Michael McBroom: SFA Leaves the WAC to Rejoin the More Regional Conference the Southland | CFB

my God that would be that would be classic Michael McBroom he's the ad director of Athletics at stepen F Austin State University my proud Alma moer I'm proud to be a part of that as an Alum joins us on 365 Sports if I asked you and thanks for your time Michael if I asked you name all 18 teams in the Big 10 could you do it in less than a minute all 18 in the Big 10 in a minute not a chance I I don't think I could either we all got I I got 16 and I left out Illinois and Maryland yeah so and then we all got stuck on something you got I got of all things in the SEC I forgot two in the same state of Tennessee with Vanderbilt and Tennessee because it's a musical chairs and even though it's settled down it's never settled down in fact you guys are an example of that we'll get to that in a moment are you Blown Away by how much College athletics has changed the last 25 years it's crazy isn't it I I am uh especially you know the last seven or eight and the impact of I mean everybody I don't really like to talk about Co much but I mean that that almost accelerated even further all the changes um through that period of time but it's I mean it's a completely different business model as you guys know and the gaps between the top to even the bottom in division one are I mean they're just gigantic now um but I also think that you can either you can either complain about it or you can say hey this is the new world and let's figure out a way to go be successful and win championships and do the things and that's certainly what we'll do uh at Stephen at Boston and it's always good to be on the air with the lumberjack that's good stuff yeah like that ask some Jacks Mike no no question about it so uh you haven't been there very long uh with Ryan Ivy Moving on but all of a sudden here's and this had kind of just popped up the move to the Southland Conference why back to the Southland Conference I saw a quote where you said you want more stability but moving conferences at least for now is not but why the Southland Conference well as uh as I was looking at through through things as uh you know in in taking the job and go at the process you know I think you agree I mean virtually every level in sports Geographic rivalry the geographic footprint it's kind of the heartbeat of sports right uh I mean you want to have those Regional rivalries so that people will you know come see you on the road and you have you know just it's all the things High School College even even the pros are aligned to a certain extent geographically say for the Cowboys in the nfce never really made sense right um but I looked at that and then I look at the where our alumni are we have 120,000 living uh proud alum Jack Al and more than 80% of them live east of I35 and we're flying all over the place playing games outside of the footprint for our alumni and where we recruit students and student AES from and the Southland you know we were fortunate that we had an opportunity there and as I looked at it the ability to play those games and what is our primary Market uh was just too good to pass up and we need to be playing in Texas we need to be playing in Louisiana um and building our brand and enhancing our brand even further and what's really our our core Market our primary market so that was the real gist of it uh and to return to some rivalries that as you know have been yep been pretty good through the years so I got a question for you you don't just get to move for free and there's all these different ways of moving and of course the autonomy for or what used to be the five conferences there's exit fees and there arguing about that right now in the ACC with Clemson North Carolina Florida State whatever sfa's budget is what it is what how big was the uh fine to leave and is that something you can make up you think pretty quickly yeah it's uh it's still to be determined what the actual number will be but as we looked at that that piece certainly there's an exit P but what we will save in travel and G in additional economic impact just uh we'll have that covered in the next two to three years uh it really wasn't even a part of the decision because we knew that especially with the reduced travel cost we we would be able to recue that pretty quickly so we'll handle it internally um whatever the final number is and like I said with two to three years be good on it Michael um there are you know schools around the country that are going into these you know Coast to Coast conferences and you know for football and if you're going to make $90 million a year on your television contract in men's basketball women's basketball that's probably not really that big of a deal but when it comes to the Olympic sports that's probably going to be a drain how do you think this will be eventually a trend after a couple years of you know Stanford flying to uh to Clemson to play a softball game or ruter going to UCLA to play volleyball and then having to you know stay over you know kind of in a you like a Nebraska can and play another game in the middle of the week that it just becomes untable to be a a student athlete in a in an Olympic sport or non what they would call non-revenue yeah there's no question I mean it's uh you know it's one thing to fly across the country five or six times with your football team to do it you fly out on a Thursday night or a Friday morning you play a game you come back you you miss virtually no class time um and it's you know it's one game when you look at tennis softball baseball I mean the travel traveling as much as those teams do it is such a we ha on the body um I mean it's honestly it's