Morning Edition
October 5, 2026
Playfly Sports, the sports industry’s leading revenue maximization company, drives growth for its partners across the sports ecosystem – including 2,000+ brands, 100+ professional teams and 65+ college athletic departments. Playfly operates an expansive portfolio of services with a data-driven and fan-focused approach to maximize revenue yield in key growth areas, such as media, sponsorship, ticketing, premium experiences and fan engagement offerings. Learn more.
The Bulletin Board...
“If you have had a not-great season and you have seven wins at the end and you’re not playoff relevant, it’s not going to drive the needle too much.”
Darline Llamas Llopis
Baltimore Orioles CFO speaking on the delayed financial impact of late-season victories at the CFO Live 2026: Future of Finance event.
Learn more about Chief AI Officer hiring plans, how seat colors can stimulate energy, the new higher ed model of South Florida and more in this morning’s edition of CFO.ticker. (link)
D1.dossiers... Michigan is hot off the press. D1.dossiers are also ready for Air Force, Campbell, Duquesne, Incarnate Word, Iowa State, Louisiana, Radford, Rice, Rider, South Carolina State, UAB and Western Illinois. Coming soon: Detroit Mercy, Florida State, Jackson State and Sam Houston State. Just $349 for an entire year of access to all dossiers. (link)
UNLV AD Erick Harper covered a lot of ground on the Excellent Leadership Podcast, hosted by the Excel Search & Advisory team of Chad Biagini and Chris Hoppe, including the business initiatives driving the Rebels, an early adoption of the jersey patch model, utilizing Allegiant Stadium to generate record attendance, and securing $30M toward a $150M fundraising campaign. Here’s what you need to know…
➤ On being unafraid to fail when opening the upper deck at Allegiant Stadium for a game against Iowa State: "We’ve got a chance to really generate some revenue for this game. ... What's the break even point? And they gave it to me. I said, 'Well, let's go. Let's go do it.' We’ve got to make a decision and if we fail at it, we fail at it, but I think we have a great opportunity. We had 40-some thousand people, which was the most we'd ever had for a UNLV game at Allegiant at that particular point in time."
➤ Establishing the Rebel Football Cabinet to fund the roster: "Trying to get 20 people to give at $250K and above per year for five years and trying to move those same individuals to $500K a year. And that gives us an opportunity to say we have a healthy roster in a lot of respects."
➤ Mentoring student-athletes regardless of their tenure in the transfer portal era: "Now it might be six months, it might be nine months. I don't think you approach it any differently than if you have someone for four years. You’re still trying to prepare them for life after sport. Whatever the foundation that they have, let's build on the foundation that they have from the previous institution and let's understand why they transferred. Did they transfer because they wanted to get closer to home? Did they transfer because they weren't getting any playing time? Did they transfer for the dollars and cents? Who knows? But you need to understand that question before you can help them grow.” (link)
Noles247’s Kolby Crawford catches up with several administrators across the country to get a sense of how Florida State is perceived following the exit of AD Michael Alford. Here’s what they said (anonymously)...
➤ An ACC Deputy AD on the perception of Alford's dismissal: "Say what you will about Alford … but it feels like he was rolled out there to take the fall for some people up the chain. I've heard some board members asserted themselves and grabbed the wheel at times."
➤ A Big 12 Deputy AD on the immediate fundraising pressure facing the next hire: "Fundraising is going to be key for whoever steps in. I mean it is becoming way more important across the board, but they're going to have to hit the ground running."
➤ A Group of Six official on the enduring power of the brand for recruits: "I still think it matters. I think when a recruit sees Doak Campbell Stadium and sees 80K people and the Tomahawk chop and Renegade and Osceola... I still think a 17, 18-year-old kid recognizes that Florida State is an iconic brand and has won national championships. I absolutely think it still matters." (link)
Nebraska Deputy AD for Revenue Generation Tyler Kai was a guest on the Drive Time Lincoln podcast, where he outlined the two-phase reseating process tied to the upcoming Memorial Stadium renovation. Key takeaways from Kai…
➤ How standardizing donations lowers costs for most fans: "[H]ow do you get to increasing the amount of revenue in the stadium without increasing pricing for every fan? ... So we will actually likely be able to decrease several of the priority seating requirements throughout the stadium, making it more affordable if everyone in the stadium is making a contribution as opposed to only those who are new into the stadium. I think that is one piece of this that is going to be really important. We are ultra-focused on affordability and access into Memorial Stadium for those that want to be season ticket holders.”
