Sportonomics

Ten years ago, a few thousand dollars in player stipends was supposed to be the end of college sports, and now schools pay athletes millions while 92 percent of athletic departments still lose money. Tyler and Jake sit down with researcher Greg Chick, who has filed thousands of public records requests to track where the cash comes from and where it goes, to unpack why the Saban effect is shakier than it sounds, how the term “student athlete” was invented to dodge a lawsuit, and why the NCAA is a cop asleep on the beat. Along the way they ask whether football eventually breaks off into its own league, what taxpayers are actually buying, and why nobody can agree who is in charge.Subscribe to Greg’s weekly newsletter on the finances of college athletics: https://www.nilnomics.com/⏱️ Timestamps00:00 Intro00:37 From Admin to PhD02:12 Where the Money Comes From05:44 The Saban Effect06:46 The Front Porch Theory09:47 The Amateurism Myth11:51 Birth of the Student Athlete14:58 Paving the Cow Paths15:47 The Family Budget Problem19:04 What Is the NCAA For21:41 The Caste System23:24 Funding the Olympics24:40 Fake NIL26:14 Where the Data Hides29:15 Wrestlers Making Six Figures30:07 Donor Fatigue32:17 Horse Racing Math34:34 Taxpayers in the Stands37:28 The Spider-Man Problem39:43 Why the NCAA Sleeps41:42 Football Breaks Away44:55 What to Watch Next46:43 Guest Wrap-Up47:49 Solo Debrief50:57 A Million Paper Cuts54:19 Outro

A paratrooper walking into Notre Dame Stadium sparked an idea that has since put an unusual ankle brace on NFL and college sidelines: strap it on the outside of the shoe instead of the inside. Tyler and Jake talk with Gavin Ferlic, the lawyer behind TayCo, about how an athletic trainer’s fix for his own players spread by word of mouth, why a design built on the same principle as an I beam is about two and a half times more stable, and how the brace is named after the inventor’s wife and daughters. They also dig into a special operations study, the line between injury prevention and performance enhancement, and the surprising truth that most TayCo wearers aren’t football players at all.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 Intro00:33 A Lawyer Walks Into Sports Medicine01:48 The Paratrooper Moment04:13 Built in South Bend05:20 First Game Action06:30 Beyond the Tape08:11 The I Beam Principle10:44 Not Just for Athletes13:25 Why Tape It Anyway14:28 Word of Mouth15:41 One Word: Confidence17:11 Custom to Injection Molded20:04 Who Approves This Thing21:40 Prevention or Performance23:21 Special Ops Test Group25:08 Baseball and Golf Bonus26:13 Is It a Fashion Statement26:47 The Football Research28:34 Notre Dame Owns the Patent29:48 Beyond the Ankle34:41 Obvious Ideas Win37:21 Outro

Barrick Prince watched the cable box peak in 2017 and bet his entire career on what comes next: live sports delivered through streamers and creators instead of channels. The founder of Creator Sports Network joins Tyler and Jake to explain how a Twitch experiment with Thursday Night Football cut the median NFL viewer’s age by 11 years, why he invented a brand new category of broadcast rights, and how a company with no commercial breaks actually makes money. Then the hosts push on the hardest questions, like why Netflix and the big platforms haven’t just done this themselves and whether anyone can afford to wait for the industry to catch up.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 Intro00:45 Uncharted Territory01:27 The Cable Peak04:28 The Odell Tangent05:43 Betting on the Puck09:08 Wrong About Twitch12:36 No New Channels Needed14:11 Leaving Twitch15:57 The One Championship Test18:02 Network and Affiliates22:04 Zeros on the Check24:42 Inventing a Rights Window28:34 Brand Safety30:30 One Brand, Three Hours32:26 Upstairs, Downstairs36:44 Why Not Netflix42:03 Just Hang Out44:40 Solo Debrief45:14 Do You Buy It?48:35 A Path for Broadcasters49:38 More Than a Network51:56 Outro

Every year, photos of athletes in red contact lenses go viral, and every year the same rumor returns that they were banned for being too good. Tyler and Jake sit down with Dr. Alan Reichow, the vision scientist who helped build the Nike MaxSight and now runs its successor, to find out what those tints really do, why a footwear giant got into eyewear, and what actually happened to the original. The answers involve a secret college baseball experiment, a two-hour pitch to Phil Knight, and a surprising reason it took more than a decade to bring the lenses back.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 Intro00:42 Our First Doctor02:17 Birth of MaxSight03:57 Why Nike Cares About Eyes05:27 Pitching Phil Knight08:55 A Football Family13:25 Nike’s First Eyewear19:22 Contacts Through History22:53 Baseball Guinea Pigs28:11 Sunglasses Are Lying32:05 Gray, Amber, Champagne47:45 Banned? Not Even Close49:55 Winning It Back54:09 Who Wears Them Now55:51 Game Day Legal1:01:28 Why Nike Walked Away1:07:21 Outro

