Media Money isn’t as important as Billionaire Donor Money, time to catch up
Why do you think Franklin chose Virginia Tech over SEC schools? Why do you think UVA and Vanderbilt flipped from the bottom of their conference in football so fast? How can Indiana football chew up the B1G and SEC and go 16-0 so fast after being the bottom of the B1G in football for many decades? The paradigm has shifted and it doesn’t pay to keep living in the past.
PS Look out for Stanford football over the next couple of years, big bucks, I mean really big bucks to pay players, with people that aren’t trying to pick Olympic Sports coaches, they know football personnel.
** Edited by Stech at 4/27/2026, 5:54:56 PM
7 Replies
3mo
For 5-8 years, there has been absolutely NO expertise in fund raising within the atheltic dept. The fund raising team was EXTREMELY understaffed, under paid and frankly folks were not trained in professional fund raising.
WHen you approach a potential investor who you want to get them to help, you dont hire a college intern and ask for 25,00 and then be able to speak sincinctly what their dollars will door by action. Other schools of similar background will have 20-30 folks dedicated full time to this effort. Well at VT........
BOV is working this now, with agressive recruiting and willing to pay for the expertise.
(In response to this post by Maroon Baboon)
3mo
there is a great opportunity for a new AD to also build the Clemson model for small donors. I think @manassashoo said schools should be fundraising targeting big donors and also use the Clemson IPTAY model or something similar to get many small to medium donors. Start them when they graduate at a small amount, and over time they snow ball. We have almost ignored this type of fundraising under Whit.
(In response to this post by Maroon Baboon)