➤ Eliminating legacy priority contribution rates: "One of the largest pieces of feedback we get from a new season ticket holder, somebody who wants to get tickets, is the inequity that exists with them paying priority, making a priority seating contribution, as well as paying the season ticket rate, knowing that they could be sitting right next to somebody who's not doing exactly what they're doing. ... Let's make sure that every person in every section is making the same priority seating requirement that is expected of them."
➤ "In ‘28, we will have a season ticket price that will be under $300, so $299 per season ticket. That seat today is $420. ... We will also have another season ticket price, $399, without any priority seating donation whatsoever. 25% of the building will not require a priority seating donation. That's the same number as it is today, but we wanted to make sure that not only did we keep no donation seats, but we even evaluated the price point for those seats." (link)
Utah Jazz/Utah Mammoth owner Ryan Smith covers a wide array of topics on the Front Office Sports Portfolio Players podcast with Dan Roberts, including donations to his alma mater BYU in the NIL era, the next era of college sports and more. Notes…
➤ College sports operating as an unregulated professional industry: "They're professional sports. Like, coming from the world that I'm in every day to college sports, let's just make no mistake about it. It is professional sports. The only difference is in professional sports, we have rules. And if you violate the rules, there's strong penalties. They don't have rules. No one knows what's going on. And it's a little hard for them to put this genie back in the bottle. But it's also a lot cheaper for some folks to influence college sports [than] an NBA teams…and you get the same feeling and passion about being a part of a program and a family and making a bunch of people proud and helping people achieve their dreams. That being said, like it's also collegiate. It's awesome, but you know, it's a little broken right now."
➤ On his long-term financial commitment to BYU: "I'm sure there's some scenario when I'm no longer here. They're going to get a big chunk of whatever I've got. I mean there's no secret to that. But that's the right thing to do because that's where it all started. It'd be really weird if they didn't. You’ve got to remember where you came from."
➤ BYU's active alumni base supporting NIL efforts: "We have one of the largest alumni [bases] that's out there, most active … and that's why BYU is in the spot that they are in because it's not just me. It is a lot of people where some of these schools have one person who's taken on their full-time job to go do some sort of NIL. That's not BYU. It's a lot of people.” (link)
It’s Personnel…
➤ San Jose State’s Bryan Goodman has been elevated to Senior Assoc. AD for Sport Administration & Compliance after previously serving as Assoc. AD for Development. (link)
➤ South Alabama has named Southern Miss Asst. AD for Athletic Communications Jack MacDonald as Assoc. AD for Strategic Communications & Creative Strategy. (link)
➤ At McNeese State, Megan Soileau has been promoted to Assoc. AD for Compliance and Student-Athlete Services after serving as an Assistant AD for Student-Athlete Services and Eligibility. (link)
The D1.ticker FBS Attendance Trends database has been updated through Week 5. Michigan unsurprisingly leads the nation in average attendance at 110,978. The Wolverines are followed by Texas A&M (107,287), Penn State (106,773), Texas (103,845), LSU (102,231, Tennessee (101,915), Ohio State (100,860), Alabama (100,077), Georgia (93,033) and Florida (89,947). Full database. (link)
Stanford Football GM Andrew Luck visited with Yahoo Sports Daily and had this to say about fixing the current chaos in college sports. “Every day I’ve been in this job – I’m about a year and a half in, four games into my second season – the less I’ve cared about fixing college sports. It’s how do I help Stanford win? That’s what’s interesting. That’s what matters to me. That is my job. We’re dealt the rules that we have and we go put a roster together, culture. What’s interesting to me about building teams and culture, some of it’s still old school. How do you have a great brotherhood? How do you teach great football? How do you connect? How do you make sure your team in an organization, that [it’s] all rowing in the right direction? … Part of the job is consistently getting better. That’s a couple of things. That’s our players developing. That’s high school recruiting. That’s [the] portal. That’s trying to win in every dimension possible. Sure, it’s a challenge, but it’s not like I’ve been in this for 20 years and am anchored to the old way.” (link)
Kansas Men’s Basketball HC Bill Self was asked whether he would like to play an international contest during the season and replied: “Absolutely not. I would never do that. Basketball season is too short, so you could go over there and I think it could wipe you out for two or three weeks. [The football team is] waiting two weeks to play their next game, which is smart. You can’t do that in basketball season.” (link)
Restoration of the historic Yale Golf Course has run into turf maintenance and management issues five months after reopening from a donor-funded, $30M overhaul led by notable architect Gil Hanse. Per The Athletic’s Gabby Herzig, the charging of a $350 public greens fee (discounted to $200 for alumni and $150 for enrolled students) has drawn scrutiny alongside deteriorated fairways, mechanical green damage and weed growth. Here’s more…
➤ The situation has led many members of the university community to ask the simple question – “what’s going on?” Alumnus and restoration project supporter Jim Hoak: “If someone gave you a Rembrandt, you’d take care of it. We’ve got a Rembrandt of golf course architecture.”
