The AthleticDirectorU Athletic Department Power Index, powered by Athlete Viewpoint, continues with a look at the West Coast Conference. The Athletic Department Power Index will evaluate the desirability of Athletic Director jobs in every Division I conference across the country.
It’s imperative to note the Athletic Department Power Index is not intended or developed to analyze the performance or potential of the current Athletic Director at the respective institutions. Rather it is an assessment of the opportunity generally through the eyes of both peers and aspirants to the position were it to become available.
Approximately 80 sitting Athletic Directors and executive-level administrators who currently are or could soon be a WCC AD were invited to share feedback on each AD job in the league. The data was used to provide detailed insights about the potential for success at each school.
The ten variables utilized to determine the rankings include:
- Athletics facilities relative to WCC peers
- Perceptions about the ability to generate donor & corporate support for the athletics program
- Perceptions about institutional leadership (e.g. President, Trustees, C-Suite) in support of the athletic program
- Perceptions about the quality of the institution’s brand
- Perceptions about the potential for serious compliance & NCAA rules violations
- Potential for Football success relative to WCC peers
- Potential for Men’s Basketball success relative to WCC peers
- Potential for success in non-revenue sports relative to WCC peers
- Potential to become a ‘Power 5’ AD from each institution
- Quality of Life (cost of living, schools, culture, geography) if all other factors were equal
Here are the overall results with one being the highest and ten being the lowest:
Specifically, on the question of which WCC AD job has the best potential to lead to a ‘Power 5’ department (graded on a scale of seven as ‘much better than peers’ & one as ‘much worse’):
The West Coast Conference has long been a national player in non-revenue sports. Here’s how respondents qualified the ability for each member institution to have success in non-revenue sports (graded on a scale of seven as ‘much better than peers’ & one as ‘much worse’):
To view additional results from the Athletic Department Power Index: West Coast Conference, including school comparisons, question comparisons and specific comments from respondents, click here. The tool allows you to sort ratings by any question and compare schools individually.
This Athletic Department Power Index intends to review all of the Division I conferences in the coming months. The Mid-American Conference was previously surveyed with results that can be found here. As was the case with the MAC & WCC, selected individuals will be invited to participate and share their views about specific conferences and the subsequent data will be shared in a similar manner. The technical expertise, survey development, survey distribution and data visualization are provided by Athlete Viewpoint.
Up next in the series: the Atlantic Coast Conference.
