I believe a great business opportunity for Pitt Athletics would be to further promote the olympic sports and expand their social media presence. If more money and energy was allocated into the Pitt sports that are currently less popular, it could pay off in the long run. This could be done through the use of incentives, such as T-shirts for these teams, lower prices to allow for more accessible tickets, or advertisements. While football is clearly a major hit, reeling in an average of 31.9 million per school year as reported by Zachs.com, advocating for the less popular sports could generate enough revenue that combined could surpass even football. On the other hand, while Pitt Athletics does a good job handling its social media accounts, I believe it should expand its platforms even further. Through the use of a social media team, Pitt could record clips and conduct interviews of students at their sports event. Then they could upload them to platforms such as Tiktok and Youtube where it is easy to go “viral” and get many views, which would promote their sports and programs. 

A business threat I foresee for college sports is the insufficient protection for college athletes that  often leads to a variety of health issues in the future. Specifically with football, it has been proven that the helmets do not supply enough protection to the skull. Many retired football players are coming forward with cases of CTE from the head trauma they endured throughout their football careers. I believe these health issues are going to become more prominent as time goes on and that the football industry will be negatively impacted either by public opposition or reform of the regulations. Especially in a college setting, when the University’s goal is to protect the student first, I believe that if more of these types of cases arise they are going to have to make changes that the University will have to be ready to adapt too. 

I believe that I could gain experience in the financial aspects of the Pitt athletic department. I would like to learn more about the different ways that this department makes profit and how they regulate the money between the sports teams themselves, upgrading facilities, and funding marketing projects. I would also like to know what their plans for the future are and if they are focused on keeping their current revenue or looking to grow.