A Great Week for Diversity in College Athletics

Last week, I spent a week working with and learning from individuals deeply committed to promoting diversity in intercollegiate athletics – The National Association for Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and the Center for Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Washington. Both organizations’ commitment exceed the superficial, perfunctory, and obligatory commitments made by organizations and reflect a deep commitment to identifying future leaders in college athletics from all walks of life.

Monday morning, I visited with Dr. Jen Hoffman, a researcher with the Center for Intercollegiate Leadership at the University of Washington in Seattle. The center, whose mission is to provide instruction to future leaders across the spectrum of collegiate athletics, including coaches, policymakers, and administrators, and support research on all areas of college athletics, is thriving, increasing its graduate cohort manifold in its brief existence. The executive masters program emphasizes leadership training among its diverse student leaders, who from the cohort I visited with represent many disciplines, geographical regions, ethnicities, and age groups.

The rest of the week, I spent visiting with hundreds of college athletics administrators from across the country at the NACDA national conference in Anaheim, CA. NACDA highlights the efforts and achievements of athletic administrators across the country. It was clear that regardless of region, race, gender, age or any other cultural affinity that if you run a good department, or show promise in your field, your efforts will not go unnoticed. This was apparent not only at the recognition of future leaders in college athletics through the John McClendon Scholarships, which provide scholarship support to future athletic administrators, but also at the Minority Opportunity Athletic Association and National Association of Athletic Development Directors (NAADD) Diversity Initiative programs. As a past recipient of the NAADD Diversity Initiative award, which funded my participation in the conference’s fundamentals of athletic development workshop, I can tell you that the organization puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to promoting diverse participation.

I also had the privilege of watching my boss, Northwestern State Athletic Director Greg Burke, receive the Under Armour Athletic Director of the Year award as one of 20 recipients from across the nation at the FBS, FCS, Divisions I, II, and III levels and NAIA. It was very interesting to look upon the dais, and out at the attendees of the honoree luncheon, and take note of how truly representative the group was of many different ethnic and gender groups.

It was an encouraging week, to say the very least, and one which provided instruction for the near term and hope for the future of college athletics.

Dr. William Broussard, Associate Athletics Director, Northwestern State University

Using Technology to View and Purchase Season Tickets

This past January, Athletics Development Frontier did a post on the University of Indiana and their use of Ballena Technologies in seating and promoting ticket sales.  Since then, other universities have begun looking to similar technologies for their reseating iniatives.  In most cases, athletic departments are simply using such technologies to allow fans and supporters the opportunity to view potential seat locations.  However, rarely have university athletic departments actually allowed purchases to occur online after viewing seat locations.

Recently, the University of California launched a program where their supporters can see the view from potential seats, and then purchase those seats, all online.  Typically, this model is similar to one seen throughout many different professional sports franchises.   In fact, this is the first time that season tickets can be purchased online for University of California football games.

Through the use of technology, athletic departments are getting more and more creative about how they market season tickets.  Yet, ideas on creating a streamlined process for viewing and purchasing tickets are still being designed.  Look for the capabilities of online seat viewing and purchasing to become more efficient as university supporters become more familiar and accepting of the process.

Michael Speight

Upcoming posts on NACDA 2010

Over the next few days we will be in Anaheim, CA attending the 2010 NACDA Convention. This gathering of college athletics administrations from all over the nation provides an excellent opportunity to learn and share ideas. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be releasing articles written about the topics covered at the NACDA and NAADD conventions as well as some more original research concerning the uses of technology and athletics development.

If you will be attending the NACDA Convention, please feel free to reach out to Rob Norris or I as we would love to meet any reader of the site. You can contact me at twood@athleticsfrontier.com and Rob at rnorris@athleticsfrontier.com.

Taylor Wood

Google Alerts can aid in developing relationships

During my time at Northern Illinois University, I spent some days scouring the web for updates on our alumni. I did this mostly by Googling “Northern Illinois University Alumni” or “NIU Alum.” Through this practice, I was able to find out all kinds of information on prospects, donors, and other alums of the university.

