Twenty questions with UM AD Radakovich: Where Canes stand with ACC, NIL, football, more

This is an important time for Miami Hurricanes athletics, as UM looks to rebound from a 5-7 football season, grow the pot of money available for NIL contracts and help find solutions to the growing disparity in revenue between the Atlantic Coast Conference and the powerhouse Southeastern and Big 10 conferences.

UM’s athletic director addressed all of that — and more — in a conversation with the Miami Herald. Twenty questions with Dan Radakovich:

▪ Do you expect ACC schools to strike a new revenue distribution deal that would give a greater share of conference revenue to ACC schools that make the College Football Playoff and men’s NCAA Tournament? And are you in favor of that?

“The answer to both questions, I think, is yes. The presidents have a committee that they’re working through. I think there’s a lot of unanimity amongst the athletic directors that some type of success initiatives, success distribution should occur.”

But even if ACC presidents approve this new plan in the weeks ahead, Radavokich said implementation won’t happen this fall.

It’s “not going to happen for the ‘23 season,” he said. “It’s going to be the ‘24 season” because that’s the year the playoff expands from four to 12 teams.

▪ Regarding the issue of schools bolting for conferences where they can make more money, FSU AD Michael Alford reportedly told FSU trustees in February: “We have to do something because we’re a brand. We’re a very important brand, and we drive the media value in this conference.”

Do you believe, regardless of whether you make the College Football Playoff, the same holds true for Miami? In other words, let’s say it was this past year when Miami finished 5-7. Do you believe UM would be one of the schools that deserve more because it is a brand, even if you don’t make the playoff?

“Yeah, I think it’s been shown previously that there are three or four schools — Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, Miami — who really kind of move the brand awareness of the ACC forward over time and for different reasons.

“You could throw Duke in there for basketball for whatever the basketball number is akin to these days.

“But I think there are two different questions. No. 1: the media deal is harder to affect right now, because we have the contract with ESPN that runs through 2036.

“The success initiatives have nothing to do with your brand. It’s just, ‘Hey, what did you do?’ [in football and basketball?]

“And if you won, if you go to the Final Four, or if you go to the College Football Playoff, we’re going to take a little bit more of the distribution that comes from those sources and give that to the teams that participate.”

▪ Alford said the Seminoles generate about 15 percent of the revenue that the ACC receives through media contracts, but receive only 7 percent of the distribution. How much of ACC revenue does UM generate? And do you believe that UM should receive that percentage?

“I don’t know how that metric was calculated. So I can’t, I wouldn’t even know how to begin to give you a number for the University of Miami. So, that was an interesting number.”

▪ It reportedly would be financially crushing for a school to try to leave the ACC because of a grant of rights contract that allows the ACC to keep TV revenue of all schools (even any that leave the conference) through 2036. Do you believe the ACC’s grant of rights agreement is airtight without loopholes?

“Well, all I can say is that same grant of rights has been in other conferences, and no one has really challenged it. So not being a lawyer, I don’t know the tenets of it. But just being a lay person, it must be pretty good if no one has tried to challenge it.”

▪ If the Big 10 or SEC calls you, would your interest be piqued?

“I’m not going to comment on that. We’re here to make the ACC as good as we can make it. That’s our charge. And that’s where we want to get to.”

▪ How reliant is UM on John Ruiz for NIL money? Does UM need his money to be competitive with NIL?

“Well, John and Life Wallet have been really important. And it’s been what NIL is about — having student-athletes work with a brand to extend theirs and extend that company’s brand as well.

“We’re looking to move ahead and supplement those dollars that John has put in with other sources of revenue. So we’re working very hard with the Canes Connection, which is the collective that is out there right now, to help create even more dollars for our student athletes to have the opportunity to benefit from.”

▪ How much is UM’s collective generating for NIL deals? Are we talking tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars?

“It’s in process.”

▪ Can you say how much money the collective is generating?

“I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. I mean, there are a lot of deals that are done with our student-athletes that are part of the collective, and there are dollars that are being generated through philanthropic opportunities with the collective. So the accounting of that, I don’t have off the top of my head.”

▪ Do you need more donors?

“Of course. Yes.”

