The sports media landscape is still reeling from the stunning departure of NBA news-breaker Adrian Wojnarowski from ESPN to become GM of the men’s basketball program at St. Bonaventure. The Woj Bomber himself has shed further light on the decision after a week of public silence, calling the move a natural next step on multiple levels, even amid its surprising nature.
Appearing at his alma mater Wednesday afternoon to detail the career shift, Wojnarowski said the new position in many ways marks a formalization of many of the functions he had already been doing for the Bonnies while still working at ESPN.
“This has been a role and a conversation that’s been going on, particularly between [men’s head basketball coach Mark Schmidt] and I, for years,” said Wojnarowski, who left about halfway through a five-year, estimated $35 million contract with ESPN to take the Bonnies job. “This has been an ongoing conversation, even while I was at ESPN, trying to rally our program and help keep it competitive.”
Uphill Climb
Wojnarowski’s substantial and national fame provides a huge lift in notoriety and prominence for St. Bonaventure, one of the smallest schools in all of Division I athletics with a total enrollment of fewer than 2,700 students. That fame and Wojnarowski’s deep battery of contacts across the basketball community will blend with a long history of overachievement by Schmidt, the program’s winningest coach with 302 victories, six 20-win seasons, and three NCAA tournament appearances.
But all that will come up against a fast-changing college sports landscape that includes a rising emphasis on NIL (name, image, and likeness) rights, accelerating realignment, and a growing dominance of football over other sports. St. Bonaventure’s conference, the Atlantic 10, does not offer football. And like other mid-majors, the A-10 also finds gaining at-large bids to March Madness an increasing challenge, with even automatic qualifiers for smaller conferences perhaps threatened.
“We find ourselves in unprecedented disruption and chaos in the world of intercollegiate athletics,” said Bob Beretta, St. Bonaventure athletic director. “At a place like St. Bonaventure, where our resources don’t always measure favorably to our peers in the Atlantic 10, we must remain at the forefront of change … and consider bold moves at a time where inertia equates to slow death.”
Wojnarowski’s role also spotlights the new level of importance of the GM role for college sports programs—a spot that did not broadly exist until just a few years ago, and is still more of a presence in football than in basketball. At St. Bonaventure, Wojnarowski’s duties will include not only managing NIL opportunities, collectives, and the transfer portal, but also fundraising, aiding in recruiting, and helping oversee the program’s relationships with other basketball organizations.
“To recruit great players and to retain the great players we have on campus now, you need NIL,” Wojnarowski said. “Since our announcement last week, I have been absolutely blown away with the incoming opportunities from national sponsors and entities who want to be in the NIL business with St. Bonaventure.”
Leaving It Behind
The loss of Wojnarowski from ESPN has produced no shortage of speculation and palace intrigue as to how the sports media giant will fill the NBA news-breaker role. Wojnarowski, meanwhile, said he will still be leaning on many of his existing reporting and storytelling skills in the new role, one he insisted “is no retirement job.”
“We have an incredible story to tell,” Wojnarowski said. “We want players to know that when you come to St. Bonaventure, you are a giant-killer.”
Schmidt put a finer point on that last notion, saying Wojnarowski easily could have pursued similar administrative opportunities at a variety of major-conference schools.
“Guys, we got Woj. If Woj put his name in the portal, it’d be Kansas, [North] Carolina, and Duke,” he said. “We have him, and the relationships that Woj has are something we couldn’t develop in the next 50 years.”
