ATLANTA (April 4, 2025) – Collegiate Consulting is proud to announce their 20th year in business as one of the leading consulting firms within higher education. Collegiate Consulting was founded in 2005 as a combined venture with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC); National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA); Strategic Marketing Affiliates (SMA) and Russell Wright.
Focused exclusively on working with intercollegiate athletic programs, athletic conferences and associations, Collegiate Consulting has worked with 750 institutions ranging from established, Division I programs, to assisting in building intercollegiate athletics from the ground up. Our services include feasibility studies, strategic planning, operational studies, executive search and placement, compliance reviews and sports sponsorship studies.
Over the past 20 years, the firm has assisted seventeen schools with their reclassification to NCAA Division I; twenty-two schools to Division II, and ten to Division III or NAIA. Additionally, they have assisted with forty-five successful coaching and athletic director searches. And for 10 years, their Annual Financial Reports had an annual circulation of two hundred institutions across DI, DII, and DIII; and is the proud recipient of five NACMA Best of Awards
“The past 20 years has been my greatest professional joy and am grateful for all the assistance and encouragement since we started CC in 2005. I am eternally grateful to Bob (Bernard) and Derek (Eiler) for their wisdom, support, and friendship, stated founder and managing director Russell Wright. I have been blessed to have extraordinary talent, which allowed us to work with 700+ institutional, conference and association partners over the past 20 years. Every day has been a new challenge and that remains my favorite part of our business.”
In 2011, they entered the ticket sales and service sector, eventually growing to twenty properties and fifty-four employees including Purdue, Illinois, Rice, Bowling Green, and Missouri State. In 2016, the company sold its ticket rights business to Learfield.
Currently, Collegiate Consulting is working with twenty-four partners ranging from divisional feasibility studies, coaching/AD search, conference membership studies and multidivisional compliance reviews.
Collegiate Consulting has grown from its humbling beginnings in 2005 with one employee and one project; to being recognized for the breadth and depth of its expertise across all intercollegiate athletics. Collegiate Consulting recently began its first NON-athletic project and is excited for its next 20 years of growth.
