#10: San Diego State names Georgia Tech Senior Assoc. AD for External Operations Ayo Taylor-Dixon as Deputy AD for Strategic Communications and Brand Advancement. In his new role, Taylor-Dixon will oversee the Aztecs’ marketing, media relations, social media and video/broadcast areas, while collaborating with all revenue generating units, including Aztec Club, Legends and the ticket office. He will also serve as the primary administrator responsible for SDSU’s relationship with JMI Sports. (link)
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#9: The NCAA has released a historical membership dashboard that includes high-level details and summary information on every NCAA member school and conference. Displayed as a map, the dashboard allows users to view historical membership data by year, division, school, region, conference and state going back to 1906. Some nuggets from the dashboard: The NCAA started with 39 charter members in 1906 and reached 80 schools by 1912. In 1921, the NCAA surpassed the 100-member mark, and the first historically Black college and university conference joined. The 1920s saw positive gains in membership, followed by a decline in the early years of the Great Depression. And in 2002, the NCAA surpassed the 1,000-member threshold, a figure that remained consistent over the next 15 years. (link)
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#8: A slew of promotions at West Virginia as Deputy AD Steve Uryasz has been bumped up to Executive Deputy AD and Chief Operating Officer, Senior Assoc. AD Natasha Oakes to Deputy AD/SWA, Senior Assoc. AD Brittney O'Dell to Executive Senior Assoc. AD for Student-Athlete Services & Wellness, April Messerly from Senior Assoc. AD to Executive Senior Assoc. AD for Capital Projects, Facilities & Event Management, as well as Michael Fragale has been elevated from Senior Assoc. AD to Executive Senior Assoc. AD for Communications. (link)
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#7: Washington has hired Texas A&M Assoc. AD for Internal Operations Seth Dorsey to take over as Senior Assoc. AD/CFO. (link) |
#6: Pepperdine has retained Eastman & Beaudine to assist in its AD search, per CollegeAD. (link) For those interested in leading the Wave, the D1.dossier for this position is available. (link)
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#5: Eleven Warriors says the Ohio State AD search has reached the point of the Buckeyes beginning to “identify finalists” with on campus interviews set for later this month. New OSU President Ted Carter Jr.: “Acting president Peter Mohler did a great job of putting a search advisory team together. We are going to be getting into more details and you'll hear more about it soon.” Collegiate Sports Associates is the search firm of record. (link)
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#4: Nike Co-Founder Phil Knight joins the Navigating Sports Business podcast and talks about the state of college athletics. Knight tells Navigate CEO AJ Maestas he was saddened by the “unnecessary” breakup of the Pac-12, but the “world of sports as we’ve known it has really suffered from weak leadership at the NCAA level, and it’s hard to put that genie back in the bottle.” Knight notes that the passion surrounding college sports is uniquely American and “that’s kind of hanging by a thread right now with the weak leadership and the wild, wild west of the portals and NIL and where we go from there. The first proposal from the executive director of the NCAA is very worrisome. It just misses the whole point. There’s nobody really that's looking out for sports. In the vacuum that the NCAA created, the television networks stepped in and they provide leadership, but they're not really interested in the sport. They're interested in the TV eyeballs and the revenues from the ads. So, we’ve got leadership that really isn’t interested in the sport as it is, and so it’s a worrisome situation and nobody for sure knows where it’s going to go. And there’s no mandate that says American sports has to succeed.” Knight believes current college sports leaders are “trying to squeeze too many elements into one bottle. You’re not going to unpay athletes, particularly in football. … So, it really makes sense to me to have three different divisions (football, men’s and women’s basketball and Olympic sports)” that are governed separately because trying to come up with a solution that addresses all three divisions is “basically impossible.” Lots more from Knight, including his role in supporting Oregon. (link)
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#3: Former Duke AD Kevin White shares an essay on the future of college sports with the News & Observer in which he characterizes the current situation as an “arms race to construct the next paradigm/model,” adding: “There is undeniably a need to recreate, perhaps relaunch the NCAA. This parent organization needs to become far more contemporary, if not anticipatory, for the world is clearly ever changing. … College athletics, should all the sitcom players be earnest and honest, would agree the ’functionality’ has now become unhinged, chaotic, and uneven, whereby there are a number of existing lawsuits facing the parent organization.” Regarding the possible bifurcation of athletics and academics, White writes: “The two paramount positions I endeavored to stake out for the Knight Commission were that college athletics needed to remain, in total, very much a part of the Academy, with no carve outs. Secondly, reengaging well-seasoned practitioners within the oversight process was critical. … Today, this relationship, I would argue, is at risk, and may be heading toward an untenable position. Once again, the august USA system is the envy of the world, for we are at this point the only country in the world that has successfully aligned, if not combined, the school with sport model.” White goes on to submit that “in one individual’s anecdotal opinion, arguably without empirical data, it will be the beginning of the end, should college football, men’s college basketball, women’s college basketball, and/or any other segmented part separate from American Higher Education.” (link)
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#2: There’s two in a pack! Using that slogan is how the Pop-Tarts Bowl officially announced its return for another year. Check out this clever video on X that Pop-Tarts put together. (link) |
#1: Alabama Football HC Nick Saban will retire, per ESPN's Chris Low. (link) |
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