Notre Dame is ready for athletes to profit but still 'waiting on the rules'
Mario Morris, Notre Dame's Deputy Athletic Director, discussed how COVID-19 impacted college sports and the future of NCAA athletes earning sponsorships with Yahoo Finance.
Video transcript
SEANA SMITH: To the pandemic's impact on sports, and specifically we want to talk about college sports. So we know the pandemic not only affected seasons, but it's also affecting the recruiting process right now. So for more on that, we want to bring in Notre Dame's Deputy Athletic Director, Mario Morris. And we're also joined by Yahoo Finance's reporter, Reggie Wade. Mario, it's great to have you here on Yahoo Finance. Let's just talk, because the past year has been extremely difficult for athletic directors across the country. You've been faced with many, many tough decisions. What lasting impact do you think the pandemic has had or will have on sports going forward on college sports?
MARIO MORRIS: Thank you for having me. I think that the pandemic as you mentioned, has had really a tough impact on college athletics. I think you know, I'm more positive. I think that what we've learned, is that we can adapt and that we can be flexible and we can learn how to do things a little bit differently. And that's why we've taken it here at Notre Dame, and I know at many institutions across the country. We've got to be able to do things differently going forward. And so I'm positive, I'm learning those, we're learning those lessons out of the pandemic that we can be flexible and that we can adapt.
REGGIE WADE: Mr. Morris, you're a former student athlete yourself. You were part of that 1992 national championship team out of Alabama. How do you feel that your athletes at Notre Dame handled this unprecedented year?
MARIO MORRIS: It was very difficult year for all student athletes. I couldn't have imagined going through this when I played. But I think that our student athletes handled it very well with regards to testing and the protocols. Notre Dame was ready to play in more instances than not. And so our people, our young people just handled it very, very well. There were a lot of incidents throughout the year that were tough on us. And so our student athletes are just tremendous young people. They came together. And we want them to lead, and we gave them an opportunity to do that. And they came through just very well.
REGGIE WADE: Do you feel that there's more of a sense of optimism not only coming from the athletes, but the university as a whole as we're trying to get to the other side of this pandemic?
MARIO MORRIS: I do. You can sort of feel it in the air, to be honest with you. We just had our blue, gold game, our spring game, and you can tell that everybody was really excited. You can tell that the student athletes are really excited. They're ready to go through a typical offseason where many of them will be here taking courses and training. And I know they're excited to compete. We had an opportunity to compete a lot this year, and we're very grateful for that. We're very grateful for the leadership of the university that helped us, enabled us to do that. And so our student athletes are ready to go, and we're excited for them.
ADAM SHAPIRO: I cut my teeth in Mishawaka a billion years ago at WSJV. I've been to the grotto on campus, I watched friends light candles. I got to ask you, I love the Midwest, but when you talked about that spring game, that was stream. It was on Peacock TV. Do you see Notre Dame getting into more of that kind of contract negotiation for its games and perhaps traditional linear television? WSJV doesn't exist anymore, by the way. Linear television, go the way of say the Model T?
MARIO MORRIS: Well, I think that's going to be something we consider as we go forward, right. We still have a contract with NBC, but you know, over the years, we've built out our production capabilities, and that helped us this year. We're actually able to produce football games. And so we're excited about that. We're excited about that capability and what opportunities that might provide for us going forward.
REGGIE WADE: Mr. Morris, you're also the CFO for Business Operations at the university, and in the past, you said that college athletics has always had many free market principles. How do you think that will now translate as we go forward trying to march through the pandemic?
MARIO MORRIS: So you know, when I spoke about sort of free market principles, you know, we actually, we actually are a business in many respects. And so in many respects we have to run like a business. And so that means taking advantage of all your opportunities to reduce expenses, to streamline your operations, to look at new revenue streams.
One of the things that we did coming out of the pandemic was form a committee that looked at diversifying our revenue streams. And we've got a lot of great ideas going into next year. And we're really excited about that. And so you know, coming out of this pandemic I think Notre Dame's going to be ready to go, whether it's the streamlining operations or diversifying revenue streams, finding new revenue streams that aren't dependent upon game day revenue. It's really important for us.
SEANA SMITH: We also have this new congressional bill right now, and it's aiming to make name, image, and likeness a right here for athletes. How is Notre Dame looking at this? And I guess, how are you planning to potentially assist your players in this?
MARIO MORRIS: As you might know, Notre Dame has been leading on this. Father John Jenkins, our president, wrote an op-ed in 2015 talking about name, image and likeness benefits for our student athletes. And our athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, has also been out front on this issue. Notre Dame expects to lead on this issue. We expect to support our student athletes. We've had committees working very, very hard over the past three or four months. We sat in our presentation with them last week, we've chosen our third party partner and we're ready to support our student athletes in this effort. We're waiting on the rules, but we're preparing for it all.
ADAM SHAPIRO: When you say preparing for at all, what might it look like say two years down the road for the student athlete going forward?
MARIO MORRIS: You know, I think that's a great question, because I think what I say right now will change by two years. But how we think about this, thinking about the rules that have been proposed thus far, a student athlete will be able to build his or her brand. They'll be able to go out on social media and build their following and be able to take advantage of sponsorship opportunities. I think student athletes will have more freedom to build businesses, you know, like other students on campus. I think they'll just have more freedom.
In saying that, I think we do have to have safeguards. I think we have to be careful that this doesn't become all of the student athlete experience, and that we're still doing this for the right reasons and helping them to grow intellectually, to help them grow athletically, and to help them grow as people. And so I want to make sure we stay focused on that promise. But it will look different, definitely a lot differently than what it was when I played or now.
