We're the Team Behind Your Team

Serving 40+ Athletics Departments in 10+ Conferences Coast-to-Coast

As the go-to accountants and advisors for collegiate athletics, we bring something even more important – a longstanding commitment and decades of experience helping organizations like yours make winning plays so you can achieve your goals. Here's what we bring to the table:

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Unique perspective

You deserve the advantage of an experienced team that brings you industry-leading knowledge of trends, issues and best practices specific to collegiate athletics – especially now, given the rapid changes you’re experiencing.

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Industry relationships

In the sports business, it’s not just what you know, but who you know.  Our deep roots in the collegiate athletics industry mean we bring not only an outsider’s perspective, but we also have an extensive network to support your needs from multiple angles.

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Advocacy

We’re as passionate about collegiate athletics as you are. Showing our love for the industry means giving back in multiple ways that include organization of industry groups, the News & Brews Sports Biz podcast series and as the third-party clearinghouse for the Collegiate Coaching Diversity Pledge.

Our Collegiate Athletics Accounting Solutions & Services

Whether you’re an athletic association or booster club requiring a full audit or an athletic department solely required to undergo NCAA agreed-upon procedures, we do more than check the box when it comes to assurance services.

James Moore brings you the experience to help you identify any potential issues—along with an unbeatable network—so we can share best practices and let you know what your peers are doing well. We're well versed in various university general ledger, ticketing and compliance technology platforms, meaning we do a deeper dive into these unique areas. We also realize your financial statements are subject to public scrutiny, and we value additional narrative within your disclosures to provide more context and add color to the numbers. The result? You can sleep well at night knowing you’ve had a thorough audit with a meaningful deliverable.

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Collegiate athletics compliance has become a minefield for athletic departments as you try to adapt to the rapid changes in regulations. Keeping up is a constant struggle, leaving your department vulnerable and under pressure.

James Moore offers expert assistance in navigating intricate NCAA matters, including infractions, eligibility and waivers. With our extensive experience, we conduct comprehensive compliance reviews tailored to your specific needs — ensuring compliance with regulations and risk mitigation.

The emergence of name, image and likeness presents many potential challenges and concerns arising from NCAA rules and state laws. Our team provides expert guidance on understanding these complexities, offering strategic advice on institutional involvement with NIL and addressing associated risks to developing or strengthening your NIL program.

James Moore helps you get your athletic department in order by examining every aspect of your operations that will be impacted by bringing NIL in house. In the dynamic environment of college athletics, we provide valuable insights to help you make informed decisions.

  • NIL Readiness Assessment – Proactively examine every aspect of your athletic department to identify strategic opportunities and find potential risks as the landscape of college athletics changes.
  • NIL Strategy – Develop a holistic strategy to restructure your institution as regulations around athlete compensation evolve.
  • Policy Refresh Consulting – Develop or update your policies as you restructure your athletic department to enhance efficiency, ensure compliance and support athlete welfare.
  • NIL Tax Education – Take advantage of educational videos and live sessions that prepare and protect your student-athletes as they earn NIL income.
  • Outsourced internal audit services

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Collegiate athletics programs operate with vast amounts of data. But translating this data to meaningful business insights is a challenge when your various systems don’t integrate well. The process of acquiring, analyzing and leveraging data has been manually intensive. And with so many systems and data formats, financial reporting and problem solving could take months.

James Moore’s data analysts are here to help you leverage your data in a way that allows you to generate meaningful insights and strategies to strengthen and maintain the health of your business. Our team of experts helps you get started with the data and tools you already have to streamline your financial reporting with data automation, build dashboards to analyze the information, and use key metrics to drive organizational change.

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We’re here to help you win. Our fractional business office advisory services are crafted to seamlessly integrate with your existing operations, providing the expertise and insights you need, when you need them. From ensuring proper NCAA financial reporting to helping you tell your financial story to stakeholders; our dedicated team is here to be your financial ally. Each of our service packages are designed to meet the distinct needs of college athletic departments, ensuring you have the robust financial support you need to drive your programs forward.

Affordable: Our service packages save you money. Get the benefits of an experienced team at a much lower cost than hiring in-house employees.

Flexible: A full-time, dedicated employee may be more than you need at some times, but not enough at others. Get the support you need, when you need it.

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Universities have multiple layers of complexities when it comes to tax compliance on athletics-related activities. Unrelated business tax (UBIT) compliance alone can be incredibly complicated, offering plenty of pitfalls and vast potential for missteps. Add to that name, image and likeness and other educational benefits, and this leads to additional challenges to navigate at a rapid pace.

James Moore’s tax advisors bring you extensive experience dealing with the specialized needs of collegiate athletics, along with deep knowledge of all the latest regulations. Keep yourself in the game with strategic tax planning, tax reporting and NIL education services from pros who understand your needs.

Prior to the pandemic, your ticket and business offices were operating on overdrive. Now you’re adjusting to even fewer resources. Add to that the inherent challenges with integrating ticketing and university general ledger platforms, and that can make timely financial reporting and reconciliation seem impossible.

