Episode 9: CJ Olson • Creative Capology

In today's Moneyballers episode, CJ Olson discusses his new role as the Director of Salary Cap Management at Vanderbilt University. He shares insights into the importance of data analysis in football (even in his cap-centric role). He also reflects on the unique structure of Vanderbilt's emerging front office, and how he collaborates with coaches and GMs across all rev-share sports.

‍

Our Takeaways

• Front offices should be focused on creating efficiency in salary cap management.

• Salary Cap Directors should provide creative input and being a sounding board for coaches.

• Data analysis is crucial for understanding player value and performance.

• Effective communication is key in translating data for coaches.

• Budget constraints require creative problem-solving in college sports.

‍

‍

Full Transcript

‍

Luke Bogus (01:10)
CJ Olson, thanks for joining the podcast, man, how are you?

CJ Olson (01:12)
I'm doing well, thank you for having me, how's it going?

Luke Bogus (01:14)
Yeah, doing great. I feel honored that day seven of your role, well, technically just in office, you're spending your time with me. So thanks for taking the time and your role is the director of salary cap management at Vanderbilt. I'm pumped to talk to you early on, I guess, in the road of being this role. Cause not only is a title like yours very, very, very new, but as I mentioned, you're very new into the role. And so it's going to be interesting to kind of hear like what your like early nascent ideas are about.

what your responsibilities are, how you're collaborating with the GM. So just pump for the whole episode if you're ready to dive in?

the first and obvious question is Vanderbilt has a GM, Barton, what is your job description and how do you collaborate with somebody like Barton or any other other GMs that Vanderbilt has like walk me through what were you hired to do?

CJ Olson (01:57)
in preparation for this, actually dug up the application job description, because I was curious, because when I was applying, I wasn't thinking about it like, oh, I wonder what the job description says. I saw director salary cap management I thought that I want to do that. I don't want to call it flowery language, but there's like official sort of like black letter of like what the role is. But essentially my understanding of it is that I'm here to help with efficiency

and create the systems and foundations that allow the coaches to coach the recruiting staff to recruit the personnel side to manage the personnel

letting them do what they need to do within whatever the financial constraints are in any given year as sort of this budget continues to expand. So whether that be in forecasting player value and forecasting player performance, however I can help.

Basically just being like a sounding board, sort of being like a muse for

new age of whatever college athletics is becoming. That's essentially

I see my role. So like the way that I interact, like Barton is the man. he's been the GM here for multiple years now. what he has done, it speaks volumes compared to what I have yet to do.

⁓ he runs the team as a traditional general manager might like how fans know in the NFL, the sort of role that a general manager has that sort of the role he fills. then I provide creative input where I can. think that, you know, it's kind of like how a lawyer

technically, at the end of the day does not make the final decision. The client is the one who gets to make the decision and the lawyer can advise. But at end of the day, if the client wants to settle, even if the lawyer thinks there's more on the table, the client gets to choose. Essentially that's how I kind of came into this job. That's sort of the mindset I came in with that, I'm never going to tell one of the coaches or personnel staff, this is what we should be doing, or this is what we need to be doing. that's not my role.

Luke Bogus (03:40)
And I think the creative input that you are inputting is more than just a lawyer. so you're not a lawyer quite yet. You're a lawyer, a law school graduate, but not only is it that, but you also have a history and personnel. And so think that's what's also really unique about a somebody who is in a front office role, non-GM.

You're like one of the early people that I found who's also been heavily involved in football. And it's like, walk me through like your history at SMU, you were like a football data analyst intern there. how has that helped you or going to help you, guess, in your role here, like that creative input isn't just from the legal side, isn't just from the red line side. It can also be from the, you know, player valuation side.

CJ Olson (04:16)
I'll give a shout out just going back to talking about Barton. he said the quote that it's more an art than a science. And I think that that's a really great way to think about it. like when you talk about my background and data analysis, I think sometimes the traditional football fans might think of that as like a red flag of like, no, like,

we're going to lose what just makes a rough, tough football player. I think that couldn't be further from the truth. I see data analysis as a way to like help provide context. And I think my experience with SMU really helped with that. I started as an intern because I reached out to the chief of staff at the time or the director of football ops, or I forget the exact title, but basically sort of like, I didn't know who to reach out to because I didn't have a director of analytics.

