Mission Control for College Athletics
The Fiduciary Architecture for the Post-House Era
December, 2025
College Athletics Has Entered Orbit
The landscape of college athletics has fundamentally changed. House v. NCAA created a legal framework, but the operational infrastructure needed to support this new era remains unbuilt. We are now operating in unprecedented territory, where traditional approaches no longer apply and the margin for error has disappeared.
House v. NCAA Changed the Law
The Infrastructure Did Not Follow
Direct institutional payments now permitted
The legal barrier preventing schools from directly compensating athletes has been removed, creating immediate implementation challenges.
Legacy NIL frameworks obsolete
Existing Name, Image, and Likeness systems were not designed for this new reality and cannot scale to meet current demands.
Litigation risk increased, not reduced
Without standardized systems and fiduciary oversight, exposure to legal challenges has actually grown despite regulatory clarity.
Two Forces, One Problem
Athletes Want Stability
Multi-year commitments, health protections, predictable participation economics, and liquidity without chaos.
The NCAA Wants Control
National governance, non-employee classification, avoidance of pay-per-play models, and preservation of the educational mission.
Truth: Both sides are right. Both sides are incomplete. Neither can achieve their vision without destroying the system they seek to protect.
Where's the Money?
This is the question everyone is asking, but few are equipped to answer. Athletes are demanding outcomes without mechanisms to deliver them safely. The NCAA is seeking control without solutions to fund their vision. Universities are caught in the middle, facing board-level pressure without clear implementation paths.
Principles without infrastructure increase risk for everyone. Demands without delivery systems create liability. Authority without capital creates instability. This is not an advocacy failure—it is an infrastructure failure that requires systems engineering, not political positioning.
The Hard Truth
Everyone Has Opinions
Few Have Architecture
The conversation has been dominated by what people want. What's missing is how to build it, fund it, govern it, and sustain it within fiduciary and legal boundaries.
We Do Not Advocate
We Architect
Friends Wealth Management™ does not lobby. We do not take political positions. We do not choose sides in debates about what college athletics should become. Instead, we build systems that survive regulation, withstand scrutiny, and serve all stakeholders simultaneously.
Our role is to create the infrastructure that makes competing visions livable within the same framework. We are the referees with the whistle, not players on either team.
Fiduciary Always
SEC-Registered
Operating under the highest standards of regulatory oversight and transparency.
Independent
No conflicts of interest, no advocacy positions, no preferred outcomes beyond system stability.
Auditable
Every decision, every data point, every recommendation fully documented and defensible.
This is not marketing language. This is our legal and ethical obligation—one we treat with the same discipline NASA applies to mission-critical systems.
John Fremont-Smith
25+ Years Institutional Credit Markets
Built on rails that last generations. Experience structuring credit facilities for major institutions, navigating complex regulatory environments, and creating frameworks that serve multiple stakeholders with competing interests.
From Wall Street to university boardrooms to athletic departments, understanding how capital flows through institutional systems and what it takes to build structures that earn fiduciary trust.
Nathan Pollack
30 Years NASA Systems Engineering
"No Tech Support in Space"
Three decades building systems where failure is not an option. Spacecraft don't get second chances. Neither do institutions operating in the post-House environment. The discipline required to keep astronauts alive in orbit is the same discipline required to keep athletic departments solvent and compliant.
Data validation, fault detection, redundancy systems, and kill-switches—these are not metaphors. They are the actual engineering principles we apply to athletic department architecture.
Why That Matters
In Space:
Bad data kills missions. One corrupted sensor reading can destroy years of work and billions of dollars in moments.
In Finance:
Bad data kills institutions. One poorly structured agreement can create cascading liability that destroys athletic departments and bankrupts universities.
The margin for error is identical. The stakes are comparable. The discipline must be the same.
Our Philosophy
If the data isn't clean—we throw it away
No exceptions. No compromises. No "good enough for now." This is not perfectionism—it is survival. In aerospace engineering, contaminated data is immediately quarantined. In fiduciary architecture, unverified assumptions are immediately rejected.