Google has now made this whole process much easier. Google Alerts are essentially email updates of the latest relevant Google Results coming from the web, news sources, and other information portals. These can be used in many ways, but for a development officer tracking a big time donor, use their name as a Google Alert to keep abreast of their happenings. Another use may be to use the alert to notify you about all your alumni by using a keyphrase similar to the one I used at Northern Illinois.

The alerts have the ability to allow a development officer to track a wide amount of prospects and stories surrounding the prospects, donors, and alumni of their school in a very efficient manner. These daily emails can save time on current prospects and, in some cases, unearth new ones.

Spring games offer unique opportunities

With basketball season officially over, sports fans usually view spring as a time to relax and enjoy the beginning of a long summer of baseball. But before summer begins, spring offers an increasingly popular event as college football once again takes center stage with spring practice and games. Therefore, the unparalleled passion and excitement surrounding college football can provide yet another chance for development officers to reconnect with their donors.

Mississippi State University has continued a successful initiative from last year’s spring game, which includes auctioning off two head coaching positions for their Maroon-White game. Fans are being encouraged to submit bids to be eligible for selection. The two highest bids will then be selected as head coaches for the game. These lucky fans will participate in game preparation, will make game-time decisions and will follow the team throughout the weekend. All proceeds from the auction directly benefit the MSU football program.

Although Mississippi State’s initiative is not directly development-related, it does exploit a popular development-related activity by offering a unique fan experience. A large number of development departments currently take advantage of their spring game to host donors and replicate regular season game-day activities. The excitement surrounding spring games has grown along with the popularity of college football. Alabama hosted nearly 80,000 fans for their spring game in 2009, further highlighting the untapped potential of this event for development departments.

Matt Kirinovic

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University of Colorado set to break ground on practice facility

The picture above is an image of the video invite found on the CU website.

The University of Colorado has announced an upgrade to their current basketball arena, creating a dedicated space for the training of men’s and women’s basketball, as well as women’s volleyball. This dedicated practice facility will serve as an excellent recruiting tool, in addition to providing all programs the ability to practice at the same time.

While this announcement is fairly common in athletics departments around the nation, one thing that the University of Colorado has done is create an engaging video that invites all donors and fans to join in the groundbreaking ceremony. This video appears the top of the press release and features a personal invite from Athletics Director Mike Bohn.

By using a video, donors, fans, and alumni will feel a more personal connection with the ceremony, increasing attendance as well as awareness of the event.

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Taylor Wood

A great primer for athletics development officers: The Annual Campaign Letter

Came across a great letter on StepbyStepFundraising this morning and thought I’d share it with everyone. Primers like this are important, and though hundreds of them exist, what they are best for is promoting the review of the documents you use to promote your giving campaigns. Each time you begin a new campaign, carefully review your documents to ensure that the message you want to communicate is communicated effectively. Don’t just use last year’s letter, or, the previous annual fund director’s letter (if you’ve accepted a new position). One of the most profound benefits of studying persuasive communication (my advanced degrees are in rhetoric and composition) is a valuing of the language we use to represent ourselves to potential supporters. Never take the words you choose for granted.

Dr. William Broussard

Transparent ideas from the National Sports Forum

I have had the privilege to attend the National Sports Forum in Baltimore for the last two days. While the conference is more focused on sponsorship and marketing, I have found many parallels with development that can be utilized to help grow development offices.

Sponsorships

In a panel with representatives from some major sponsors in sports including Anheuser-Busch, Cintas, and Sports Clips, the consensus was do your homework and less-is-more in the early stages. Sponsors get hundreds of emails a day with ideas and proposals, but it is better to contact the sponsor after you have done extensive research into the company and ways the two brands match-up going into the future. This works the same in development. Very few schools have the luxury of getting large donations from unfamiliar figures. It is a daily challenge for fundraisers to gain the best understanding of the prospect to get the initial foot in the door. If you choose to approach the prospect via email, it isn’t going to do much good to send the large development brochure. Sum up the message into a couple of paragraphs and personalize it to that particular prospect.

