Q&A with Jeremiah Donati: TCU AD talks realignment, NIL and the future of college sports

Every week there seems to be a new development that threatens to alter the fabric of college athletics.

From schools trying to bully their way out of contracts with their conference, to states like Tennessee and Virginia suing the NCAA over rules they say restricts compensation for student athletes, there’s a flood of change sweeping across the landscape of college sports.

It can be a lot for fans to follow and for administrators like TCU Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Jeremiah Donati, it can bring a lot of sleepless nights as he thinks about the future of college sports. One particular case, House v. NCAA, is viewed by Donati as the next potential landmine.

For those that haven’t followed, the NCAA could potentially be on the hook for a multi-billion dollar payout to former and current college athletes as a part of an antitrust lawsuit brought by Arizona State swimmer Grant House in 2020. Sedona Prince is another listed plaintiff.

“Right now there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty around it,” Donati said of the lawsuit. “The numbers in damages, there are a lot of implications with it. It’s a little daunting thinking about adding that type of massive expense to your budget. It seems like that’s going to be the cost of doing business going forward and the cost of staying in the game.

“We made a commitment to do that here at TCU, to stay in the game. To compete at the highest level, that’s a board mandate. We’ll be prepared for whatever is coming.”

Donati met Wednesday with a group of local media to discuss a number of issues including name, image and likeness (NIL), potential conference expansion and more.

Here’s the full Q&A:

Q: What are your thoughts on fan anxiety about TCU being left out of the latest round of realignment in football?

Donati: “I feel great about the conference we’re in. It feels a lot better to be on this side of it than we found ourselves previously. Most notably a couple years ago when Texas and Oklahoma left, there was a lot of uncertainty there. For now, I love our commissioner, I love the conference we’re in. The makeup next year of having those 16 teams in, I think we’re going to be really competitive.

“I think there will be some really good football programs. I would be lying to you if I said I had a crystal ball or I could guarantee the same feeling five or 10 years from now. Because there are so many other forces at play right now, these lawsuits, the (College Football Playoff) negotiations, the disparity in television revenue. Realignment or conference expansion is going to continue to happen. It’s probably going to contract rather than expand from the conferences’ standpoint. I can tell you right now on Feb. 28 I feel really good about it and everything we’ve done as a conference. There’s more uncertainty in our business than there’s ever been.”

Q: How frustrating is it that the Big 10 and SEC have kind of marginalized the success and growth of the Big 12?

JD: “It is frustrating, it feels as though there are two conferences trying to stack the deck against everybody else. That’s potentially going to create a competitive inequity that I don’t think is good for college football. I don’t think college football fans will want that. Hopefully it doesn’t work out that way, it certainly seems like that’s the direction we’re going in.”

Q: Are you guys looking at scheduling a (Power Four) conference team to replace SMU on the schedule?

JD: “The replacement will be a home game. We have to do a home and away with a P4 and we’ve got that scheduled out to 2030. We’ve had a number of conversations with P4 schools after 2030, but we’ve just paused on all of that because we don’t know what the landscape will look like. We’re replacing the home and home with SMU with home games, so we haven’t formally announced some of these games yet, but we will soon.”

Q: How difficult has it been to rely on a smaller alumni base for NIL and fundraising for bigger projects?

JD: “We’ve been fortunate to punch above our weight class. We’ve got good resources, but I think as a university we’ve done a good job of being resourceful with those resources. I think we’ve made good coaching hires, I think Fort Worth is a great destination. I think our physical campus is an attractive place to be.... but the NIL piece is concerning, the sustainability of it. I think we’re seeing a lot of collectives around the country and NIL supporters are starting to run out of gas.

“Hey this was really popular when it first came out and now the same people that want to support it are saying how much longer do you need me to do this? This is not how I envisioned supporting the university... I’m seeing a lot of headlines about ‘Help, this isn’t sustainable.’ I’m talking about from the big boy schools, not Group of Five schools.”

Q: What about bringing NIL in-house?

JD: I’ve changed my tune on this, I would prefer it’s in-house. I would prefer to control it, for it to be on the ground level. We’ve got tremendous fundraisers here, I prefer they’re the ones that are running it. I’d like to give them university credit for supporting it, I’d like to give them priority points, we could get a little more creative with it if we had total control of it. I think our collective does a really good job and I commend them for doing what they’re doing, but if I could, that would be one move I would make tomorrow.”

Q: What are the expectations for TCU football in new Big 12 without Texas and Oklahoma?

JD: “You’ve got two powerhouse brands leaving the conference and I think everyone in the league is looking at this like it’s an opportunity, there’s a void there. You’re not going to replace Texas and OU with the schools coming in, but I think competitively there’s an opportunity there. We’re going to have at least one automatic qualifier (for the playoff), probably more than that. Having two, maybe three teams find their way into the playoff. That’s a tremendous amount of more access than it was before with just four.

“Our expectation is to win and be in the postseason every year and to be competing for a championship in this league, that’s not changed. Last year was a step back, but from what I’ve seen so far everything is in place for us to have a bounce back year.”

Q: What’s the excitement level for the Athletics Human Performance Center renovation and expansion projects?

JD: “I think there are a lot of things we’re pouring into these facilities that will touch all of our programs. The restoration Wellness Center we just announced that the Simpson family was generous to help support, we haven’t done anything like that, that’s this comprehensive. I’m proud we’re able to pull that off and then if you go back to the economic driver of any athletics program being football, we’re making the appropriate investment there having their own standalone space. We’re hitting a lot of birds with one stone there.”