AthleticDirectorU is a professional development site for people who work in college athletics, but its insights can be invaluable for fans who really want to understand how the business works.
College athletics provides millions of dollars in revenue for the NCAA, conferences and individual institutions. Because of that, it’s a serious business, and the professionals who are employed in it treat it as such. It’s impossible for fans to truly understand college athletics without coming to terms with how the business works, and that’s where AthleticDirectorU can fill those gaps for even average fans of college sports.
Jason Belzer, publisher of AthleticDirectorU, spoke about the aim of the publication to help shape the future of college athletics.
“I call it a hybrid of the Harvard Business Review and The Players’ Tribune,” Belzer said. “We aren’t reporting on things as much as analyzing what the people who work in college athletics can use in their operations. We have the attention of every professional in college athletics because they trust us to provide them with the insight that helps them do their jobs better.”
Because the site is aimed at moving the conversation of how to succeed in college athletics forward, individuals who work in the industry are interested in participating.
“The response has been great among the community of people who work in college athletics,” Belzer elaborated. “We are trying to shape the future of how decisions on the business of college athletics are made. For instance, if you look at our site, the first article is about how the figure for the $200 million cost-of-attendance settlement was reached. We try to provide unfiltered information to people working in college athletics so that they can make the best decisions. Most of the conversation I have had with these people is them asking about how they can get involved.”
Therein lies the value for the average college sports fan. Matters like the compensation that athletes receive for playing revenue sports, the negotiation of media rights contracts and facilities upgrades are all matters that affect the on-court/field product at NCAA institutions. The people making those decisions are heavily involved on the business side of college athletics. Getting some insight as to what those individuals are thinking and saying can act as an Easter egg to what course college athletics will take.
“We already have some content from coaches,” Belzer commented. “We are going to be launching a podcast soon with one coach. We hope that at least a third of the content on our site will be published by the individuals we cover themselves. Whether that be athletic directors, coaches or even student-athletes, if they have a story to tell that is relevant to our content, we will give them the platform. We aren’t news-focused, but we are interested in providing an opportunity for people to learn from the people who are in the business doing these things.”
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Perhaps best for the average fan is the fact that all of AthleticDirectorU’s content is currently not only free to access but open to the general public as well. Belzer says that while they aren’t ruling out a premium product in the future, most of the site’s content with remain free and easily accessible.
Many decisions in the coming years are going to be made at NCAA institutions on a variety of matters. Many of those decisions will affect the experiences of not only athletes at these schools, but fans as well. AthleticDirectorU can provide those fans with some insight as to the thought process of the people making those decisions.