General managers, a staple of professional sports, are critical to the construction of a successful team. Handling the front office end of the athletic industry, the position of general manager handles scouting, player acquisition and contract negotiations. In the past few years the use of general managers has expanded, reaching beyond the professional leagues and joining collegiate athletics. 

Now that student athletes are eligible to receive money from their name, image and likeness, collegiate general managers have a new responsibility: NIL negotiations. 

“At the end of the day NIL has now become part of (the recruiting conversation) and our goal always is just to educate people on NIL and talk about the different opportunities that are afforded to you when you have the opportunity to play at the University of Texas,” Texas football general manager Brandon Harris said in an interview with 247Sports prior to the 2025 season. 

Texas currently has two general managers in the athletic department, Chris Ogden for men’s basketball and Harris for football. Harris was promoted to general manager in 2024 and Ogden was moved to the position in 2023. Similar to their professional league counterparts, Harris and Ogden are used in the recruitment and signing of players to their respective teams.

In May 2024, the NCAA made a landmark decision in a ruling which would allow schools to directly pay its student athletes. If approved, schools will have up to 20.5 million dollars to be distributed across its various sports at their own discretion. 

This is where general managers come into play. Collegiate general managers take on the task of recruitment, which now includes monetary discussions. Beyond promising what a program can do to help develop a player, student athletes in today’s game take money into account as well. 

“Those kids are up at five (or) six in the morning doing weight training or rehab. Their schedule is not theirs,” said James Dalthorp, a UT professor who teaches a class on the impact of NIL in sports. “Those kids, they’re employees, not in the legal sense but if one of those kids wanted to work at Starbucks they would be unable to do it because Starbucks is closed when they’re available.” 

Amongst the 16 schools a part of the Southeastern Conference, nine have general managers on staff for their football teams. Across the NCAA, general managers are being added to team rosters. On Nov. 30, 2024, Stanford hired former Colts quarterback and Stanford alumnus Andrew Luck as the team’s general manager for football. Adrian Wojnarowski, former ESPN insider, and Warriors point guard Stephen Curry have also taken on general manager roles with their alma maters. Wojnarowski is now the general manager of St. Bonaventure University’s men’s basketball team and Curry was made the assistant general manager for men’s basketball at his former school, Davidson, in March. 

The addition of general managers may just be the first step universities take in their efforts to adapt to a changing college landscape. According to On3, Texas has four of the top 100 college athletes in NIL evaluations, with sophomore quarterback Arch Manning topping the list. Currently his evaluation stands at $6.5 million. Manning is the only five-star quarterback in the 2023 recruiting class to remain with his original program.

“When all those things align and you feel like this is where you want to be at, we always have said NIL always makes sense, and we’ve been pretty fortunate to have a really, really good NIL system,” Harris said.  

The Texan reached out to 18 schools, eight declined an interview and 10 did not respond.