We would rather build nothing than build something on faulty foundations. This approach has saved missions, prevented disasters, and protected institutions. It is non-negotiable.
There Are No Men Like Us
This combination does not exist elsewhere. Institutional credit markets experience meets aerospace systems engineering meets deep athletic department knowledge. Twenty-five years of capital structure design combined with thirty years of mission-critical systems architecture.
We did not set out to create something unique. We set out to solve a problem that required capabilities that had never been combined before. The uniqueness is a byproduct of the mission requirements, not a marketing strategy.
The Referees
We don't play favorites. We keep the game fair.
Referees Don't Score Points
We have no preferred outcome beyond system stability and stakeholder protection.
Referees Don't Choose Winners
We create frameworks where all parties can achieve their legitimate objectives simultaneously.
Referees Don't Rewrite Rules Mid-Game
We work within existing legal and regulatory boundaries to create sustainable solutions.
This is Mission Control, not marketing. We enforce fair play, protect participants, and keep the league alive.
The Trinity
RAR™ | AIP™ | FRACS™
Three systems, engineered to work together, each serving a distinct function while supporting the others. RAR™ provides the institutional telescope. AIP™ provides the athlete microscope. FRACS™ provides the funding space station. Together, they create the complete infrastructure for the post-House era.
Remove any one element and the system fails. Implement all three and you create stability, predictability, and sustainability for every stakeholder.
RAR™: Risk Assessment Rating
The Hubble Telescope
RAR™ translates athletic departments into the language that boards, regents, and Congress actually speak: balance sheets, risk profiles, and governance scores. It transforms subjective assessments into objective, auditable data that can withstand legal scrutiny and regulatory review.
Just as Hubble can detect objects billions of light-years away, RAR™ can identify institutional risks before they become institutional crises. Early detection saves missions, prevents disasters, and protects endowments.
Why RAR Exists
Regents don't vote on vibes
Board members have fiduciary duties. They cannot approve multi-million dollar commitments based on athletic department optimism or donor enthusiasm. They need quantified risk assessment, actuarial analysis, and defensible documentation that can withstand auditor scrutiny and shareholder lawsuits.
Congress doesn't regulate anecdotes. Courts don't accept "trust us." Banks don't lend on potential. RAR™ is how athletics speaks fiduciary—the only language that matters when real capital is at stake.
What RAR Measures
Financial Sustainability
Revenue stability, expense trends, donor concentration risk, and capital structure durability over multi-year horizons.
Compliance Exposure
Title IX positioning, NCAA enforcement history, state law conflicts, and regulatory change vulnerability.
Reputational Risk
Public perception trends, media coverage patterns, alumni sentiment tracking, and crisis management preparedness.
These are not opinions. These are measurements derived from standardized methodologies that produce consistent, comparable results across institutions.
AIP™: Athlete Investment Profile
The Microscope
AIP™ evaluates athletes the way capital markets evaluate credit risk: performance history, durability indicators, marketability assessment, conduct patterns, and contextual factors. It applies the same discipline that banks use to evaluate loan applications—not promises, not potential, but verifiable data points that predict future outcomes.
This is life-detection technology for athlete economics. Just as NASA's instruments can identify biosignatures on distant planets, AIP™ can identify value indicators in complex athlete portfolios.
What AIP Is Not
Not a Promise
AIP™ does not guarantee future earnings, performance, or success. It assesses probability based on historical patterns and current indicators.
Not Pay-for-Play
AIP™ does not determine compensation or create employment relationships. It standardizes evaluation methodology.
Not Recruiting Inducement
AIP™ cannot be used pre-enrollment and serves no recruiting function. It applies only to current student-athletes.
The Credit Analogy
AIP is to Athletes
What FICO is to Credit
FICO does not guarantee you will repay your loans. It predicts the probability based on historical behavior patterns. Banks still make the lending decision, but they make it based on standardized, auditable methodology rather than loan officer intuition.
AIP™ serves the same function. It standardizes athlete evaluation so that institutions can make informed decisions with defensible documentation. The university still decides. AIP™ simply ensures that decision can withstand legal and regulatory scrutiny.