➤ Former GM Peter Palacios noted the athletic department originally built the business plan, but in a September 16 email, Yale’s Senior VP of Operations Geoff Chatas confirmed operational authority was being stripped from the athletic department and transferred to university operations.
➤ In a statement to The Athletic, AD Vicky Chun didn’t acknowledge the course conditions, instead stating that she sees the management shift as the “next phase” in the course’s development.
➤ Hanse adds: “I do not believe that there is anyone who has been involved in this project who could be objectively happy with how the course is currently being maintained and presented. The good news is that there is time to correct some of the issues before the course closes, and to have it ready to go in a better place with a new program for next spring.” (link)
Morning Edition
October 4, 2026
Oklahoma State Football legend and NFL Hall of Famer Thurman Thomas says he’s “on it” as it pertains to voicing his support with decision-makers in Stillwater for Pokes AD Chad Weiberg. Thomas’ response came from a recent Pokes Guys podcast that outlined generated backing for Weiberg. (link)
Utah Valley AD Jared Sumsion sat down with the Journey Out West podcast to discuss the university's impending move to the Big West and the financial realities of adding new sports to an institution with 48K students. Key takeaways…
➤ On the financial barrier to starting a collegiate football program: "I've been asked a question twice just this morning about when we're starting football and I tell them we're about $500M to a billion dollars away from starting football and once that's endowed I'm in."
➤ The need for mid-major programs to organize and demand representation alongside the Power 4: "[We] know that we don't have the power but yet there's 300 mid majors and 65 P4 programs and so why aren't we standing up together? College sports is fun because of mid-majors. It's not just the P4s that are running the show and yet that's what's happening right now."
➤ Maintaining the value of a traditional athletic scholarship amid the rise of NIL compensation: "[We] do give out NIL. It's not a lot. It's not to a lot of people, but you come here to compete in the classroom and you come here to compete in competition and in the community and in life. ... Let's get back to valuing what a scholarship means instead of devaluing it and saying, 'Hey, I just need some NIL money so I can tell my friends that I'm getting NIL somewhere.'" (link)
Harvard Kennedy School professor Todd Rogers, Harvard doctoral candidate Audrey Feldman, and Fox Sports EVP Ben Valenta published findings from a series of national surveys of 50,674 Americans examining political diversity across sports fan bases in the New York Times. The research revealed that every MLB, NFL, and top college football fan base remains politically diverse, noting that the NFL's most conservative fan bases (Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars) still retain a 1:2 Democrat-to-Republican ratio, while its most progressive fan bases (Los Angeles Chargers and New York Giants) feature the exact inverse. The authors highlighted that 76% of American adults consider themselves sports fans—with two-thirds calling fandom central to their identity—helping drive live sports to account for 96 of the top 100 most-watched television broadcasts last year. In experiments pairing political adversaries, learning a rival supported the same team increased personal warmth as effectively as sharing a religion and significantly increased willingness to interact in real life, emphasizing the role of sports as a rare cross-partisan cultural institution ahead of peak fall programming. (link)
ESPN College GameDay is headed to Tuscaloosa for Georgia vs. Alabama next weekend. Side note, the new multipart ESPN doc “Saban” debuts on Thursday. (link)
