The last big practice of BYU football’s fall camp last Tuesday wound down like a fading echo.
A colleague of mine moved over and said, “Did you see Brian Santiago and Kalani Sitake giving one another a hug?”
That was positive news after several weeks of sensitive drama between BYU’s head coach Sitake and athletic director Santiago.
A minute or two later, Santiago and I met off the sidelines, and he commented that with all the negativity swirling around, he was excited for so many positive developments going on with all the school’s programs, that these were “exciting times” and that a positive vibe hung in the air.
I then broke away as my interviews with players were arranged and called for my turn. The players I spoke to were excited for the season. Very excited. And positive.
A day later, the Deseret News published a story detailing a restructuring of the athletic department; Santiago and Sitake wouldn’t be acting as boss and employee going forward.
This was no doubt the first of many steps that will be made in the coming weeks and months that will help update BYU’s operations in the athletic department.
It has become clear that there are a myriad of challenges facing the school and the department, and really all college athletic departments around the country. A restructuring is sorely needed — the current structure just doesn’t have the bandwidth to tackle important issues.
Aside from all the noise we’ve all heard the past few weeks, there are needs required by the BYU athletic engine. The way things have been operating are due for a rebuild, and have been, dating back to Tom Holmoe.
A good way to describe it is that BYU athletics was designed to wade in a shallow puddle with rubber boots while actually operating in a very deep sea where more serious navigation was required.
In a matter of a few years, NIL, revenue sharing, Big 12 media money, ticket sales, marketing, roster acquisition, recruiting evaluation tech, transfer portal research, negotiating with agents, contract signing, legal expertise and roster retention have grown into a big hungry monster that needs far more attention.
More eyes, more voices, more hands on deck are called for.
Both Santiago and Sitake will answer to Keith Vorkink, a vice president at BYU and former associate dean in the university’s Marriott School of Business. He knows spreadsheets, budgets, expenditures and capital management. Vorkink needs Santiago and Sitake to explain the nuances of football, basketball and other sports. He also needs more experts, be it in legal, business or tech.
The New York Times put it this way: College athletic departments can adopt key elements of NBA and NFL front-office models by professionalizing specialized roles, separating basketball/football operations from broader business functions and treating roster management, compensation (now including NIL and revenue sharing), and commercial activities more like a franchise business — while adapting to university governance, academic missions, multi-sport portfolios, Title IX considerations, and nonprofit structures.
There.
That’s it.
The thing about modern athletics administration is it requires astute business acumen and fundraising skills. These two duties require a different expertise because they are different brain and personality functions.
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid often says the biggest mistake he made in losing his head coaching job with the Philadelphia Eagles was that he tried to do both jobs and neglected what he was good at — calling plays.
He failed because he came up short when he tried to do too much.
Professional teams typically split operations: basketball/football operations (roster side) led by a president of basketball/football operations or general manager (GM) reporting to ownership.
Responsibilities include player acquisition (draft, free agency, trades), contract negotiation/salary-cap management, scouting (college, pro, international), analytics, player personnel/evaluation, coaching staff decisions and development.
Support roles include assistant GMs, directors of scouting/player personnel, regional/pro/international scouts, cap logistics (salary cap specialists), analytics staff and medical/performance teams. Staffs have grown large and specialized.
The business operations side is often led by a team, including a president/CEO, separate from the general manager. This covers marketing, sponsorships, ticket sales, parking passes, media/partnerships, finance/budgets, facilities, fan engagement and revenue generation.
Ownership (a university administration in this model) sets strategy and approves major spends.
Because college sports have so many professional traits today, including paid players, it requires an NBA or NFL approach to managing all of it.
Imagine BYU’s athletic director, be it Santiago or Holmoe, spending 10 to 20 hours a week in Big 12 Conference or NCAA calls or other committee assignments and then making decisions on cap management, NIL, revenue sharing, facilities, tickets, scheduling, contract reviews, catering to donors, personnel decisions, attending games and events, banquets, et cetera, et cetera.
Many universities are operating within an archaic athletic system that makes it impossible to accomplish all that needs to be done in a 40-hour work week.
Say, what? The 40-hour week?
BYU is steaming ahead as a Power Four program, doing amazing things with even more amazing athletes they’ve been able to gather without Texas Tech oil money.
Explained Vorkink: “Given today’s dynamic athletics landscape, we feel it’s important to be providing more administrative support, not less. We’ve made recent hires with that in mind, and we’re also organizing in ways that we believe will support BYU’s world-class programs.”
There’s a lot to be positive about if you see what’s happening with the two major sports that generate revenue, football and men’s basketball.
But as Vorkink told the Deseret News that what’s required today is twofold from what Holmoe was wading in a few years ago.
The system needs help, a lot of help, and it will take work and time to make it an efficient, well-oiled machine with all hands on deck operating at optimum levels.
This past week’s reorganization was just the first step.
