This op-ed from NIU Vice President/Director of Athletics and Recreation Sean T. Frazier was originally published by the Sports Business Journal on June 4, 2026.
As my 2025-26 term as president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on an era of unprecedented transformation. Driven by the realities of the House settlement, revenue sharing, NIL legislation, and the transfer portal, the landscape of college athletics has fundamentally shifted, continuing to evolve into what is being called "The Modern Era" of intercollegiate athletics. What I have learned/experienced from many conversations with student athletes, coaches, athletics directors, chancellors, presidents, and higher education practitioners across the country is that waiting for the dust to settle is no longer a viable strategy.
Institutions must proactively engineer modern, sustainable systems capable of adapting to the rapidly changing economics and governance structures reshaping higher education and intercollegiate athletics. To navigate this new paradigm, athletic departments must reconnect structurally with the broader academic mission of their universities. In our own attempt to control what we can control institutionally to meet the critical needs of financial sustainability, academic and athletic success, we (NIU) are looking forward to our transition into the Mountain West in football and gymnastics, Horizon League for the majority of our Olympic sport offerings, with wrestling in the Pac-12, all happening July 1, 2026.
As commercialization accelerates, there is a growing temptation to treat college athletics as a stand-alone professional enterprise. That would be a mistake. The better description is quasi-professional: College athletics increasingly looks, feels, and operates like a professional sports enterprise in certain respects, but it remains embedded in higher education, shared governance, broad-based participation, and student development. Athletics cannot become a commercial silo disconnected from the educational purpose of the university, nor can it consume institutional resources without accountability to the university's broader mission.
At their best, universities exist to create environments where students discover, examine, preserve, and apply knowledge that improves society. Athletics remains an extension of that mission. Participation in sports develops discipline, teamwork, resilience, leadership, time management, and problem-solving. The central obligation remains graduation and long-term student success. College athletics also serves as a powerful bridge between universities and the broader communities they serve, creating engagement, school pride/affinity, alumni connectivity, and public visibility that few other university functions can replicate.
This does not mean we can ignore the commercial realities of the moment. Major college athletics is now driven by media rights, revenue sharing, private equity/capital, national entertainment economics, and rapidly evolving athlete expectations. Wishing away that reality is futile, but surrendering the educational purpose of college athletics to a purely professional model would be equally wrong. The task now is to modernize without severing athletics from the academic mission that gives it legitimacy.
That requires integrating athletics into traditional university governance and implementing mature operational safeguards. Institutions should adopt proactive harm-reduction protocols, including anonymous reporting systems, mandatory exit interviews, and partnerships with independent experts to address growing risks associated with sports wagering, athlete mental health, and institutional liability. Shared governance is not an obstacle to modernization; it is one of the virtues of the collegiate model, because it keeps athletics accountable to the institution rather than allowing it to drift into a purely commercial enterprise.
Commercialization also demands more sophisticated labor and compensation frameworks. Rather than participating in reckless short-term bidding cycles that threaten institutional stability, universities should build sustainable revenue-sharing systems that reinforce educational achievement, long-term development, and responsible financial planning. The goal should be to generate the resources now required without compromising institutional standards.
For example, portions of television distributions and revenue-sharing compensation could vest over time or through academic benchmarks, with unvested funds redirected into graduation pools for athletes who complete their degrees. That kind of structure would shift the focus from short-term transactional compensation toward long-term professional development, while reinforcing the substantial lifetime value of a college degree.
Executing this level of modernization requires leadership, institutional alignment, and a willingness to rethink legacy operational structures. Presidents and chancellors ultimately hold the authority to drive structural change, but athletic directors are the practitioners responsible for operationalizing it. Redesigning the collegiate model will require leaders willing to build coalitions, absorb criticism, and develop entirely new governance and business frameworks. Modern athletic directors must simultaneously navigate corporate-scale finance, Title IX obligations, Olympic sport preservation, political scrutiny, donor expectations, and rapidly evolving athlete priorities.
Managing this disruption/uncertainty requires operational sophistication without losing sight of the student-athlete experience. Unlike professional sports teams built around a single sport and commercial product, NCAA Division I, II and III athletic departments must support broad-based sport offerings, satisfy Title IX and other legal obligations, preserve Olympic programs, and maintain institutional control across campus systems. After more than three decades in intercollegiate athletics, one lesson has remained constant: Sustainable success comes not from simply spending more money, but from building smarter systems, exercising discipline, and adapting without losing institutional identity.
Surviving this era of disruption/uncertainty will require financial discipline, strategic execution, transparency, and an unwavering commitment to the university's mission. Our quasi-professional status leaves college athletics vulnerable to criticism if we pursue professional-style revenues without preserving the educational compact that justifies our place within higher education. The future depends on leaders who can manage a highly commercialized enterprise while still anchoring that enterprise to the academic values that define the collegiate model.
If we successfully combine modern business innovation with academic purpose, college athletics can continue to thrive as one of the most impactful pillars of the university experience while preparing student athletes to lead in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world.
