(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein, welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today is a respected leader in collegiate athletics.

He's the executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association.

My guest today has dedicated his career to supporting student athletes and the institutions that serve them.

Today we'll sit down with Craig Keilitz, a dynamic voice in sports leadership and advocacy.

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(upbeat music) - Craig, welcome to Side by Side.

You're the executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association.

And you have more members than any other athletic association, am I right?

- That is correct, yes sir.

- And why is that?

Is it, you have, tell me about who the members are of, is it ABCA, right, ABCA?

- Yes, American Baseball Coaches Association.

We've been around since 1945, so we're in our 82nd year, and it's grown tremendously.

We had 27 coaches that made their way to New York City back in 1945 and started the association and the New York Athletic Club.

And so it was an interesting start.

I don't think they ever envisioned it growing to over 16,000 members as it sits today.

But yes, you are correct, we're the biggest association of sports in the United States.

We're very proud of that.

- And you're the head of sports, right?

- That's correct.

- Who's bigger than all of them, professional and amateur?

- Well, I don't know of any professional organizations bigger, so it probably is over all of it, but in our category, it's the biggest.

- And the members, those coaches that are members of your association, are they high school, college, what coaches are they?

- Yeah, we expand from the NCAA Division I, II, and III, the NIA, and Junior College I, II, and III, High School Youth Travel Ball.

And then we also have over 450 professional coaches, minor leagues professional, that belong to our association on their own as well and come to our convention.

- I see.

And what is it that the, why do they join your association?

What are the advantages of joining the American Baseball Coaches Association?

- To become better.

We have the best speakers at the best convention in the world on college baseball or amateur baseball.

And so each year we host that in a different city.

We were in Washington, D.C.

last year, looking to do our convention this year in Columbus, Ohio.

It's just a tremendous event to learn baseball, to the camaraderie, the fraternity.

And then also we have 250,000 square feet of exhibit space each year.

Everything on technology, bats, balls, uniforms, you name it, filming equipment, it's there.

It's a Disneyland for baseball coaches.

- Now once upon a time in the historic legacy of America, baseball was the sport.

Then you have football, then you have basketball, now other sports, lacrosse and all of that, soccer.

Has baseball lost any of its luster through these years in terms of public demand and public support?

- You know, we may have 10 or 15 years ago, and I think we're roaring back.

College baseball has never been more popular.

It's never been bigger with attendance, TV rankings, and then certainly the crown jewel of amateur baseball.

It's in Omaha, Nebraska each year at the College Baseball World Series that if you haven't gone, I'd really, I know someone that might be able to get you tickets, and I'd love to have you as a guest, but it is one of the great events.

But it is, I think we're at our tops right now, and then I think it's gonna get better over the next couple years with some of these changes that's happened in college athletics.

- So one would be wrong to assume that baseball appeals to an older population based on what you just said.

- It's in a dynamic sport, and we've put some changes in it that I think have helped the game tremendously.

The pitch clock that has come into play at both Major League Baseball and then Amateur Baseball to speed the game up has helped tremendously.

The lack of shifts in the Major League and so forth, and more run production.

And then I think there's been a little bit more allowing the athlete to be themselves, to really have a little flair, if you will.

So I think a lot of that has appealed to the younger audience, and really been part of the surge.

- Now Craig, you know the world of athletics.

You've been in athletics almost all your life, leading different things, doing different things.

Baseball has a lot of games in a season.

- It does.

- As compared to, let's say, basketball, or soccer, or even football.

Does that diminish somehow the capacity for a team to attract large crowds?

I mean, I think, for example, of minor league, or independent professional baseball.

It's hard to get people to come to, whatever it is, 70 games or so a year.

- College baseball is 56, and Major League Baseball is 162.

So it is a lot of games.

Our game sort of demands because of one or two things that can happen in any game can switch the winner or loser.

And so to really play that many games to determine who is the better team, which isn't the case in basketball and football, it really demands it.

But you're right.

- Explain that to me.

I'm not sure I understand the difference.

You just made a good point.

It takes that many games to accomplish what?

- Well, you have, each game you're gonna have a different starting pitcher.

So Major League or College Baseball will have three to five pitchers that they'll use in a once a week or once every five day rotation.

So that can be a huge factor on who's the better team of the night.

And then airs and a critical play, a critical call can go either way, which is a little bit different than football or basketball to decide the outcome.

- And is baseball, soccer or football, as may be called in some parts of the world, is truly a worldwide sport of great interest.

Where does baseball fit in that genre in terms of international awareness and support?

- Well, it keeps getting bigger around the world, but really we're a North America, South America led sport.

