Congratulations. Cignetti is a true Saban clone
Wish Alabama had him
He's such a good coach. I have a hard time seeing the team play the way they do as it is so foreign to me. We tackle, win in the trenches. They break the will of other teams and are doing it with a bunch of 2-3 star guys who are completely bought in. I wasn't surprised at all by outcome. I was surprised that Bama quit, but not that IU won.
It will be interesting to see what happens when he does get some top-end NFL level talent across the board.
At the same time, I think IU's meteoric rise explicitly shows what is wrong with sports across the board, both pro and college: how much Vegas has it's hand on the scale.
IU is funded by Cuban/Todd Wagner (both made billions in selling Broadcast.com). Wagner is brains, Cuban is front. While the Shark Tank stuff is right, those guys didn't invest in 300-400K consumer product goods, they invested in media infrastructure, which is driving all of the crazy money in sports.
What drives the media rights valuation up and to the right?
Gambling.
And I heard a stat that kind of blew me away. The gambling addiction market projects to be 10x the opiod addiction market.
Cuban and Wagner know all of this and are using IU and NIL as lead gen to make billions on their media investments.