Edition #7
September 22, 2026
Van Wagner is a leading sports advertising and entertainment agency, with global expertise in live events, sponsorship sales, multimedia rights and aerial advertising. Van Wagner creates, advises and sells on behalf of world-class teams, leagues, brands and properties. An innovator in the sports and media business, Van Wagner is a global leader in high-impact broadcast visible signage throughout the NCAA, MLB, NBA, and international soccer, as well as collegiate multimedia rights and in-venue content production at the world’s biggest sporting events. For more information, visit www.vanwagner.com.
Semafor’s Burgess Everett with the latest from the Senate as the Protect College Sports Act pushes on: “The price for Senate Republicans to finish the college sports bill quickly this week might be a roll call vote on allowing NCAA athletes to organize. It could take all week for the Senate to process the bipartisan college sports bill. To speed things up, Democrats want amendment votes, most notably one that would allow college athletes to collectively bargain. The amendment, from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), would replace a portion of the bill that is neutral on employment status with Murphy’s College Athlete Right to Organize Act. … Murphy also has amendments that would subject coaches to the same transfer portal restrictions as athletes and protect athletes who report physical or sexual misconduct.” (link)
Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger refers to Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) amendment to replace a portion of the PCSA with his College Athlete Right to Organize Act as “an interesting proposal,” but notes “there are few if any bill changes expected. The last motion got 77 votes - 17 more than needed for passage, which is expected by Friday. There is little reason to compromise as expediting a vote isn't necessary. Context here matters. Because of the high procedural support - 77+ right now - detractors hold little leverage to push lawmakers to adopt or even vote on amendments. Time is the only real leverage point: Detractors can slow down the process to possibly push a final vote into early next week.” Dellenger on where things stand with the PCSA: “So this bill will pass the Senate next week, but then it goes to the House. They like to call it, on the hill, a circus, and it's just kind of an unruly chamber of various cliques. And it's sort of hard to predict how people are going to vote, no matter their party in the House, especially with a bill that is so specific.” (link, link)
Coastal Alabama AD Daniel Head joined Powerhouse Sports’ The Friday Drive to discuss managing a multi-campus department following institutional consolidation and major facility investments. Here are some of his most notable takeaways…
➤ After the institution formally consolidated in 2017, athletic consolidation was the final piece, as there were three programs, all with different mascots and identities. “When you advertise your college, ‘Hey, come support the whatever.’ And it was like, well, we can't really promote our mascot, so obviously we got to find a way to create some symmetry across all of our programs. So it was kind of the final piece of the puzzle about consolidation to kind of say, ‘Hey, we are now all Coyotes.’ Everybody is one, so we can all have a unified front and no matter where you go see a Coastal Alabama athletic event, you know what's being represented. So that helps us from a marketing standpoint to be able to promote each college the same way. … Now it's the Coyotes and every time we promote and talk about our programs, we're talking about the entire organization. And so that's really been a good positive.”
➤ On facility investments: “We've put probably over $10 million in facilities over the last three years. We've got renovated a new gym in Bay Minette, basically from the ground up, a new renovated gym. We've got a baseball softball indoor facility that just opened up last week in Bay Minette. We've got a brand new baseball stadium in Brewton. We've renovated the gym in Brewton for volleyball. Monroeville gym – we've got a new roof there. We've got a new floor there in the gym. We've got jumbotrons in both gyms over the last year. We redid all the tennis courts in Monroeville for our tennis program. We're building new tennis courts in Bay Minette on campus, a 12-court tennis facility. Our golf teams play at some of the greatest courses across the footprint where they train and work out. We're going to get Trackman for our baseball programs and our golf teams. We're cutting edge. We're trying to have everything that everybody has at any level to be successful on the field.” (link)
More from Iowa Western AD Shane Larson’s Small College Conversation on finances, fundraising and big-picture concerns. Key takeaways…
➤ Larson notes the coaches for the Reivers’ 26 sports have a lot of fundraising responsibility to support each program’s needs and wants. The department also recently became the first junior college to raise over $1M through eTeamSponsor. Larson: “It's not that every program gets the same; every program gets what they need to be competitive. So we do a lot of comparisons with what our opponents are doing? What is Iowa Central, Indian Hills, Hutchinson, what are they doing, and are we doing similar things? Because as I said before, those teams are on our schedule in those sports. Our football and the men's basketball teams aren't going to play each other in a game that matters. So what do we need to make our basketball programs competitive regionally? I know schools will think our football program that's won three national titles in five years is not giving out as much scholarships as some of the teams we're playing within our conference schedule or in the playoffs. It's figuring out where you're going to spend your money and get the most bang for your buck.”
