My apologies to everyone looking for Gruden news. This isnt the post youre looking for. Just skip to the next post. This is my working theory on how and why Gruden to the Hill is coming about. Its going to be very long post.
For those with a little curiosity, heres the bottom line up front (BLUF as my Army brethren call it). There is a booster or group of boosters attempting to secure the fruits of UT becoming a Top 25 research school. Theyre working to ensure a continued stream of funding from Athletics to Academics by making a splash hire as the head coach and returning UT football to national prominence. You can now skip to the end if you arent interested in the gory details.
For those still reading heres my take on the whole situation. Strictly my own opinion based on what Ive read and my experience. Lets start with the booster/Investor group because I think that once you understand what theyre trying to achieve, the roles of the rest of the players and the actions fall into place.
The booster group is leveraging the Universitys drive towards becoming a top 25 public research school (top25.utk.edu). While the University has many good and valid reasons for this, the boosters see this as an opportunity to cash in on an increasing amount and quality of research coming from the University. Bubba on several occasions involvement of a (Silicon Valley) venture capital firm (not Castor Ventures). (1)(2) MIT_Beaver outs the reason. Early stage VC firms are interested in the intellectual property rights coming out of the research. (3) The boosters, in conjunction with the VC firm(s?), see this as an opportune time to develop a (binding?) relationship with an up and coming research University that funnels the valuable research results into their portfolios. I havent had the time to fully investigate all the players, but MIT_Beaver implies that Charlie Ergen is involved. (4)
Charlie Ergens possible involvement I think relates to Dishs upcoming moves into the wireless connectivity area. Dish owns and continues to buy valuable wireless (cellular) spectrum. The first portion of which requires Dish to build out a wireless network by 2020 supporting narrowband internet of things (NB-IOT). (5) NB-IOT is one part of the proposed 5G specification. A large part of how NB-IOT is implemented is yet to be determined and will require a great deal of research (hint, hint). Dish, not being constrained by a legacy, voice-oriented network, has a tremendous chance to develop a different core network than the legacy carriers. Ergen called it a blank sheet of paper.
It sounds like the how this is being accomplished is through a combination of a venture capital firm advised by a MBB type management consulting firm. Together theyve developed a plan, of which Gruden is a part, to assist the University in reaching its goal while, presumably, the VC firm gets in on the reaping of benefits. Heres how the other major players are involved, in my opinion.
The football program is viewed as a key revenue source for the University. The Athletic Department already provides quite a bit of funding back to the Academic Department and people have noticed how the success of the Alabama football team has fueled an academic renaissance of the University of Alabama. How do you duplicate that success at Tennessee? By making a big-time splash hire as the new head football coach and give him the resources (monetary and otherwise) to compete with the Alabamas and Ohio States. This leads logically to Jon Gruden due to his connection to and past history with UT. No other coach excites the fan base and makes a national splash like him. You secure his services by making him an offer he cant refuse (especially in light of ESPNs well documented financial issues). Bubba says the base is $7.5M (6) but that is the least interesting part of the deal (7) and wont all be in USD (8). Possibly a stake in the venture capital fund investing in the UT research?
The Athletic Director doesnt really have much of a role in this. He was given the coach as part of the package deal and does not have a BANTA, although it appears he did do his due diligence and checked. The only real option he had was the timing. It appears that, while the decision to not retain Butch was made early in the season, the plan was to allow him to coach out the rest of the season and resign with a renegotiated buyout. However the performance (or lack thereof) of the team on the field and the Kendrick situation made that position untenable and Butch was let go early. At this point Currie has a replacement and is waiting a suitable amount of time to announce him. This may be due to commitments by Gruden, pressure from certain boosters, a desire to see Butch hired elsewhere, or a combination of some or all of these plus other unknown conditions.
Peyton Manning was brought in to help seal the deal on Gruden as the new head coach and to provide an incentive to accept the deal on the part of the Academic Department in the form of potential fundraising. I think Peytons involvement was actually predicated on the football team having a reasonably successful year and needing to provide rationale and support for changing the coach. Events have shown that part was unnecessary.
The Academic Department gets increased funding and other resources to help them with their goal of becoming a top 25 public research school. They also get a built in outlet for the results of the research in the form of a relationship with the VC firm. In exchange, theyve agreed to give up some of the control they had over the Athletic Department. This helps the Athletic Department become more competitive and increases the revenue stream from Athletics.
The Haslams are probably the only losers in this whole scenario. Their influence on the University is being minimized. This is probably to ensure there is no interference, intentional or otherwise, with all the other arrangements. Im not into the politics of the situation but it wouldnt surprise me if there werent personal reasons behind it as well if some of the speculation about past power struggles is true.
MIT_Beaver basically laid out his role for us as an influencer. His job was to help develop the strategy (its unclear on whether in whole or in part) and serve as the public influencer. Hes using VN and the Vol fan base to increase public pressure on the University to ensure that all aspects of the deal are approved.
Bubba appears to be part of the venture capital team arranging things. His posts indicate knowledge of the details and indicates his own involvement (9).
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Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
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Official Jon Gruden Thread XXI
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Official Jon Gruden Thread XXV
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Official Jon Gruden Thread XXVI
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Dish: We already have RAN vendors for our NB-IoT network | FierceWireless
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Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
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Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
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Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
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Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
