CHROMEBIRD

Brutal

The Big 12 has a partnership with Redbird Capital (private equity and investment fund), who brokered the deal through their own relationships. I'm pretty sure Brett Yormark and the member schools engaged with them mostly to land the conference a better media deal down the road. Redbird has a big stake in Paramount Skydance and a media deal could bump the Big 12 closer to B1G/SEC scale money.

Wrestling was almost eliminated from the Olympics because the tournaments took too long. The IOC and world/national federations are trying to shorten events, not make them longer. If that's what the powers that be want, I wouldn't be against a more robust qualifier system. Do pods, do 2-pers, whatever, then the winners of the qualifiers can advance to the existing Worlds or Olympics format, even if some countries have 2 entrants. But UWW is also trying to expand the sport, not have the same countries dominate every year.

Hah, yeah. Monster Energy is picking up the tab on designing, producing, and rolling out the Big 12 patch, so they'll have a lot of creative control over how it looks, too. I believe the deal also includes incorporating the Monster Big 12 logo onto playing fields and in arenas and scoreboards, lol. Some oher patch+ deals that come to mind are MSU ($40M/10yr deal with a local credit union for all sports) and Army, Navy, and Air Force (each $10M/5yr deal with USAA). I think Illinois signed a $30M/5yr deal with Busey Bank for football, bball, vball, baseball/softball, soccer, and golf (but not wrestling? WTF), and Wyoming (Tallgrass Energy) and Wisconsin (UW Health, Culver's) have patch deals that specifically excludes wrestling. Outside the sport, Notre Dame, KU, Memphis, Cal, Wazzu, UNLV, New Mexico, LSU, and Arkansas have all signed some nice patch+ deals. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch, it's too hard to keep up with. Would be nice if those schools used some of that money to start mens & womens wrestling teams, though we all know how that goes.

Yep, goes straight to the Athletic Dept but it covers all tOSU sports though I am assuming it will be divvied proportionally with revenue or something along those lines. Okie State also has a smaller 3-year patch deal with Osage Nation covering all sports (so, another patch on Oklahoma State singlets), but the rumor is that pretty much all of the money will go to football, basketball, and ops/compliance. Money from the Big 12's deal with Monster Energy goes to the conference, which is reportedly taking a $4M cut before distributing the rest to member schools (about $1M each). I think the Monster sponsorship will be integrated with the Big 12's logo so that it won't count towards the 2+1 patch maximum for each school/sport.

Chase logo on singlets this year: Ohio State inked a $17M patch deal last week with Chase for all tOSU sports. I can imagine how the money will be divided between tOSU's 36 sports teams, but still - that's around 80% of their annual revshare budget, which just went up to $21.3M/yr. https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/49469951/ohio-state-jpmorganchase-reach-lucrative-jersey-patch-deal Sorta old news by now, since Notre Dame just closed a bigger deal with SoFi. The Big 12 also landed an all-conference patch deal with Monster Energy but IIRC it's only for football and basketball.

I like the idea. The way to get it done and for teams to take it seriously is for someone or some company to put up a team cash prize for it. Would also love to see a team award for the most cumulative points (either team points or preferably, points scored in matches).

Nice to see a list of contenders that isn't clogged with Big Ten wrestlers, and a bit surprising that SVN is on the bottom half of some people's AA picks. That said, I think SVN figures it out and wins the weight next season, based only on the fact that I enjoy watching how efficiently he wrestles and holds his space.

Thanks for sharing that. Great interview. Bader asked all the right questions and Grant was very forthcoming and honest about how things played out, including his own accountability. I really feel for him after pouring so much into making it happen and you can see how painful it is to him as he reflects back on it. Expectations were high, but Leeth was assigned a big task and was learning as he was going. If nothing else, I hope this shows other D1 programs in Texas and the South that there's an appetite for college wrestling. Building a roster of 64 on short time and at TSU is impressive.

Reality tv

The optics are messing with my head. I didn't know that 141 was a big cut for him and that he looked big at 149. I thought he was a little scrawny for 141, esp compared to Mendez, Ech, etc., and had yet to fill-out. Any idea what he walks around at?

With the new eligibility rules (probably), how crazy would it be if Vega one upped Dake and Starocci, and won five titles at five different weights?

Standard UWW lost in translation quote. I laughed at the students and my flat mates are really strong, so I'm learning a hell of a lot from them". Along with the Trader Joe's employee t-shirt.

Also majoring in philosophy as an ESL student who hates school is pretty wild. But he has a 3.74 GPA

UWW posted an interview with Ono today. My quick takeaways: Ono prefers folkstyle to freestyle but still considers himself a novice after a year in the room. Expects to have just one season of eligibility. Walks around at 64kg (141lbs) and will be competing in Japan at 61kg in July. Dealing with tweener issues and isn't sure which weight he projects at for 2028. Sounds like he's discovered American food so 57kg might be a tough weight cut. https://uww.org/article/ono-interview-comeback-penn-state-folkstyle-2028-la-olympics