Maryland is expected to hire Atlanta Braves executive Jim Smith as its next athletic director, sources confirmed to CBS Sports. Smith currently serves as the Braves’ senior vice president for business strategy. He replaces Damon Evans, who left to become SMU’s athletic director in March.
Yahoo Sports first reported the news of Smith’s hire.
In addition to working for the Braves, Smith has also worked for Ohio State, the Atlanta Falcons and the Columbus Crew. He worked as the chief marketing officer for the Atlanta Falcons and as vice president/general manager for the Crew. At Ohio State, he served as president and chief executive officer of the Ohio State Alumni Association from 2016-2020.
Smith inherits an athletic department that has experienced significant turnover in recent months after Evans left for SMU and basketball coach Kevin Willard bolted for Villanova. Interim athletic director Colleen Sorem hired Texas A&M’s Buzz Williams to replace Willard.
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Maryland used Turnkey Search to handle its search for a new athletic director.
A bold swing for a new era
Maryland’s hire of Smith is interesting for a number of reasons. He has no direct ties to the school, has primarily worked in the states of Georgia and Ohio, and hasn’t been directly involved in college athletics since 2000 when he worked as an associate AD at Ohio State. But what Smith does have a lot of experience in is revenue generation and marketing, two areas that Maryland can use the help ahead of the forthcoming revenue share world. Before the additions of four new Big Ten schools, Maryland ranked dead last in the conference in athletic department revenue at $107.5 million. By comparison, Ohio State, the top revenue-generating AD in the Big Ten, amassed $251.6 million, according to 2022 financial records.
It is an outside-the-box hire for a school that doesn’t have the massive fanbase or huge donor base like some of its other Big Ten peers like Michigan and Ohio State. Smith is an alumnus of one of those schools so he knows what it can look like when everything works and the money comes flowing in, but he’ll face a tougher challenge engaging a Maryland fanbase that has plenty of other ways to spend time and money in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore areas. His experience at the professional level, especially with the Falcons which have been innovative with concession pricing, could be beneficial in reshaping Maryland gameday experiences to appeal to more casual fans.
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