MW College basketball is such big business that general managers are in high demand. A look inside this hot new job.

By Weston Blasi

Adrian Wojnarowski and other new GMs tell MarketWatch about the business of dealing with NIL and the transfer portal in recruiting rising stars

While professional sports teams have long had general managers - people who select draft picks and make trades - now more college teams are getting in the GM game, too.

It appears to be paying off. In fact, three of the four schools that made the men's Final Four have a GM or a person serving in a role with a similar title, such as "director for basketball operations," listed on their coaching staff. Duke, Florida and Houston all have those roles filled, while Auburn does not.

College athletic departments across the country are hiring GMs to help run their biggest sports teams - mostly in basketball and football - in an effort to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape of college sports, which now includes players getting paid through name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and new transfer rules that feature college athletes changing teams more regularly.

While the exact number of GMs in college basketball is not known, there are now over 30 schools (making up around 10% of them) that have hired GMs over the last three years for their basketball programs - a job that didn't exist before 2022, when Duke University's Rachel Baker became the first publicly announced GM of a college basketball team in the country.

Exact salaries for these positions are hard to pin down, but one example can be found in publicly available North Carolina State University documents, which show its GM Andrew Slater earns a salary of $400,000 a year, plus travel stipends. Top college basketball coaches can make just under $10 million a season.

And some NBA players are taking on this role for their old schools, too. Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry is serving as an assistant GM for his alma mater Davidson College, while Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young is working the same position at the University of Oklahoma.

Generally speaking, college GMs report to the head coach and help recruit athletes, whether that's rising high-school stars or college transfers from other teams. College sports have become major money-makers, with the NCAA earning $1.38 billion last year (with most of that coming from March Madness.) They've also net long-term TV broadcast contracts that collectively add up to tens of billions, such as the $7.8 billion deal between ESPN and College Football Playoff, and NCAA's $8.8 billion TV deal for the men's March Madness tournament.

Between NIL deals, the transfer portal and nonstop recruiting, running a basketball program now requires year-round attention to many matters off the court that some coaches don't have the bandwidth for. Enter the GM.

So what exactly do college GMs do?

"Everyone's different. For me the biggest thing is helping construct a roster," Alex Kline, the GM of the Syracuse University men's basketball program since 2024, told MarketWatch. Drawing on his NBA scouting background, he said that picking a player is all about "understanding who you like, what you value them at and managing your salary cap."

College GMs manage an informal salary cap funded by NIL donations and revenue sharing, among other things. They use this money to help build out a roster and allocate money where necessary, with top players naturally making more than the lowest few players on the roster.

Kline, a Syracuse grad himself, previously worked in the NBA for the New Orleans Pelicans and the New York Knicks. He focuses mainly on building a roster and trying to recruit players to the team in the offseason, which includes going on recruiting visits, talking with agents, mentoring players and sometimes helping players secure NIL deals.

"I wear a lot of different hats," Kline said. "Each person in this GM role needs to know what they do best."

Duke GM Baker, who previously worked at Nike $(NKE)$ and the NBA, has more of a marketing background, and leverages her expertise to find deals for players so they can just focus on playing basketball.

"Rachel [Baker] helps with that a lot," Duke star Cooper Flagg said while praising his team's GM on the Brotherhood Podcast earlier this season. Flagg said that she helps him keep his focus on the basketball court and "keep the main thing the main thing."

How does the job differ from professional sports teams?

Like in professional sports, GMs help pick the players that are on the team. But unlike professional sports, there's a lot of other duties too.

And nobody knows that better than St. Bonaventure GM Adrian Wojnarowski.

"There's so many elements to it, and it's harder and harder to imagine that you could just do it with a traditional coaching staff," Wojnarowski, who is working for his alma mater St. Bonaventure University, told MarketWatch. "Families are coming to games, but coaches are coaching. I can spend time with our players' families when they are on campus. I can go have coffee and talk to them about how things are going."

