Tyler Marona

Maybe It’s Me

Cal just laid off about two dozen staffers across marketing, communications, and creative services. They are replacing the entire external operation with something called "Strawberry Creek Studios," built around two objectives: revenue generation and authentic storytelling. This is not a Cal problem...this is the first wave. Cal is facing a $24.3 million shortfall. They owe $12 million a year in stadium debt. Their media rights money shrank when they moved to the ACC. And now they need to fund $20.5 million in annual athlete revenue sharing (Likely more) on top of all of it. The old org chart was not built for this. All of the functions operating as cost centers with no direct connection to revenue. That structure worked when TV deals and ticket sales covered the budget. It does not work when your athletes are paid and your expenses just jumped by eight figures overnight. Cal is not the last school that will go through this, they are one of the first. We are going to see athletic departments across the country restructure how they operate. Not because they want to, but because the math demands it. These are billion-dollar enterprises in some cases and they have been running on university department budgets with university department thinking. That era is over. The schools that get ahead of this will not wait until the shortfall forces their hand, they will look at every function inside their athletic department and ask one question: does this generate revenue, and if not, can it? Content is not a support function anymore, it is a revenue channel. Partnerships are not a sales team selling signage packages, they are commercial infrastructure. Alumni engagement is not a thank-you-for-donating email, it is a procurement network. The programs that restructure around revenue as the operating system, not an afterthought, will be the ones that come out on top. This is not a crisis, it is a market correction. College athletics is becoming a real business and the org charts need to catch up.

This “influencer” gets a fast pass through the Masters lottery to post a “merch haul”, yet actual golf fans like you and I get rejected in the lottery year in and year out 🫩🥀 2026 in a nutshell ig

Passed this little golf club of character today after having lunch in Skaneateles, New York. Photos not mine.

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