Bailey Ortega's LSU+ Podcast is Ahead of Its Time

LSU has long been a leader in NIL and the student-athlete media on their LSU+ platform provides recruiting advantages and off-field player development opportunities

Bailey Ortega / Louisiana State University

Bailey Ortega is far from your average Louisiana State University graduate student. The academic load for her one-year Leadership and Human Resource Development master's degree is, without a doubt, time-consuming, but Ortega has taken it upon herself to make her life even busier. That’s why she is the starting setter for the volleyball team… and maintains influencer responsibilities for an extensive NIL partnership portfolio… and stars in her new LSU+ backed podcast, Geaux Big with B. 

After spending four seasons at the University of Iowa, where she became a top-ten assist leader in Hawkeye program history, Ortega decided it was time for a change of scenery. Looking for a new home for her grad year, Ortega had no shortage of suitors, all with their unique pitches for her commitment; however, it was LSU that ultimately won her over.

While getting to know Ortega, the LSU volleyball coaching staff and athletic department discovered that she had taken a podcasting class at the University of Iowa and even tried her hand by producing her own independent podcast. Without missing a beat, the LSU staff expressed the production capabilities of their LSU+ platform that allows athletes like Ortega to increase their visibility and take advantage of the rabid sports-crazed Tiger fan base.

Few recruiting battles are won with one factor alone, but the unique support of Ortega’s off-court passion proved important. Like any athlete, Ortega had pros and cons for each school she was being recruited by, but “it was a big pro being able to come [to LSU] and have the podcast studio and all of the accessibility to production.” Beyond podcasting capabilities, LSU+ offers media from all varsity sports, giving subscribers insider access to exclusive docuseries, film sessions, coach and player profiles, and athletic administration insight.

Thanks to LSU+, Ortega has the resources to actualize her vision of promoting and humanizing fellow athletes on her platform: “I started the podcast in hopes of just telling student-athlete stories. I think that LSU offered me a great platform to just get on there and tell my story and have good conversations, whether it was about injuries, mental health, or their experience as a college athlete… I think just having casual conversations around tough topics is what I wanted.”

Geaux Big with B does exactly what sports podcasts are great at, helping to rewrite the ills of sports media and showing fans that athletes are far more than stat lines, prop bets on gambling apps, or numbers on journeys. Ortega has seen this manifested with the fandom that she has been able to generate: “I've created a really cool environment with the people that follow me and follow the podcast and even just LSU volleyball fans in general that come up to me and say, I listen to your podcast, and I love it… it's created a community that goes deeper than just the surface level of volleyball fan.”

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LSU has flourished in the NIL era thanks to creative minds, ample funding, and more risk tolerance than many other athletic departments. Resources, especially NIL resources, are vastly disproportionate for non-revenue athletes at any level of college sports. While LSU football players are indeed still the highest-grossing NIL athletes at the school, those athletes with less visibility still can cash in and feel seen by the athletic department.

As Ortega puts it, “I think the biggest thing LSU provides is resources and opportunities. And I think that's something I haven't always had, and I’ve had to find myself, and I still do that while I'm here. But, the learning and the resources that they provide from people that they bring in to teach us about finances and how to talk through contracts and all of those things, just learning things like that, that I didn't know in the past or I had to learn myself.”

While most of the content on the LSU+ network is not creatively driven by current student-athletes, Ortega is not the lone student-athlete who has held a podcast on the Hey Fightin’ Network platform. Last year, grad-year student-athletes Hayden Travinski and Alex Milazzo hosted an LSU-centric baseball podcast.

According to Zach Greenwell, Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Affairs/Chief Communications Officer, the platform serves many essential functions to LSU athletes and fans: “The primary mission of LSU+ is to elevate the brand of our university, athletic department, and student-athletes through elite storytelling and unique access. As things continue to evolve in college athletics, we saw an opportunity to take this platform and our partnerships with Playfly Sports, WMT Digital and Sport & Story, and utilize that revenue to support our athletes through our official collective, Bayou Traditions. It’s a connection that makes a lot of sense, given that the true success of LSU+ lies in the compelling stories of our student-athletes – including our athlete-driven content like Bailey’s podcast. 

LSU can reward its athletes with NIL through LSU+. While no athletes are directly paid for their podcast appearances, a portion of every subscription goes to LSU’s NIL collective, Bayou Traditions. Those funds can help retain current athletes and recruit new athletes from the high school ranks or the transfer portal. It is the ultra-rare win-win-win: LSU generates revenue via platform subscriptions, fans are offered a unique and valuable LSU+ service, and players' experiences are enhanced through brand building and increased NIL collective funds. 

With college sports experiencing massive uncertainty around future NIL rev-share agreements allowing schools to compensate student-athletes directly, schools will soon need more money –– estimates show that such an arrangement would cost upwards of $22,000,000 annually for Power 4 institutions like LSU. For schools to not face severe athletic personnel reductions or, worse, have to cut many non-revenue sports programs, athletic departments will need to expand revenue streams through platforms like LSU+. While LSU+ and other platforms like it are unlikely to drive the eight-figure revenue required in a new college sports landscape, schools like LSU that already have student-athlete media infrastructure in place will be well ahead of the curve. 

That is the long term. In the short term, Bailey Ortega is excited about her final collegiate volleyball season, earning her master's degree, and giving fans of her podcast a welcome surprise of upcoming marquee guests with “bigger personalities.”