Maryland hiring Jim Smith as next AD: School taps Atlanta Braves executive to replace Damon Evans
Maryland has hired Atlanta Braves executive Jim Smith as its next athletic director, sources confirmed to CBS Sports. Smith currently serves as the Braves' senior vice president for business strategy. He replaces Damon Evans, who left to become SMU's athletic director in March.
Smith is slated to start at Maryland on July 15th. Yahoo Sports first reported the news of Smith's hire.
"As college athletics rapidly evolves, Jim brings valuable administrative and business experience, plus the energy, vision and passion to lead our athletics program to new levels of success and impact," University of Maryland president Darryll Pines said in a release.
In addition to working for the Braves, Smith has also worked for Ohio State, the Atlanta Falcons and the Columbus Crew. He served as the chief marketing officer for the Atlanta Falcons and as vice president/general manager for the Crew. At Ohio State, he served as president and chief executive officer of the Ohio State Alumni Association from 2016-2020.
Smith plans to utilize those Ohio State connections at Maryland. In a release announcing his hire, the school said he plans to hire recently retired Ohio State AD Gene Smith as a consultant.
Smith inherits an athletic department that has experienced significant turnover in recent months after Evans left for SMU and basketball coach Kevin Willard bolted for Villanova. Interim athletic director Colleen Sorem hired Texas A&M's Buzz Williams to replace Willard.
Maryland used TurnkeyZRG to handle its search for a new athletic director.
A bold swing for a new eraMaryland's hire of Smith is interesting for a number of reasons. He has no direct ties to the school, has primarily worked in the states of Georgia and Ohio and hasn't been directly involved in college athletics since 2000 when he worked as an associate AD at Ohio State. But what Smith does have a lot of experience in is revenue generation and marketing, two areas where Maryland can use the help ahead of the forthcoming revenue-sharing world that starts at $20.5 million a year. Before the additions of four new Big Ten schools, Maryland ranked dead last in the conference in athletic department revenue at $107.5 million. By comparison, Ohio State, the top revenue-generating athletic department in the Big Ten, amassed $251.6 million, according to 2022 financial records.
It is an outside-the-box hire for a school that doesn't have the massive fanbase or huge donor base like some of its other Big Ten peers like Michigan and Ohio State. Smith is an alumnus of one of those schools, so he knows what it can look like when everything works and the money comes flowing in, but he'll face a tougher challenge engaging a Maryland fanbase that has plenty of other ways to spend time and money in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore areas. His ticketing and concessions experience at the professional level, especially with the Falcons which have been innovative with pricing, could be beneficial in reshaping Maryland gameday experiences to appeal to more casual fans.
Maryland wanted someone who could help bolster its revenue and think creatively on how an athletic department should run in this era. In Smith, on paper at least, they found someone who checks those boxes.
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