SBJ College: Creighton AD Reflects On 25 Years

Austin Karp here, filling in one more time for Michael Smith this week. Two months left in the MLB season. My Orioles are 36-71 and 24 games out of an AL Wild Card spot. Football season cannot come fast enough.

Here’s what is cooking on campus:

RASMUSSEN LOOKS BACK ON A QUARTER CENTURY IN OMAHA

Rasmussen was Creighton women's hoop coach for 12 years before getting into administration

• Bruce Rasmussen is a unicorn. The average tenure of a D-I athletic director last year fell to just over six years. Rasmussen has bucked that trend, and today is his 25th anniversary leading the Creighton athletic department. SBJ’s Thomas Leary connected with Rasmussen to find out how he has lasted so long. To hear Rasmussen tell it, he’s simply been in the right place at the right time. Rasmussen: “I guess I’ve tricked them for 25 years.” 
  
  
• Before becoming AD, Rasmussen coached Creighton women’s hoops for 12 years, followed by a two-year stint as an associate AD. Where was his biggest learning curve once in the top spot? “When I was the women’s coach, I had a family of roughly 13 players. Now we’ve got 13,000 season-ticket holders in men’s basketball," Rasmussen said. "I’ve got 90-some full-time staff and 300 student athletes. I’ve also got some 200 corporate sponsors. In some ways, you become a hermit, which sounds contradictory. But because you’re around so many people, you don’t have as many close relationships as you did when you were coaching,” he said.
  
  
• Success in men’s hoops has been a staple under Rasmussen, both on and off the court. Last season, Creighton finished seventh in average attendance nationally. Rasmussen: “In Omaha, we don’t have pro sports. So in the winter, we are the thing to do. ... We work very hard to try to keep that following.” That hoops success was the catalyst for Creighton joining the Big East in 2013. "It certainly raised our profile not only in men’s basketball, but also as a university. No matter what you provide for your student athletes -- the two most important factors I’ve found are the quality of the head coach and the quality of the competition. Your better athletes want to play against the best. Being in the Big East has helped," he said.
  
  
• Rasmussen chaired the NCAA D-I Men's Basketball Committee last year. "I had to go into witness protection shortly afterwards,” he said. Rasmussen was effusive in his praise for fellow committee members Kevin White and Dan Gavitt, calling the Duke AD and NCAA Senior VP/Basketball, respectively, “some of the real superstars in the game.” Rasmussen: “I learned more from them at breakfast, lunch and dinner than I learned in the meetings.”

WHAT'S NEXT FOR MUSIC CITY AND COLLEGE SPORTS?

• Nashville has positioned itself as a hub for the SEC. Bridgestone Arena hosted the conference men's basketball tournament in five of the last seven years, and will continue to host the event in all but one year through 2035. The conference's highly covered and well-attended football media days will also move to Nashville for 2021. I spoke with Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. President & CEO Butch Spyridon to get his take on what has helped bring these kinds of big events to the city.
  
  
• The SEC was clearly impressed with the NFL Draft this spring, which drew record crowds to Nashville. The conference doesn't move football media days often -- it has been held outside of Alabama only once since 2001 -- so shifting to Nashville is a big win for the city. Spyridon: "We always believe that the execution of any and every successful event helps lead to the next opportunity -- so we know it didn’t hurt." Will other events come to Nashville? "It is a safe assumption that Nashville will continue to pursue just about any and all SEC opportunities that present themselves," he said.
  
  
• Atlanta has hosted the SEC Football Championship since 1994. One reason it sticks there -- the roof on the Georgia Dome, and now Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Other Southern markets, like Charlotte, are paying attention and could be eyeing retractable-roof stadiums of their own. Could Nashville follow a similar path? "Without question, Nissan Stadium would need to be updated at a minimum for Nashville to be considered as a future host of the SEC Championship," Spyridon said. "To be clear, there have been no conversations with the SEC or the Titans. In my opinion, it is likely that it would take an enclosed stadium for that event to take place."
  
  
• The Music City Bowl also has been part of Nashville's holiday season since 1998, and it is annually among the best-attended bowl games (ninth among all college football postseason matchups in 2018-2019 with 59,024 fans for Auburn-Purdue). With the increase in the number of bowls -- combined with more early season neutral-site games and the potential growth of the CFP -- is Spyridon concerned about his city's event? "The high-profile kickoff games and the college football playoff have impacted the bowl system and made it difficult for this many bowls to continue long term."

SPEED READS 

• Getting fans into a stadium -- and earlier -- continues to be a key issue for college football attendance these days, and schools are employing different strategies to see what sticks. It can be little things, like Fresno State this season starting to offer fans a $5 hot dog/soft drink combo inside Bulldog Stadium -- but only prior to kickoff. Up at Boston College, the school listened to fan input and worked with city officials to begin offering longer hours for tailgating outside Alumni Stadium. Missouri is also looking to ramp up its pregame offerings, signing a deal with Tailgate Guys this week, while Illinois yesterday unveiled renderings for a student patio deck that is expected to be ready for the Aug. 31 season opener. A bigger and more visible change is offering alcohol in public areas of stadiums, like Arkansas today decided it would do at Razorback Stadium starting this season. 
  
  
• "Phil Steele's College Football Preview" has become a must-read for die-hards over the last 25 years. It's a comprehensive look at the teams and players and predictions heading into the season, and this year's edition comes in at over a million words over 352 pages. The Detroit News' Angelique Chengelis had an interesting chat with Steele on her "View From the Press Box" podcast about the crazy time commitment for the publication: "During the college football season, I usually work around 102 hours a week. I've got 12 TVs in front me and I'm watching games all day long on Saturday. Then going through the play-by-play of every game and working on the forecast for the coming week. Next thing you know, it's back to the 12 TVs to do it all over again. During the magazine season, it's generally around 70 hours a week during the six-month process. We're talking about the Sunday after Thanksgiving all the way through the end of May."
  
  
• Another sign people are itching for college football season? Fanatics tells me the company's college business last month saw a 30% increase in total sales across its network vs. July 2018. The top sellers since July 1? Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Florida and Michigan.
  
  
• Jon Gilbert took alumni relations to the next level yesterday in Greensboro. The East Carolina AD accepted an invite to caddie for PGA Tour golfer Harold Varner III -- an ECU alum -- during the pro-am of the Wyndham Championship. Gilbert told SBJ that he has a "new appreciation for caddies after carrying a 50-pound bag up and down hills." Gilbert: "I can’t thank Harold enough for allowing me to caddie for him. It was the first opportunity I had to meet Harold and we spent four hours talking about his family, hometown of Gastonia and his passion for ECU. There’s no doubt Harold definitely wants to be involved as we move East Carolina athletics forward."

ECU AD Jon Gilbert (l) caddied for PGA Tour golfer Harold Varner III at the Wyndham Pro-Am

THROWBACK THURSDAY

• Does the name Donald De La Haye ring a bell? Two years ago this week, the kicker was ruled ineligible by UCF for the team's 2017 football season after receiving advertising money for his popular YouTube videos. The situation feels timely with the NCAA finally decided to study the issue of name, image and likeness. De La Haye sued UCF in federal court and ended up settling with the university last fall to continue his education. Now 22, he’s kicking for the CFL Toronto Argonauts and his YouTube channel is going strong with over 1.7 million subscribers. When his UCF career ended, the channel only had around 94,000.

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Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessdaily.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).