With over 20 years of collegiate athletic experience in revenue generating areas such as: multi-media & marketing rights, licensing, publishing, annual fund campaigns, season ticket and overall ticket sales campaigns and strategies - GameDay Sports Collegiate Properties can help you establish goals and objectives - and then reach them.

Marketing and Media Rights Analysis and Review

- Full evaluation of current agreement with your "rights holder".

- Understanding "what's next" in the collegiate multi-media rights business

Corporate Sponsorship Presentation Evaluation

- Review of your current Corporate Sales Strategy

- Rate card and proposal template development

Season Tickets Sales & Single Game Sales

- Outsourcing opportunities vs. inside sales strategies

- Inside sales strategies analysis and recommendations

Merchandising/Fan Shop

Annual Fund

- The 'true barometer' for collegiate athletics

- Critical to overall growth of any NCAA athletics program

- How to maximize effort and build a seamless operation

Staffing solutions and cost reductions

Licensing & Branding

GameDay Sports Collegiate Properties will assist you and your institution in defining, developing, and implementing strategies and solutions to strengthen and increase revenue streams for your athletic department. CRA has over 20 years of experience at the highest level of negotiations, solution-based strategies and planning for collegiate athletics revenue streams. Listed below are areas of expertise we will focus on in developing a comprehensive game plan for your athletic department:

• Create a stronger partnership with your media rights holder

• Or Outsourcing your athletic media rights and finding the right fit and partner

• Or Corporate Sales Assistance and Management

• Season and individual game day ticket sales solutions

• Annual Fund analysis and solutions

• Capital Campaigns and how they can work for your institution

• Relationships with on-campus constituents (Alumni Associations, University Advancement, etc.

• Marketing and positioning your collegiate brand to your constituents

• Licensing and Publication Solutions

• Organizational Structure for Athletic Department Staffs

• Strategic revenue enhancement plan (understanding ALL your revenue streams)

• Asset improvement action plan (video boards, signage, social media, etc.)

• Full review and assessment of your current revenue structure

• Public Relations and how it affects all collegiate revenue streams

• Cost analysis, software evaluation, ticketing/donor tracking solutions

Revenue enhancement solutions for the following:
- Annual Fund
- Season Tickets
- Licensing and Branding
- Media Rights and/or corporate sponsorship program

Real Questions you are probably already asking…

Put CRA to work for your program and build a Game Plan for the next phase! We will help you build Goals & Objectives - and then - we help you REACH them!

"Rick understands the sports marketing business like few people do and is an outstanding human being." - Jim Host, Founder of Host Communications

"Rick has a distinct advantage in the area of understanding the universities' interests in outsourcing its multi-media and marketing rights. He has worked on both ends of the spectrum. Managing the process at all levels of NCAA competition - he would be an asset to any school interested in better understanding the advantages of outsourcing their marketing and multi-media
rights. - Dan Shoemaker, VP Collegiate Development, ESPN

"Rick has always been ahead of the curve when it came to understanding technology and applying it to the collegiate athletic industry.  His vision and understanding of the Multi-Media & Marketing landscape helped the University of Kentucky create a revenue windfall in 2005 when UK inked college sports' most financially lucrative rights package." - Scott Stricklin, Director of Athletics, Mississippi State University

"There is a value to limiting uncertainty. We needed to maximize our ability to grow each current and potential revenue stream. Working with Collegiate Revenue Associates gave us the objective view we needed to move forward. CRA helped us define our strategies for ticket sales, annual fund, and corporate support." - Dan O'Dowd, Associate AD, University of Louisiana - Monroe

"Rick put together the first 'true' all-inclusive multi-media and marketing rights package while at the University of Kentucky. Schools had been outsourcing pieces of their rights for years, but the UK deal pushed all the major schools and media rights companies into deeper, more lucrative agreements for the Universities. The media rights holders then had to expand their portfolios."
- Gordon Whitener, CEO, The Whitener Company

"We now have a large, loyal, and dedicated women's basketball fan base here at UK. Rick and his team put together a three year marketing and media plan focused on building just such a following."  - Matthew Mitchell - University of Kentucky Head Women's Basketball Coach

Strategic Marketing - what's next for college athletics

Aug. 1! How are ticket sales tracking?

Rick's Blog

College Athletics are moving at a rapid pace… BCS schools have access to more financial resources than ever before.  In other words, there are more financial opportunities available through conference TV rights, multi-media and marketing rights than ever before.  Salaries are escalating and the arms race does not appear to have brakes.

Most of the BCS schools are doing just fine…. What about the rest of the NCAA Division I programs?

Rick Thompson

Rick Thompson has parlayed his passion for people and college sports into a remarkable 20-year career around the ability to anticipate trends in collegiate revenue streams. As an experienced strategist, Rick recognizes that knowledge is power and is the essential component in today's increasingly competitive quest to maximize revenue for intercollegiate athletic programs. Most recently the National Sales Director at Learfield Sports, Thompson has a diverse background in athletics, working his way up the ranks to become one the key figures in some of the most successful collegiate marketing relationships.

Thompson started Collegiate Revenue Associates in 2010 to work with a variety of schools, conferences, and key constituents in the area of revenue generation for collegiate athletic programs. At Learfield, Thompson has worked with the BTN, ESPN, CBS Sports and major marketing firms as well as conferences ranging from the SEC, ACC, Big 12, and CUSA to the Sun Belt and the WAC. He received the prestigious Chairman's Cup Award in 2010, recognized as the top performer and revenue generator in all of Learfield Sports.

Prior to joining Learfield in 2006, Thompson served four years as the Associate Director of Athletics at the University of Kentucky, where he negotiated a record-breaking $80 million, 10-year deal for the Wildcats in 2004. He oversaw a $5.5 million media and marketing budget at UK, while also handling all public relations initiatives, including scheduling, fundraising and hiring of coaches. He guided the department's $75 million external revenue streams. For example: women's basketball revenues grew from $15,000 to over $250,000 in a two-year period.

Those successes were part of a five-year plan Thompson developed and executed at UK. Among other key initiatives, he organized more financially lucrative seating plans at Rupp Arena and Commonwealth Stadium; established polling campaigns to determine timelines for the key initiatives in the plan and developed innovative media strategies to maximize public relations opportunities.

Prior to his groundbreaking work at UK, Thompson worked as the GM of Learfield Sports at Oregon State University. In two years, he increased annual revenues from $1.8 million to over $3 million, the largest two-year financial growth at any Learfield Sports property. He also created a state-wide television network for the Beavs.

From 1999-2001, Thompson served in a similar capacity at TCU, working under the ESPN Regional umbrella. His efforts there led to increases in revenue of over $1 million in a two-year period, and the creation of a TCU athletics television network. His extensive corporate sponsorship program set the foundation for TCU to reposition upwardly in conference realignment.

From 1997-1999, Thompson served as the Executive Director of the Big Green Scholarship Foundation, Inc., at Marshall University, managing all major fundraising activities. During his tenure, Marshall tripled membership in the annual athletics campaign. He developed highly successful revenue streams to aid the school's transition to Division I-A in 1997.

A 1989 graduate of Radford University, Thompson received his M.S. degree in Sport Management from Western Illinois in 1991. He interned in marketing and sales with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1990.
Thompson currently resides in Woodstock, Ga., with his wife Kathy, their son Jack and daughter Jenna.