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D1.ticker Editor's Note... The domain for D1.ticker will be changing next week. All newsletters and digital information will arrive in your inbox from a new domain for D1.ticker, instead of from d1ticker.com. To ensure that you continue to receive our content, please whitelist emails from mail-d1ticker.com. If you’re unsure how to do so, please forward this message to your IT department.
D1.jobs... New opportunities at Akron, the Big Sky, George Washington, NC State, Texas Tech and West Virginia, below. 665 different schools, conferences and companies have posted their openings with D1.jobs. Click HERE to post your openings for tens of thousands of administrators to see.
D1.dossiers... SIU Edwardsville is now available along with Cornell, Louisiana Monroe, Maine and Texas A&M-Commerce, among others. Ball State is next on the docket. $199 for unlimited access to all dossiers for one year. (HERE)
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Florida Executive Assoc. AD for Administration Tealer joins Connect/MB Sports’ Banker to chat about her work as chair of the NCAA's NIL working group and what the membership needs to know about the recently updated guidelines. Asked about more resources being provided for NIL, Tealer notes the working group supported a “standard of review” for NCAA enforcement. “That [presumption of a violation] was our effort to say we are supportive of the enforcement staff. We understand that often when they approach institutions about NIL activity there’s sometimes maybe not cooperation or maybe not a lot of effort in trying to help get to the bottom of all this that’s swirling around potentially inappropriate conduct. This presumption of a violation was an effort to say institutions need to have a little bit more of onus in getting to the bottom of getting the facts, relaying the facts, rebutting this presumption that something inappropriate has happened in the NIL space. So that was the working group’s effort to really help the enforcement staff move things along a little because we all hear the swirl around things happening at this institution or that and the enforcement staff has had a hard time sometimes getting institutions to fully participate in the process of saying what is real and what’s not and getting to the bottom of where the facts lie.” Lots more insight in the full conversation only on Connect. (link)
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As TCU is set for a high-profile football matchup today with Texas, Horned Frogs Assoc. AD for Marketing & Licensing Austin & Assoc. Vice Chancellor/Assoc. AD for Development Levy join D1.ticker/Connect's Eargle to discuss how football's success is fly-wheeling revenue & brand momentum. Austin says licensing royalties are up more than 50%, plus "a lot of our vendors are scrambling right now" to keep up with demand. Levy also notes the importance of getting return on the moment and how "this realtime experience will also help us" design systems for future use to further maximize high-flying results. Lots more, including additional dialogue around data & analytics, donor engagement, etc. Watch for free on Connect. (link)
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Sports Illustrated’s Dellenger examines Tulane’s path to success this season after overcoming years of adversity, including “cataclysmic natural disasters” and two “administrative attempts to shut down football” over the past half-century. Moreover, Dellenger points out the program “fights attendance issues with a base of mostly out-of-state alums, is still chided for its decision to leave the SEC nearly 60 years ago and has strict admission requirements in the age of the transfer portal.” Green Wave AD Dannen: “It takes a unique bird to have success here. Let me tell you historically how bad it is. The football coach is the first coach to have played in more than one bowl game and the basketball coach here has bonuses in his contract for winning six league games.” Lots more. (link)