North Dakota State collaborated with Under Armour and Athletics Admin to create a custom, one-game collector’s edition uniform worn for yesterday’s Battle of the Basins Trophy match-up against Wyoming, per Mountain West Connection’s Mike Wittman. Preceding and during the game, the jerseys were auctioned to fans, with proceeds supporting NDSU Athletics’ "Climb the Mountain" campaign and the continued transition into the Mountain West. Bison Assoc. AD for Marketing and Fan Engagement Cam Bastian: “Our goal is always to give our fans a unique and ‘different’ game day experience, whether it’s someone’s first time or 1,000th. These jerseys, still rooted in tradition, are unique and a landmark for something special that Bison Nation has been waiting for years — the move to the FBS. It also fulfills one of our other goals, which is to provide new access to our teams and ways to interact with them.” Senior Assoc. AD for External Operations & Strategic Revenue Troy Goergen adds: “Knowing the jerseys are one-of-one and will be auctioned off to support our ‘Climb the Mountain’ campaign adds another layer of excitement and meaning.” (link); Have a look at the jerseys. (link)
NJ.com’s Adam Zagoria caught up with Big East Men’s Basketball HCs to get a sense of NIL budgets needed to compete at the top of the sport. As a range, “multiple coaches confirmed the league average is in the $12-15M range, with the top-tier teams spending around $20M or more.” Here are key comments…
➤ UConn’s Danny Hurley: “I look at it like it’s a poker game, there’s a certain amount that you probably need to have to get in the game. Is that number $14M? Is it $18M to get to a Final Four. I mean, I don’t know exactly what that number is, but there’s certainly a going rate at certain positions if you want to be put together an elite roster.”
➤ Georgetown’s Ed Cooley: “What teams were in the Final Four last year? (The answer is UConn, Michigan, Arizona and Illinois) To me, that’s what you gotta spend. I don’t know what anybody else’s household does, I’m concerned about Georgetown and Georgetown only.”
➤ Xavier’s Richard Pitino: “I think 20 is a great number, but I don’t think 365 teams have that number, it’s probably 20-30 or in that range. To me, as it pertains to Xavier, we’re always trying to close that gap as best we can. We’re very grateful for the support that we get, but you got to be aggressive. And I’m a Yankee fan, I love the Yankees. There’s a reason why they win. They invest.” (link)
Here’s something you don’t see everyday: Colorado State Football HC Jim Mora dismissed DC Tyson Summers during last night’s loss to Oregon State. (link)
One element of a successful football coaching transition depends entirely on how fast incoming staff can establish Day-Zero readiness, yet traditional moving stipends consistently burden new coaches with retail moving headaches right as the recruiting portal opens. Modernizing your policy with D1.relocation allows athletic directors to deliver an elite, high-touch first impression for every assistant, analyst, and family arriving on campus. Serving as your dedicated Director of Relocation Operations (DORO) at zero budget cost, D1.relocation centralizes housing support, vendor management, and university billing into a single, compliant workflow—protecting valuable recruiting hours and generating new foundation revenue from day one. (link)
Houston Asst. AD of Facilities & Event Management Operations Reid Johnson visited with College.town’s Kristen Eargle to discuss his career progression, helping launch Texas A&M-Texarkana's (DII) football program, key leadership principles in athletic administration and more. Here are some takeaways…
➤ Building the framework for Texas A&M-Texarkana's new football program: "Really drafted out about a 10-page [strategic] plan where I outlined all the different pieces. ... I knew exactly how much it was going to cost to start the program, and I was able to go line-by-line, which was really important to the president and the CFO. ... I built out the financial pieces, basically built out a profile for what I thought the ideal HC would be ... [and] built out that whole timeline."
➤ Evaluating leadership opportunities and institutional alignment: "When I assessed this opportunity at Houston, one of the biggest things I was looking for was some sense of balance. Was the city going to be a good fit for me? How was the leadership? Was there experience with my boss and with the athletic director, the president? And then I think resources. Resources are absolutely critical. ... Does the school have appropriate resources for the level that they’re at? … Is there appropriate staffing, funding, timeline, expectations for me to have some success when I plug into a new role?"
