior analyst of the strategy of launching pieces. In addition, replace the excess coaching and the administrative staff with an AI system which can balance budgets, write press releases, analyze the game band, follow the development of players and even the game games better than the “third specialist” which makes six figures.
Then Musk would require that all unrevapant sports will be regionalized. It is not a secret for anyone that football and – to a very lesser extent – male basketball earn all the money for university sports departments and must support all other Olympic sports. No one is favorable to the completely elimination of Olympic sports, but the cost of sponsorship of these sports could certainly be considerably reduced.
There is no reason that the Stanford volleyball team should travel across the country to play the FSU and Miami. There is no reason for the UCF tennis team to go to Arizona or that the rowing team will go to Texas. And does the Nebraska softball team really need to play at Rutgers?
Musk mandate: university baseball and softball teams that lose money each year should not spend money like Los Angeles Dodgers. Football, male basketball (and perhaps women’s basketball) are the only teams that will remain in their traditional conferences. Sports that have not been regionalizing with Florida teams playing Florida teams, California teams playing California teams, etc. This is true, we replace the flights of cross-country with good old-fashioned bus walks.
Finally, comes my measure to reduce costs n ° 1 (and PET Embeve) in university athletics: the days of whole football teams and their support staff in hotels at night before the end of home matches. I remember a newspaper report a few years ago, revealing that Texas A&M spent $ 346 per night in a local hotel for more than five dozen rooms for each home game during the football season. Not only that, but the Aggies doubled their cost by booking two nights for each home game. The Aggies spent money on hotel rooms, food, conference spaces, buses and police escorts for home matches. Why not just bring the players to sleep in their own dormitories and go to the stadium on Saturday – just as they do every two days of the week?
Musk mandate: If a majority in first year engineering can survive the life of the dormitory and always a mid-term calculation exam, your quarterrier should not need a return service and a pillow mint to the local Marriott to beat Mercyhurst on the return.
For years now, university advertisements have been burning money as a first -year student with their first credit card. It is time to put Elon Musk and his crew of DOGE (destroying the rights of hands Surgorged Gridiron) responsible for stopping madness and stopping it now.
Before Mike Norvell’s acquisition became.