And I was like, I'm just going to go to the guy that sounds like he sort of oversees a little bit of everything. And he directed me to the director of player personnel who's now at TCU. And I basically said like, I want to get involved. And he was like, well, we don't have anybody doing this. I review the third party sort of data analysis that we get from other sources and then communicate it over. But if you want to try to help make sense of it, like great. And so I had this opportunity to grow and make mistakes and

play around with more data than the average fan could ever get. And so it was a really great opportunity for me to learn and grow. But I think the most important thing it taught me is how to effectively communicate what actually matters to coaches. Because they don't care about tests for normality. They just want to know at the end of the day, what is going on? when I figured out how to run tests for heteroscedasticity, I thought that was cool. I'm not trying to use big words to make it

important. it is a relatively important check to run when you're making a model. But at the same

linebackers coach does not care about that. If I'm trying to like build him a recruiting model, he just wants to know which linebackers are being under recruited and which ones are being over recruited. that's it. he doesn't need to know the rest. I think that that opportunity taught me a lot about effectively communicating. the experience I got with the numbers was great and all, but at the end of the day,

I would say the most value was

soft skills and the intangibles. So that's what I'm hoping to bring.

Luke Bogus (06:11)
One of the great quotes I've heard from when we started Dropback we interviewed a bunch of front office folks. And one great quote that I heard was that there's a triangle of decision-making in the front office. There's what the coaches think, which is a lot of times the eyeballs, the field, the scouting report, you know, there's what the data has to say, which is just one of many votes in the conversation. ⁓ so it's like data is an input to the conversation. It's not the guiding factor, but to your point

to have it be an effective input has to be translated in a way that makes sense to the person ingesting that data. The obvious question, next question is that was all in the world of helping maybe a positional coach recruit better.

Now you're in this position where you have to figure out how to translate that data into dollars and cents. do you think about it in that way or how are you planning to help migrate that evaluation data points into that kind of the valuation data points? Or is that something that Barton is fully owning and you're just assisting or how do you, how are you thinking about that?

CJ Olson (07:04)
I'll say going back to the point of like how I mentioned that Barton has served the roster as a traditional GM, Barton is one communicating with agents. So as far as like the evaluation, like, I don't know if you've ever seen the

Margin Call.

It's like the more academic version of the big short. I think the big short was made for like the average person to enjoy, even though it has some high level economic concepts. Margin call is a little bit more

Luke Bogus (07:19)
Okay.

CJ Olson (07:27)
the entire queue is just grayer. I would just describe it as a grayer version of the big short, but from the perspective of the banks, which it makes sense considering how much the banks lost on this. But essentially, they are talking

risk analyst.

And they're like, what's your background? And basically he was a rocket scientist. And they're like, so why did you change from basically forecasting rocket launches? how'd you get here? And he was well, it's all the same thing. you're just changing the variable and the money's a lot better in the banking industry. I'll just say between projecting out how many snaps a player is going to play and how much money that should be worth. how much that's worth to Vanderbilt as a roster. that's a question to discuss with Barton.

But as far as actually inputting it as a

my computer doesn't know the difference between number of snaps played versus number of dollars paid. there's a little bit more at stake when we're talking about dollars, just because it's people's livelihood. So I don't wanna be insensitive to that. But at the end of the day, the models are the models, if that makes sense.

Luke Bogus (08:21)
Yeah, that does make sense. and we'll come back to talking about the models a little bit more, but you'd mentioned it Barton, one thing that he owns is the agents side of things. to talk about specifically, what are some responsibilities that are like fully you versus like fully him? Of course you collaborate on a lot, but there are other things that you mentioned, you want the coaches to continue coaching. Like what are the things that you feel like you need to take on as the director of salary cap management to make sure that that's true.

CJ Olson (08:43)
I would say sort of like the creative problem solving of the amount of dollars that exist basically in the pool. I would say that's sort of where like I can provide insights basically trying to make things more efficient trying to lay the foundation so that way when it comes time to essentially negotiate with an agent or we also have an associate general counsel who

does the redlining for things that aren't related to personnel. in those negotiations, they need to be prepared. They need to know what to talk about. So especially in discussing with an agent, if they say, we think he's worth X, I see my role is anything that we as a entire department would want to say in rebuttal. I see it as my job to make sure everybody's as researched as possible, as ready to go as possible because

A lot of times, something that was stressed to me during the interviews is like with the transfer portal, things are happening so fast. from when the portal opens to when a guy commits, sometimes there's a couple hours and you can't just be sitting around and waiting okay, now he knows in the portal, let me run this elaborate model to see what it tells me. part of what I want to do, like an overarching project without giving actually the project away is I want to find a way to essentially automate a lot of what we're doing, for our own internal sort of spreadsheets and databases we have.

Obviously, like the third party stuff gets automated as is, but the sort of the stuff on our end, I want to try to make sure that's automated as possible. So that way context can be provided after every single week of games. So that way we know Hey, this guy who we thought, you know, we'd have him for a couple extra years. what do we do about finding either the replacement on the roster or on the market, if there's money for it or whatever, essentially that's what I see my role as being is sort of just so everybody can be as prepared as possible.