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D1.ticker/Connect's Eargle continues with the series on the growth of volleyball, this time chatting with Wisconsin Senior Assoc. AD/SWA Ahrens Smith and Louisville Deputy AD/SWA Calabrese, both of whom have volleyball oversight within their respective departments. Calabrese talks about the school's attendance record that was set by playing a home match at the KFC Yum! Center this season, fueled in part by having four local student-athletes on the Cardinals roster, plus an engaging HC in Busboom Kelly. Ahrens Smith acknowledges how setting aside 3K student tickets for the Badgers tilt vs. Florida and how the local community and campus administration support made it possible for that match to set the new NCAA attendance record. Lots more, full convo for free on Connect. (link); Check out the full list of Division I Volleyball Sport Administrators, brought to you by D1.ticker. (link)
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Cal Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging and Justice Operations & Engagement Thompson is heading to Loyola Marymount as its new Assoc. AD for Administration & Student-Athlete Success, per CollegeAD. He is no longer listed on the Bears site, but is on the Lions. (link)
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Northern Colorado MBB HC Smiley sings a five-year extension that could keep him in Greeley through April of 2027. Smiley will earn a base salary of $161,646 plus incentives for academic and athletic performance. If the Bears finish in the top-five of the Big Sky, he'll receive $1,500 plus another $1K if the team finishes first in the league and $2,500 if it advances to the NCAA Tournament. There is also a $30K annual retention bonus to be paid out "by donation funds." He would owe $50K, due within 30 days, should he exit. (link)
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Siena AD D'Argenio will not sign a waiver that would allow former Saints MBB student-athlete Rogers, who has since transferred to Wichita State, to play for the Shockers this season. He was on the Siena roster for just a year, having previously transferred in from Cal Poly. D'Argenio: "They (Wichita State) wanted us to basically say we were not giving (Rogers) an opportunity to participate on our team. We didn't sign that because that's not true. We wanted him back. We explained to him what it means when you go into the transfer portal. So that's why we didn't sign off on it. If he gets a waiver from the NCAA based on some other means, then that's great for him. But we've done our due diligence. We educated the young man to what the transfer portal is and what it means. We wanted him back very clearly. Why would we not want our leading scorer (back)?" (link)
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Cal Poly's football and soccer stadium will henceforth be called Mustang Memorial Field Presented by Dignity Health French Hospital Medical Center thanks to a 10-year naming rights deal announced yesterday. No details on the price. (link)
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The City of Boise's Planning and Zoning Commission has granted approval for Boise State to use lights at Boas Soccer Complex, home of the Broncos women's soccer team. The school may now install 70-foot poles with LED light fixtures, subject to the State Board of Education approval. (link)
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Miami-Dade County and the Miami Heat are ending their arena naming rights deal with now bankrupt FTX. The county, which owns the arena, signed a 19-year, $135M deal in 2021. After an initial balloon payment of $14M, FTX was scheduled to make a $5.5M payment in January. For today's game between the Heat and Charlotte Hornets, the arena will still technically be referred to as FTX Arena, but signage and the name will soon come down. Of note, the team was to receive only $2M/year of the entire deal, with the rest going to the county, "the vast majority of it earmarked toward fighting gun violence and poverty." (link)
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After recording a median return of 30.1% during FY21, higher ed endowments are showing a decline of 7.8% during FY22, according to Cambridge Associates, as reported by Inside Higher Ed. While Harvard (-1.8%) and Yale (+0.8%) ended the year relatively unscathed, IHE’s Moody notes: “Among the country’s other richest institutions, Stanford University’s endowment fell by 4.2%; Princeton University saw a decline of 1.5%; the [MIT] experienced a loss of 5.3%; and the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company saw a decline of 6.2%. Returns for the University of Pennsylvania were flat, and the University of Michigan saw returns grow by 2.2% for FY 2022." (link)
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Yesterday's Evening Standard...
