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DePauw receives an $80M anonymous donation to build a new 70K square-foot stadium and performance center. The project will include modern locker rooms, state-of-the-art sports medicine facilities, an advanced weight room and lots more. AD Stevie Baker-Watson: “For generations, Blackstock Stadium has been the stage for unforgettable DePauw moments, building tradition and defining what it means to be a Tiger. Now with this extraordinary gift, the Blackstock Stadium and Performance Center will provide our student-athletes, athletics staff, families and fans a facility that reflects their deep passion, purpose and pride.” The existing Blackstock Stadium is set to be demolished in August 2026 and open in fall 2028. Populous will assist with the design of the new facility. (link)

CUNYAC Commissioner/Mammoth VP of Consulting Kurt Patberg sits down with College.town’s Anthony Grassi to dive into the company’s deal to manage the conference and position it for the future. What excited Patberg and Mammoth about the opportunity wasn’t just their previous experience leading the league, it was the desire to be “something other than the eight Division III public institutions in the city of New York.” The conference currently has a tentative date for the launch of a new self-incorporated 501(c)(3) conference on July 1, 2027 with two or three new members, in addition to the addition of NJCU, on which Patberg notes: “I think it's opened the door to some other discussions. I do think we always want to stay who we are. We want to be focused on the great city of New York and the five boroughs that most of our schools exist in; that'll always be an influence of ours. It needs to be and it's what makes us special and unique.” On membership, Patberg notes there is no ideal number, adding: “We have to be very careful on how we walk down this path. You know, almost to the stage where we hope people contact us and see a unique fit with us because they see some broadcast like this where they realize, ‘Wow, that would be a nice setup for our institution to be a part of that league.’ Because you're right, you have to think not just about what's best for your conference, but also what's best for Division III, and if you start getting into competitive battles with people over membership, that's not healthy for any of us.” More on BOSCA. (link)

The NCAA and AT&T ink a multi-year sponsorship renewal, per SBJ’s Ben Portnoy, who highlights the agreement was brokered by TNT Sports and CBS Sports through the NCAA’s Corporate Champion and Partner Program. The deal will again include varying broadcast integrations and national campaigns with activations such as the Super Saturday Concert presented by AT&T and the AT&T Block Party at the March Madness Music Festival. Exact terms of the deal weren’t immediately available. (link)

Check out the first NPI rankings for Field Hockey (link), Men’s Soccer (link) and Women’s Soccer (link).

The NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports (CSMAS) approved its July meeting report on athletic training workforce issues, which convened representatives from the athletic training industry to discuss the current educational, credentialing and workforce landscape; opportunities to collaborate and share resources; and the exploration of potential solutions. CSMAS highlighted data showing challenges across the athletic training profession and trends specific to the collegiate setting, including compensation not commensurate with qualifications and responsibilities, staffing shortages, recruitment and retention issues, work-life balance challenges, increasing workloads and frequent and unpredictable schedule changes. CSMAS supported ongoing collaboration with key athletic training stakeholders to develop potential solutions to these challenges, including mentoring opportunities, summary of health care delivery models, team physician advocacy, and strategies for cultural change. In addition, CSMAS also discussed the impact of increasing transfers on sports medicine staff, noting the process to obtain and review medical records often creates challenges and additional workload of both the departing and the receiving school. These challenges are often compounded due to the timing of a transfer or the receipt of incomplete medical records. CSMAS referred the topic to its Administrative Subcommittee for further discussion. More. (link)

Simpson has begun work on a new $2.8M, 10K square-foot gymnastics facility that it fully donor funded. AD Marty Bell believes the facility will generate new revenue through camps and rentals and become a regional training center for the sport, adding: “This is a timely investment in response to the tremendous interest and growth of gymnastics at Simpson since launching our programs in 2022. For starters, the new facility will relieve considerable pressure from high usage demands at Cowles Fieldhouse. And, most importantly, it will allow us to expand our current varsity rosters to include a club/junior varsity element, creating more opportunities for students while providing a significant boost to the College’s drive for strategic enrollment growth.” The facility is slated to open in January. (link)

St. Norbert’s future hockey home, Cornerstone Community Center, has been named the Donald and Patricia Schneider Family Arena. The facility is set to open next fall. (link)

Saturday’s Wisconsin-Whitewater vs. Wisconsin-La Crosse game brought in the second most fans for an on-campus game ever with 20,167 at Perkins Stadium. This also ranks fourth all-time, per D3football. (link)

It’s Personnel…
➤ The NCAA removes the interim tag in elevating Jennifer Fraser to Senior VP of Governance and Member Services. She had served in the interim role since September, while maintaining her position as VP of Division I. (link)
➤ Tufts hires Northeastern (DI) Asst. Director of Compliance and Student-Athlete Wellness Mallory Skaggs as its new Asst. AD for Compliance and Administration. (link)

Coaches.wire…
➤ MCLA will hire Buffalo State Assoc. HC Marcus Gloss as its new Men’s Ice Hockey HC, per D-III Hockey News. (link)
➤ Mount St. Joseph names USA Wrestling Co-Director for Ohio Rob Dearwester as its Women’s Wrestling HC. (link)

James Moore Digital President Daniel Shorstein visits with Katie Davis and Ken Kurdziel on the latest episode of News & Brews Sports Biz to discuss AI in college athletics finance and had this to say on practical applications for AI in college athletics: “There’s some … that I think are really valuable when you’re looking at budget management and identifying different paths you might want to take and tradeoffs. One way that AI … is helpful is as a strategic partner, strategic adviser. Let’s say you give it a few different scenarios you’re considering around shifting things around in a budget, given the goals you’re trying to achieve, some of the challenges you’re trying to overcome and some of the stakeholders you’re trying to appease through that process. The generative AI output may be very helpful in giving you some guidance and tips on what direction to go there and how to approach it. You’re still the one driving the ship. You’re going to make the decisions, but it’s almost like this additional partner you can bounce ideas off of. … If you have detailed transactions that you’re not able to understand what they are or how to address them, and the rules engine you’re trying to build using machine learning isn’t working correctly, generative AI, in that sense, can be useful for doing a data cleansing aspect of it. … You can build a prompt or a custom ChatGPT that you can feed in these transactions that have decent, but not good enough, data within it and give it some context and guidance and that can actually enhance your data and clean up your data using intelligence to categorize them or flag them in certain ways that you can then use them a lot better and more efficiently. I think there’s almost endless ways you can use it. … From an athletic standpoint, it’s a lot of strategy things there. A lot of time-saving opportunities. … It can really just give you a leg up as an organization with limited time and limited resources but step it up quite a bit with the help of generative AI. More. (link) 

According to a recent Pew Research Survey, 43% of U.S. adults believe the fact sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society with the Pew Research Center’s John Gramlich noting that number is up from 34% in 2022, while 40% of adults believe it’s also a bad thing for sports, up from 33%. In addition, many Americans continue to say it has neither a bad nor good impact on society and on sports, while fewer than one-in-five see any positive impact. Gramlich continues: “22% of adults say they’ve personally bet money on sports in the past year. That’s a slight uptick from 19% three years ago. [...] Some of the biggest shifts in attitudes about sports betting’s societal impact have come among young Americans – especially young men. Today, 47% of men under 30 say legal sports betting is a bad thing for society, up from 22% who said this in 2022. Women under 30 have also become more likely to express this view: 35% see legal sports betting as bad for society, up from 25% three years ago.” More. (link)