Jack Rasmussen couldn't read until he was 20, didn't play football until he was 23, and had zero background in footwear, yet somehow built the cleat technology now worn by 100 unpaid NFL players. Tyler and Jake dig into the wild origin story: a viral video, a 4 million-view overnight blowup, and a 13-hour drive to chase down his first investor. They also get into the harder questions, like how a five-person company proves its tech actually works and why Nike hasn't swooped in to take it. It's a startup story that sounds too strange to be true, except it is.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 — Intro00:44 — The Injury That Started It03:08 — The Dream Team: A marketing guy and a housekeeper walk into biomechanics04:06 — Flex 12 Degrees, Rotate 360: What a "smart stud" actually does06:17 — Why the easy version got vetoed07:27 — Learned to Punt on YouTube09:00 — "These Are the Rasmussens"12:58 — The Mount Everest of footwear16:38 — Four Years in Limbo20:11 — Four Million Views Overnight: Going viral with zero product to sell21:14 — The 13-Hour Drive to "Phoenix": How Todd Heap became investor number one23:14 — Selling Hundreds of Pairs From a Drawing: The presale before the product existed24:06 — How you value a company with no revenue27:45 — Losing money to get in the league29:01 — The Madden Cover Mystery: Blurred-out cleats and Nike's billion-dollar deal33:41 — Jake's Hard Question: Is this just the next balance bracelet?35:08 — The Data They Can't Share Yet39:15 — Why cleats might need a helmet-style safety rating43:32 — Waiting for Nike to Wake Up: Sleeping with one eye open on a giant46:46 — What the next 21 months look like for Caddix54:25 — Outro

For the first time, Jake flips the mic around — putting Tyler in the guest chair to unpack the entire, occasionally chaotic story of how he became a full-time content creator. From basement Halloween-costume skits filmed straight into a webcam, to a scammy Wild West era of follow-for-follow growth hacks, to the exact 45-second video that finally broke through and changed everything, this is the origin story Tyler says he's never told this fully before. It's raw, reflective, and full of the insecurities most creators never admit to on camera.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 — Intro00:40 — The Guest Nobody Saw Coming02:38 — Basement Sketch Comedy: Halloween costumes, a clown under the table, and a webcam05:00 — Early YouTube obsession, pre-strategy07:25 — The Green Bay Discovery09:34 — Pre-Med, Wrong Reasons: One chemistry class ends a doctor dream11:58 — Ten Employees, Zero Dollars: The most over-organized unpaid Twitter account in history16:37 — Instagram pages, Nate Dorton, and Phenom Elite18:05 — The Wild West Era: Follow-unfollow apps, $10 shoutouts, and getting scammed constantly21:19 — Uncle Charlie Is Born: From service business to full-blown agency24:09 — The gap between growth and actually getting paid28:19 — Talking About vs. Doing the Thing29:56 — The Savannah Bananas Video: From 800 views to 200,000 overnight31:42 — What actually unlocked the breakthrough34:52 — Same Camera, Seven Years: Why the process barely changed39:32 — Why short-form success still isn't "enough"44:13 — Ignoring the Shiny Objects46:48 — Relearning how to enjoy sports without filming it49:56 — Advice for Aspiring Creators: Throw it at the wall for 30 days51:32 — Outro

Bond Almand just biked to all 30 NFL stadiums — 11,000-plus miles in 65 days — and it's not even his craziest idea. This week, Tyler and Jake sit down with the ultra-endurance cyclist who broke the Alaska-to-Argentina record; they learn what it actually takes to build a sport from scratch with zero teams or leagues, and hear about the next audacious goal on his list: biking from Cape Town, South Africa to the southern tip of Argentina. It's part athlete interview, part crash course in the brutal economics of being your own brand when your job is suffering on camera for a living.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 — Intro00:45 — How Do You Even Get This Job?02:02 — The Letter to Argentina: A note from Alaska, reread at the end of the world03:59 — Curiosity Over Comfort05:59 — The Impossible Gap: Flying over the one stretch you legally can't bike07:47 — Breaking the Record by Nine Days08:46 — Building a sport as a privateer11:19 — The Mark Dowdle Comparison: Pulling the sport forward instead of riding its coattails14:25 — The Three-Act Suffering Story: Why audiences don't like pain, they like stakes21:58 — How a Wi-Fi Company Found Him22:41 — The AI Ethics Gut Check26:10 — Racing the Story, Not the Clock: Why 175 miles a day beat 25029:37 — Waffles and Hotel Rooms: A day in the life of a cross-country cyclist32:20 — The Death Valley detour nobody asked for40:12 — Tyler's unsolicited advice on shortening the idea-to-post gap42:35 — The Nightclub Bouncer Theory45:44 — Stepping Onto the Field: Sixty thousand fans, forty-five seconds46:47 — The Impossible Next Goal: Biking from Cape Town to Argentina, frozen Bering Strait included55:58 — The Creator Middle Ground: Why recap content is getting squeezed out58:30 — Outro