Why AIP Reduces Litigation
Standardization kills arbitrariness
Employment lawsuits thrive on inconsistency. When similarly situated individuals receive different treatment without documented justification, courts impose liability. When decisions follow standardized, pre-established criteria applied uniformly, litigation loses its foundation.
AIP™ does not prevent lawsuits—nothing can. But it converts subjective decisions into objective applications of transparent methodology. That difference determines whether institutions win or lose when litigation inevitably arrives.
FRACS™: Friends Revolutionary Athletic Credit Strategy
The Space Station
FRACS™ is the funding mechanism that makes everything else possible. It is not a new concept—it is existing institutional credit infrastructure applied to a new asset class. The same rails that have funded dormitories, laboratories, and stadiums for generations, now funding athlete stability, health continuity, and participation economics.
Like the International Space Station, FRACS™ is where parties with different objectives can survive together. Different countries, different missions, same life support system. Different stakeholders, different priorities, same capital structure.
What FRACS Is
Credit Facility
Access to capital, not guaranteed payment. Structured borrowing against future value, not current compensation.
Institutional
University-level arrangement with fiduciary oversight, not individual athlete contracts or NIL collective chaos.
Fiduciary-Managed
SEC-registered advisor oversight with auditable controls, not donor whims or booster influence.
What FRACS Is Not
Not Salary
FRACS™ does not create W-2 employment relationships or regular paycheck obligations that trigger employee classification.
Not Employment
Credit access preserves student-athlete status and educational primacy while providing financial stability.
Not NIL Chaos
Institutional oversight and fiduciary controls replace donor volatility and booster competition with sustainable structure.
Regent Board Translation
Dorms
Institutional bonds, predictable payments, fiduciary oversight.
Labs
Same capital structure, same governance, same board approval process.
Now Athletes
Same rails. Same discipline. Same institutional protection.
Boards understand this language. They have approved these structures for decades. FRACS™ simply applies proven methodology to a new infrastructure category that House v. NCAA created.
NCAA Alignment
No Employee Classification
Credit access does not create employer-employee relationships or trigger NLRB jurisdiction.
No Pay-per-Play
Structured credit against future value avoids direct performance-based compensation models.
Governance Preserved
NCAA maintains rule-making authority, eligibility determination, and enforcement power.
FRACS™ operates within existing NCAA frameworks while solving the funding challenges that threaten to destroy them.
Athlete Alignment
Liquidity
Access to capital when needed, not years after value is created. Athletes can meet current financial obligations while competing.
Stability
Multi-year commitment visibility replaces one-year scholarship uncertainty and transfer portal chaos.
Health Continuity
Medical coverage extends beyond injury and eligibility, protecting long-term athlete wellbeing.
Athletes.org demands become achievable without destroying the educational model or triggering employment classification.
University Alignment
Budget Clarity
Predictable multi-year costs replace donor volatility and NIL collective uncertainty. CFOs can plan, boards can approve, auditors can verify.
Risk Containment
Standardized processes and fiduciary oversight reduce litigation exposure from inconsistent treatment and arbitrary decisions.
Alumni Capital
Structured giving channels replace competitive bidding wars. Donors bleed the colors safely, with tax benefits and fiduciary protection.
Litigation Calm
Standardized. Auditable. Defensible.
Employment lawsuits require proof of arbitrary treatment. FRACS™ eliminates arbitrariness through standardized methodology, uniform application, and comprehensive documentation. Athletes receive consistent evaluation through AIP™. Institutions make decisions based on RAR™ risk assessment. Every step is documented, every decision is defensible.
Litigation will still occur—that is inevitable in this environment. But FRACS™ dramatically improves institutional positioning by converting subjective judgments into objective applications of transparent criteria. That difference determines litigation outcomes.
Mission Control Dashboard
RAR + AIP + FRACS in Real Time
Every institution sees its risk profile updating continuously. Every athlete sees their investment profile reflecting current performance. Every dollar of FRACS™ capital is tracked from source to application with full audit trail.
This is not theoretical. This is operational infrastructure providing real-time visibility into complex systems. Mission Control knew the status of every Apollo system at every moment. We provide the same visibility for athletic department economics.
