CFO Playbook Board-ready Reality → Risk → Model → Outcomes

Cal Athletics CFO Playbook

A concise framework for leading a public-university athletics enterprise through NIL disruption, conference volatility, and rising fixed costs.

“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

Executive Playbook

The next CFO of Cal Athletics must lead beyond annual budgeting. The role requires enterprise strategy, revenue innovation, cost discipline, governance credibility, and a financial model that supports competitive excellence and student-athlete success.

First 100 Days

Validate financial baseline, review sport-level economics, map liquidity risks, assess NIL infrastructure, align with campus/UCOP governance, and establish CFO dashboard priorities.

Year One

Launch multi-year scenario models, refine revenue-sharing assumptions, create football and basketball enterprise views, strengthen procurement discipline, and report KPIs to leadership.

Three-Year Strategy

Build new revenue streams, evaluate partnerships, improve facility utilization, connect content strategy to revenue growth, strengthen donor capital, and reduce structural reliance on extraordinary support.

Guiding framework: Lead Cal Athletics through structural change while strengthening competitive excellence, financial sustainability, student-athlete success, and Berkeley's public mission.