Latin America, it is the game with soccer, you know, as they don't have football and don't participate as much in basketball, but in America, you know, it's the game.

And what's happened in youth sports is interesting where a student, a young person would play three, four sports sometimes.

And now, unfortunately, I think that they've had to sort of decide what sport they wanna compete in to really be special.

And so that's travel, baseball, basketball, football, and they're playing one sport.

And that leads back to the point where you were talking about, it seems like sports were starting to fall off because it's pure numbers.

And a student would play in three sports and be counted three times, and now they're only participating in one sport.

And so that has led to some numbers declining in all sports.

- I see, I see.

Well, let's talk about these subjects that we're all very concerned about.

I'm not sure four years ago or three years ago or five years ago, I would have known what the word portal meant.

I know that three or four years ago, I never heard of NIL.

But now this is permeating the world of sports, collegiate sports specifically.

What is your take on that vis-a-vis baseball, but also as it applies to other sports?

Is it a damaging thing that this portal where they're, I hate to use the word poaching, but you can go into this portal and attract different people.

And now athletes perhaps don't have the kind of commitment and loyalty they once did.

I don't know, it doesn't apply to high school, right?

It's just only collegiate.

- That's correct.

- And so let's begin with the portal.

Define it for us and tell me what are the challenges as you see them?

And what are the advantages as you see them?

- Yeah, that's a lot to unpack there.

I don't know if we have all the time to, but I'll attempt.

The portal is a way for student athletes to chain colleges legally.

And so it was just a few years ago in all sports, the football, basketball, baseball, hockey, you had to sit out a year.

If you chose to go from one school to another, you had to sit out a year and not lose a year of eligibility but sit out a year.

And so that was a detriment.

Now you can change one school to the next.

And unfortunately, in my opinion, you can do it every year.

So has it hurt?

It's, I don't know the answer to that.

Many would say absolutely, but it's definitely changed the way college athletics is perceived, looked at, operated.

And then when that's in conjunction with NIL, name, image, and likeness, those two are merged together.

- Name, image, and likeness.

- Yes.

- Name, image, and likeness, referring to?

- Well, it's supposed to be for you get paid money to compete or do you get paid money based on your value.

- And fame.

- And what you bring with your name, image, and likeness.

But quite frankly, it's pay for play.

- Yes.

- It really is.

And I think that's terribly unfortunate.

However, with the latest house development, which was a lawsuit, I think we've defined it.

Now we're gonna see if universities, presidents, athletic directors, coaches will follow the guidelines that have been set up.

And that's probably my biggest fear right now that we won't follow it to a T and make this thing work.

- Well, you know, I mean, if an athlete, baseball or otherwise, were to change schools from year to year, does that not fly into the face of the essence of a team, which is loyalty, commitment, belonging?

- It does.

- On the one hand, on the other hand, getting to know how to play with your comrades, with your teammates.

I mean, there are certain practices that you have to go through and so on.

What is your take on that?

How do you feel about?

- I love that student athletes have an opportunity to change if they think they made a mistake or it's not a good fit for them.

I'm fine with that.

Doing it every year, I think is a tremendous disservice to the student athlete.

And it certainly isn't what college athletics was put into place to do.

- So it becomes a bidding war.

Why would they change every year?

- Well, it's lack of playing time.

It is more money at a different school.

It is moving to a bigger, better program.

- A better perception.

- Or sometimes quite frankly, it can be that you're not good enough to play at a school and you move down a level or move to another school and you have an opportunity to compete, which is fine.

But we've done a tremendous disservice in my opinion to the student where they're not learning to fight through adversity, to learn about being a teammate, to learn to sort of figure your way out and work harder to have that next opportunity.

So I'm worried about that.

I'm also worried about, we're in academics and I'm afraid that is being a loss that you're going to school to get an education.

And then hopefully that certain percentage, small percentage has an opportunity to play professional.

And so those are the things that concern me as an administrator.

- Yeah.

And if someone moves just for money, it becomes a competitive terrain, right?

It depends for the institution, it becomes somewhat of a burden potentially.

You have to come up with money.

For the coach, it seems to me, it is also a challenge.

How do you divvy up this money?

And these kids will talk sooner or later.

Does that create a divisive kind of an atmosphere which flies into the face of what a team really is?

- Exactly.

Well, if that's not the essence of being a leader, when you're a coach now that you have to balance all of these pieces that were never present in your locker room before.

And now the egos, do you give the money to the incoming freshmen or do you give it back to your returning players?

And how do you do that?

And then bringing the team together and having the type of culture that you think you can be successful with is incredibly difficult.

The job of the coach, the job of the athletic administrator, the job of the president has changed dramatically in the last couple of years at a too fast a rate, if I could say.

