Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork was a guest on WOSU’s All Sides with Amy Juravich this morning and discussed several issues at a time when college sports are at a crossroads.
Here are highlights from their conversation:
*Bjork said the sponsorship with JPMorganChase announced last week will last “five-plus” years. He said the process for seeking a sponsorship, which includes jersey patches on all of OSU’s 36 varsity teams, began about 18 months ago. Bjork wouldn’t confirm – nor did he deny – that Chase will pay $17 million annually to OSU.
“We’re not going to release the financial terms,” Bjork said. “JPMorganChase has proprietary things that they need to protect. We have trade secrets as well.”
When Juravich read an email from a listener who questioned why Ohio State needed the money, Bjork said the uncertain financial terrain for college sports makes it necessary to fundraise at a high level.
“Right now we don’t have a lot of cost certainty when it comes to NIL rights and player compensation,” Bjork said. “We have to drive revenue.
“We make a lot of money, but we spend every penny. Every dollar goes back into our program.”
*The Protect College Sports Act has passed some hurdles in the United States Senate, but it’s unclear whether it will advance before senators go on recess in two days.
Bjork said he would have preferred the more limited SCORE Act that died in the House of Representatives instead of the PCSA bill in the Senate. The SCORE Act would have established anti-trust protection and replaced the piecemeal state-by-state structure in place now. It would have allowed players to transfer only once without having to sit out a year.
“The skinnier bill, in our mind, was a lot better,” Bjork said.
The Senate bill is more comprehensive.
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