Marshall University Athletics
AskeD&AnswereD: Q&A With Marshall AD Christian Spears
6/3/2024 4:30:00 PM | General
Coal Cats baseball, NCAA settlement impact among topics in June 2024 edition
2024 Tri-State Coal Cats Schedule | Purchase Coal Cats Tickets
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Marshall Athletics is pleased to present the June 2024 edition of AskeD&AnswereD – an inside look at intercollegiate athletics with Marshall Director of Athletics Christian Spears.
In this periodic segment, Spears will answer questions pertaining to the ever-changing world of intercollegiate athletics and the impact those changes have on the direction and future of Marshall Athletics.
Q: The Tri-State Coal Cats – the new MLB-affiliated summer team that Marshall has partnered with to operate – opens its season on June 4. How does the presence of the Coal Cats help to not only connect Marshall with its community, but also to bridge the gap between athletic seasons to continue momentum from spring to fall and keep the buzz of Marshall Athletics strong?
CS: Having something for our community to do in June and July feels like we are doing the right thing, and we are lucky to have it so closely affiliated with Marshall. They are in our venue. They are owned and operated by us and a third party that we partnered with in Kindred Communications. Their logo sheet is embedded within Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), which hosts both Marshall and the Coal Cats, so they use our primary colors and we earn revenue from licensees of their branding.
It feels like this team is part of our community already and we haven't even played a game yet, so imagine if we're having some fun and the weather is great, and people are there to enjoy it. It could really be a significant outcome for us, and it was all part of our plan. When that facility got built, we made a commitment to try to become an economic engine to bring more people to the region. We feel like the 24 Coal Cats home games are going to do that. It can give our community something more to attach to that is still connected to Marshall in the summer. We cannot wait to see our community loving some summer baseball.
When MLB contacted us about how they were going to create a rookie/prospect wood-bat league affiliated with the Appalachian League and wanted a prime location in West Virginia, it felt like all the stars aligned. Four student-athletes from Marshall are guaranteed to be on the team, which connects us more to the community and region with Ohio and Kentucky and the Tri-State branding, so it just all came together.
Then, when you get to know the leadership at Kindred and get to know Mike and Reeves Kirtner and you learn of their background with the West Virginia Power and their network in terms of what they do with radio and how they will manage advertisement and a promotional schedule, it just all really aligned. We own and operate this team, and the partner that we found to come on board with us is the perfect fit. We feel very fortunate that we are here, it will be great for the community and I love that we have an MLB-affiliated Appalachian League team in Huntington, West Virginia. We think that will resonate with our community, so it's a win-win-win.
Q: Economic development is more important now than it has ever been. What has Marshall done to put itself ahead of the game to maximize financial opportunities?
CS: First and foremost, our Athletic Department is an opportunity for us to welcome all people to Marshall University in a holistic sense. So often, the Athletic Department maybe gets more opportunity to be exposed to the masses and occupies some of the air that should be focused on Marshall University, so we want to make sure we are always welcoming people – the eyes, the visibility – so we can promote what's happening at Marshall, what's happening in Huntington and what's happening in West Virginia and in our region.
If you see what all is going on around here, it has everything to do with the impact that Marshall University is having on our region – the new School of Business, the Cyber-Security Institute, what President Brad Smith has done in bringing people to West Virginia and the growth of the Tri-State area. That is the real story and the significant impact we have all wanted to see.
So how can we help them introduce what is happening around here? We can be a small piece of that economic engine – opening our new ballpark and bringing people to our on-campus facility for the first time in history in a ballpark that is ours and then, bringing in an MLB-affiliated, wood bat, summer Rookie League for the Tri-State community for another 24 home games. You have 1,000 people coming into town, eating at our restaurants, and enjoying themselves in our city. Also, we host 145 events every year, so if you come to a tennis match or a softball game or a football game, it all has an impact. When we welcome fans to our facilities, it feels good, and putting on a show that entices them to return feels even better!
Q: The Marching Thunder has been an important presence at Marshall events for years. How does the dynamic between the band and athletics work and how much does The Marching Thunder add to the fan experience at our athletic events?
CS: At the end of the day, we want to provide as many performance opportunities as we can. We think our band is no different than our student-athletes in that way. 'Hey, give us a venue. We want to play and perform for fans!'