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The Mountain West names WCC Commissioner Nevarez to lead the conference, starting January 1. Nevarez: “I am honored and humbled to be trusted to lead one of the nation’s elite athletic conferences, and I want to thank the Board of Directors for their belief in me and in my vision. We are well-positioned as a league thanks to the incredible legacy of Commissioner Thompson, but we cannot—and will not—rest on our success. We will be aggressive, we will be innovative, we will be inclusive and we will keep our focus on the student-athletes who call the Mountain West Conference home. I cannot wait to visit our campuses, our Conference staff, and our fans, and to begin the work ahead.” (link)
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Jackson State AD Robinson joins D1.ticker/Connect’s Eargle to discuss the impact of hosting ESPN College GameDay, how he attracted FB HC Sanders and how to leverage the department’s momentum to construct future facilities that will benefit all student-athletes. Robinson asserts he wants the Tigers to “dominate” moving forward, telling Eargle: “Not just on the field, but we want to dominate on and off the field. We want to graduate our student-athletes, we want them to have the best experience here at Jackson State University and we want to win championships. So, we want to dominate in all those areas when it comes to supporting our students, supporting our coaches and every decision that we make, we want to make sure we make the decision for our student-athletes to continue to build on this great tradition and blaze new trails.” (link)
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Auburn unveils its new $92M, 240K square-foot Woltosz Football Performance Center which includes two outdoor fields, one indoor turf field, new locker room, weight room and much more. Interim FB HC Williams: "Anybody who had anything to do with this building, from our donors to Gregory, to see these kids' faces, I'm ecstatic. Auburn football is A-Okay! If a kid walks through these doors and see this facility, they have every resource to be successful along with a big, beautiful building. We're not going to forget what makes Auburn great, along with the people, with this beautiful building. Watch out college football!" (link, link)
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The Baylor Board of Regents approved $78.6M to begin phase 2 of work on the Fudge Football Development Center, which will create over 100K square-feet of space including an expanded indoor turf field, locker rooms, training room, strength and conditioning room and more. The $89.6M phase one work began this past summer and the facility is slated to open in spring 2024. (link)
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The AP examines how athletic departments are dealing with rising costs, noting, for instance, that Nebraska “hopes to work with its beef and chicken vendors to find more cost-effective ways to order food for the training table. It's also lining up more nonprofit groups to work concession stands to reduce labor costs.” NU reportedly expects the cost of doing business to be about $3M more than it would be if the U.S. inflation rate hadn't risen to more than 8%, the AP adds. The Huskers also expect travel costs to increase by $1.3M to $9.2M this year, per Executive Assoc. AD/CFO Ewald. Meanwhile, outgoing Arizona AVP/COO & new Bowling Green AD van der Merwe says the Wildcats are projecting a possible $4M overall increase, including a 20-25% jump in travel expenses.(link)
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Georgetown Executive Senior Assoc. AD for Business & Finance/SWA Brummell and Yale Senior Assoc. AD for Business Operations Lee join Michigan State Assoc. AD/Chief of Staff Clark at the Women Leaders National Convention to discuss how athletic departments can tell a unique story through their business office. Brummell and Lee explain how their departments are taking a quantitative approach to shape the narrative behind college athletics and how their units are addressing current financial challenges such as inflation, Alston funding and talent retention. On the impact of inflation, Lee explains the difficulties begin to compound given the volume of student-athletes that schools need to support. “It could be just an individual meal, where we used to be able to feed our student-athletes breakfast for, let’s say, about $10. Now, in the city of New Haven, that cost now goes up to about $15. But when you consider that for about 1K student-athletes that we have, that adds up. And it’s not that they take one trip, they take multiple trips. So, when our revenue isn’t growing at the same pace… that’s where we are starting to see where do we cut or where do we increase our revenue?” Lots more in the full discussion from AthleticDirectorU. (link)
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New Presidents & Chancellors...
+ Prairie View A&M names VCU VP for Strategy, Enrollment and Student Success LeGrande as its next president. (link)
+ UIC selects former Notre Dame Provost Miranda as its new chancellor. (link)
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Admins & Coaches...
