Canzano: Oregon State parting ways with Brent Blaylock... and Blueprint Sports
Exclusive: The story behind the story.
Oregon State’s football team was winless in early October and preparing to board a charter plane from Eugene Airport to Boone, N.C.
This was the first Thursday of the month. The Beavers hadn’t even buckled up for the plane trip to play against Appalachian State, but turbulence was already brewing.
Not far from the tarmac, OSU was in damage-control mode. Brent Blaylock, the school’s deputy athletic director and chief operating officer, had been ordered to perform a media blitz by his boss, Athletic Director Scott Barnes.
Blaylock was sitting in his car in the airport parking lot, conducting a series of phone interviews. The subject: Blueprint Sports.
In August, Blueprint announced it bought Dam Nation — Oregon State’s official NIL collective — from founder Kyle Bjornstad. The entity then struck a three-year operating agreement with OSU. That deal came with a less-than-optimum revenue-split structure and confusion about whether the first $750,000 in fundraising was guaranteed. I spoke with Blaylock as he sat in his car at the airport that day.
He told me: “That first initial tier — that $0 to $750,000 — Blueprint is taking zero of those dollars.”
Blaylock is meeting with officials at Oregon State on Monday, I’m told. How much will Blaylock be paid on his way out? What’s the public messaging? What’s clear is that the relationship between OSU and the deputy AD is about to come to an end.
The agreement Blaylock helped orchestrate between Oregon State and Blueprint Sports is also being unwound, sources tell me. A formal announcement that the sides have “mutually” agreed to part ways is expected as early as Tuesday.
According to a source with knowledge of that deal, “What will eventually come out is that the $750,000 ‘guarantee’ was not actually guaranteed. At least it’s not written in the contract that way.”
The contract also includes an $850,000 separation fee. Officials at OSU and Blueprint negotiated throughout the weekend, per sources. The Beavers are expected to pay a reduced sum in the range of $150,000 to $284,000 to exit the deal.
Dam Nation Collective was built on small-town charm, authenticity, and sweat. Kyle Bjornstad, a former basketball player at OSU, closed deals with handshakes and was careful to follow through with his promises to athletes and donors.
The House v. NCAA settlement tossed the industry on its head. Revenue-sharing with athletes was being brought in-house. According to emails I’ve obtained, Bjornstad informed the school on March 30 that he planned to dissolve Dam Nation, effective July 1.
Bjornstad said the tandem of Barnes and Blaylock convinced him it was better to sell Dam Nation to a third party instead of closing it down. The school coveted the more than $240,000 in annual recurring monthly membership donations that were flowing into the NIL entity. That didn’t include major gifts or corporate sponsorships.
The sale of Dam Nation to Blueprint Sports, however, has turned into a raging mess.
“I’m extremely disappointed,” Bjornstad told me. “That entity was carefully and thoughtfully built over several years, and they managed to tear it down in two short months.”
Emails and Text Messages Tell the Story
Kyle Bjornstad’s emails and text messages tell an interesting story. They scream it, in fact. He was uneasy about selling Dam Nation to Blueprint Sports and expressed reservations. Bjornstad encouraged OSU to explore another potential partner he’d sourced — Lockerverse.
On June 14, Athletic Director Scott Barnes was in Omaha to watch the Beavers’ baseball team participate in the College World Series. At 7:55 p.m. that evening, Bjornstad forwarded the AD an email that included a two-year proposal from Lockerverse.
“Scott,” Bjornstad wrote in the body of the email, “please see below.”
Lockerverse’s proposal would guarantee Oregon State a minimum $288,000 payment each year. Under the agreement, Lockerverse would recoup that investment, then split anything raised above $288,000. OSU would receive 75 percent of those dollars, and Lockerverse would take a 25 percent share.
Barnes replied to Bjornstad the following morning at 8:45 a.m. The AD wrote, “This doesn’t come close to the deal we have. Not worth exploring at all from our perspective. We would like to move forward with Blueprint with your blessing.”
Why go with Blueprint?
Money, of course.
“You don’t say ‘No’ to $750,000 if you’re Oregon State athletics,” said the source. “Also, Brent presented Blueprint to Barnes as being the best in service. It could do memberships, events, the sky was the limit.”
Blueprint would collect an annual $284,000 management fee for that work. It would also take 75 percent of the revenue raised between $750,000 and $1.15 million. OSU got 25 percent. Above that, the revenue would be split 50-50.
