SBJ College: C-Suite Change Coming To Learfield IMG

Former QB Ryan Leaf, in his first season with ESPN, was the analyst for last night’s Appalachian State-Louisiana football game. In the words of Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde,” he "wasn’t completely unfortunate."

Here is what's cooking on campus:

SHIFTING ROLES WITHIN LEARFIELD IMG COLLEGE

• Learfield IMG College is shifting responsibilities in the C-suite, which will include hiring a new head of sales, industry sources say. The new position will oversee all aspects of multimedia sales, from the local, regional and national levels, accounting for 800 sales execs across 200 college clients. CAA Executive Search is managing the process.
  
  
• Sources familiar with Learfield IMG College say the new position has not yet been given a formal title, but it is expected to be Head of Sales, President of Sales, Chief Revenue Officer or something similar. The company is casting a wide net, but sources indicate that Learfield IMG College likely will look outside of college athletics for a "fresh set of eyes." To what degree that leads to restructuring at both the C-level and down the sales chain remains to be seen.
  
  
• There will be changes in responsibility within the Learfield IMG College senior staff, sources said. Andy Rawlings, who has been with Learfield since 2001, is shifting into a new role where he oversees the businesses that are complementary to multimedia rights, such as ANC, CLC, Paciolan, Learfield IMG College Ticket Solutions and the joint venture with Levy Restaurants. Rawlings had been chief revenue officer since 2014. Chief Strategy & Development Officer Rob Schneider oversees Sidearm Sports, Mogo Interactive and SME. Rawlings and Schneider will work on how to monetize the content and data from these businesses.
  
  
• What does all this mean? Learfield IMG College answers to a board and two private equity owners. It has revenue and net profit numbers to hit, so the company is positioning itself to grow at a faster clip. It’s up to President & CEO Greg Brown to get the pieces in the right position to do that. Core to growth is getting more brands involved and making it easier for them to access college athletics. As one exec said, “It’s still very daunting for a brand to navigate college.” Learfield IMG College has done some of the heavy lifting by aggregating the rights to 200 schools. Now comes the challenge of turning those assets into more revenue.

COLONIAL CHIEF SAYS FLOSPORTS DELIVERING SO FAR

• Recent headlines have not been kind to FloSports, which saw DC United part ways with the streaming outfit after only one MLS season following complaints from fans over tech issues and having to pay for game content. That reminded me about the FloSports media rights deal with the Colonial Athletic Association, one of the first college conferences to agree to an all-streaming arrangement. CAA Commissioner Joe D’Antonio, who worked with CSMG to strike the deal, said he couldn’t be happier entering Week 7 of football season. The conference's two marquee programs, James Madison and undefeated Villanova, square off Saturday and the CAA football page on FloFootball.com is loaded with content about that game and other stories from arguably the nation’s top FCS conference.
  
  
• D’Antonio said there have been a smattering of fan complaints from people who are accustomed to seeing games on linear TV and don’t like paying the subscription fee required for the site, but he added they have been kept to a minimum so far. In fact, when a fan expresses displeasure with the arrangement, D’Antonio has been known to call them directly. “I couldn’t do that if we had hundreds of people complaining,” D’Antonio said. “When they find out that they’re talking to the conference’s commissioner, it’s usually pretty disarming.”
  
  

SPEED READS 

• Florida AD Scott Stricklin, New Mexico State AD Mario Moccia and CFP chief Bill Hancock are among the small handful of athletic administrators that have performed #AMA (ask me anything) sessions with fans on Reddit’s college football page. I can see why now. Here are the traffic numbers on the page from our SBJ AMA earlier this week. Unique views numbered 131,814 on Tuesday and grew to 150,195 the next day. Total views hit over 1.1 million on Tuesday and just under 1 million yesterday. Two ADs who I definitely wouldn’t miss on the platform? Sacred Heart’s Bobby Valentine and Cal’s Jim Knowlton.
  
  
• It's not uncommon for a conference-owned network to keep some big matchups in an effort expand its subscriber base, and that looks like what the Pac-12 is doing with Arizona State-Utah on Oct. 19. But the San Jose Mercury News' Jon Wilner writes that game is likely to involve "ranked teams with division title implications," and fans "would be best served by having ASU-Utah on either ESPN2 or ESPNU," with the former in 80+ million households nationally, the latter in 65 million. Instead, Pac-12 Networks grabbed the game for its audience of "about 17 million homes."
  
  
• The Post Athens, a student-run paper covering Ohio Univ., checked in with new AD Julie Cromer after one month on the job. A self-deprecating Cromer had this to say about some of her initial meetings with athletes, some of which have come during school sporting events: "I get that I have a little bit of, you know, an uncool factor, but they’ve been really welcoming and a lot of fun."
  
  
• Kansas-based Winning Streak Sports, which sells and markets wool vintage banners, pennants and other fan items, is working with Texas A&M to create unique items related to the school’s 125th anniversary of football going on in 2019.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

• On this week in 2010, John Ourand and I reported that Fox Sports was the favorite to partner with Texas on the Longhorn Network. At that time, Texas and its rights holder, IMG College, were getting deep into discussions with ESPN and Fox. Our sources were telling us that Fox had made the more aggressive bid to that point. That set the stage for a monster bid from ESPN -- $300 million over 20 years -- that blew Fox’s bid out of the water by 5x. Texas and IMG College came to terms with ESPN three months later and remain partners on the network today.

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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@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).