It’s a tumultuous time in college athletics and Syracuse University is certainly caught in the swirling waters. At the helm and trying to steer the Orange into calmer waters are two new leaders: Chancellor Mike Haynie and AD Bryan Blair.
The two sat down with Brent Axe from Syracuse.com for an interview about their plans to navigate the Orange athletic department through all the twists and turns ahead.
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If you’re an Orange fan, you didn’t learn a lot about the day-to-day details of their plans, but you should be encouraged that neither of them is looking to survey the landscape and mull their options before they act. Blair has overhauled the Athletic Department and the hire of a new COO indicates that the Orange AD understands that college athletics has changed.
We talk about attendance a lot around here and in a discussion about his tour of the new Bills stadium, Blair shared his view about adapting the gameday experience to meet a wide variety of fans.
“… They may not even care about the football game actually. They just want to be at a social interaction. We need to be able to operate at a level where we give those options to everybody in the stands.”
Haynie and Blair know that the bottom line is that Syracuse needs to win in the sports that matter, but both believe that being the only P4 program in New York is a selling point- to boosters, to companies looking to partner, and to whatever conferences are standing (or emerge) in the next few years.
They acknowledged that the biggest challenge is raising money beyond what Syracuse pays athletes in revenue sharing ($21 million). The numbers suggested for fielding competition football and men’s basketball rosters alone total $50 to $60 million.
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Reading between the lines, I’d expect to see Syracuse continue to engage in opportunities for making more money through neutral site games, or corporate partnerships. Have you noticed the Progressive logos on the Dome turf? Did they stand out (or serve as a distraction) during your viewing experience? Deals like that are likely to be a top priority in Blair’s plan to “weaponize the Dome”. (I’m a little disappointed that Blair hasn’t added any gold accoutrements or detailed where he’s hiding the ammunition)
It is refreshing to hear leadership address some of the concerns head on and not pretend that all is well in Orange land. Now, we’ll have to watch and see what else they have planned to keep Syracuse in position to remain at the highest level in college athletics.
Here’s the full interview
