Charlotte 49ers’ athletic director Mike Hill on NIL, future sponsorship, growth of university

No Division 1 school accomplished more with its fiscal resources than the Charlotte 49ers.

Charlotte’s athletic department received first place out of all 134 Football Bowl Subdivision schools in the latest Excellence in Management Cup, which assesses how each institution’s spending habits correlate to the success of its sports teams. The Niners came out on top of a list that included powerhouses such as North Carolina, Texas and Florida.

“It’s a predictor of things to come,” Charlotte 49ers Athletic Director Mike Hill said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer. “As we grow our resources, imagine what we’re going to be able to do with that.”

Hill spoke with the Observer at length about how the program aims to bring top athletes to Charlotte through name, image and likeness (NIL) deals, an elevated university profile that could soon lead to new sponsorship opportunities and much more. This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

It’s not about ‘getting close’ entering Year 2 in the AAC

Shane Connuck: When you took the job in 2018 about six years ago, you told the Observer you saw astounding potential at this place. And now, over the past two years, Charlotte’s 18 sports teams have won 13 conference titles.

Mike Hill: Thirteen of our 18 have won conference titles in the last two years, which is incredible. And this year, we actually had our highest ranking ever in the Learfield Directors’ Cup, which is the national ranking for athletic departments across all sports. We finished at No. 94 in the country out of 360-plus Division-I schools. When I first arrived here in ‘18, we were unranked. So this is the second time in the past four years that we’ve been a Top 100 overall athletics program in the national rankings.

Our first year in the American Athletic Conference, we exceeded everyone’s expectations. We won six conference championships across five sports — softball won two — which was up there at the top of the league. It’s got everybody’s attention in the league. I can tell you that. And we had four teams finish second; Basketball finished third, had a great year. So again, you can just see what this place is becoming. It’s happening before our eyes, and we’re excited about it.

SC: Any athletic director understands the importance of football to a department and university. Bringing in a leader like Biff Poggi, and continuing to use the transfer portal and NIL to vet players who truly want to be here, how have you seen Charlotte football grow over the past few years?

MH: Biff and his staff have done a fantastic job of building the roster. You see the improvement across the board. You also see some cohesion that we may have lacked in the past, and a championship attitude and championship mindset, which you have to have. You have to have player-led teams — they’re the ones that have success — and I think we we have that. So I’m excited about the direction of the program.

I think that last year, even though our record was the same as the previous year, we were still a much-improved football team. We were competitive. We’re tied after three quarters at Maryland. One-score game in “The Swamp” in the fourth quarter. Had Memphis beat, two scores, they won in overtime. Those are games that we were not in in the past.

But it’s not horseshoes, right? It’s not “getting close.” We need to grow as a program and start finishing some of those games — winning those games — but that starts with the coaches you have on your staff, and also the talent you have on the field, especially. And I think Biff and his staff have done a really good job of improving the talent level. You look on the offensive side of the ball, where we struggled some last year, there’s clear improvement. Excited about what we have behind center, and certainly more weapons at receiver, and some excitement in the backfield as well with the running backs. We’ve gotten better up front as well. I think so. I can’t wait to kick it off.

In the NIL era, why should student-athletes choose Charlotte?

SC: It’s a changing time for college athletics as a whole. With NIL and opportunities to bring in different athletes who decide to enter the transfer portal, what’s the pitch? How do you get guys to come here to Charlotte?

MH: In the end, it’s about: “Do you want to play? And do you want to make an impact?” So obviously, NIL is a factor in every single program at every level — including Charlotte. But we have some things here we can offer that other programs don’t have. We’ve talked about leveraging those to our advantage. Being a part of something that hasn’t been done before. Being a part of a program that’s building, that’s young, that’s fresh, that’s in a city that’s on the rise, on a campus that’s on the rise.

We’re going to use to our advantage the fact that we live in a major metropolitan area that has just a ton of Fortune 500 companies, which create NIL and internship opportunities for our kids. That resonates a lot with our recruits’ and players’ parents. When they understand they have a football coach who teaches them a financial literacy course every week. And that he actually provides them with or finds opportunities for them to get real-world experience in this city, in this community.

He’s not having to manufacture those experiences, because we’re in Charlotte, North Carolina. We’re not in a small college town that doesn’t have that access. So those are some of the advantages that we have at play here. And again, being a part of something that’s fresh, new and special in a conference that is regarded as one of the best in the FBS level, outside the P4. Having a chance of playing games that mean something: One at Chapel Hill; playing James Madison on national TV in the opening game of the season; going to Indiana to play a Big 10 team; hosting Tulane on national television on Halloween night. These are games that help you create and establish an identity for a program. That’s where we’re headed now.