➤ On the necessity of organizational systems in athletic operations: "It's so important to stay organized. ... I think I’ve worked with six different football programs now. The ones that were organized succeeded, and the ones that weren't really struggled. ... I strongly believe that translates to the product you put on the field. It's hard to be disorganized in your office or your mind and then go have success on game day." (link)
South Carolina hired Matt Pepin as the first baseball general manager in the SEC, establishing a front-office model to manage player valuations in the rev-share era, according to Gamecock247's John Whittle. Arriving from Coastal Carolina, where he led the analytics department, Pepin has since expanded the Gamecocks' student analytics staff from five to 12 members and collaborated with former Wake Forest AC/current Gamecocks AHC Bill Cilento to process over 9M rows of pitch data for roster construction. Pepin explains how financial shifts in college athletics necessitated a quantitative valuation process to manage multi-million dollar roster budgets: "With the way college baseball is going, especially in the SEC with finances, you need someone to manage that money and the information behind the money. My job is not only placing value to players and talking to agents, players and our staff – how do we value them, but also how do we figure out a player's worth in the future. I've built models, used data and analytics to take what the coaches are saying, and really put a price towards it." Full profile. (link)
Ohio State's recent $100M settlement with 279 victims of former sports medicine doctor Richard Strauss could trigger millions of dollars in additional payments to a prior class of survivors, according to Sportico's Daniel Libit. A special master will now determine how to divide the latest agreement among those plaintiffs. If distributed equally, it would come to approximately $358K per claimant, and Libit points out “that adds up to a substantially higher figure than the roughly $61M Ohio State paid out to 317 earlier plaintiffs between March 2020 and February 2026.” The university established a $252,551 average recovery benchmark in a 2020 master services agreement with 152 of those prior claimants, agreeing to engage a mediator to determine additional compensation if future global settlements surpassed that per-claimant threshold. Libit notes that the original figure adjusts to roughly $323K today when accounting for inflation, adding: “It is unclear how many claimants would qualify for an adjustment, as the specific amounts paid to each have not been publicly disclosed. An Ohio State spokesperson declined to comment, citing the confidentiality requirements of an ongoing mediation process.” (link)
Interested in advertising a job opening in D1.ticker on CollegeSports.jobs? Submit your position here. Jobs from the past 10 days are listed below.
Academics/Student-Athlete Services
Academic Counselor (University of Georgia / Athens, GA): More details HERE.
Senior Academic Coordinator for Student-Athlete Support Services (University of Idaho / Moscow, ID): More details HERE.
Learning Specialist (Florida Gulf Coast University / Fort Myers, FL): More details HERE.
Assistant Director of Student-Athlete Academic Services (Creighton University / Omaha, NE): More details HERE.
Athletic Academic Advisor (Austin Peay State University / Clarksville, TN): More details HERE.
Transfer Coordinator & Academic Counselor, Department of Athletics (R0009180) (Wake Forest University / Winston-Salem, NC): More details HERE.
Learning Specialist (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill / Chapel Hill, NC): More details HERE.
Business/Finance/Human Resources
Financial Analyst I (2 Positions) (University of Arizona / Tucson, AZ): More details HERE.
Associate Athletic Director, Revenue Marketing & Business Intelligence (University of Maryland / College Park, MD): More details HERE.
Coaching/Operations/Recruiting
Assistant Baseball Coach (Murray State University / Murray, KY): More details HERE.
Assistant Men's Tennis Coach (University of Texas – San Antonio / San Antonio, TX): More details HERE.
Chief of Staff - Women's Basketball (University of Minnesota / Minneapolis, MN): More details HERE.
Head Coach Varsity Offshore Sailing Team (United States Naval Academy / Annapolis, MD): More details HERE. What would it cost to move to Annapolis? Click HERE.
Communications/Marketing/Digital/Social
Assistant Director, Strategic Communications (University of Arizona / Tucson, AZ): More details HERE.
Director of Broadcast Operations (University of Washington / Seattle, WA): More details HERE.
Director - Content Strategy (Atlantic Coast Conference / Charlotte, NC): More details HERE.
Associate Director, Promotion & Fan Engagement - W Soccer & Softball (Texas Tech University / Lubbock, TX): More details HERE.