- So Craig, do you think the Porter NIL affect positively or negatively baseball more than other sports or do you think it's equal?

- You know, they all have their challenges.

I don't know if there's some sports more than others, maybe football, basketball, 'cause there's more money.

But we do have student athletes that are making a half a million dollars, you know, their name, image, and likeness, or revenue share, which is part of that.

- In baseball.

And, but that's just part of every sport, unfortunately.

- And how do, you talk about collegiate for a moment, how do, 'cause I know that your association has high school, you said, collegiate, and some minor league teams as well, coaches as well.

- Coaches, that's correct.

- How does, how do colleges compete on the amounts of money?

I mean, this one might be able to come up with X dollars, this one might come up with half of that, or 1/10 of that.

Do we see a tremendous amount of gain or pain that emerges based on dollars alone, the availability of dollars?

- Well, it's probably always been like that, in some sense, that it's facilities, operating budget, coaches' salaries, and so forth.

But now there's really three buckets that we're looking at, and it's number of scholarships.

So baseball had 11.7 scholarships, so less than 12 scholarships for the whole team.

- Explain that, 'cause I think I understand what you're saying.

- So we had 11.7 that was divvied up by all 35 guys in the team.

- Yeah, so an institution would dedicate 11.7 full scholarships, then the coach can distribute those as he or she wishes.

- That's correct, and then it changed to, there's not a scholarship limit anymore, it is the size of the team.

So in baseball, you can have 34 student athletes, we have a roster limit, as all sports do now, and every student athlete can get a full ride.

So some schools are gonna go up to 34 full rides.

- Wow, that's my point.

How does that then affect other schools?

So the big guys are gonna be able to do that with no problem.

- That's right.

- And the mid-majors or the smaller schools are gonna struggle because of it.

- It's gonna be tougher, it is.

And there's always been that discrepancy with operating budgets and facilities and so forth, but now it's really magnified to a-- - And the competitiveness between and among the sports.

If you do that for baseball, colleges already do that for basketball, obviously.

If you do it for baseball, then you're gonna do it for football, you're gonna do it for soccer, you're gonna do it for lacrosse or whatever other sports.

That I think is where the challenge emerges.

- And that's always been a challenge, but now it is very transparent.

And so athletic directors' job has changed tremendously, but now more than ever, they need to show transparency, in my opinion, to say, "This is what we're doing, this is why," and lay it out there.

Because there's no secrets anymore.

You know the operating budgets, you know the number of scholarships, you know the amount of money on RevShare or NIL that's spent.

And so I think just transparency for athletic directors.

And it used to be, what I loved about being an athletic director is you were the coach of the coaches.

Now that has changed so much where you're dealing with fundraising, NIL, donors, legislation, and not being the coach of coaches, and so the job has changed tremendously in the last few years.

- So what is your relationship with the NCAA?

How does that influence or affect your work in the association, and therefore your coaches' engagement in your association?

- Two of the bigger percentage-wise, part of my job is working with the NCAA on legislation, and we've done a tremendous amount of work recently on that, as you can imagine, and Major League Baseball, our relationship with them, with the draft, and so forth.

So those are two areas that I spend a lot of time, but the NCAA has changed tremendously, and I think the perception of the NCAA, we all thought it was the big bad NCAA making decisions, but really it's presidents and athletic directors that are saying, "This is what we'd like to see happen."

And you've served on a lot of those committees as well, but it is a very cumbersome process trying to get through it, and I do believe the new changes, and we can't go into all that, but that's made with the NCAA is gonna allow us some more streamlining per sport to get things done.

I serve on the Baseball Oversight Committee that will have a direct voice in how we need to make positive changes for our sport.

- Explain to me and to those who may be watching us today how a collegiate team is typically a member of a conference, and that would be true of baseball too, because whatever that conference is, baseball's gonna be one of those sports.

- That's correct.

- But conferences are going through a tremendous amount of dynamic change.

What is that, and what do you, is it healthy, is it not healthy in your view, and what is the future of all that?

- I'll answer the last part first.

I'm not sure what that future is.

I hope that we can follow the guidelines and have some survivability to this process as we've changed so much.

As far as the conferences, the biggest change has been the amount of money in the TV contracts, unfortunately, and that has driven nearly all, maybe all the decisions that have been made recently.

The more money, the more opportunities to pay student athletes or give them name, image, and likeness, or revenue share, the more opportunities to be successful 'cause there's so much money on the backside.

- You use the term revenue share.

What does that mean?

- Right now, not to get too far into the weeds, but there's a maximum of $22.5 million that can be shared with the student athletes.

- From?

- From institutional financial money.

