Grant Leiendecker has made a number of changes since taking over as Director of Athletics in the spring of 2024. Photo by Andrew Buckley.
SAWYER GOLDWEIN | SPORTS EDITOR | sgoldwein@butler.edu
Grant Leiendecker is the vice president and director of athletics for Butler. This week, Leiendecker met with The Butler Collegian to talk all things Bulldog athletics.
THE BUTLER COLLEGIAN: How have you settled into your role over the past year and a half?
GRANT LEIENDECKER: It’s been great. It’s been an interesting time to be stepping into this role when you look at the college athletics landscape. So it’s been a learning experience for me, learning this department [and] learning how I am going to engage in this role. I’ve obviously been in college athletics a long time in various roles, but I’ve never sat in this seat, so just learning how I want to run things and build my team and manage my time has been quite a learning experience. I’m definitely settling in, understanding where we are, where our opportunities are and how we’re going to move forward. [It has] been trial by fire.
With everything going on in this industry, we’ve had to figure out how [and] where [does Butler] fit, where are we going to invest and how are we going to operate moving forward in this new world? It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but [I am] feeling really good about where we are and our team and our strategy going forward.
TBC: How do you balance the vice president side of your role with the athletics side?
GL: Balance is hard. From a university leadership standpoint, what that means for me is I’m a part of President Danko’s leadership team, so what he expects from me is to make sure the athletic department is firing on all cylinders. We’re doing our best to preserve and protect and advance our [university] mission; we exist to advance that. What that means for me on the vice president side is weekly meetings with the President’s cabinet and making sure that I know what’s going on on campus, that they know what we’re working on and that we’re all pulling [in] the same direction. It’s manageable. Balance is hard in this role. No matter which way you look at it, but it’s been great to learn more on the university side of how we’re operating and working towards achieving our goals as an institution.
TBC: You recently named three deputy athletic directors, among other promotions in the department. What impact will that have on athletics?
GL: I think it’ll allow us to clarify the way that we’re solving problems on a day-to-day basis. It’s taken me some time to figure out how to best manage my time, and I believe that [this was a result] of my strengths and understanding our team strengths [better]. [I am] trying to make sure we have people in the best positions to soar with their strengths and allow me to then get out and spend more of my time on the resource generation component. I think we’re all day-to-day in a problem-solving role; that’s essentially what we’re doing here.
We’re trying to best support our coaches and student athletes and clear roadblocks for them to succeed. In my case, that requires a lot of bringing new resources in. So that was the goal with this restructure: to make sure that we have people in place to manage the day-to-day, the department at a high level, make sure things are hitting on all cylinders and allow me and our fundraising team to spend a little bit more of our time focusing on external opportunities.
TBC: President Danko just announced the new Boldly Butler campaign, including athletic investments. Where do you see those investments going and what do you see them doing for athletics?
GL: We’re still working on carving out what those specific investments are. We definitely have facility needs here, including continuing to preserve and enhance [Hinkle Fieldhouse]. [Hinkle] will turn 100 here in 2028, which is not insignificant. There’s not many venues in the country that are still standing at this age, let alone holding 9,000 people on a game day [for] one of the best basketball environments in the country. Continuing to invest in this building to create a better fan experience allows us to drive more revenue, like what we’re doing currently, but also make sure it’s a great home.
I think we need to expand our athletics facilities footprint. We need to renovate. Most of our facilities are due for a refresh and an upgrade, and so that’ll be a big component of our fundraising to make sure that we can kind of upgrade our facilities to [a] Division I quality level for all of our programs. A lot of it is [also] operational, making sure that we have the resources we need to attract and retain the staff and coaches in this day and age. [Making] sure that [we are] investing in NIL support for student athletes is critically important to competing at the highest level in college athletics right now. So specific, tangible targets will be developed and rolled out in the near future, but those are the general buckets that we’re looking at to grow.
TBC: Which sports might be seeing facility upgrades first?
GL: We’re very close to moving forward with an outdoor tennis facility renovation. We have most of our fundraising complete, and we’re working on finalizing a couple [of] conversations to hopefully announce and move forward with that project. That facility is long overdue [for a refresh] and not only benefits our tennis teams, but also the larger campus student population, where [recreational] sports will have access to that. We’re excited to bring that facility to campus.
Baseball is high on our list. That facility is long overdue for an upgrade, so we’re talking to some donors about upgrading baseball in the near future. Then, like I said, this building and potentially a new athletics training facility would allow us to de-densify most of our students from this building into a new home for all of our non-basketball sports, so we can get everyone the time that they need in these training facilities. [We want to have] a high-quality, state-of-the-art facility for all of our teams.
TBC: Where on campus would a new training facility go?
GL: We have a lot of ideas, we just don’t have a solution yet. We’ve looked at a lot of different footprints, from West Campus to this North Campus corridor [near Hinkle], but we haven’t quite [settled] on that yet. It’s going to depend on how big the footprint needs to be, and we’re working with an architect right now to officially put all the programming into it and really efficiently design a new building that would allow us to get what we need out of it, and then that’ll dictate where it can go.
TBC: The Big East signed a new media deal this summer. What does that deal do for visibility for non-basketball sports?
GL: Part of the new Big East deal is with FOX, Turner and NBC. We’re going to be able to showcase more of our women’s basketball games on broadcast, on networks. That was something really important to us in this negotiation. Men’s basketball has always been televised every single game, [and] now we’re going to have more women’s games that are televised, which is really exciting, but there were certainly a lot of women’s basketball games and our Olympic sports that were not included in that [previous] deal. So what we did then is we went to ESPN, and we now have a partnership with ESPN to where all of our other programming will be allowed to be streamed via ESPN+. That exposure will be really important for our non-basketball programs, to allow for their brand and their programs to be displayed on a national [and] international basis through ESPN+.