Assistant Athletic Director of Communications (University of Southern Mississippi / Hattiesburg, MS): More details HERE.
Associate Communications Director (University of Kansas / Lawrence, KS): More details HERE.
Director, Communications (West Coast Conference / San Bruno, CA): More details HERE.
Assistant Director of Strategic Communications and Storytelling (Colorado State University / Fort Collins, CO): More details HERE.
Associate Athletic Director, Revenue Marketing & Business Intelligence (University of Maryland / College Park, MD): More details HERE.
Compliance/Legal/NIL
Assistant Director, Compliance (Ohio State University / Columbus, OH): More details HERE.
Assistant Athletic Director, RevShare (Montana State University / Bozeman, MT): More details HERE.
Associate General Counsel (University of Kentucky / Lexington, KY): More details HERE.
Assistant Athletic Director, NCAA Compliance (United States Air Force Academy / Colorado Springs, CO): More details HERE.
Development/Fundraising/Alumni Relations
Senior Director of Development, Athletics (UConn Foundation / Storrs, CT): More details HERE.
Director of Development Strategy and Analytics (Virginia Tech / Blacksburg, VA): More details HERE.
Director of Athletics Development/Associate Director of Athletics (Fordham University / New York, NY): More details HERE.
Major Gifts Officer (Tiger Athletic Foundation (LSU) / Baton Rouge, LA): More details HERE.
Assistant Athletic Director, Annual Fund (University of North Texas / Denton, TX): More details HERE.
Director of Development, Major Giving/Associate Athletics Director (Ohio University / Athens, OH): More details HERE.
Development Coordinator, Athletics (Pepperdine University / Malibu, CA): More details HERE.
Assistant AD For Major Gifts (Virginia Commonwealth University / Richmond, VA): More details HERE.
Director of RAM Athletic Fund/Annual Giving (Virginia Commonwealth University / Richmond, VA): More details HERE.
Executive & Senior Leadership
Senior Associate Athletic Director, Championship Resources (University of South Alabama / Mobile, AL): More details HERE. What would it cost to move to Mobile? Click HERE.
Vice President and Director of Athletics (Rice University / Houston, TX): More details HERE. What would it cost to move to Houston? Click HERE. The D1.dossier for this position can be found HERE.
Senior Vice President - Men's Basketball (Atlantic Coast Conference / Charlotte, NC): More details HERE. What would it cost to move to Charlotte? Click HERE.
Facilities/Event Operations/Equipment
Systems Administrator II (University of Texas – Austin / Austin, TX): More details HERE.
Scoreboard Technician (University of Tennessee / Knoxville, TN): More details HERE.
Grounds Maintenance Technician (University of Kansas / Lawrence, KS): More details HERE.
Associate Athletics Director for Internal Operations (Fresno State / Fresno, CA): More details HERE.
Grounds Supervisor (University of Kansas / Lawrence, KS): More details HERE.
Director/Assistant Commissioner, Conference Operations (West Coast Conference / San Bruno, CA): More details HERE.
General Administration
Director of Athletic Administration Operations (University of Connecticut / Storrs Mansfield, CT): More details HERE.
Health/Wellness/Performance/Training
Associate Athletic Trainer, Softball (Athletic Trainer II) (San Diego State University / San Diego, CA): More details HERE.
Assistant Athletic Director of Olympic Performance Nutrition (Texas A&M University / College Station, TX): More details HERE.
Sponsorships/Corporate Relations
Assistant Vice President, Licensing & Trademarks (University of Houston / Houston, TX): More details HERE.
Senior Associate Athletic Director, Championship Resources (University of South Alabama / Mobile, AL): More details HERE. What would it cost to move to Mobile? Click HERE.
Ticket Sales/Ticket Operations
Director of Ticket Sales and Outreach (University of Texas – Arlington / Arlington, TX): More details HERE.
Associate Director, Athletics Ticket Operations (Texas Tech University / Lubbock, TX): More details HERE.
Assistant Director, Ticket Operations (University of Arizona / Tucson, AZ): More details HERE.
Associate Athletic Director, Revenue Marketing & Business Intelligence (University of Maryland / College Park, MD): More details HERE.