▪ What’s your football season ticket renewal rate?

“It’s a little bit behind last year, but not substantively. So, the percentage probably is in the 70, 75 percent rate.”

▪ And where do you stand in number of season tickets sold compared with last season? I know you gave a percentage.

“I think we’re a little bit behind. There are peaks and valleys as it relates to times when you compare where you are from a previous year. We sent the ticket [renewals] out later this year than we had done in past years. But… we’re probably about 3,000 or 4,000 behind where we were maybe this time last year.”

▪ And the total number of season tickets that you have sold so far?

“I think 27,000.”

Radakovich said last August that UM has the ability to sell “somewhere in the 46 [thousand]-to-47,000 range” after taking off “student tickets, visitor tickets and [seats for] player parents, etc. — that’s the total season tickets we can sell. The goal is to sell all of them for sure.”

▪ Ruiz has proposed a football stadium at Tropical Park in Westchester. I know you told us last year that you’re more concerned with your home right now, Hard Rock Stadium, and your plans for a “forever home” on-campus for football operations. Is that still the case?

“[That] hasn’t changed. Not an iota. Our focus is working on the building here on campus, the operations building.” (UM’s contract with Hard Rock Stadium runs through 2033.)

▪ Thirteen months ago, after Miami’s city commission voted to give Inter Miami the go-ahead to build their stadium on the site of the Melreese Golf Course adjacent to Miami International Airport, commissioner Joe Carollo requested that the Mas brothers — who co-own Inter Miami with David Beckham — “explore with the school the possibility of the Hurricanes football team playing at the proposed stadium.”

He suggested that the stadium would “probably have to be increased to up to 40,000 seats to house the football games.” Is there anything new on that front?

“We’ve got a great relationship with Hard Rock. And we have a contract with them. And we’re full-steam ahead with the folks there.”

▪ Any update on the construction of the new on-campus football operations center?

“It’s moving along. We’re kind of getting to the construction drawing phase right now so that people can build off of it. Hopefully, we will have something, as to be able to start construction, late summer, early fall.”

UM previously reported the facility will be a “state-of-the-art complex and will provide the best necessities and amenities in the areas of sports medicine, strength and conditioning, nutrition, sports psychology and personal branding services. It will also serve as a memorable destination space for recruits and their families, and a home for alumni to visit and reconnect.”

▪ What will it cost?

“It’s a 172,000-square-foot building, and it would be in the neighborhood of $200 million….

“It does keep changing because the market keeps changing from a construction perspective. There’s the parking garage that’s attached to it that has the cafeteria in the lower end. Are you putting that into the whole project? Or aren’t you putting it into the whole project? Is it just the building itself?”

▪ How much of that money has been raised?

“We’re working with the university to work through that. We have some money raised right now…. Raising the money is going to happen as we move through the entire process.

“We’re also continuing to raise money for name, image and likeness opportunities. So there are dual things that we’re dealing with here.”

Radakovich, incidentally, said football coach Mario Cristobal and basketball coach Jim Larranaga “are excellent fundraisers.”

▪ What’s your assessment of last year’s football season?

“It’s not where anybody wanted to be. But it’s a circumstance where… that’s the foundation of where we’re going to be moving from. I think that taught all of us a lot — what we needed to make sure to get fixed right away. Mario was able to make some changes within his coaching staff.

“Certainly, there were a lot of student-athletes that thought that Miami wasn’t going to be a great home for them. So they’ve transferred out. But we’ve got a lot of people who are looking at the opportunity here and transferring in. So we’re excited about that.”

▪ What are your expectations for the 2023 football season?

“I think we just have to play better. Football is a funny game. Sometimes you could play a lot better and maybe the result on the field isn’t what you would desire. But we just want to make sure that we’re continuing to grow the program in the proper manner.”

▪ What has it been like for you here after coming from Clemson? How have your first 17 months here been?

“It’s been good. Obviously, the Final Four run and the Elite Eight run [in men’s and women’s basketball] were a lot of fun and continuing to build the football program and assisting Mario any way that I can help him do that, as well as working with the staff to try to move the department forward.

“And making sure we’re modernizing where we can modernize. That’s just what we try to do, get better each day.”