I took a networking call with somebody interested in getting into sports and they asked about like, well, you know, I'm sure the roster's already built. Like what are you even doing? And I was I'm working for next year. the contracts are in and obviously I also, another process I own is sort of help making sure like working with the, liaising with the business office to make sure the paychecks are going out on time, right? Like that's very important. That's how you lose a guy. If all of sudden paychecks stop showing up.

⁓ I do still have the day-to-day stuff of like what's going on right now, but for the most part, I want to make sure that when December hits and the football portal opens or in March, when the basketball portal is open, I want to make sure that coaches aren't on their back feet ever. That's essentially how I see it.

Luke Bogus (10:51)
Yeah, I like that. Just like adding enough rigor of data, enough rigor of thought, at least as like a checking point to the decisions you're about to make. You know, it might be the guiding light in some decisions, but for the most part, it's just going to be extra context that the team can have to make their final decision. I like kind of how you're phrasing that. I guess on that thread of all this work that you do for the football team, obviously you're also for the athletic department. do you feel that a lot of the same processes and

way of thinking translates to the other rev-share eligible sports.

CJ Olson (11:20)
⁓ Yes and no. going back to the point I made about like, you know, the model is the model, like no matter what variables you're putting in, as long as you have the right principles. But I think going back to the soft skills element of knowing how to communicate, for example, like the men's basketball team versus women's basketball team versus football team versus baseball team, the dynamics are so wildly different.

And the cultures of all the sports are so wildly different. So I wouldn't say necessarily that's one size fits all. I think it's more so figuring out what each coach is looking for out of the role, what I think I can provide and then going from there and being adaptable, being flexible based on what, where I can fit in. during one of my interviews, I got asked, what are you going to do when a coach tells you something you disagree with? And I was like, I'm

just going to move on. Like I mentioned, it's not my job to tell people, no. as long as it doesn't get us in trouble with the NCAA for going over the house settlement cap, then bosses are going to need to get involved. but for the most part, if it's just like a personnel decision, and the coach says no, all right, then the coach says, no, we move on to the next thing. just depending on which sport, I think there are certain principles like that that carry over, but as far as

the individual processes, what each coach is looking for. I think

coach by coach decision rather than like a sport by sport decision, if that makes sense.

Luke Bogus (12:30)
Yeah, it does make sense. And that brings up a really good point about like the importance of where your role comes in as well, which is like, you got pre- settlement era. It was kind of bottoms up accounting for like figuring out how much we're going to pay for.

payroll through the guys of NIL, quid pro quo, whatever. It was just like, we made deals with everybody. We added it up and we're like, holy crap, we owe this much money. And that just kind of happened. And now we have a world where, of course, there's the cap and the salary cap from the settlement. But there's also this added nuance of like the salary cap is for the whole department, obviously. And so then somebody has to input some sort of rigor of a budget for every team. And so you kind of have this ⁓ experience of going through multiple seasons through just like bottoms up accounting. You add up your budget. If you're over budget, then you just call another

donor and you figure something out to where like now you actually have to have some rigor with the dollar amount that you projected and committed and budgeted. And if you overspend, well, you got to push and pull against the other parts of the department. You know, volleyball overspends by a hundred grand. That's a hundred grand coming from somewhere else. how do you think about that problem as far as your responsibility and role to kind of make sure that people stay within their checks and balances, but also having to be competitive sometimes and make that decision where you, if you do go over budget, well, that might be a good decision to make because that player is generational and they're

worth that value. So we'll make it

kind of like over budget intentional decisions, I'm sure comes up to you. any thoughts about how you think through that.

CJ Olson (13:47)
Nervously, I would say is how I think about that. So I can't speak to what happened before July 1, on account of the fact that my contract started July 1. So I'm not going to speak on what I don't know

That being said, as far as I'm aware, within each team, like there

coaches might or GMs or whoever might have an idea of like, we only want to spend a certain amount on a position and then a certain player becomes available and they go, okay, you know what? maybe we only wanted to spend X percent in recruiting, but this one recruit is responding really favorably and it might take a couple extra percent, but that's a really good player worth going after. And again, I think that goes more so back to the coaches and the personnel deciders, know, whoever that might be for each team.

And essentially my job, like I said, is to never say no. So my job is essentially like to provide alternatives. If they say like, well, we discussed, you know, X percent going to recruiting. Now we really like this one person and that brings us up over there. And then I can say, okay, well, here's an area where maybe if we cut back or here's another area where maybe we cut back and essentially provide them sort of like those alternatives.

Luke Bogus (14:52)
Of course, you need to stay in budget if you go out of budget, you know, people get in trouble and whatever, but also as long as it's not the cap budget, it's like you have to intentionally be flexible.

