Numerous people in today’s day and age have aspirations to be an Athletic Director (AD). However, many of them do not truly grasp the full concept of the AD’s job responsibilities and demands. An AD not only attends football games, hires coaches, and attend fundraising events with fans. AD’s have various other job responsibilities and duties other than those previously mentioned. Head athletic directors have the largest plate of tasks that they must accomplish. However the several associate and assistant athletic directors within a collegiate athletic department also have a bevy of responsibilities they must undertake in order for the department to operate properly. Head athletic directors, especially those within NCAA Division I Athletics, …show more content…
Knowing that, it is not a coincidence that sales are considered to be one of the truly vital responsibilities of an AD (Hatfield et. al). If they are able to routinely sell large amounts of tickets to home sporting events, the school’s board will be pleased. Ticket sales are also the highest form of revenue for the athletic department (Bouchet et. al). Sales, however, also operate hand in hand with marketing, another large component of an AD’s job. Since countless schools have seen their sales decline over recent years, an AD who has a proven track record of success in sales will separate themselves from others. Various ADs have even begun to implement ticket sales and dedicated marketing teams that work directly with ADs to improve the program’s revenue (Bouchet et al). Promoting an athletic program through ticket sales along with marketing is a key component to being an AD and remains one the most significant duties of an athletic …show more content…
If an AD is unable to properly control money and provide each sport within their department a strict budget, spending can quickly become out of hand, leading to a large revenue loss. The consequences of this can be catastrophic as several smaller schools around the nation are having to cut a number of their athletic teams in order to preserve the profitable ones (Coyte). Much of an AD’s day is spent budgeting for the various teams that the university supports in an effort to maintain financial stability and grow the athletic department. While generally NCAA athletic programs remain unable to turn a profit each year, the talented ADs will be able to budget properly to negate losses. An athletic department is a business and an AD is the CEO. If the athletic department is consistently losing progressively larger amounts of money each year, the AD is not properly following through with his or her responsibilities and is a detriment to the