If you listen to what Aaron says above in the video, it makes a lot of sense.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I never saw why some were so over the moon about LaFemina- he had a solid resume in sports and entertainment generally, but ZERO experience in college athletics. ZERO. 20 years at MSG Sports, 8 years at NFL, 1 year at Redskins, 5 years at LA Super Bowl Host Committee. Would that translate into building NIL relationships with corporate sponsors and big donors? Would he be able to run a P5 athletics department with zero experience in both of the those areas? Those are fair questions. And by turning the role down, perhaps he realized the same thing himself, and/or perhaps there were other issues in the negotiations that caused him to feel like he was not "all in," and if that was the case, that is not the person for the job. It was a good thing he pulled out. None of this is to besmirch his resume, which is quite impressive in the professional sports and entertainment industry.
Experience: Arctos · Location: United States · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View BRIAN LAFEMINA’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.
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As Aaron says in the video link above, RU will finally have alignment from the top down. And we finally have someone with substantial NIL experience at a major player in college athletics. She has the perfect resume to fill the big gap and blind spot the previous AD had- some sort of disdain or lack of comfort with NIL. Schiano often speaks about how important alignment is in an organization, and we finally have it from the President to the AD to the head football coach.
Could the hire go South? Sure. Any hire can do that.