Category Archives: Sports

The University of Arkansas’ ‘radical shift’

By Steve Brawner, © 2026 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

What happened January 28 at the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees meeting was indeed a “radical shift.”

That’s how one trustee, Judd Deere, accurately described it in speaking later to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The board voted to transfer somewhere between $10 million and $11 million annually from university operations to the athletic department. The vote was 7-3, with Deere one of the three voting no.

The shift is occurring in two ways. First, the trustees’ resolution ends the athletic department’s annual transfer of funding to the university, which has averaged $4.4 million the last three years. Second, the resolution calls on Chancellor Dr. Charles Robinson and Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek to create a plan for the university to generate $6 million annually for the athletic department. 

Robinson and Yurachek said they had not seen the resolution prior to the meeting.

What made this shift “radical” is the fact that the UA has long taken pride in being one of a small number of major universities nationwide that hasn’t subsidized its athletic department.  Continue reading →

One and done in War Memorial?

By Steve Brawner, © 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders may not have changed the outcome of whether or not the University of Arkansas and Arkansas State University ever play another football game at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, or anywhere else. But she did advance the conversation.

The governor sent letters to the universities’ boards of trustees on Sunday, Sept. 7, asking them to make the game an annual event in Little Rock. 

The letter came the day after the two schools met on the football field for the first time. The Razorbacks beat the Red Wolves, 56-14.  Continue reading →

College players may soon get NIL contract lessons

By Steve Brawner, © 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

College athletics has become a professional sports endeavor, which means 18-year-old student-athletes soon will learn that contracts are enforceable and that they don’t want to get on the wrong side of rich people and powerful institutions with good lawyers. 

The first paragraph comes after Arkansas Edge hired attorney Tom Mars to enforce a contract buyout clause involving former Arkansas Razorbacks backup quarterback Madden Iamaleava. CBS Sports first reported the story.

Let’s identify everyone in the above paragraph. 

Arkansas Edge is the University of Arkansas athletic department’s collective. It represents the department in its name, image and likeness (NIL) agreements that pay players to play for the Razorbacks. 

Continue reading →

Maybe blame Hogs’ struggles on the billionaires?

By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament just completed its second weekend, and for the first time in four years, the Arkansas Razorbacks didn’t play in it.

The Razorbacks advanced to the Elite Eight two straight years under Coach Eric Musselman and then made the Sweet 16 last year, but this year’s squad finished with a losing record at 16-17. The women’s team also did not make the tournament. Arkansas State University and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock both fell just short of making the men’s tournament and giving Arkansans something to root for. 

This year’s March “sadness” follows a disappointing football season for the Razorbacks, after which Head Coach Sam Pittman found himself on the hot seat. In baseball, on the other hand, the Razorbacks are ranked number one. 

That bright spot aside, it’s been a frustrating seven months for Razorbacks fans. It’s not the first time that has happened, but what’s new is, it’s harder to know who to blame. 

That’s because two changes have transformed college sports.  Continue reading →