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Sports programs courting MBA types to run the show

BY JOE FAVORITO

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

ON N.J. SPORTS MARKETING

In the movie "The American President," Andrew Sheppard (played by Michael Douglas) is approached by a chubby young man with a tartan vest and a bow tie at a state dinner trying to pester the President for a minute to lobby for college football. Sheppard brushes him off since he has to meet the Prime Minister of France in another part of the room, and the movie continues on.

The snippet of the "football lobbyist," chubby and folksy, is what many people think is a vivid representation of what college athletics is ... but it is much more of what college athletics may have been and is no longer.

College sports, as we know, is now big business on every level, with great branding and marketing opportunities from small town Division 3 schools to the largest universities and schools are now bringing in leaders in business to show the way to profitability.

The latest example was in a USA Today cover story last Monday on incoming University of Michigan Athletic Director David Brandon, an alumnus and head of Domino's Pizza. The move is unique before it goes outside the traditional athletic director profile - that being a former or current coach or career college administrator.

This move is the latest sign that schools are looking to find people with a wide business background that can acclimate to sports, not a sports background that maybe can meld into a business, when looking for leadership.

Today's challenged economy has given schools a much wider swath of candidates ... senior business leaders who are tired of the climate today and are looking for a lifestyle change; business leaders who would like to come in and show colleges and universities what it takes to run an athletic program with innovation and business skills ... as well as the skill of consensus building that has to come when juggling programs ranging from football to water polo on a limited budget.

These business leaders know how to stretch dollars in conventional ways and apply basic business practices on top of the traditional fundraising that schools do. Now this new outlook doesn't just apply to the big schools. Small schools in many markets are also now looking to business leaders to show them how to better market, use social media, develop new streams of income and better run their bottom line while growing their brands in the market they are located.

The same strategy holds true for mid-major and smaller conferences - their leadership is also evolving into a combination of business and athletics, with the emphasis on business. Does this mean the end for the career athletic administrator? By no means. Those people are learning how to adapt and enhance their backgrounds as well. But it does mean that they do have to grow in their positions in order to make athletics as a business and brand run smoother and more efficiently. It is ironic that institutes of higher learning, those developing the leaders of tomorrow, have been slower to adapt to the business of sports themselves than other segments of the sports business world.

Colleges can learn a great deal from marketing, branding and selling from their local minor league teams, and in some cases have even developed a symbiotic relationship to grow together.

The universities may have been a bit slow to come around, but the wakeup call has gone off, and the opportunities that exist to grow both personally and as a brand for schools are really just getting started.

No more bow ties and secret handshakes to get the President's attention. In New Jersey, the dichotomy of what it takes to spend and win has been very apparent and manifested itself the past few months.

Rutgers, who has brought in an alumnus with a national reputation and a very diverse background in Tim Pernetti, could be entertaining a move to the Big Ten Conference as a way to grow.

Seton Hall, with one of the most respected and successful career college administrators in Joe Quinlan (who to the disappointment of many, reportedly is leaving South Orange in June), announced that they were dropping men's and women's track as a cost cutting measure. If Quinlan leaves, will the next Seton Hall AD be more from the public sector? Will Seton find someone who can find ways to bring in added revenue and keep the Pirates in the Big East mix? Time will tell.

Joe Favorito has over 23 years of strategic communications/marketing, business development and public relations expertise in sports, entertainment, brand building, media training, television, athletic administration and business. Visit him at JoeFavorito.com.

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