Wojnarowski worked as a leading NBA reporter for decades, most recently for ESPN $(DIS)$, before joining St. Bonaventure in 2024. In that job, he was known for being the first reporter to break news and his excellent sourcing.

"In the NBA you're picking players," Wojnarowski said. "If you want a player you can draft them, you can trade for them, you can sign them as a free agent. Here, the players pick us."

And once those players choose your program, you have to retain them, which is helpful if you establish trust and good relationships with players, he said. And those relationships can branch off into numerous buckets, even helping players find representation.

"We're recruiting, we're in the transfer portal, I'm helping one of our seniors hire an agent, we are on Zoom calls with five to six agents. The job is evolving," Wojnarowski said.

'In the NBA you're picking players. If you want a player you can draft them, you can trade for them, you can sign them as a free agent. Here, the players pick us.'Adrian Wojnarowski, St. Bonaventure GM

Wojnarowski's job duties don't stop there either. As the GM of a midmajor program - a school outside the traditional Power 5 conferences, which tend to generate the most revenue from their athletic programs - there's an emphasis on fundraising donations from donors, which can then be used to help facilitate NIL deals for new recruits.

"Once we go through all these deals, then I have to pay for all this, and you're back to raising NIL," Wojnarowski said. "I spend every day all year raising money."

There is no fundraising aspect to being a professional sports GM, of course, as any money used to sign players for pro teams is allocated by the league itself through revenues.

And the fundraising efforts for college teams can get creative. Wojnarowski even took to selling some of his famed newsbreaking phones in a bid to raise funds.

As a midmajor school, St. Bonaventure might not have the NIL budget of a school like Syracuse or Duke, which means Wojnarowski has to work harder to find players at attractive prices - similar to how an investor would look to buy into a business where the stock price is lower than its business fundamentals suggest it should be.

"I have got to find high-major players at midmajor money, and to do that you have to really call on your relationships, finding guys who would value our environment," he said. "It's not one size fits all. We are all trying to figure out the job."

Some of Wojnarowski and Kline's work is already paying off. This offseason, Syracuse agreed to terms with top portal guard Naithan George, and St. Bonaventure locked in big man Frank Mitchell and retained guard Dasonte Bowen.

See: Meet the sneaker lovers stockpiling $220 shoes before Trump's tariffs raise prices even higher

College GMs poised to be a hot job

In short, college basketball GMs are part recruiters, part scouts, part fundraisers, part negotiators, and part hosts - a role born out of the chaos of modern college athletics.

The idea that more schools may look to hire GMs in the future is good news for anybody trying to work in the sports industry, and both Kline and Wojnarowski think every school will have them for their big sports teams in a few years time.

"Teams are either in the process of hiring one or they are trying to figure out how to hire," Wojnarowski said. "You're going to see it more and more; the landscape demands it."

'Teams are either in the process of hiring one or they are trying to figure out how to hire. You're going to see it more and more; the landscape demands it.'Adrian Wojnarowski, St. Bonaventure GM

"This is going to be a requirement," Kline agreed. "College coaches are overworked and don't have enough time to do everything."

NIL money has gotten so large that some schools are spending millions of dollars annually. This year's Final Four teams spent an average of $14 million on NIL this season, per Sportico. Those numbers get even higher in college football, with five teams spending over $17 million last year.

As NIL dollars flood college athletics, schools are realizing they need front offices to survive.

It's not just men's college basketball teams that are hiring GMs. Two women's basketball teams, the University of Southern California and the University of North Carolina, have them too. And of course, many football programs, armed with huge rosters, have GMs on the staff.

It's a tough job, but there's one aspect that's at least a little easier for the college basketball GMs.

"It's hard enough to put a basketball roster together, but I remind myself I just need five guys on this giant planet," Wojnarowski said. "I think this is an insane enough process with five guys on the court versus 22 on a football field."

-Weston Blasi

MW College basketball is such big business that general managers are in high demand. A look inside this hot new job.