+ Former UCLA/UC Irvine AD Guerrero has joined the Board of Advisors for REVELxp. (link)
+ Wagner welcomes Grant Thornton Audit Senior Associate Bonamo as its new Assoc. AD for Internal Operations. (link)
+ Robert Morris MSOC HC O’Keefe stepped down from the position to move closer to family after overseeing the program’s transition to the Horizon League during the pandemic. (link)
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JohnCanzano.com’s namesake unpacks the cost of doing business in the transfer portal, revealing that on his visit to Oregon State, former Georgia/USC/current West Virginia QB Daniels sought a personal chef, a four-bedroom rental house and a six-figure endorsement deal. “Daniels’ father drove the conversation. The OSU donors never spoke with the quarterback himself. The talks fizzled out. It came as no surprise to anyone that Daniels didn’t end up in Corvallis.” Shortly after arriving in Morgantown, Daniels and two other teammates hosted a free camp for elementary and middle school students. According to Canzano, “Daniels cashed in, though. The appearance was part of a NIL deal worth more than six figures, per a source.” The subsequent creation of the Dam Nation collective, Canzano continues, signals the Beavers’ seriousness about competing in the NIL world. (link)
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Accordingly, The Oregonian’s Daschel takes a deeper look at the newly formed Dam Nation collective to support Oregon State student-athletes. Founded by former Beavers Assoc. AD/Chief of Staff Bjornstad and former Nike executive Oldfield, Dam Nation will leverage its partnership with LEARFIELD to connect with corporate sponsors. Bjornstad: “These are businesses that are already identified as Oregon State partners. Now, all of a sudden, we’re at the table with them. … We are having very significant conversations with investors. I hesitate to put a dollar amount on that. But we’re going after it. We’re swinging for the fences. We’re going to do this, and do it right.” (link)
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More NIL Today...
+ The latest collective powered by SANIL is Friends of George, which allows George Washington fans to sign up for six different subscription levels and will eventually include NFTs. SANIL CEO and co-founder Belzer: "A lot of smaller schools are now saying, 'How do we create opportunities for our student-athletes? How do we start building an infrastructure that allows us to be competitive and to tap into our fan base and the business community?'" (link)
+ As NIL continues to impact recruiting, with QB Rashada the latest to flip his commitment (from Miami (FL) to Florida) last night, one anonymous AD of a top-25 program tells On3’s Nakos: “I think the willingness or lack of willingness to embrace NIL is that if you’re unwilling to adapt and embrace, wherever you’re at on the totem pole, people will climb above you." (link)
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Conference Considerations...
+ The MAC will suspend sponsoring Men’s Soccer after this season, with four full and one affiliate member. Commissioner Steinbrecher: “The membership has had exceptional success and has been a perennial Top 10 conference, regularly placing multiple teams in the NCAA Tournament with teams making deep runs and winning national championships. However, the challenges of maintaining sufficient membership, given the small number of full members sponsoring the sport, finally caught up to us. If in the future the Conference membership includes more institutions sponsoring men’s soccer, this decision will be reexamined.” (link); As a result, Bowling Green, Northern Illinois and Western Michigan will join the Missouri Valley starting next season. (link)
+ James Madison and Old Dominion Women’s Swimming & Diving will join the CCSA, starting this season. (link)
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NFT's Wild Ride...
+ BYU’s NFT partner Ocavu has cut staff from approximately 43 employees to 22 through a series of layoffs that began in June and closed its office earlier this month. While CEO Cheney explains the layoffs as eliminating “underperforming” staff, former employee Rampton claims employees were told “the budget was too tight” when they were let go in September. The BYU-Ocavu partnership is a five-year deal worth up to $20M in its first year, per Cheney. (link)
+ FTX has commenced Chapter 11 proceedings. CEO Bankman-Fried resigned from the position, with lawyer Ray— known for turning around Enron in the mid-2000s— stepping in as his replacement. (link, link)
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Skift’s Huddleston and Doyle observe that “sneakers, and an overall more casual dress style, replaced traditional business attire in many instances” at this year’s IMEX America 2022 conference. They add: “This massive shift is happening across multiple industries that traditionally relied on stilettos and suits to make a powerful impression. Many attribute this transition to the two years of working in yoga pants and sweats that have nurtured an appetite for comfort and authenticity in self-expression. This prompted an evolution of the business dress code, and the meetings industry is no exception.” Visit Milwaukee VP of Marketing and Communications Albrecht on the custom sneakers worn by his team: “We were looking for a unique, fun way to speak to who we are and tell a story of a maker within our community. If our team is comfortable in their shoes, they will be comfortable talking to our clients and customers and representing our city the best way we can.” (link)
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