The General Manager in Collegiate Sport
The re-imagination of collegiate athletics has replicated the professional sports title of General Manager. While the professional sport GM role has had 50+ years to evolve to best fit the needs of the NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, and Motorsports, collegiate general manager role is as unique as each mascot.
St. Bonaventure hired Bonnies Alum and ESPN NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski to this description; “The Men’s Basketball General Manager will play a key role in the program, serving the Head Coach and Assistant Coaching staff in managing a wide range of responsibilities including Name Image and Likeness (NIL) opportunities and liaison with Collectives; transfer portal management; recruit, family, agent, alumni player relationships; professional player programs; and program fundraising.” Since this hire in Fall, 2024 the national campus NIL programs have evolved into a department at many schools and third-party consulting groups are retained to assist the student-athletes with their personal NIL process.
A trend has been to hire names for a splash to elevate program profiles. Stanford grabs alum Andrew Luck. Remy Cofield, director of scouting in Boston since 2020, was leaving the professional world behind to become the GM of Arkansas athletics.
This trend will escalate as GM positions become more common in college sports. It's a role where experience in the pros is seen as more valuable than any experience at the college level. The GM at Duke men’s basketball is former Nike employee Rachel Baker. Butler University men’s basketball hired former Milwaukee Bucks employee and former G League GM Tony Bollier. Bolliger is now listed as Player Development along with this GM title.
Conversely not all programs are biting the apple. Georgia Football Coach Kirby Smart nixed the GM role for his program stating he wanted to remain engaged in player identification, recruiting and roster decisions.
This leaves us with another area of collegiate sport that is evolving. The House Settlement has opened up former student-athlete deprivation compensation, new benefit categories and the transformative revenue-sharing model.
As athletic departments build new processes to adapt while keeping an eye on competitiveness, positions such as the General Manager will emerge and become part of the new tapestry of sport.