By Weston Blasi

Adrian Wojnarowski and other new GMs tell MarketWatch about the business of dealing with NIL and the transfer portal in recruiting rising stars

While professional sports teams have long had general managers - people who select draft picks and make trades - now more college teams are getting in the GM game, too.

It appears to be paying off. In fact, three of the four schools that made the men's Final Four have a GM or a person serving in a role with a similar title, such as "director for basketball operations," listed on their coaching staff. Duke, Florida and Houston all have those roles filled, while Auburn does not.

College athletic departments across the country are hiring GMs to help run their biggest sports teams - mostly in basketball and football - in an effort to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape of college sports, which now includes players getting paid through name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and new transfer rules that feature college athletes changing teams more regularly.

While the exact number of GMs in college basketball is not known, there are now over 30 schools (making up around 10% of them) that have hired GMs over the last three years for their basketball programs - a job that didn't exist before 2022, when Duke University's Rachel Baker became the first publicly announced GM of a college basketball team in the country.

Exact salaries for these positions are hard to pin down, but one example can be found in publicly available North Carolina State University documents, which show its GM Andrew Slater earns a salary of $400,000 a year, plus travel stipends. Top college basketball coaches can make just under $10 million a season.

And some NBA players are taking on this role for their old schools, too. Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry is serving as an assistant GM for his alma mater Davidson College, while Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young is working the same position at the University of Oklahoma.

Generally speaking, college GMs report to the head coach and help recruit athletes, whether that's rising high-school stars or college transfers from other teams. College sports have become major money-makers, with the NCAA earning $1.38 billion last year (with most of that coming from March Madness.) They've also net long-term TV broadcast contracts that collectively add up to tens of billions, such as the $7.8 billion deal between ESPN and College Football Playoff, and NCAA's $8.8 billion TV deal for the men's March Madness tournament.

Between NIL deals, the transfer portal and nonstop recruiting, running a basketball program now requires year-round attention to many matters off the court that some coaches don't have the bandwidth for. Enter the GM.

So what exactly do college GMs do?

"Everyone's different. For me the biggest thing is helping construct a roster," Alex Kline, the GM of the Syracuse University men's basketball program since 2024, told MarketWatch. Drawing on his NBA scouting background, he said that picking a player is all about "understanding who you like, what you value them at and managing your salary cap."

College GMs manage an informal salary cap funded by NIL donations and revenue sharing, among other things. They use this money to help build out a roster and allocate money where necessary, with top players naturally making more than the lowest few players on the roster.

Kline, a Syracuse grad himself, previously worked in the NBA for the New Orleans Pelicans and the New York Knicks. He focuses mainly on building a roster and trying to recruit players to the team in the offseason, which includes going on recruiting visits, talking with agents, mentoring players and sometimes helping players secure NIL deals.

"I wear a lot of different hats," Kline said. "Each person in this GM role needs to know what they do best."

Duke GM Baker, who previously worked at Nike (NKE) and the NBA, has more of a marketing background, and leverages her expertise to find deals for players so they can just focus on playing basketball.

"Rachel [Baker] helps with that a lot," Duke star Cooper Flagg said while praising his team's GM on the Brotherhood Podcast earlier this season. Flagg said that she helps him keep his focus on the basketball court and "keep the main thing the main thing."

How does the job differ from professional sports teams?

Like in professional sports, GMs help pick the players that are on the team. But unlike professional sports, there's a lot of other duties too.

And nobody knows that better than St. Bonaventure GM Adrian Wojnarowski.

"There's so many elements to it, and it's harder and harder to imagine that you could just do it with a traditional coaching staff," Wojnarowski, who is working for his alma mater St. Bonaventure University, told MarketWatch. "Families are coming to games, but coaches are coaching. I can spend time with our players' families when they are on campus. I can go have coffee and talk to them about how things are going."