- And institutional financial money comes from where?

- Well, donations, ticket sales, television revenue.

- Which is NCAA.

- Of all participation.

- Yes, sir.

- That deals with whatever CBS, whatever it might be.

- That's exactly right, bowl revenue, conference affiliation.

- And that's based on winning?

- Winning, exposure, the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12, the Big 10, those are the big boys considered the power four, and they have all the money and a lot of the decision-making opportunities.

- But also the smaller ones get money based on whether or not they win a conference, right?

I'm thinking basketball, for example.

If you win the first round in the NCAA, you get X dollars.

- That's correct.

- For the next one, you get X plus Y dollars, and those are the monies that come back to the conference, and then some of that money, or all that money, or a percentage of that money is then distributed back to the schools.

- That's right, so the more success you have, like the SEC or Big 10 or the ACC, especially in basketball, billion dollar a year deal, it's more money that comes back in, and it's distributed to the student, or to the athlete departments, and then part of that's given to the student athletes to do it all over again.

- So in baseball, there's the same thing like other sports, right?

There's a Division I, Division II, Division III.

- That's right.

NDIA, junior college, same as all the sports, that's right.

- Okay, what is your, you've been at this game for a long time.

How many years have you been in athletics?

AD, executive director.

- Yeah, I guess it's been 30 plus years, which I can't believe I'm saying that.

- You've seen a lot.

- 35 years, that's right.

- 35 years, you've seen a lot.

Are you hopeful about the future?

- I'm very careful with that, because it is changing.

We need to embrace the change, and then we need to make the rules that we put forward work.

And so if athletic directors say that we're gonna have an outside entity, really do the accounting for us, then we need to make sure that happens.

So for example, if you wanna give name, image, and likeness to a student athlete, and that is deemed not appropriate, the AD and the president need to say, we're not doing this, versus fighting it.

And we always look for, always is a wrong term on that.

We oftentimes look for a way around the rule versus following the rule.

And I hope that we gather together and say, this is right for the student, this is right for the universities, this is right for athletic departments, let's make this work.

So we need some collaboration.

- So you don't see competitive advantages, let's say soccer.

Soccer's growing by leaps and bounds.

European, you know, all these teams are bringing these European players over here, paying them millions of dollars just to do an exhibition game or something.

Because they have so many followers, basically in elementary school, and junior high, and high school.

You feel hopeful about the future of baseball, keeping, maintaining its strong position, and not being somehow tempered with, or minimized, or deluded by other sports.

- Well, each institution's gonna make their decision on what they prioritize, just like you said.

We do have a number of schools and conferences that are really prioritizing baseball.

So we may see some more division, as I think we will in football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, you name it.

We'll see the difference between the elite teams, the mid-level teams, and then the lower-level teams.

And I think we're gonna see more of that than probably we've ever seen.

- Mm-hmm.

What excites you the most about your work?

- I love our coaches, I love serving our coaches.

- You don't love all your coaches.

(laughing) Some of them don't pay their dues on time, right?

- Maybe some more than others.

But no, I can honestly say I've enjoyed working with all of our coaches.

The baseball coaches have been so positive about our future and what we're working towards and keeping the eye on the student athlete, a very amateur-type approach, which I think is healthy.

And so it's been tremendous and positive, and I love who I work with.

My board's been tremendous, so I've just been incredibly fortunate to love every job I've had.

And this one's been real special because baseball's in my blood.

- Mm-hmm.

So you have 16,000 members.

- That's correct.

- Plus or minus.

- Yes.

- And they are in all 50 states?

- All 50 states and 42 countries, different countries.

- Well, you have international members.

- We do, we do.

- But you're the American Baseball Coaches Association.

- We might have to change the name, but we've branded it so well, I hate it.

- You're with the International Baseball Coaches Association.

- It could be.

You might be onto something there.

- What percentage of your membership would be international?

- A small percent.

- A small, because there's not as much baseball.

- Yeah, we're looking at three to 4% would be international.

But that's quite frankly our growth area.

- Well, Craig, you've educated me today, and I thank you for that.

I watch, I love sports.

I watch sports with great interest.

I am concerned about the future of athletics, specifically in the amateur area, collegiate athletics and so on.

But I guess you're right, we have to be hopeful.

And we have to always look for the optimistic point of view.

Thank you for being with me today on Side by Side.

- My pleasure, thank you very much.

(upbeat music) - Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by: - Coca-Cola Consolidated makes and serves over 300 of the world's best brands and flavors locally, from 13 facilities and 4,500 hardworking teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- The Budd Group has been serving the Southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction, comprehensive facility support with The Budd Group.

- Truist, we're here to help people, communities and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.