This Is Infrastructure
Not advocacy. Not hype.
We are not selling a vision of what college athletics should become. We are building the architecture that allows competing visions to coexist within sustainable boundaries. We are not choosing winners in the debate. We are creating the conditions where the debate can continue without destroying the institutions having it.
Infrastructure is invisible when it works correctly. You do not think about the electrical grid until power fails. You do not think about water systems until taps run dry. FRACS™ aims for the same invisibility—present, reliable, enabling everything else to function.
This Is Not Surrender
It's Systems Engineering
The NCAA does not surrender governance by adopting FRACS™. Athletes do not surrender protections. Universities do not surrender educational mission. Congress does not surrender oversight authority.
Systems engineering finds solutions where competing requirements can all be satisfied simultaneously. That is different from compromise, where everyone gives up something they need. FRACS™ creates the rails where everyone can achieve their legitimate objectives without destroying what others require.
What the NCAA Keeps
1
Authority
Rule-making power remains with NCAA governance structures.
2
Governance
Eligibility determination and enforcement capabilities stay intact.
3
Structure
Championship systems, divisions, and competitive frameworks continue.
FRACS™ provides the funding mechanism the NCAA needs to preserve what it values most: national governance that protects competitive balance, Olympic sports, and educational primacy.
What Athletes Gain
Security Without Chaos
The Athletes.org CBA articulates critical needs: stability, safety, health protections, multi-year commitment, and predictability. FRACS™ delivers all of these within structures that preserve student-athlete status and educational opportunity.
Athletes gain access to capital when they need it, medical coverage beyond eligibility, and participation economics that do not depend on booster enthusiasm or NIL collective solvency. This is security without employment, liquidity without chaos, stability without surrender.
What Congress Wants
Stability Without Federal Payroll
Congress does not want to federalize college athletics compensation or create new entitlement programs.
Market Solutions
Preference for private sector mechanisms over government intervention and regulatory expansion.
Contained Risk
Systems that prevent catastrophic institutional failures and protect educational missions.
FRACS™ gives Congress exactly what it needs: a reason not to over-legislate.
The PATRIOT ACT Reality
The PATRIOT ACT framework seeks to avoid employee classification, prevent pay-per-play models, preserve national governance, protect non-revenue sports, and maintain educational primacy. These are legitimate objectives reflecting genuine congressional concern about unintended consequences.
FRACS™ prevents over-legislation by demonstrating that private sector solutions can achieve congressional objectives without federal intervention. Give Congress a viable alternative to employment classification and they will take it. Force them to choose between chaos and federalization, and they will federalize.
Where's the Money?
FRACS
This is the answer everyone has been seeking. Not "we will figure it out" or "trust the process" or "donors will step up." FRACS™ is the specific mechanism, with specific structure, operating under specific fiduciary controls, delivering specific outcomes.
The money comes from the same sources that have funded athletic departments for generations: alumni giving, media rights, ticket sales, and sponsorships. FRACS™ simply channels it through institutional credit rails instead of letting it flow chaotically through NIL collectives and booster competitions.
Got FRACS?
Athletes.org asks:
Got protections?
Got stability?
Got healthcare?
Got multi-year commitment?
Answer: Got FRACS?
Simple messaging works because it is memorable. Complex infrastructure needs simple articulation. FRACS™ is the answer to every legitimate athlete demand within structures that preserve institutional sustainability.
The Space Analogy
Space is dangerous.So is this moment.
Vacuum kills in seconds. Radiation destroys in minutes. Mechanical failure means catastrophe. There is no room for error, no second chances, no rescue if systems fail. That is why NASA applies extreme discipline to every decision, every system, every mission phase.
College athletics now operates in comparable environment. One bad legal decision creates cascading liability. One institutional failure triggers conference collapse. One congressional overreaction federalizes the entire system. The margin for error has disappeared. The discipline must match the danger.
The Right Equipment
1
Spacesuit
RAR™ protects institutions from environmental hazards.
2
Oxygen System
AIP™ ensures athletes have what they need to survive.