There's a 23-year-old who ran over a hundred YouTube channels staffed by $26-an-hour Fiverr actors reading AI-written scripts...and collectively, they pulled more views than the New York Times. Jake came back from the woods with a new term for this corner of the internet ("ghost creators") and a surprisingly optimistic case for them; Tyler came in with a Semaphore investigation and a lot of skepticism. What follows is a genuinely unresolved debate about who polices manufactured news, where authentic content ends and paid acting begins, and what's left for real creators when views become a commodity.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 — Intro01:13 — Introducing the "Ghost Creator"06:01 — Influencer, Creator, or Celebrity?09:04 — Why "user generated" usually isn't10:25 — Blame TikTok Shop: When authenticity became a commission rate12:35 — $26 a Video: Inside the Semaphore ghost creator investigation14:11 — Bragging Your Way to a Ban: The dumbest possible way to run a secret network16:30 — Manufacturing News vs. Reporting It: Gaming YouTube's breaking-news signal20:04 — The Paid Actor Precedent22:37 — Whose Job Is This, Anyway?: Platforms, incentives, and the responsibility question24:18 — The Detection Problem: Why AI tags are harder than they look27:27 — "Too Big to Solve" Is Not an Excuse31:28 — The Big Tobacco Playbook: Going after the biggest actors first33:14 — More Views Than the New York Times: What that means for real creators35:20 — Clipping Accounts and Stolen Good Ideas: Can anything nefarious be repurposed?36:46 — Pick a Lane: Fastest or Best: Why speed is the first thing AI takes38:13 — Outro

PeteTakes turned a fantasy football weatherman bit and a parody song into a career — but somewhere along the way, he learned the hard way that getting paid for something you love can quietly ruin why you loved it in the first place. Tyler sits down with the creator behind "Coop DeJean Is Not a Safety" to unpack the slow climb from 43 TikTok followers to a booming business, the brand deals he's turned down, and where exactly the line sits between sports betting content and selling out your audience. It's a rare, honest look at what it actually costs to build an audience...and what it costs to keep it.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 — Intro01:00 — The Glazing Segment03:06 — Why boredom built his imagination06:04 — VHS Confessions: Childhood home videos and a theory about creative kids13:43 — The quiet start of an account with no face attached16:24 — The Fantasy Football Weatherman Era18:34 — 20,000 Followers: When it stopped feeling like a hobby19:53 — The Song vs. The Business: Why the viral hit isn't what pays the bills21:53 — The $50 Deal That Started It All23:39 — What happens when passion turns into paychecks26:05 — The Influencer Cliff: Falling off the edge of relatability30:15 — Legacy Media's Blind Spot: Why ESPN can't say no to a sportsbook34:51 — Closed Loop vs. Open Market38:07 — Why nobody bets to actually win45:10 — The DC Internship He Didn't Take48:58 — The Pep Talk: Why there's no better time to go all in54:38 — Outro

Nine seasons in the NFL, one torn Achilles, and a newborn later, Austin Ekeler is rebuilding his career in real time — not on the field, but inside Claude Code. Tyler sits down with the former Chargers and Commanders running back to talk free agency at 31, the surprisingly firm rules around players and fantasy football, and Austin's bigger bet: turning fantasy sports into a legitimate profession with its own "pro card." It's part locker-room confession, part startup pitch, and a rare look at what an NFL career looks like the moment the cameras stop rolling.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 — Intro: Meet Austin Ekeler 00:29 — Life After the Cameras Leave: What actually happens post-injury01:34 — Time to Move On02:47 — The Adrian Peterson Effect: Why "back in nine months" became the norm04:51 — The Bell Curve of a Career05:35 — Social Currency: Why Austin's staying in the game even off the field07:01 — Learning Claude Code 08:04 — The Shovel Analogy09:41 — From Website to App: Fixing the login complaints that started it all11:26 — Where Fantasy Meets the Law: The $250 rule for active NFL players13:31 — Drafting Himself... and Losing: The celebrity league story17:29 — The Missing Pro Card: Why fantasy sports has no industry-wide "legit" status19:13 — What a Pro Card Actually Buys You: Benefits, credibility, and bragging rights21:41 — Inside the $100K Leagues: Gamblers, owners, and friend groups with deep pockets23:20 — Why casual players might lead the whole industry25:07 — How to join Fantasy Royale before the season starts26:29 — The Austin origin story Tyler never told