How new Wichita State AD Kevin Saal is winning over Shocker donors with NIL approach
Kevin Saal can count on one hand the amount of free lunches and dinners he’s had to himself in the first two months on the job as Wichita State athletic director.
That’s because he is approaching 250 meetings with WSU boosters and Wichita community members in less than eight weeks, a meet-and-greet tour that is already rejuvenating the donor base.
It was no secret Wichita State was hit hard by the pandemic and the new AD would have an uphill battle to return the athletic department to operating in the black. In order to do that, winning over donors was a must and Saal has been able to accomplish that with his plans of action and his ability to articulate them well, according to several donors who spoke to The Eagle.
“I’ve been very impressed so far and Kevin just strikes me as a great person who is going to reach out and accomplish the things that we want to accomplish here at Wichita State,” said Wichita businessman Steve Ruud. “My business partner, Nate Robertson, was on the committee that hired him and (Robertson) was so high on him, he couldn’t see straight. That tells me a lot when Nate is really impressed with someone.”
“My first impression of Kevin was that he was like a long-lost buddy,” said Tony Weatherbee, a Shocker Athletic Scholarship Organization board member. “The way he talks, it’s clear he’s educated about everything and it just seems like he’s a real go-getter. If he sets his mind to something, I believe that he’s going to get it done.”
But those are the people Saal is supposed to be able to win over: the loyal donors who have remained supportive of the athletic department through the seismic changes that have occurred over the last five years.
Where Saal is really making an impression, according to multiple sources, is the segment of donors who have stopped financially supporting WSU in recent years.
“He’s calling them and introducing himself and just thanking them for their past support,” said Kevin Kelly, a former WSU baseball player and current donor. “People pick up and think, ‘Oh God, here comes the sales pitch.’ It’s like when you walk into a used car lot, you’re prepared for the spiel. But that’s not what he’s doing and people get totally surprised in a good way. He’s engaging with people in a much more constructive manner, in my opinion, rather than turning into a traveling salesman.”
Saal has a host of ideas he plans on implementing at Wichita State, but the first major rollout of his tenure started this week with a concerted effort to bring WSU up to speed in the Name, Image and Likeness space.
On Monday, Saal released a 1,600-word letter penned with the hopes of educating WSU fans on what NIL is and what it isn’t. Further information highlighting the three different ways to donate to Shocker student-athletes will be released throughout the week with WSU launching an Opendorse marketplace on Monday, Aug. 29.
It’s not a coincidence that Saal picked NIL as the first issue to tackle at WSU.
“There was beyond curiosity about (NIL) from the folks we’ve talked to,” Saal said. “There is a desire to be educated and to learn more about it. The issue of NIL with regards to what it is and what it isn’t and how to get involved wasn’t on the collective conscience of the Wichita community. We had some work to do, but I don’t think it’s going to take moving mountains for us to be competitive in this space.”
Saal has opened eyes with his extensive research on the subject, notably his push for WSU to begin tapping into its “Alston Funds” to provide up to $5,980 to every student-athlete based on academic achievement. A 2019 court ruling established that every school is allowed to compensate student-athletes up to $5,980 for academic achievement, but it is up to each school to decide whether or not to shell out the money.
He has also hammered home the point of ignoring “the one percent” of NIL deals that attract national headlines, like the multi-million dollar NIL deals handed out to SEC football players. Saal then likes to show the donors a slide that shows the NIL marketplace data from the fourth quarter of 2021, which shows the average of more than 5,000 NIL deals was $1,100 per transaction with the median landing in the $300 range.
Those are the type of deals Saal envisions the Opendorse marketplace attracting, as donors will now have the means to directly reach out to a specific student-athlete to work out a potential NIL deal.
“That helps people frame up the overwhelming amount of data points that we have on NIL transactions,” Saal said. “I think folks have this perception because of what they see on social media that players are getting these six- and seven-figure deals and that’s just not the case. We’re just trying to get that data out there and add some clarity for people.”
The bigger donors who wish to see their funds spread out to entire teams, like softball, baseball, volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball, have avenues to do that with Armchair Strategies, the NIL collective run by two former WSU baseball players who operate independently from the university to create money-making opportunities for student-athletes.
Saal has made it a priority to build a good relationship with Tyler Weber and Tymber Lee, who co-run Armchair Strategies.
“Kevin knows that NIL is playing a big part in college athletics right now and he knows the impact good NIL can have on the athletic department and the sports teams,” Weber said. “We haven’t been able to pay college athletes for 100-plus years and now we can, so people are a little unsure of what we can and cannot do. Kevin has done a very good job of educating fans and giving them information about how they can get involved.”
A healthy skepticism remains in certain parts of the donor base until concrete results are achieved, but the early signs are that Saal is doing and saying all of the right things to send Wichita State in the right direction in the NIL world.
The best example of that came in a recent SASO board meeting where Saal’s presentation left those in attendance more confident than ever that Wichita State can fulfill its potential in the NIL space.
“I believe we are headed in the right direction with Kevin,” said Kelly, whose wife, Kelly, is the current SASO board president. “He seems to really have a grasp on it. I think that’s where we fell on our face a little earlier because we didn’t know enough. We kind of only knew one channel and we were all being blindly led by whatever the NCAA was saying. But he’s looking at the NCAA, he’s looking at the private sector, he’s looking at third-party companies. No one came out of that meeting thinking, ‘Oh, we’re still a deer in the headlights.’ We have some clarity there now. Kevin has a plan for how we’re going to attack this and how we’re going to be competitive. He’s not just focused on NIL, but also the experience of the student-athlete at Wichita State. It’s not going to be just about the money, you’ve got to get their heart and I think he’s focused on that.”
This story was originally published August 23, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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