Canzano: Diving into a bowl of lobster bisque
Oregon State NIL losses, MW-Pac-12 mediation, and a bunch of other stuff.
Is Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse throwing shade at recent reports that his school might be willing to take a reduced media-rights distribution to join the Pac-12 Conference?
His “bowl of soup” social media post crossed my desk on Thursday. The photo features a giant bowl of lobster bisque soup — filled to the brim. I wondered if Damphousse (rhymes with “Memphis”) was talking about the Pac-12 without actually talking about the Pac-12.
Or maybe the post was aimed at the Mountain West?
Texas State is a member of the Sun Belt Conference. It has emerged a few times as a possible expansion target, and there’s been speculation that the Bobcats might be willing to take a half share (or even nothing) in the early years of a media deal to incentivize a move.
The rest of the president’s social media timeline plays more down the middle of the fairway. There are a couple of recent tweets about the beauty of his campus, a celebration of Texas State’s upset of No. 5-ranked Texas in baseball, and a note about the beginning of school registration.
Maybe Damphousse was headed to Reagan National Airport (DCA) and wanted the world to know he’s a “full bowl” guy. Or maybe he was doing some old-fashioned negotiating with a new-fashioned subtweet. I back-channeled and eventually connected with Damphousse on Friday morning hoping to set the record straight.
The president told me he’s not doing interviews right now. But when I pressed him for clarification on Thursday’s tweet he obliged and said: “I’m a huge lobster bisque fan. If it’s on the menu, I’m getting it.”
Damphousse told me the soup bit is a long-standing joke between himself and Texas State Athletic Director Don Coryell. They’re Seinfeld sitcom fans.
“We were at a restaurant right after I was hired and they had lobster bisque on the menu,” Damphousse told me. “I said ‘Yada Yada’ and he said ‘You are KIDDING me!’”
Now, if either of the campus leaders is ever somewhere and one of them orders bisque, they exchange photos and a review. OK, but was his tweet a veiled negotiation ploy aimed at the Pac-12? Or the MW? Was my mind right to make the leap from soup to realignment? What do you think?
The president didn’t answer. Damphousse instead pointed out that he’d previously tweeted about soup on a few occasions.
“If I had a dollar for every time I posted about bisque,” he said.
MEDIATION UPDATE
• The Mountain West Conference and Pac-12 are planning to mediate their dispute over a $55 million antitrust “poaching penalty” lawsuit. The sides got a 60-day stay from the U.S. District Court in Northern California, but I’m told mediation has not started.
“They haven’t even picked a mediator,” said a source, late on Thursday.
• There will be a lot of interest in the mediation outcome. The MW used tens of millions in projected payments from the Pac-12 and other exit fees to hold UNLV and Air Force in place.
• The Pac-12 offered UNLV membership last September, and got turned down. If the money isn’t there, the contract binding the Runnin’ Rebels to the MW could unravel. The American Athletic Conference feels like a natural landing spot for Air Force, if so. The American would love to put Air Force alongside Army and Navy.
• Gloria Nevarez, the MW commissioner, has multiple lawsuits to defend. In addition to the Pac-12’s antitrust suit, her conference is being sued over the $17 million per school exit fees by Boise State, Utah State, and Colorado State. Everyone expects settlements there, too. Nevarez needs to keep enough settlement money to keep UNLV and Air Force in the fold.
Said one source who is closely monitoring the discussions: “If she doesn’t land the plane, all bets are off.”
• Why aren’t San Diego State and Fresno State also suing the MW over exit fees, too? The answer has to do with San Jose State. All three schools are members of the same California State University educational system. The Aztecs and Bulldogs are leaving for the Pac-12 in 2026. The Spartans are staying behind in the MW. The individual CSU system campuses are not separate legal entities and can not appear as parties in any lawsuit. Basically, they can’t sue each other.
FINAL FOUR CONNECTION
• Will Graves is currently a graduate assistant with the basketball team at Florida. He’s coaching in the Final Four this weekend with the Gators. He also played for Gonzaga, where he went to the Final Four. And his father, Kelly, is the Oregon women’s basketball coach, who coached in a Final Four himself.
Will Graves has participated in three of the last six Final Fours in some fashion. That feels like the answer to a trivia question.
• The Auburn-Florida national semifinal looks like the junior varsity game in the Final Four. Duke-Houston is the varsity game. I picked the Blue Devils to win it all, but we’ve all seen how well coached and talented Kelvin Sampson’s team is. Tell me who you think plays in the national title game in the comment section. I’m going with Florida vs. Duke.
ALL ABOUT THE MONEY
• There’s a lot of angst in the Oregon State fan base about the losses in the transfer portal. It appears the Beavers are going all-in on football when it comes to NIL support. The football program dug deep to get quarterback Maliik Murphy a $1.5 million NIL deal, as I previously reported. It also spent another $500,000 combined on tight ends Jackson Bowers (BYU transfer) and Riley Williams (Miami).
It hasn’t been as encouraging with OSU basketball. Forward Michael Rataj collected $80,000 in NIL payments to play in Corvallis last season, per a source. The Beavers were trying to be proactive, I’m told, and cobble together a $300,000 offer for next season, but it didn’t materialize in time. Also, it fell woefully short of a spiking market. Rataj is headed to Baylor, where he’s getting seven figures, per a source with knowledge.
Nate Kingz left OSU, too.
He landed a $700,000 payday from Syracuse, per sources.
Parsa Fallah?
I was told by a source that the Beavers were trying in the final month of the season to get together a $200,000 offer to keep Fallah around for next season. It did not materialize, either. He’s now in the portal and expected to command more than $500,000.
Some of this feels like the prioritization of football, where more revenue is needed. I also think the market is nuts right now. There are some collectives dumping cash in anticipation of looming NIL regulation and the House settlement.
• A Big Ten Conference head basketball coach told me this week that the biggest thing that matters to players is money.
“I’m not naming names, but we’d recruited one player hard and we were in third place and offering $300,000,” the coach told me. “The agent wanted $450,000. They said if we went to $400,000 in a lump sum payment upfront, the kid would come. We aren’t comfortable with that, but we decided to bump the offer up to $350,000 and suddenly the kid loves us. We were paying the most so we got the commitment. This business has changed.”
• A person who is a respected donor at one of the new-look Pac-12 NIL collectives hit me up after a recent board meeting. The school’s NIL arm is plotting and trying to keep pace with the rest of the conference’s collectives. The post-meeting comment: “These NIL board meetings suck.”
I asked why.
The reply: “Big donors want control.”
RATTLING THE SABERS
• Keep an eye on Congressman Michael Baumgartner, who hails from the state of Washington. The freshman lawmaker is focused on legislative work in Washington, D.C. aimed at leveling the playing field in college athletics.
Baumgartner, you may recall, was tight with late football coach, Mike Leach. They taught a college course together on “insurgent warfare and football strategy.” The lawmaker is talking about ending the NCAA and creating a new entity led by a Presidential appointee.
He’s suggesting that college athletes should share pooled NIL distributions and that TV revenue should be shared equally “across all schools and all sports.” Baumgartner wants to protect Olympic sports and said that participation in the model should be “voluntary” for schools wishing to continue to be eligible for federal student financial aid, the lifeblood of campus.
Said Baumgartner: “We don’t need a second NFL, controlled by corporate TV execs with all of the money going to football in the SEC and Big Ten.”
Hopefully Baumgartner can get some common sense into the NIL mess. The playing field needs to be leveled so large and small, wealthy and otherwise wise schools all have the same opportunity as before to recruit talented players.
My bracket has Florida playing Duke on Monday Night for a national championship with Florida having their one shining moment as national champions