The University of Central Florida is bucking the college trend of outsourcing its multimedia rights and instead will create an in-house team to manage its media, corporate sponsorships and marketing.
UCF, a school with more than 60,000 students in Orlando, has been working for more than a year to build a structure that will, in theory, generate more net revenue from its rights than a third party would.
UCF has already notified its rights holder, IMG College, which has owned the rights since 2001, that it will not be renewing its contract.
Matt DiFebo, a senior associate athletics director and the department’s chief revenue officer, will oversee the Knights property. DiFebo, a former IMG College executive, will dual report to new AD Danny White and Bill Merck, the university’s vice president for administration and finance.
 |
“Once I got here and really looked at the revenue numbers, I saw that there’s a huge upside for us.”
Danny White
Athletic Director, University of Central Florida
Photo by: UCF.EDU |
DiFebo is leading UCF’s search for a general manager and a team of four to five sales executives, which he expects will grow over time. The unit, which will be housed in the athletic department’s offices, has to be up and running by July 1 when UCF takes control of its rights from IMG, but DiFebo expects the hiring process to move faster than that.
“Getting the staffing right is the most critical part,” DiFebo said.
White, meanwhile, was hired just three months ago and had to sign off on the new in-house model. By that time, Merck and DiFebo had spent considerable time exploring the feasibility of going without a rights holder.
“Once I got here and really looked at the revenue numbers, I saw that there’s a huge upside for us,” said White, who had a similar model at the University at Buffalo.
UCF, a member of the American Athletic Conference, did not get into revenue specifics of its expiring deal with IMG College, but the company had been paying the Knights an annual guarantee in the low seven figures, sources said. The annual guarantee is a popular revenue model for schools and their rights holders.
UCF expects to top that in net revenue “even with the most conservative projections,” said White, who will be involved as much as needed, including going on sales calls to prospective sponsors, just as he calls on donors.
The in-house model will begin as an athletic department venture but eventually will grow to include campuswide rights.
The UCF property will be run through the UCF Athletics Association, which is a direct support organization of the school. Sales executives within the property will be employees of the UCFAA, which will give the Knights greater flexibility to pay commissions and incentives, said Merck, a veteran administrator who has been at UCF for 20 years.