TBC: The Big East is unique in that it really has not been touched by conference realignment. Do you see that trend continuing, or do you believe schools may enter or leave in the near future?
GL: I would say we have great alignment within our league. We’re all very like-minded, similar schools, potentially with the exception of UConn. UConn is the one program that plays FBS football, high-level football, and I think they are open to, and probably looking for [a] home for their football program. They would like to see themselves in a powerful league because of what that would mean for football. But I would say outside of them, there’s a ton of alignment within our league.
I think there’s a ton of interest in joining our league, but I think the Big East as a whole will be very selective and choosy as to who we would consider joining because we have a great partnership with FOX and our broadcast partners, which brings in revenue. Anybody that we would look to [have] join our league would have to have a similar academic [and] institutional profile, but also add value to what we bring to the marketplace, if that were ever going to make sense.
TBC: As the price of NIL in basketball increases, what does that do to other sports?
GL: We’ve been very intentional about making sure that we’re doing everything we can to preserve our 20 sports. We’re unique in our league, that we’re at the top tier in terms of the amount of sports we offer. Most of the teams in our league offer anywhere from 14 to 16 sports, and we offer 20. So that makes it harder from a budgetary standpoint for us when we have those sports that we’re obviously funding to compete at times, but we’ve made it a point to make sure that preserving our other sports, while also needing to invest deeper in our basketball programs, [is] difficult. So if you [have] to spend more money, you either [have] to take it from somewhere else, or you [have] to go find more. So primarily, we found a way to go find more money, because we have no interest in cutting sports, so that’s been our priority.
Obviously, we would love to be able to share revenue with every student-athlete on our campus. But for us, we have one economic engine in our department, and that’s men’s basketball. We have one program that’s generating net revenue, and that’s men’s basketball. Effectively, that program has funded all of our other programs, so it does create a challenge with now you’re going to share that revenue back with a sport. What does that mean for everybody else? You either have to cut it from somewhere else or you have to go find more. We’ve been successful in being able to find more resources, and that’s how we’re hoping to continue to build this thing.
TBC: Is there concern that, depending on how the college sports landscape continues to shift, cutting sports might be almost inevitable for schools?
GL: I think there’s a concern for every program in the country along those lines. Everyone’s budget is relative in terms of how you fund your department, but I would say even the biggest budgets in the country have those concerns, because they have their resources allocated a certain way. Now that you have this new line item that you got to fund again, you have to find a way to pull it. So something’s got to take a step back, in some cases. It is a concern, absolutely. But again, it is our main priority to do everything in our power to avoid that at all.
TBC: How do you create a balanced basketball schedule, keeping in mind the need for both stiff competition and easier-to-win games?
GL: It’s a balance, and both men and women are probably a little bit unique in that the markets are different in each respective sport at the end of the day. We believe that we want to put together a tough schedule that can test our team, and we have to think about building a schedule that will get our fans excited and get them to want to buy a ticket and come to Hinkle Fieldhouse.
You can’t fully overwhelm your team with Quad One games all the way through the season. We know that the Big East conference schedule is going to be a gauntlet. There’s going to be a lot of Quad Ones and Quad Twos in that over the course of your Big East schedule. [The goal for the] remaining [games] that we have the ability to schedule is making sure we’re finding competitive, high-quality, Quad One and Two opportunities. Then you’re going to have your “buy games” where you need some guaranteed wins, some confidence builders and a chance to get your whole team in there and build some depth.
So it is a balance, but we want to aggressively schedule. We want to play the best teams. We want people to come to Butler because they know that we’re going to test them, and [they’re] going to have a chance to play in those kinds of environments. We’re never going to shy away from building a tough schedule.
TBC: The other big conversation in college basketball right now is NCAA tournament expansion. Where do you and Butler stand on that?
GL: I feel like it’s pretty perfect as it is. I think it’s the greatest sporting event in the world. It’s also really hard to get into, and I think it should be. It is quite an accomplishment to earn a berth in the NCAA tournament. So obviously, if they do expand, that’s going to expand the pool of at-large opportunities, which is a good thing if Butler has a greater shot of getting in the NCAA Tournament. But the basketball purist in me feels like it’s pretty perfect as is. It’s inevitable we’re going to expand whether we like it or not. I just think that you always follow the money, and if there’s more money to be made, that’s where things are going to go. So it sounds like it’s going to get to 72 or 76 [team field] in the near future. If I had a vote, I would say let’s keep it as is, because it’s a pretty special thing and really, really difficult thing to accomplish just to get in, get your foot in the door, but I don’t think I’m gonna be able to stop this train. I think that’s where it’s headed, and it’s gonna end up expanding.
TBC: The theme, throughout our discussion and throughout college sports, is change. How do you prepare an entire athletic department for change when you don’t really know what’s coming?
GL: It’s difficult. I think just communicating that we have to be dynamic and adaptable. It’s hard to set a long-term strategy in this environment. Even the Boldly Butler strategy is only three years because higher [education] is changing at a rapid pace as well, and so you don’t want to be short-sighted, but we’ve got to operate under the rules and parameters that we have now. But also know [that] we’re going to get some curveballs and things are going to change at any given time here in the near future. [We have to communicate] what we have when we have it, and encourage people to stay nimble and stay ready for things to change. We’ve got to have that adaptable mindset. We can’t be stuck and hung up on the past, because we can’t control where things are, where they’re going, and if we are hemming and hawing about the way it used to be, then we’re going to get left behind. So our focus is to control what we can control, but know that things are going to change, and just be ready for it.
