Time is money in college athletics, and that reality has never been more apparent. Like a Topps Now trading card designed to capitalize on the moment, athletics departments are constantly searching for ways to generate, grow and maximize revenue.
As the Protect College Sports Act nears a final vote on the Senate floor, potentially as soon as this week according to officials in Washington, D.C., who spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity to discuss the legislative timeline, schools are navigating today's turbulent landscape while preparing for a future in which as much as $45 million in school-funded roster spending could arrive as soon as next summer.
Amid that uncertainty, a new company is looking to carve out a role in the industry:
Benchmark.
Founded by Michael Anthony, the son of John Anthony, whose namesake travel company serves college athletics programs nationwide, Benchmark is an AI-powered platform that seeks to be a one-stop shop for colleges searching for coaching contracts, vendor agreements, game guarantees and other key business deals.
Benchmark has already signed roughly 30 Power Four programs and secured a conference-wide agreement with the Big 12. Those numbers could grow significantly in the coming months as the company explores additional league-wide partnerships, Anthony said.
“Win AD was kind of the first iteration of someone aggregating data, coaches’ contracts, vendors,” Bubba Cunningham, the 2020 Under Armour/NACDA Athletics Director of the Year who now serves as senior adviser to the chancellor at North Carolina, told USA TODAY Sports.“That mushroomed into anything we were contracting with, be it multimedia rights, shoe companies and so on.
“I think what Michael has done is taken it to another level. He’s used AI to continue to populate the website, with the depth and availability of information better than it’s ever been. In the past this was a really time-consuming element for the business and now this is a really good time-saver.”
The platform could also help athletics departments save money, according to USC deputy athletic director Jason Cappadoro.
Schools using Benchmark's database can ask its AI engine to compile apparel deals across the industry, whether comparing themselves to nearby rival UCLA or to fellow public universities competing in the Big Ten and across college athletics.
“We probably utilize it right now on a regular basis just anytime we’re looking at coaching contracts to vendor agreements,” Cappadoro told USA TODAY Sports. “We just switched our MMR (multimedia rights) partner, did an extension with Nike and just being able to pull some data (from peer deals) and feel good about deal points is key.
“(The) ease of use and information this system provides helps you make the best strategical decisions in real time. It’s a huge value-add to our department.”
The Anthony Travel name may have helped open doors for Michael Anthony and Benchmark in athletic departments across the country, but Cappadoro said it was the platform itself that ultimately drove the university to expand its use.
“Me and our CFO went through the demo via Zoom,” Cappadoro said. “It was good, so we took it to a bigger group and had them come back yet again to do a bigger group.”
Having grown up around college athletics through his family's business and attending "hundreds of Notre Dame" sporting events, Anthony and his team started with a straightforward goal: Create an intuitive platform where users can ask questions in plain language, receive AI-generated answers and access the underlying documents with a single click. Those materials can then be exported as PDFs, spreadsheets or Word documents.
“I think the main thing for us in terms of the origin story was having the chance to talk to current administrations around the country in college athletic departments and sensing an appetite to gain access for comparative information from other institutions across the country,” Michael Anthony told USA TODAY Sports. “Modern technology is in a place where it could make access to information really good and that wasn’t necessarily being offered. We felt there was a big appetite for that and wanted to step in to do it.
“An extremely important priority as we continue to evolve is using the latest and greatest technology to make platform as useful as possible for people. Our CTO (chief technology officer, Joe McCombs) is a long-time expert, as much as you can be long-time in A.I., and we’ve made it possible for people to search and get nuanced answers within benchmark and get sourced answers. The combination of being able to get a summary answer from A.I. but also use Benchmark to use the underlying source material is really key.”
At the University of Pittsburgh, athletic director Allen Greene is among the leaders embracing artificial intelligence as a way to maximize resources and stretch dollars in an increasingly competitive environment. Greene recently described Pitt's athletic department as an "AI team" on the USA TODAY Sports College Football Unfiltered podcast.
“In this day and age, the need for reliable, industry-specific data has never been greater,” Greene told USA TODAY Sports. “At the same time, the internal resources available to collect and aggregate this data have never been scarcer.
“The Benchmark tool not only provides departments with ready access and offers schools a streamlined ability to obtain, review and analyze information. At Pitt, we pride ourselves on our measured, data-informed approach.”
Even though he no longer oversees the day-to-day operations of a major athletic department, Bubba Cunningham believes platforms such as Benchmark could become increasingly valuable as schools navigate escalating roster costs.
“The breadth of information we need to make decisions, at some point this will have what the payrolls are for different teams,” said Cunningham, referencing roster-assembly costs and the potential for regulated costs and information if the Protect College Sports Act is signed into law. “I’m not exactly sure yet how that information gets there, whether it’s NIL Go, NCAA financial reports or EADA and required reporting mechanisms.
But, those data will find their way into (Benchmark’s) website and we’ll be able to utilize that to make better decisions in putting together these rosters.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As billions flood college sports, one AI startup sees an opening