3
Spacecraft
FRACS™ is the vehicle that gets everyone where they need to go.
You would not send astronauts into orbit without proper equipment. Do not send athletic departments into the post-House era without proper infrastructure.
The Space Station Metaphor
Different countries. Same survival rules.
The International Space Station hosts American astronauts, Russian cosmonauts, European scientists, and Japanese researchers. Different objectives, different flags, different political systems—same life support requirements. They survive together not because they agree on everything, but because the station provides infrastructure where disagreement does not mean death.
FRACS™ is that infrastructure for college athletics. NCAA and Athletes.org do not need to agree on philosophy. They need to agree on plumbing. Different objectives can coexist when the survival systems are designed correctly.
FRACS Capsules
Launching to Campuses
Each institution receives customized FRACS™ implementation reflecting its specific RAR™ profile, athlete population, and competitive level. Big Ten implementation looks different from Ivy League implementation. SEC requirements differ from WAC requirements. Same infrastructure principles, different scale and configuration.
Like SpaceX capsules that can land anywhere, FRACS™ adapts to institutional conditions while maintaining core integrity. The rails are consistent. The rolling stock varies by institution.
Pilot Strategy
One School Per Division
NASA does not launch untested systems. Pharmaceutical companies do not skip clinical trials. Infrastructure projects do not scale before proving concept. FRACS™ follows the same discipline: controlled pilots demonstrating viability before broader implementation.
Division I FBS, Division I FCS, Division II, Division III—one institution in each category, chosen for institutional readiness and athletic department sophistication. Twelve-month pilots producing documented outcomes, verified data, and refined processes before any scaling discussions begin.
Why Pilots Matter
No Chaos
Pilots contain risk, limit exposure, and allow course corrections before problems become catastrophes.
No Shortcuts
Proper testing reveals flaws that theory misses. Real-world implementation always differs from planning assumptions.
The difference between successful infrastructure and catastrophic failure is often just discipline during the pilot phase. We will not rush. We will not skip steps. We will not sacrifice thoroughness for speed.
Blue Ocean Strategy
We Built Our Own League
Friends Wealth Management is not competing with financial advisors for athlete assets. We are not competing with NIL collectives for donor dollars. We are not competing with universities for control. We built entirely new infrastructure in uncontested space.
Blue ocean strategy means creating value in areas where competition does not exist because the category itself is new. FRACS™ is not better than existing solutions—it is the solution to problems that existing systems cannot address. Different game, different rules, different playing field.
December 2026 With FRACS
Stability
Athletic directors can plan multi-year budgets with confidence. Board uncertainty converts to board approval.
Planning
Universities make informed decisions based on RAR™ data and FRACS™ capacity rather than guessing.
Trust
Athletes, institutions, and Congress all have systems they can believe in and structures they can defend.
This is the achievable future if we act with discipline and implement with care.
December 2026 Without FRACS
Fragmentation
Conferences collapse as resource gaps become unbridgeable. Competitive balance disappears as wealthy programs dominate.
Federalization
Congress imposes employment classification and regulatory framework because private sector failed to produce alternative.
Collapse
Olympic sports disappear. Mid-major programs close. Educational missions become impossible to sustain.
This is the path we are currently on. FRACS™ is the off-ramp.
The Cost of Waiting
Litigation compounds
Every month without standardized systems creates new liability exposure. Every inconsistent athlete treatment generates potential lawsuit. Every arbitrary decision builds documentation for employment classification arguments. The longer institutions wait, the worse their litigation positioning becomes.
Delay is not neutral. Inaction is a choice with consequences. Institutions waiting for perfect clarity will find themselves in perfect chaos instead.
The Cost of Moving Forward
Discipline
Following proven implementation methodology without shortcuts or compromises.
Governance
Accepting fiduciary oversight and regulatory compliance requirements.
Leadership
Making decisions that protect long-term institutional interests over short-term convenience.
These are not unreasonable costs. These are the costs of survival.
Alumni Capital
Bleeding the colors—safely
Donors want to support their schools. Boosters want athletes to succeed. Alumni want programs to compete. None of them want to create employment relationships, trigger Title IX violations, or destroy non-revenue sports.