➤ On external risks: “It's trying to, I don't want to say keep up with the Division I’s, but trying to be able to continue to operate and how we have to adjust what we do because the NCAA kind of drives the mentality of the student-athletes that we're getting. It's trying to be able to pivot and adjust so that you're not lessening the opportunity for our kids, putting our coaches in a situation where they're at a disadvantage based on operations, not resources, but we want to be able to know what's coming. … I think those are the opportunities we're trying to capitalize on as the NCAA changes, how do we adapt to benefit our programs and give kids opportunities to be part of something special?” (link)
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Delilah Brumer details why some community colleges across the country have dropped football or athletics all together. Southwest Virginia decided to cut all athletics after the 2025-26 academic year, which impacted around 100 student-athletes across six sports, as the athletics budget totaled around $1M. Although that funding largely came from private donations, SVCC Director of Strategic Communications John Dezember tells Brumer: “Athletics carried indirect costs to the college beyond the private funding — facilities upkeep, utilities, and the extra staffing needed to support that level of enrollment. … Ending athletics means those indirect costs and staff time can now be dedicated to academics and student support.” Harrisburg Area made a similar decision to drop all sports, but esports, in April, ultimately reversing that decision after receiving feedback from stakeholders. Smith (NCAA DIII) Professor Emeritus of Economics Andrew Zimbalist acknowledges that sports may drain resources as schools struggle with enrollment and financial challenges, adding: “Athletics does provide a lot of value, in that it helps balance students’ lives.” (link)
Jamestown has partnered with the Jamestown Area YMCA on a $48M project bringing together community wellness, athletics, and youth development in a unified 52K-square-foot JAY Wellness Center on the Jamestown Campus that is expected to open in 2029. Future phases include upgrading JCC fields to turf and renovating the Physical Education Complex. Renovations are set to begin next month. (link, link)
Check out Barton’s upgraded Kirkman Activity Center with new basketball locker rooms, donor lounge and more, courtesy of MMTH. (link)
Coaches Corner…
➤ Hostos names former high school Boy’s Track & Field HC Alex Dankwa as Men’s and Women’s Cross Country and Track & Field HC. (link)
➤ Rowan College South Jersey-Gloucester names high school football HC Chris Thomas its first Women’s Flag Football HC with the Roadrunners to begin competing this spring. (link)
➤ Southern Arkansas Tech Men’s Basketball HC Bryant Pagan II resigns after four seasons at the helm. (link)
The share of the high school graduating class of 2025 immediately enrolling in college increased slightly across all economic backgrounds, according to data released Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Per Higher Ed Dive’s Laura Spitalniak, post-graduation fall enrollment at low-poverty high schools rose to 73.9%, up from 73.1% in 2024, while immediate enrollment for high-poverty high school graduates reached 51.2% (up from 50.8%). College persistence rates among high-poverty high school graduates also improved for the class of 2023, climbing to 76% (up from 74.3%), and to 90.6% (up from 89.4%) among low-poverty graduates. Additionally, the share of high-poverty high school graduates enrolling in college within two years grew by 2.1 percentage points to 58.7% for the class of 2023, with urban high schools showing the largest two-year enrollment gain at 67.1%. (link)