It might be an OK deal if the athletic department were getting a guarantee of an untouched $750,000 up front, sure. But that’s not how the deal was structured on paper. Back-of-the-napkin math leaves Oregon State with a net of $466,000 of the first $750,000 raised because of the management fee.
Blueprint Sports Founder, Rob Sine, had suggested to Bjornstad and his attorney during negotiations that it didn’t need to buy Dam Nation to move forward with Oregon State. Maybe he was negotiating, but Bjornstad says Sine told him that Blueprint could just start a new NIL collective from scratch.
That threat chapped Bjornstad.
“Our recent dealings with Blueprint have been underwhelming and unprofessional,” Bjornstad wrote to Barnes in an email on June 15.
During Blaylock’s media pitch in October, he told me that there was massive upside in the Blueprint deal. He pointed to the company’s established connections with national sponsors and called Blueprint “an absolute leader” in the NIL space.
“We’re getting four-plus years of their experience, their experiences, their best practices, their what-to-do and what-not-to-do,” Blaylock said.
That sounds great, but what OSU needed most of all was money.
For the sake of an easy comparison, let’s use $1.15 million as the amount of potential revenue raised. It’s a sweet spot given the revenue split, but it paints a telling picture. Under the Lockerverse terms, OSU would net $934,500 of those dollars. Under the Blueprint Sports contract, OSU nets only $566,000.
Blaylock publicly touted the ability of Blueprint to blow past larger fundraising thresholds during his media blitz. However, if it were $3 million raised under the Lockerverse deal, Oregon State would clear $2.32 million.
With Blueprint, the Beavers would get only $1.49 million.
On June 16, a text message was sent from Blaylock to Bjornstad, underscoring the need to move forward with Blueprint and give it control of Dam Nation.
It read: “OK. Scott and I are here to help with facilitating a deal getting done with Blueprint that works for you. 100 percent respect that it is your company and fully your decision, but he and I have discussed the significant concerns about the negative impact to all parties involved if there are multiple entities in the market. We are open to hearing what we can provide to get both sides back in agreement. Feel free to call if that’s easier as a conversation.”
Did OSU want a guarantee of $288,000 from Lockerverse?
Or $750,000 from Blueprint?
Given the extra support and staffing that Blueprint offered, it must have looked like a no-brainer. But all that landed with a thud when the contract details went public in a Sportico report.
Resignation Day Raises Questions
After the sale of Dam Nation, Kyle Bjornstad operated as the “General Manager” of the Oregon State Athletic Department. He was contracted at $150,000 a year in salary. His duties included working with OSU coaches and agents, as well as designing compensation plans and fostering NIL deals.
It’s a wide-ranging job.
By all appearances, Bjornstad appeared to enjoy it, too. Right up until he walked into Scott Barnes’ office and resigned on Oct. 2. That raised eyebrows in the fan base, as it came just days after a Sportico published OSU’s contract with Blueprint Sports.
Bjornstad was obviously ticked off.
“A variety of reasons,” he told me.
He felt like he’d been misled during the Blueprint negotiation. He wondered if he was being fashioned as a scapegoat in the aftermath of the deal. No doubt, Bjornstad cared more about Dam Nation than anyone. He built it. Watching it be run by Blueprint broke his heart.
“This is not how it was built,” he said. “This is not how it was supposed to go. It’s not just me, Beaver Nation built it.”
Barnes, 63, is under contract at OSU through June 30, 2030. He has the support of OSU President Jayathi Murthy. I expect Barnes may go public this week, answer questions about the Blueprint deal, and discuss Blaylock’s impending departure.
Blaylock and OSU are about to part ways. Those terms are being negotiated. Maybe it turns out the sides were a clumsy fit in a rapidly changing athletics world.
The Beavers’ deal with Blueprint appears done, too.
Great reporting, John. It's just one thing after another with Barnes. Clearly, he's a huge part of the problem and needs to be the next one to go. Barnes should have NOTHING to do with hiring OSU's next football coach.
To cancel a Dam Nation membership, a monthly recurring charge, one sends an email. There is no formal cancelation link on the DN site. After sending email, crickets. Four days later, recurring fee taken from credit card. No biggie but I then demanded an acknowledgment email that cancelation request had been received, which was received. Will see next month if fee taken again. Annoying. Grandson is a senior so my support is high but ticked at the shenanigans at the adults in DN.