Huron Consulting launched its college athletics practice in 2020 at a time when the pandemic was raging, schools were flipping conferences, name, image and likeness was on the verge of causing chaos and the budgeting pressures on universities were about to become overwhelming.
Chicago-based Huron already was one of the most prolific education-focused consulting groups in the nation, routinely working with universities on budgeting and finances, and then-CEO Jim Roth saw college athletics as a natural extension of that practice.
“Our clients had traditionally been university presidents, CFOs and provosts, and those folks were asking more and more questions about athletics because it’s just so important to the university’s brand,” said Tim Walsh, Huron’s managing director and a founding partner of the firm in 2002. “Everybody recognized that things were just becoming too chaotic. They couldn’t follow what was happening. They couldn’t see an end to the investments they needed to make in athletics. They needed better context within which to make decisions.”
Former Penn State AD Sandy Barbour, along with other top former athletic administrators, gives Huron Consulting extra firepower in the college space.getty images
Because Huron had already worked with so many university leaders on higher-ed matters, it quickly became a source for advice in sports.
The firm sought to capitalize on the equity it had in the space by adding former Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany as a senior adviser. Delany collaborated with Roth and Walsh at the time to shape the consultancy.
Two more highly regarded former athletic directors, Kevin White, formerly at Duke, and Sandy Barbour from Penn State, subsequently joined the firm, giving Huron the mix of star power and research capabilities to cut through the clutter of advisers in the college space. Former Notre Dame administrator Tom Nevala and former Creighton and USC administrator Kyle Waterstone are recent additions.
In the span of a little more than two years, Huron has grown its college athletics practice to 15 clients, ranging from smaller departments like UNC-Asheville to aspirational schools like San Diego State, which has its sights set on a historic move to a Power Five conference, such as the Pac-12 or Big 12.
Huron also advises Power Fives ranging from Pittsburgh to Missouri and Rutgers, among others.
Huron Consulting
What is Huron Consulting?
A Chicago-based consulting firm founded in 2002 that began as an advisory group for higher education and expanded into college athletics in 2020
What does Huron do in athletics?
Huron consults with schools on topics such as finance and budgeting, conference realignment, fundraising and developing a mission that aligns with the university.
Who does the consulting?
Tim Walsh, a partner and co-founder of Huron who formerly worked at Duke, leads a team of consultants that includes former Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, former Duke Athletic Director Kevin White and former Penn State AD Sandy Barbour.
What is Walsh’s guiding principle?
“Using data behind the instincts.”
Few of those arrangements are isolated to athletics. Huron often consults with athletics in tandem with other facets of campus.
“Often,” Delany said, “the question that’s asked is what our direction should be, given the turmoil on the outside, the changes among conferences, the changes in the media world. How do we efficiently deploy the resources that we have?”
San Diego State’s transformation began with the opening of a new stadium last fall that tripled its football revenue. The Aztecs are positioning themselves for a conference move that could increase their media revenue and exposure exponentially. They need a new staffing plan, a new budgeting model and an analysis of their facilities.
These are all first-class problems to have, but as the Aztecs contemplate a ramp-up to the Power Five, their to-do list expands by the day. They hired Huron to provide data and direction on those issues and more.
Among the tasks Huron completed was a dashboard of data that shows where San Diego State ranks in its current league, the Mountain West, and what its needs would be to step up.
“We need to make sure we’re spending as efficiently as possible and doing things in a way that will benefit us as we think about conference realignment,” San Diego State AD John David Wicker said.
The Aztecs chose Huron over a field of 20-some advisory firms. Huron produced a 125-page report that will guide SDSU. Delany and White were instrumental.
“Some of these companies will throw out a bunch of big names and then you never hear from them again,” Wicker said. “Jim and Kevin were very participatory. They met with all of our teams; they met with student athletes. And then they benchmarked us against the Mountain West and the new schools [BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF] going into the Big 12.”
The research components are core to Huron’s business. Walsh calls it putting the “data behind the instincts.”
Veterans Delany, White and Barbour provide the instincts from their lengthy college careers. Huron then assigns three or four staff members who dig up the data for each project.
UNC-Asheville AD Janet Cone candidly was skeptical that her department could afford Huron, much less the expertise of a distinguished veteran AD like White. Huron doesn’t release its fee structure, but it’s commensurate with the scope of the project.
“Honestly, they treated us like a Power Five,” Cone said. “We came away with some short-term and long-term priorities, as well as ways for us to tell our story better.”
Pitt AD Heather Lyke has quickly established the Panthers as a rising powerhouse in the ACC across football and men’s basketball, but that costs money. When a member of Pitt’s leadership questioned the spending in athletics, Huron was brought in to present its data-based approach and research.
“You can’t just work on an island in athletics,” Lyke said. “You’ve got to work collaboratively across campus. Huron helped us understand our valuation, our media rights. Tim was really invaluable at helping us validate or critically analyze our spending, and to show us where we’re in line or not in line with our competition.”