We want to be an avenue for them to perform and we have 145 athletic events annually. The six Saturdays – or sometimes, Thursdays and Fridays – helping to showcase them at football games is an unbelievably great thing and just the starting point to display the amazing talent of these Marshall students.
Some of our fans don't know this, but the band reports to the School of Music. We show the School of Music our annual schedules and the band leadership decides who plays, who travels and when and where they perform. Their recruitment efforts are working and we see them making great efforts to provide awesome involvement. We will do what we can to create a remarkable experience for our students and our fans. We love the direction the band's leadership group is taking the band. Kudos to them!
Q: Recently, Marshall Athletics partnered with Athlete Advantage to help enhance Marshall's Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) presence and hired former Marshall great Stevie Browning to serve as the NIL liaison with Athlete Advantage. What can you tell us about Athlete Advantage and how they will work with our NIL Working Group to create unique opportunities for our student-athletes?
CS: Athlete Advantage is out of Lexington, Kentucky, and their leadership has ties to Marshall, so when you meet people who are completely embedded in the fabric of Marshall University and have family relationships – they grew up in Huntington, they participated at Marshall – it feels pretty good to know that they care about what they are doing. This isn't a third-party group that doesn't care; this group wants us to be successful and invested in that outcome, and I think they are going to manage our Name-Image-Likeness program at a high level.
The fact that they brought in Stevie – who would have thought that Stevie, one day, would be back at Marshall as our General Manager for NIL, helping our athletes manage their Name-Image-Likeness? We know Stevie is going to really dive in to help our student-athletes manage their individual brands. We are ecstatic about the partnership and we think good things will come from it.
Q: The recent settlement between the NCAA and the House has changed the college athletics landscape drastically, but its impact for different programs and leagues remains to be seen. What do we know so far about what it means for Marshall and the Sun Belt moving forward?
CS: It's just a really interesting time, but the great thing about being in college athletics right now is that we get to shape this model for the future of this industry and this enterprise. That type of opportunity gets me super-excited because all of us in the department would much rather be building things, creating things and developing where the enterprise is going rather than reacting to any changes. We are going to get involved. Marshall is going to lead the way and we are going to be the best at whatever the model is in the Sun Belt – that is our goal.
We will provide whatever we can to our student-athletes to make them whole because this is going to continue to be a transformational experience at Marshall. When you choose to come to Marshall, you are choosing to be transformed as an individual and we need to help you along your path. That means helping on the revenue side and making sure you can become the person and leader that you are supposed to be. We want to give everyone the tools and resources to be great and we want our student-athletes to benefit from choosing to come to Marshall. That is why we can't wait to see where this journey takes us. We will get after it and we are going to lead in this space!
Q: Game-times for the first two games of the 2024 season were announced last week, which brings plenty of excitement for the upcoming season. Football scheduling has always been an interesting part of the fabric of athletics. How do you go about finding the perfect matchups and relationships in the non-conference schedule for future opponents and have recent changes in the landscape impacted those philosophies any?
CS: The ebbs and flows of scheduling are unique and, sometimes, there's no rhyme or reason to it. Army joined the AAC and wants to cancel our series because of conference realignment, so these opportunities that present themselves give us a chance to create a really unique scheduling model.
Western Michigan wanted to play Ohio State and they needed to move our game to complete that opportunity and we negotiated an opportunity to eliminate the return game, but Western Michigan still comes to Huntington. Now, they can play Ohio State for a significant game guarantee payment and we benefit from the home game without any return. You just don't know how those things are going to go.
While we were having the conversations with Western Michigan and Ohio State, we were also having conversations about playing Ohio State ourselves and utilizing that opportunity to talk about why Marshall would be a great game for them, which get our fans to Columbus while creating a substantial amount of revenue for our department.
My philosophy is easy: Let's go play the best teams in college football. That's what we are going to try to do. We think our fans deserve it and we think our student-athletes will rise to the occasion, given the opportunity. We all saw what happened in South Bend and we all saw what happened here against Virginia Tech at home last year, so why not put ourselves in position to do something amazing? We are not going to shy away from playing anyone anywhere and we are going to have some fun while we do it.
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