New Media

New media such as Facebook and Twitter is a hot topic in sponsorship and marketing because no one has figured out how to make consistent revenue from the medium. Many development offices have dabbled in the practice, with the main goal spreading news about the offices to followers. While this can fulfill some objectives, one tactic being discussed extensively at NSF is using new media as a focus group to gain feedback. Allowing followers or fans to contribute to the school or feel as if they have insider information is a great way to build rapport with the group and gain important feedback from donors, particularly younger demographics.

Ticket Sales

Major League Baseball teams have one of the toughest tasks in attempting to sell tickets for 81 home dates between April and September. Because of this challenge, baseball teams have gotten extremely creative with season ticket holder programs. One such idea is a new customer reception at the beginning of each season. This reception not only allows the team to thank the new customer, but to also educate them. It is a great way to get in front of new customers early and ensure a relationship before renewals come up the next year. This is a strategy that can be utilized by development offices with new donors to grow their relationship but also to educate on the benefits of becoming a donor.

Sean Phifer

Jeremy Foley, Athletics Director at Florida, visits Ohio’s campus

Jeremy Foley has been Athletics Director at Florida since 1992.

This past week Ohio University received a visit from one of the premier athletics directors in the nation-Jeremy Foley of the University of Florida. Foley was visiting campus to receive his Medal of Merit, an honorary award presented to alumni who have achieved distinction in their professions and shown loyalty to the university.

Upon receipt of the award, Foley spoke to a crowd of 250 people on numerous topics, ranging from the culture of an organization to how people should be treated. He spoke of his own transformation as a manger, from a person who relied on his position of power early in his career to someone who treats people with respect and dignity. He spoke of the family atmosphere at Florida and how all employees must pull in the same direction, helping the entire department to reach their goals.

He mentioned that dealing with people is the biggest part of his job. Disdaining turf wars, he spoke of his high profile head coaches who still take the time to thank the staff who lines the football field or sweeps the gym floor. This requires checking your ego at the door and seeing the worth in all individuals. He was quick to mention that this does not mean there are no disagreements at Florida, but just like any family, they get together and solve them.

Billy Donovan and Urban Meyer are two of the high profile coaches that work at Florida.

Drawing upon wonderful examples for integrity and compliance, he spoke about holding his coaches and players to a high level of sportsmanship, encouraging them to give credit to the other team if they win. He repeatedly mentioned shaking their hand to congratulate them on their victory.

One of the most interesting areas Foley spoke about was the small things you can do for your organization to increase morale. At Florida, if an employee has been working at the athletics association for 10 years, they have to take a mandatory four week sabbatical to get away and re-energize themselves, similar to Nike’s policy. He mentioned how this has done wonders for the organization and the people who work there.

Foley’s speech was a model for what he sees as crucial success factors in the athletics industry: high energy, high passion, and high commitment. One needs to look no farther than Jeremy Foley’s career at the University of Florida for an example of this in action.

Reseating program aids schools, excites donors

Click on the picture for Seton Hall's interactive seating diagram

The University of Indiana has recently joined the growing number of schools who have chosen to utilize Ballena Technologies for their donor reseating and ticket sales processes. The Ballena program, which works with the university’s existing ticketing system, allows its users to access virtual seat previews, compare seat prices, and pick their seats all from the comforts of their own home. During an otherwise time-consuming reseating process, the university can now rely on this technology to distribute seats among their donors based on priority points in a real-time  and simple computer based program.

Of course, Indiana is not the only university taking advantage of this technology. Seton Hall is using Ballena for their seating diagrams that show ticket prices and donation requirements for their entire basketball arena. This gives Seton Hall fans the opportunity to calculate their own totals for basketball tickets without having to contact members of the athletics department.

ADF has posted previously on basketball reseating methods with suggestions for a hands-on and  on-site selection process along with others which are primarily priority point driven. The correct way to handle a donor reseating effort will depend largely on the university, but a department looking for online interactivity should follow the examples set by Indiana and Seton Hall.

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Rob Norris