ABS to put when you have when you have teams at schools and competition right around you you got to figure out a better play you know football is different but the others in basketball you're you're traveling small teams and again the revenue is there but the others you got to figure out something better and hopefully that hopefully you get to a model that maybe not all the sports are tied together for the you know the same deal it seems to me that would be the most reasonable approach but we're not gonna have that problem thank so SFA uh obviously the the foot football drives everything you you mentioned the travel the athletes the student athletes you're going to uh you're you're going to recruit was the whack uh was there still were teams leaving what Grand Canyon I think Seattle Sam Houston State initially of course now they're FPS was it just not the conference that everyone thought it was going to be with all do respect to them they got great schools there but it was it just not what that that maybe was going to be a part of the future yeah I I well certainly the departures of members create instability um I wasn't a part of I wasn't a part of the original discussions to move although I was approached a couple of times at West Texas uh about an interest to reclassify the division one and to join the FL and I understood at the time they were trying to get a two bid basketball league which would drive additional revenue and men's basketball would be the primary focus uh you know that was the original Dream but again like the Athletics landscape has changed so and people are moving uh you know so often that that a two bid League at a mid major is got is a is a pretty tough thing to achieve uh and you have if you're going to achieve it you have to have members that are strong and aligned together and membership started to change in the LA almost right away um with the schools in Texas that that left and so yeah membership the membership departures create instability and U coming into SFA you know a couple of weeks ago for me we have a lot of work to do there in nadas and to be worried about what conference would it be available for us 12 months from now if the black fell apart was not was going to be healthy for SFA not with the work that we need to do on campus and internally and this Southland had an opportunity for us that I think will be stable uh for the foreseeable future and for us that made that made sense me but I think the original Dream of the whack was to be a two bid basketball league and that didn't come to fruition I think it was a valiant effort right but as it didn't as it didn't come to fruition members had to look elsewhere and that's I think you saw that you know Grand Canyon is looking to to really make a bigger move than where they are and have the resources to do it they're spending a ton of money and uh I don't know if you've ever been out there but that's uh that that is that that place looks a lot different than the other wax FS you have uh been in athletics Administration a quarter of a century you had been at West Texas A&M as their athletic director for a lot of that time it it's so you have been stable you have been where you have been was it what was it about SFA that that helped you move out of what had to be a comfortable situation yeah that's a great question I appreciate you asking that um you know I uh I snuck on campus naad was the Far East Texas the P was not the only place in 50 years of my life in Texas I had been I got I had to sneak in and look at it I got on campus and it's just the campus as you know is breathtaking uh I felt at home right away and then I started to meet the people uh the people are just fantastic it's just this it's this Little Gym in East Texas that's a Bonafide college town uh yet it had challenges P challenges that kind of fit uh what my strengths are and that's uh redoing facilities building new facilities uh getting all the programs up to Championship level I just there's just a ton of opportunity there and uh my wife and I talked about it a lot prayed about it uh did all the things and just felt like uh it was time to take on a new challenge and and uh all the things that make Stephen F Austin at Maad special really the reasons why we said let's let's do this and it is panned out there's there's a ton of work to be done but also we have a great new president who I've known for a long time we've worked together at West Texas and when you're an athletic director and you have uh alignment with the president and a passionate fan base really special things can happen in a pretty short amount of time and so you know having that alignment there uh and and a desire to elevate all the programs it's it's almost it's a dream come true for an ad and um so that point why not let's do it Kobe Carle football Kyle Keller basketball and others that have had success I mean the bowling uh program I want to bring them up because they've been won national titles so Johnson Coliseum has been probably had a facelift or two I know that uh Homer Bryce stadium has had a facelift or two or what you're going to do when it comes to facilities take what you have and then maybe change them renovate them or what I think basketball is in a good good space the uh the uh theola performance The Practice Facility was opened about five years ago is phenomenal I mean it's it's unbelievable how nice it is football uh we'll have to decide if we'll we'll renovate or do something new we have to generate more Revenue out of the football football stadium then baseball and softball have been playing in a city park yeah uh the better part of 20 years and it's just not division one level so you know baseball and softball we