FRACS™ channels donor passion through institutional rails that preserve tax benefits, provide fiduciary protection, and prevent competitive bidding wars that benefit no one. Same love, same colors, sustainable structure.
Estate & Legacy
Athletics as Infrastructure
Wealthy alumni endow buildings, scholarships, and chairs because they believe in institutional permanence. FRACS™ lets them endow athletic stability with the same confidence, the same tax treatment, and the same legacy recognition.
Estate planning professionals can now include athletics in wealth transfer strategies without creating liability time bombs for heirs or institutions.
Not Competing With Advisors
We build rails. Others allocate.
Friends Wealth Management does not manage individual athlete investment portfolios. We do not provide personal financial planning. We do not compete with wealth advisors for assets under management.
We build the infrastructure that makes their jobs easier and their advice more effective. Better rails produce better outcomes for everyone using them. Financial advisors should view FRACS™ as enabling technology, not competitive threat.
Quiet Infrastructure Wins
Institutions move carefully—and last
The best infrastructure is invisible during normal operation. You notice electrical grids only during blackouts. You think about plumbing only when pipes burst. FRACS™ aims for the same quiet reliability—present, dependable, enabling everything else to function without calling attention to itself.
Institutions that have lasted centuries did not get there through dramatic pivots and aggressive innovation. They got there through careful adoption of proven infrastructure that served stakeholders consistently across generations. That is the standard FRACS™ is built to meet.
The Invitation
Ask us about the solution
We are not selling. We are explaining. The difference matters. Sales presentations exaggerate benefits and minimize costs. Engineering briefings present capabilities, constraints, and implementation requirements honestly.
Ask us about RAR™ methodology. Ask us about AIP™ standardization. Ask us about FRACS™ structure. Ask us about pilot timelines, documentation requirements, and fiduciary controls. We have answers because we built systems, not pitches.
The Referees
We don't choose winners
Referees exist because games need rules enforced fairly. They do not root for either team. They do not celebrate when one side scores. They do not care who lifts the trophy at the end.
Friends Wealth Management brings that same neutrality to college athletics infrastructure. We have no preferred outcome beyond system stability, stakeholder protection, and institutional survival. NCAA and Athletes.org can both achieve their objectives within FRACS™ architecture. That is the only outcome we optimize for.
Final Truth
This is survival, not ideology
Debates about what college athletics should become are important. Philosophy matters. Values matter. Educational mission matters. But philosophy does not survive institutional collapse. Values do not outlast bankruptcy. Mission cannot continue after conference fragmentation.
FRACS™ is survival infrastructure that lets philosophical debates continue in environment where institutions remain solvent enough to have them. Survive first, then optimize. That is not cynicism—that is NASA thinking.
Final Analogy
"One small step for athletes…""One giant leap for college athletics."
Neil Armstrong's words resonated because they captured the relationship between individual action and systemic transformation. One person, one moment, changed everything that followed.
FRACS™ implementation at pilot institutions will be one small step—limited scope, controlled risk, careful execution. But it represents one giant leap in how college athletics funds itself, governs itself, and protects itself in the post-House era. Small steps that change systems are still giant leaps.
Friends Wealth Management™
Mission Control
We are the referees with the whistle. We are the architects with the blueprint. We are Mission Control for college athletics navigating the most dangerous environment it has ever faced.
RAR™ is the telescope. AIP™ is the microscope. FRACS™ is the space station. Together they create infrastructure that no one has built before because no one has combined the capabilities required to build it.
From Wall Street to Mission Control to every stadium in America—we bring the discipline, the data, and the design that survival requires.
Athlete First. Fiduciary Always.™
From the Locker Room to the Board Room™
These are not slogans. These are commitments backed by SEC registration, fiduciary duty, and twenty-five years of institutional credit experience combined with thirty years of NASA systems engineering.
Athletes come first because without them there is no mission. Fiduciary standards always because without discipline there is no survival. From locker room to board room because both perspectives are required to build infrastructure that serves everyone.
Mission Control standing by.