Adventures in Conference Realignment with Oliver Luck

The Business of College Sports

This episode I'm joined by Oliver Luck, former WVU football student athlete, NFL player, NCAA administrator...and perhaps most important to this conversation, the former WVU athletic director who guided the Mountaineers through the last round of conference realignment.

While Luck considered it an honor to be the athletic director at his alma mater, he was faced with challenges during his tenure. Not the least of those was Pittsburgh and Syracuse leaving the Big East in 2011, which necessitated a move for WVU.
Luck chats about his career, the history of conference realignment, the challenges that an athletic director faces and the impact that television and other schools have in the realignment process.

In this episode we discussed:

• How Luck found out the Big East was in trouble
• Luck's first actions once he realized WVU needed to find a new conference and which conferences he called first
• The challenges realignment brings for an athletic director
• The tight knit circle that an athletic director has when making decisions about realignment
• The different factors that a school considers when weighing the options of realignment
• How schools can salvage old rivalries even when changing conferences
• The lawlessness of conference realignment
• The amount of stress involved for an athletic director during realignment

If you've ever wanted a peek behind the curtain of conference realignment, you've come to the right place! Strap in and learn all about what it was like to guide WVU through the last round of realignment.
You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram to discuss further, ask additional questions or suggest future episodes.
You can find more of my analysis on the business of college sports at BusinessofCollegeSports.com and Forbes.

You can follow Kristi on Twitter and Instagram to discuss further, ask additional questions or suggest future episodes.
You can find more of her analysis on the business of college sports at BusinessofCollegeSports.com and Forbes.
Need data and real-world experts to help you make decisions in your athletic department? Check out College Sports Solutions and connect with Jeff on LinkedIn.