AD Advisors

A circle of support for athletic directors.

Where We’ve Been

We’ve already run the room.

Our advisors have led, advised, and operated inside:

Auburn
Florida
UNLV
Arizona State
Syracuse
Texas A&M
University of Virginia
West Point
The White House
CAA
ESPN
Disney
Paramount
IMG
The NFL
The College Football Playoff
MLB

Organizations our advisors have led or advised across their careers — named for the experience they brought with them.

The Circle

Led by former Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs, sports and entertainment executive Jeff Holbrook, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, high-performance wellbeing expert Carlette Patterson, and former CAA operations executive Ashley Hovey — together, more than 100 years in sports, media, and entertainment.

How We Help

Revenue. Operations. Performance.

Winning programs now require more than talent. They require infrastructure. Everything we do sits under three pillars — and the three are built to work as one.

Revenue

Create revenue. Maximize resources.

Experience Activation — RELIVE IT, premium hospitality, game day
Commercial Growth — sponsorship, NIL, media rights, fundraising
Resource Optimization — travel, sourcing, cost recovery

Explore Revenue

Operations

Simplify complexity. Scale execution.

Athlete Compensation — contracts, payments, compliance
Reporting and Analytics — governance, data, decision support
Process Design — workflows, implementation, change
Organizational Structure — roles, accountability, succession

Explore Operations

Performance

Align people. Accelerate results.

Crisis and Communications — crisis response, narrative, stakeholders
Leadership Development — culture, coaching, wellbeing
Executive Advisory — counsel, alignment, change management

Explore Performance

All services

Our Research

Portal Pushdown: The Trend No One Talks About

AD Advisors and Timark Partners released the most comprehensive study into the basketball transfer portal published to date — a deep dive into over 14,000 basketball student-athletes dating back to 2019, exploring transfer outcomes, competition level changes, and how many times student-athletes entered the portal.

Read on ESPN

The Portal Puzzle: Is It Right for College?

The most comprehensive research study into the College Football Transfer Portal ever done, taking a deep dive into over 800 FBS football student-athlete portal entrants dating back to the 2020-2021 portal windows.

Read the paper (PDF)

No Athletic Director should do it alone.

Tell us what you're working through and we'll come back to you.

Let's Connect