This is where David White shares his writing and thinking on leadership, strategy, culture, and the high-stakes moments that define careers and organizations — reflections originally published on LinkedIn, drawn from decades in the rooms where leadership matters.
On July 1, Crimson Brand Partners takes over commercial operations for University of Utah's athletics department as part of a $100+ million deal that routes most of the department's revenue streams into a new for-profit entity, backed by private equity firm Otro Capital. My take — from that day forward, every feature of college sports life gets pushed towards one giant question: is this making us enough money?
Read on LinkedIn →The USC Trojans announced this week they've hired the first Director of AI in college football history. Conor McQuiston will build predictive models from athlete performance data to find competitive advantages in game planning, scouting and player evaluation. The models are built on data the athletes generate. The models belong to the program but any rights of ownership for the athletes have not been publicly explained.
Read on LinkedIn →Professional sports are entering a strange new era. For decades, the relationship between players and owners was clear. Players generated the value. Owners controlled the teams and the appreciating assets. Collective bargaining was adversarial, but everyone understood which side they were on. That clarity is disappearing.
Read on LinkedIn →Advocates — myself included — fought for college athletes to get paid. We were right to. And what we built is a mess. Now what? Since 2021, NIL has created a real market for college athletes but almost no infrastructure around it. No federal framework, conflicting state laws, little meaningful oversight of agents or the deal brokers moving the money. There is no consensus on how revenue-generating vs non-revenue-generating athletes should be treated. There is no collective voice for the athletes themselves.
Read on LinkedIn →