If opportunities arise, like you mentioned, a great recruit who needs you need to overspend for, and then your responsibility is to come in and help them be flexible. Basically, you know, it's like their job is to coach and recruit and get the best players. And it's your job to make sure that they can do that. And if they want to do that, which means going over budget in certain places, how do you kind of put the Lego pieces together and reorient them such that it all works out? So, I mean, that's a really good response that the answer doesn't have to be no, because you're overspending. It can be yes. But yes, requires you to go through a different version of, OK, well, that means we have to underspend here and thinking through those creative scenarios.

So that's a great response. And the second part is that you have the ability to do that because of your background. I think there's also maybe a trend of folks who want to be in this new front office of college sports who maybe, you know, aren't from the legal background, maybe aren't from the player personnel background. It's kind of hard to make an impact because if you don't have those like that context or that like ability or that skill, it's kind of hard, but you happen to have both. And so being like a non GM who has those backgrounds are very, very valuable to this

new front office that Vandy is building. the question I'm trying to ask now is would you recommend the setup and the structure that you have at Vandy, which is like somebody like you who kind of sits in this like multi-sport role, legal background, personnel background assists with the GMs provides a creative input. Like, do you feel that that's just like the way that all athletic departments are going to be going where you have autonomous GMs for every sport. And then there's kind of the GM of GMs are just like the director of salary cap management. do you feel like Vandy structure is unique or do you kind of

like it's just the way of the future.

CJ Olson (16:28)
So yes and no.

I think it's so dependent on who you have on the staff and what the culture is of the place. I have really enjoyed, in the brief time I've been here learning from my boss and learning from Barton, I think they're tremendous examples of, you know, just like really great leaders. And I think that in a situation like that having this

objective, almost detached department. Cause the roster and finance department, like you mentioned, falls under the athletics department. Like I think it works because there is a respect for like my boss used to work with the football team. And so he's familiar with the staff because for a lot of them have been here for multiple years now. so I think that based on what we have, I think it makes sense.

I think it's sort of like a department by department decision or like a team by team decision or program by program decision. I think that it's hard. I don't want to say like, would recommend it like full stop because what works here might not work somewhere else and what works somewhere else might not work here. Like I know, I don't know too many places that are doing it like we are. Like, I don't know how many roles

like mine exists where they're working with football and baseball and women's basketball and men's basketball. It's a good question. I think it's, you know, not to be results oriented, but we'll see. We'll see what other schools do. I think it's good that there are multiple ways to do it. And it's not just sort of cut and paste. Cause I think it allows for some unique opportunities to sort of gain an edge somewhere. So I do like that aspect of it, but.

Luke Bogus (17:58)
Yeah. And I mean, it's that's you mentioned it, but it's true. It's like, we'll see. And I think it's cool that so many different departments are taking swings and they're trying something. And that's the beauty of being in the most, you know, earth shattering moment in college sports ever. Maybe it's like, it's cool to kind of see it play out in real time. What people are trying to do, what kind of swings people are trying to make. And obviously Vandy's set up is one of them.

CJ Olson (18:21)
Yeah, I mean, to be clear, I like the way it operates here. I know I gave kind of a noncommittal answer. I do want to be clear. it's working, in my opinion, my lived experience is that it's working here. I just don't want to go speaking for other programs because I don't know. I don't want to go like tearing down other program structures being like, they've got it all wrong we're the only ones that ever write. But I like the way it works here. It's just it's hard to say considering it's so early for other places that is.

Luke Bogus (18:26)
You

Totally.

Yeah.

Totally. Well,

yeah, as I was saying, I guess maybe to wrap it up, like considering like, yeah, it is early. You are just getting started. You also did just relocate to Nashville, how you like in the city.

CJ Olson (18:52)
It's good so far. I relocated and then started studying for the bar. So it's not exactly like I've been out having a rip roaring time so to speak. I've been hidden away either at my desk at home or came into the office occasionally to sort of like come to meetings when they would happen and then go hide away at my desk to study for some more time and then go back to meetings. But it's been good. I've enjoyed Nashville of the cities I've lived in. So one of my fun facts, like a

at the new hire breakfast with the athletic director. Like I mentioned that I've lived in six cities in the last seven years, even though I've been a student for pretty much all of that time. Somehow I still have been, you know, moving around and of the cities I've lived in, I definitely have Nashville comfortably in the top two, maybe number one, we'll see. It's too early to call.

Luke Bogus (19:35)
There you go, time will tell.

Well, I'll check back in six months and see how you're doing. This was awesome episode. Appreciate the insights. Congratulations on the gig we'll chat soon. Appreciate you CJ, it's lot of fun.

CJ Olson (19:40)
Sounds good.

That's my pleasure, thank you.

‍