Wojnarowski worked as a leading NBA reporter for decades, most recently for ESPN $(DIS.UK)$, before joining St. Bonaventure in 2024. In that job, he was known for being the first reporter to break news and his excellent sourcing.

"In the NBA you're picking players," Wojnarowski said. "If you want a player you can draft them, you can trade for them, you can sign them as a free agent. Here, the players pick us."

And once those players choose your program, you have to retain them, which is helpful if you establish trust and good relationships with players, he said. And those relationships can branch off into numerous buckets, even helping players find representation.

"We're recruiting, we're in the transfer portal, I'm helping one of our seniors hire an agent, we are on Zoom calls with five to six agents. The job is evolving," Wojnarowski said.

'In the NBA you're picking players. If you want a player you can draft them, you can trade for them, you can sign them as a free agent. Here, the players pick us.'Adrian Wojnarowski, St. Bonaventure GM

Wojnarowski's job duties don't stop there either. As the GM of a midmajor program - a school outside the traditional Power 5 conferences, which tend to generate the most revenue from their athletic programs - there's an emphasis on fundraising donations from donors, which can then be used to help facilitate NIL deals for new recruits.

"Once we go through all these deals, then I have to pay for all this, and you're back to raising NIL," Wojnarowski said. "I spend every day all year raising money."

There is no fundraising aspect to being a professional sports GM, of course, as any money used to sign players for pro teams is allocated by the league itself through revenues.

And the fundraising efforts for college teams can get creative. Wojnarowski even took to selling some of his famed newsbreaking phones in a bid to raise funds.

As a midmajor school, St. Bonaventure might not have the NIL budget of a school like Syracuse or Duke, which means Wojnarowski has to work harder to find players at attractive prices - similar to how an investor would look to buy into a business where the stock price is lower than its business fundamentals suggest it should be.

"I have got to find high-major players at midmajor money, and to do that you have to really call on your relationships, finding guys who would value our environment," he said. "It's not one size fits all. We are all trying to figure out the job."

Some of Wojnarowski and Kline's work is already paying off. This offseason, Syracuse agreed to terms with top portal guard Naithan George, and St. Bonaventure locked in big man Frank Mitchell and retained guard Dasonte Bowen.

See: Meet the sneaker lovers stockpiling $220 shoes before Trump's tariffs raise prices even higher

College GMs poised to be a hot job

In short, college basketball GMs are part recruiters, part scouts, part fundraisers, part negotiators, and part hosts - a role born out of the chaos of modern college athletics.

The idea that more schools may look to hire GMs in the future is good news for anybody trying to work in the sports industry, and both Kline and Wojnarowski think every school will have them for their big sports teams in a few years time.

"Teams are either in the process of hiring one or they are trying to figure out how to hire," Wojnarowski said. "You're going to see it more and more; the landscape demands it."

'Teams are either in the process of hiring one or they are trying to figure out how to hire. You're going to see it more and more; the landscape demands it.'Adrian Wojnarowski, St. Bonaventure GM

"This is going to be a requirement," Kline agreed. "College coaches are overworked and don't have enough time to do everything."

NIL money has gotten so large that some schools are spending millions of dollars annually. This year's Final Four teams spent an average of $14 million on NIL this season, per Sportico. Those numbers get even higher in college football, with five teams spending over $17 million last year.

As NIL dollars flood college athletics, schools are realizing they need front offices to survive.

It's not just men's college basketball teams that are hiring GMs. Two women's basketball teams, the University of Southern California and the University of North Carolina, have them too. And of course, many football programs, armed with huge rosters, have GMs on the staff.

It's a tough job, but there's one aspect that's at least a little easier for the college basketball GMs.

"It's hard enough to put a basketball roster together, but I remind myself I just need five guys on this giant planet," Wojnarowski said. "I think this is an insane enough process with five guys on the court versus 22 on a football field."

-Weston Blasi

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April 11, 2025 13:09 ET (17:09 GMT)

MW College basketball is such big business that -2-

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