Wren Baker Talks About Athletic Director Role, Big 12 on Podcast

West Virginia’s athletic director went in-depth on the challenges he faces while serving West Virginia University, expansion talks about the Big 12, and talked about EA College Football 25 on the 3 Guys Before The Game Podcast this past Tuesday.

Wren Baker was first asked about how revenue sharing will be challenging, as the Big 12 will begin the practice as of next year. Baker responded stating that “there’s more questions than answers”, but he and his staff will focus on getting as much money as they can share and then decide how to allocate it. Baker continued by stating he’d like to focus on increasing revenue generation to have as much to share as possible, knowing how important athletics are to the university and state.

“We cannot afford to not be competitive”, Baker stated. He added that he hasn’t slept well knowing what’s in the near future. Baker also mentioned that West Virginia eclipsed $35 million in fundraising this past year, and football has sold 10% of their football tickets as season tickets. That’s the best metric WVU has had since 2016.

In terms of future facilities upgrades, Wren doesn’t see any projects going through without 100% donor funds. They are building a baseball pitching and heating lab, but two donors covered the majority of the project, with one donating 70% of the required funds. There is a facility “master plan” being worked on with architects as well, with the plan being discussed with every head coach.

Coaching salaries likely will not be cut, but the increases will likely be slowed down. “Probably everybody is going to see a little bit of a lull in coaching salaries”, Baker said.

When discussing conversations with other athletic directors about revenue sharing, Baker discussed the various strategies being floated around to increase revenue. These included having sponsor logos on the field and uniforms of student athletes as strategies to increase revenues under the cap. “I think all of those things are in play”, Baker mentioned. “It’s not going to be easy, it’s going to require a lot of thought, a lot of hard work.” He also mentioned that the health of Country Roads Trust, West Virginia’s NIL team, is “critical” for them as well.

When discussing NIL, Baker agrees with the sentiment that the most difficult aspect of it is just how new it is. “Not knowing how that allocation is going to happen, and probably the other big unknown is, in this court ruling… there is a regulator for NIL becoming organic, true NIL.” However, it doesn’t seem clear as to what the “regulator” entails of. “There’s much more teeth to there being real rules in place.” Organic NIL can be beneficial, but it can become more complicated if it isn’t regulated properly.

It’s further explained that NIL is ideally supposed to operate with a player receiving payment for a service, instead of players earning money while not doing anything in return. An example brought up on the show is the recently released EA College Football 25 game, where players who opted into their name, image and likeness being portrayed received $600 and a free copy of the game.

Baker was later asked if he would play the new EA College Football 25 game, which he quickly responded to with a “Yes” but also said he wasn’t paying extra money to play it earlier than the standard release on July 19th. “I have two daughters and they’re gamers, they love to play, but the don’t like sports games. They’re in there playing Minecraft.” Baker also confirmed that he has played Frogger.

Limitations on scholarships and rosters are also being discussed, according to Baker. “There’s great variance in what people think roster limits should be.” Roster limits may change, with some pulling for an 85 player limit, and others pulling for 125 players. “People would be shocked and amazed at the amount of debate that’s going on and lobbying behind the scenes… my guess is we’ll end up with a compromise, it’ll be somewhere between 85 and 120,” Baker discussed.

When asked about West Virginia’s recent coaching carousel, Baker mentioned that when you take a job such as this you expect it to be difficult. “Life’s greatest blessing is to go through hard things”, he commented. “It has not been an easy, seamless, turbulence-free start. But what it’s allowed me to do is, I feel like I’ve gotten to know the people of West Virginia, I’ve gotten to know our board, I’ve been able to show who I am and what I’m all about, and what I believe in… I really look back and see that as a blessing sitting here now, although it didn’t always feel that way.” Since being hired as athletic director, Baker has hired new head coaches for men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, and baseball.

While talking about generating revenue and scholarships, Baker brought up that people have asked him to add softball, claiming that the university would make money. “There’s a difference between bringing in revenue and being profitable,” Baker responded. “Yes, we would bring in revenue, we would be nowhere near profitable because there’s not a profitable softball program in the country, so to assume that we would be would be a fallacy.”

Recently, news came out that the Big 12 has been in early conversations with Clemson and Florida State. When asked what his message to Mountaineer nation is regarding these rumors, “You can never in college atheltics predict what would happen,” Baker responded. “But I would say of the things that are out there… most of the time when I’m reading that it’s news to me, and if it’s news to me that means there’s not a lot of accuracy to it. What we do know is that there are definitely institutions positioning and jockeying to try and put themselves in the best position… I would just caution people to realize that a lot of times what they’re seeing is the tip of the iceberg, and the tip they’re seeing is probably not the most accurate and real information.”

You can watch the entire podcast episode using the YouTube link below, and listen to the 3 Guys Before the Game podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and Spotify.