In this new era of college athletics, West Virginia wanted to open up a new door.
Multiple athletic departments already had their own foundations that are connected to the schools, but also separate from them.
West Virginia had never done that, electing to run the operation through the school until now with the launch of Gold & Blue Enterprises.
The organization is a 501(c)(3) setup for a number of reasons.
One it will not be encumbered by the bureaucracy of a higher education institution with the speed that the rosters are moving in terms of the paper work involved and allowing for things to move quicker.
“One of the first things we wanted to do is create an entity that could do those, quickly, did not have a bunch of processes,” Athletic Director Wren Baker said on the 3 Guys Before the Game Podcast.
The Mountaineers also did not want to open up any potential FOIA requests for competition to look at the payroll for the entire team and formulate counteroffers.
“If your running back’s having a great year, you’d rather not everybody in the country that’s watching and put up big numbers know exactly what you’re giving there,” Baker said. “And so that’s part of it.”
Baker envisions the new world of college athletics will resemble more of the professional model and that means being able to take advantage of commercial opportunities.
The Athletic Director points to some of the licensing things that the Country Roads Trust has done with their beer, bourbon and the GOAT Country Roads pub and wonders if that is a possibility.
“Should there be a bar and grill concept that potentially could use some of our name, image, and likeness and we get a cut of that? Should we look at the potential of entertainment district type stuff? You've seen a couple of those concepts roll out,” he said.
Baker said that they’re not giving up campus involvement or control, but they need to have the freedom and flexibility to swim in those waters when it makes sense for them to do it to grow their commercial business.
“It’s really important to open up as many opportunities for yourself as you can. And we were pretty limited in the structure that we had,” Baker said. “And if you look at universities or state agencies, there’s a lot of guidelines, rules and regulations.”
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
