New Episode of Big Business on Campus: Rutgers Director of Athletics Keli Zinn and Scarlet Knight Enterprises Chairman Oliver Luck
On the latest episode of JohnWallStreet Presents: Big Business on Campus, a college sports podcast powered by Playfly Sports, JohnWallStreet Founder Corey Leff and Playfly Sports Chairman Michael Schreiber sit down with Rutgers University Director of Athletics Keli Zinn and Scarlet Knight Enterprises Chairman Oliver Luck.
In this 50-minute conversation, the four discuss:
Taking a Pro Sports Approach to Revenue Generation
Rutgers University (RU) announced the formation of Scarlet Knight Enterprises (SKE) in March, a new entity dedicated to overseeing the school’s multimedia rights, corporate partnership sales, ticketing strategy, and NIL initiatives. The shift in strategy was driven by the need to increase revenues and desire to have more control over its long-term destiny. The bet is informed by Luck’s firsthand experience with a comparable model.
“[I was] fortunate to have been at the very beginning of what Clemson did with CAPCO. Clemson Athletic Properties Company, which basically morphed into Clemson Ventures. And the track record for that organization has been tremendous,” Luck said. “They have completely outperformed the expectations.”
The key was building the commercial operation around experienced pro sports executives. RU intends to follow a similar approach.
“...hiring folks who have professional sports experience, who understand the importance of revenue, who are strategic [is critical],” Luck said. “Michael Drake, former Legends, Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Falcons, he's been running Clemson Ventures now for a couple years and doing an A-1 job; just knocking the ball out of the park. So, it's both [getting the] structure [right], as well as [having the requisite] talent. [The latter is] incredibly important. And Rutgers has an enormous advantage because [it] can get talent in the tri-state area. [It’s] much harder to find talent [in] Ames, Iowa or Blacksburg, Virginia.... Folks that are really on their way up may not be attracted to a small-town environment.”
If you missed the recent Big Business on Campus episode with Clemson AD Graham Neff, you can catch it here.
Managing Costs Through Structure
SKE’s existence also gives Rutgers the opportunity to manage costs differently. Moving certain functions under the affiliated nonprofit entity will eventually help the school to reduce employee-related expenses, including fringe-benefit obligations.
“If we have a traditional box office that currently reports up through the business office and sits on the state side, [employees are] subject to a 70% fringe rate. But in the future, our ticketing operations [will] all be housed within Scarlet Knight Enterprises. That move specifically will reduce, and pretty significantly, [those] fringe costs,” Zinn said. SKE resides “outside of the state element or Rutgers’ operations. It is fully separate…. [though it remains] wholly owned by Rutgers University.”
Cultivating Regional Identity
Rutgers resides in one of the most valuable commercial corridors in the country. The challenge is to convert that geographic advantage into affinity and revenue. School leadership believes there is a blueprint to follow.
“One of the better, if not one of the best, branding jobs in the last four or five years in college athletics has been SMU identifying with its home, Dallas. A lot of folks didn't know where SMU was located. So, they put Dallas on their jerseys. New branding. New logos. New identity,” Luck said. “Rutgers has an opportunity very similar to that. New Jersey's got [nearly] 10 million people. Right across the Hudson River [is] New York City. Pennsylvania [is close to] the southern part of the state. [There is] an opportunity, very much like SMU had, to totally rebrand the university and make Rutgers the team for the tri-state area.”
The expectation is if the school can more clearly establish itself as the state’s own, it can expand its commercial appeal beyond alumni.
“It's [about] tapping into not only people, but corporate organizations and companies here, that may not be, ‘Rutgers people’ or ‘Rutgers-affiliated’ organizations as much as they are state of New Jersey companies, organizations, and people, and having [that demo] recognize and understand what it [would] mean to this state [should] Rutgers find [itself] as a really competitive, high-level athletics program,” Zinn said.
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We’ll be back with the next episode of JohnWallStreet Presents: Big Business on Campus in two weeks. DePaul University Senior Vice President and Director of Athletics DeWayne Peevy will be our guest.
Previous episodes of BBOC, including sit-downs with Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman, Arizona AD Desiree Reed-Francois, Maryland AD Jim Smith, American Commissioner Tim Pernetti, Pittsburgh AD Allen Greene, Wake Forest AD John Currie, Kansas AD Travis Goff, Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris, Big Sky Conference Commissioner Tom Wistrcill, SMU AD Damon Evans, Ohio State AD Ross Bjork, West Virginia President Michael Benson, and Weatherford Capital Founding Partner Drew Weatherford, IMG Academy CEO Brent Richard and USA Fencing CEO Phil Andrews on the Enrollment Cliff, Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez, Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould, St. John’s AD Ed Kull, Army AD Tom Theodorakis, Alabama AD Greg Byrne, and Clemson AD Graham Neff can be found on JohnWallStreet’s YouTube channel.
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