Could Jerry Richardson Stadium have an on-field sponsor logo?

SC: With the plans to expand Jerry Richardson Stadium, are there any new sponsorship opportunities potentially in play?

MH: In this era of the house settlement and NIL and transfer portal, you have to be creative. And you have to, as Wayne Gretzky said: “Skate to where the puck is going to be, and not where it is.” Everybody in college athletics is trying to figure that out, but we have some exciting plans that we’re working on right now to streamline some of that, particularly as it relates to NIL so that we can become more of a one-stop shop for those commercial opportunities — again, in a city that is loaded with successful businesses, and in a city that relies on this institution for graduates, for research.

It’s going to be an R1 university this year, which is incredible testament to the growth of this place. The stadium itself is obviously a big piece of that conversation, because what the expansion is going to do is provide us with premium seating that we don’t currently have, that we can sell to corporate Charlotte and also to some of our key supporters, and that will generate additional premium revenue that we can reinvest in the football program. So that is the No. 1 priority: To generate more revenue to pour back into football, to give Biff and his staff a chance to compete at a higher level.

Secondly, the expanded stadium is also a year-round facility that we’ll use for our football team meeting space, dining space — currently, they don’t have a space where they can even eat together. When you’re investing $60 million in a project, you want to make sure you’re using it 365 days a year and not just six weekends a year. So we’re excited about that piece of it.

And we’re going to continue to look for creative solutions and opportunities, as the NCAA has allowed us — for example, to put corporate logos on the field. I think, eventually, you’re going to see the opportunity to potentially sell jersey sponsorships, and those are all going to be elements related to supporting the program and NIL.

SC: So there will eventually be a logo on the field in the future? Like Tennessee will have this year?

MH: I would be surprised if we’re not there at some point. It’s not imminent, but we are having significant conversations about that internally and also within the conference.

A new experience for Charlotte football fans

SC: This year, where in the stadium will the new premium seating be located? Above the press box situated atop the bleachers on the west side?

MH: We’re building above that press box. It will be several stories high, and we’ll have seven luxury suites up there, along with a university box. We will have traditional club seats that allow you to go back into a club space behind you with amenities. We’ll have loge boxes, which are those four-seat boxes that are outdoors and will have amenities as well. We’ll have ledge seating, which is basically almost like a bar top, and then we’re also going to have a patio club. So the idea is to provide different entry points based on what you can afford, an experience that’s outside or beyond just a regular general admission seat.

SC: On Aug. 31, the Charlotte 49ers will take the field against James Madison in alternate gold uniforms. The crowd will be participating in a “Gold Rush” theme. Is there anything else new for the fan experience this year?

MH: Pay attention to the team introduction. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. We’ve got some special plans for that I know people are gonna enjoy and look forward to. Just trying to create an environment that it feels special and feels unique, and that our fans can take ownership in as: “This is ours.”

That’s part of the beauty of college football and college athletics, right? We each have our own traditions, and when you’re an 11-year-old football program, you’re still trying to create some of those. And we have some, but we’re going to try to establish even more with some of the plans we have from a game day atmosphere perspective.

Why school branding is important in the Charlotte community

SC: Walking around in this part of the country, you’ve probably been used to seeing colors of traditional ACC and SEC powerhouses. How important is it that you’re starting to see more and more Charlotte 49ers’ green and gold branding around the community?

MH: We take a lot of pride in it. We know what this institution means to the community, to the city. Our alumni base is really craving that connectivity and to have people pay attention to their school. And that’s one of the things that athletics can deliver to an institution, is to really elevate the profile of the university. So when we have success, it shines a light on this institution. Which has an impact in a number of ways.

But mostly, I think the fact that when you go out into the community and you see and interact with other Niners because of the 86,000 or so that live in this market, you recognize that this isn’t your grandfather’s commuter school. It’s just not. This is the second-largest undergrad enrollment in the state, behind N.C. State. It’s a residential campus. It’s beautiful. Anybody who comes here for the first time is shocked. It’s not what they envision. They see green space and red brick and, whoa, what is this?

That’s part of just telling our story and getting people engaged with our program, and the brand has grown exponentially over the past five years, in my opinion. We have alignment with our brand as well — the institution adopted the mark that athletics introduced in 2020, and 2021, it became the university’s mark. So there’s great alignment, great synergy. It’s important to our Board of Trustees. It’s important to our chancellor; she supports what we do in athletics. Our board supports what we do, because they understand, again, what the power of athletics is.

It’s not the primary reason the institution exists, but it’s a fantastic engine to drive growth for the university.