we'll either figure out uh an on campus solution or you know potentially you know somewhere in the city uh for a for a Bonafide baseball park we've got to get those those spots better volleyball's in volleyball has Sheldon gym which is such a neat iconic place to play I can't wait to see games there that's fall you know it hold about I don't know a thousand people H for the Raptors as as volleyball plays and coach humph has had a championship program for that been there 35 years and just does an amazing job there so let's the initial Focus would be football baseball softball and soccer I'm glad you brought up baseball and softball because even when I was there and I'm 65 years old and that was in 1981 I graduated I love SFA love knad o it's a gorgeous campus as you mentioned but even then their baseball team of course I I it was off- campus and then of course they didn't have one for a while and so right yeah and and that is always hard to overcome so you mentioned facilities there's now the new life of what is in college athletics with all sorts of you I don't know how much SFA is involved with nil and all of what's now being asked of everybody what is the the the decision making and we've got to do this better we've got to like you said create better Revenue with the stadium sponsors logos whatever it might be how much work is that going to take and is SFA ready for the future the way College athletics is right now yeah I I think we are again that was another one of the attractive things to me because the potential is there um we are we are in the nil space uh at at a reasonable amount right now I don't think nil will ever drive our decisions but I I for a place like SFA n for me is is probably best Ed as a retention tool um it's it will it's more important obviously in in basketball and football but I think we'll use it fors of retention piece but I think what I think about the potential of of SFA is again the 120,000 uh alumni what we really need is a vision for the future and uh with with the facilities master plan uh coming in and I think the budgets are generally pretty good we're going to have to generate more Revenue uh certainly over the next decade have you know we can if we can Target five to 7% a year Revenue increases I think we'll be uh in good shape there our facilities need to help drive more revenue and certainly sponsorship revenue is donor gifts but success breeds success and so our first our first priority is to get better on the field with with the scholarship funding and the coaching staff and plans for facilities and once that starts rolling and enr enrollment also has to grow because that drives revenue for not only the institution but Athletics as well if we can get everything going in the right way the potential for Stephen is huge uh I really believe that and I think it's not a deal for me to you know come in here and we'll spend five years and make it a little bit better this is the last job I hope I ever have in college athletics by the time my lead uh SFA is going to be a Powerhouse in all sports at the level that we need to be competing at um and I think if we can get that stability it's not of what we did at West Texas I'm G think the same model here and BR West Texas when I took over was terrible uh all across the board SFA is in a much better place right now especially with basketball and uh for me the the the the whole the whole deal for me is to unlock the potential with getting everybody competitive everybody excited with the vision forward and I do think the revenue is good now and we'll grow to support what our Ambitions are you know one of the things I've always thought about Michael from even when I was there is that like back then even it was AIA aw Sue Gunner and the Women's Basketball team was like in the top two or three in the country uh in in basketball foot had the run with Larry centers and and those great teams in the late 80s and I know they've had other runs too it always seemed like that certain Sports had runs but it wasn't always at the same time uh and and of course women's basketball with what Brad Underwood did and Kyle Keller in men's basketball had the setback with what happened with the NCAA but I know Kyle's trying to get that corner turned and he will if if given the right opportunities it's just always been more dysfunctional as far as the winds wins and losing you know and and it would be great to see all of them at at the same time hey I like I said okay I got to ask you a question the first time you ever saw the actual city name of nacadas how did you say it yeah I was it's one of those uh when I was a kid I grew up in Dallas y I used was geography and u i i remember the name yeah and I would have been you know probably eight years old I don't recall how I would pronounced it then I'm sure I would have asked but I don't I mean if you see it I haven't actually heard it mispronounced anybody yet I've heard people say how do you say that they're not even taking a shot at it y I don't know you yeah yeah neog is is probably how some of them but I there you go yeah yeah I went to I went to Tyler at Junior College when I opened up my college career so I visited the campus and fell in love with it that's where I went and got my radio television degree and uh learned knad OES it does pop off your tongue or your mouth as soon as you say it Michael hey congratulations let me know if you need any help I'll try to do what I can spread the word I've always tried to do that in the 40 plus years since I left school thanks for your time today and good luck thanks so much for having me good luck to you guys Michael McBroom the new director of Athletics at SFA they got some work to do sounds like