Is Rutgers Finally Close to Hiring an Athletic Director? Looking Outside The Box.

On August 16th, 2024, following the news of a University investigation into an improper consensual relationship, Pat Hobbs abruptly resigned as Rutgers Athletic Director. Deputy Athletic Director for Competitive Excellence Ryan Pisarri was named interim Athletic Director while the university began plans for finding a replacement.

Fast forward ten months, and Rutgers still has no permanent athletic director. While that is indicative of the speed at which the university typically moves, it is not necessarily a bad outcome. When incoming President William F. Tate takes over on July 1st for outgoing President Jonathan Holloway, his first significant order of business will be to work with the search committee to identify Rutgers' next athletic director.

Rutgers, like many schools, has historically followed the traditional approach with AD hires, but in this new age of NIL and revenue sharing, it's time to look outside the box. One doesn't need to look much further than fellow member Maryland. The Terrapins announced in May the hiring of James E. Smith as their new AD.

Smith is currently the Senior Vice President of Business Strategy for the Atlanta Braves baseball organization, and has also held executive positions with the NFL's Atlanta Falcons and MLS's Columbus Crew. In the era of revenue-sharing and NIL, Maryland made a business-first hire. Expect Rutgers to do the same.

One can't dispute that former athletic Pat Hobbs helped make Rutgers more competitive across all sports in the Big Ten during his tenure from 2015 to 2024. One, however, can easily make the argument that Rutgers has fallen woefully behind other equivalent universities during the rise of NIL.

Not unexpectedly, On3 ranks Rutgers near the bottom of the Big Ten NIL, joining Michigan State, Minnesota, Illinois, and Indiana, with Purdue and Northwestern battling for the basement. Hiring a traditional athletic director isn't going to improve Rutgers' ranking.

Now hire someone with business acumen at the executive level, one who can measure performance not only academically and athletically, but also financially, and you have a potential recipe for success in the modern NIL era. If that hire can, in turn, bring in a general manager to help Steve Pikiell make the most out of his NIL and revenue-sharing pot, that's an even bigger win, while the basketball coach focuses on X's and O's.

Ultimately, incoming President Tate will have his own opinions and look to put his stamp on the athletic director hire, but don't be surprised if he takes a similar approach to Maryland and values a business-first approach.

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