James Moore will help you get your ticket office in order by taking a look at current operations and providing recommendations to help you prevent fraud, save time and increase revenue. We'll offer an outside perspective and share best practices that balance strong internal controls with efficient processes. By collaborating with your team, we'll break down silos and achieve buy-in for more streamlined workflows and improved customer service. When you put our experience to work, you can have peace of mind over your concerns and develop solid business practices that set your ticket office up for success now and into the future.

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In a time with so much uncertainty in collegiate athletics, the financial story is very important in maintaining awareness, trust and support. As your business model changes, your stakeholders need to understand the impacts on your student-athletes and your competitive advantage.  Context is missing for the many influential voices who are making critical decisions without an understanding of the complete picture.

James Moore is here to help you put color around the numbers. We’ll bring an outside perspective and share best practices for a strategic, proactive and positive narrative about the past, present and future of your athletics program.

  • Understanding the Playing Field – Determining the dynamics of your University’s leadership, financial success and community toward athletics.
  • Building a Value Proposition – Aligning your strengths, goals and values with your audience and what matters to them.
  • The Rest of the Story – Identify gaps in the story and develop a strategy around communicating them to the right people at the right time.

Collegiate athletics isn’t as simple as it used to be. Today’s hyper-competitive and highly regulated environment brings a host of opportunities and threats that didn’t even exist a decade ago.

We’re here to help you win. Our customized advisory and consulting services are specifically designed for collegiate athletics departments, associations and booster clubs. As the leaders in your niche, we’ve seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t, and we bring insights and innovative solutions to help you compete better. Our team is passionate about collegiate athletics and we have deep knowledge and experience that other firms simply can’t match. Sometimes you need the advice of an industry expert, or you may need help with a particular project. That’s where our advisory services come in to play.

  • Financial Strategic Planning – Refine your goals, establish priorities and develop clear steps so your team can move forward with clarity and confidence.
  • Balanced Scorecard – Align your strategic plan to key performance indicators to ensure a balanced approach to achieving your short-and long-term goals.
  • Benchmarking – Plan for the future by comparing key financial metrics and trends to peers across the industry.
  • Financial Communication – Tell your financial story with a strategic, proactive and positive narrative about the past, present and future of your athletics program.
  • Financial Literacy Training – Provide internal stakeholders with understanding of key financial information to add context for well-informed decision making.
  • Name Image and Likeness Tax Education – Educational videos and live sessions that will prepare and protect your student-athletes as they earn NIL income.
  • Operational Excellence – Improve your operations and maximize your resources to grow your bottom line in a competitive environment.
  • Program Risk Management – Identify and proactively manage the risks across your department to help minimize loss and preserve financial stability.
  • Peace of Mind – Rest assured that areas of concern are being monitored with customized procedures that can signal an issue in your accounting controls.
  • Squad List Stress Test – Evaluation of compliance revenue distribution equivalency calculations to ensure completeness of grants-in-aid revenue distribution reporting.
  • Travel Policy Assessment – Ensure your travel policies are equitable with a focus on student-athlete experience and budgeting best practices.
  • Offsite Facilitation – Participate in interactive sessions facilitated by industry experts and ensure your meaningful discussions translate into a tangible outcome.
  • Executive Coaching – Tailored mentorship for athletics CFOs who want to grow as leaders and professionals.
  • Pre-Budget Assessment – Evaluate the infrastructure enabling well-informed decision making, optimizing expenses and shaping a compelling financial narrative for your budget proposals.
  • Private Equity Readiness – Strategically position your athletic department for growth and secure a partner who will advocate for you throughout the entire private equity due diligence process.
  • Strategic Entity Formation – Navigate the complexities of establishing a 501(c)(3) entity for your athletic department, ensuring alignment with your strategic ambitions while reinforcing public trust.

Could your athletic department use an extra $300,000?

Do you have fear of missing on revenue for your athletic department? We understand your FOMO. We aim to give you peace of mind that yields positive results you'll feel for years to come. See how we helped a major D1 university find over a quarter million dollars in uncollected booster contributions. And, find out how one wrong calculation makes a big difference in grants-in-aid revenue distribution.

Winning strategies for organizations like yours, coast to coast.

At James Moore, we're passionate about many things. The success of your collegiate athletic department is at the top of that list. That's why we have a team of CPAs and consultants who are experts in your industry. It's our aim to partner with you to find the right solutions that will yield positive results you'll feel for years.

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Katie Davis, CPA, LSS Certified

Partner

With nearly 20 years of experience, Katie is a partner at James Moore and dedicates a majority of her time serving higher education institutions, collegiate athletic departments, foundations and other university-related organizations. She leads the firm’s Higher Education and Collegiate Athletics industry teams, which serve more than 100 higher education organizations (including 40+ athletic departments) nationwide. She is an active member in CABMA and NACUBO.

Katie’s work in higher education goes beyond traditional accounting services. As a thought leader and valued advisor in the industry, she drives discussions on the issues faced by colleges and universities nationwide. Her passion is in the collegiate athletics niche, and she is nationally recognized as an advocate for the financial voices in the business of college sports. She co-hosts the firm’s News & Brews Sports Biz podcast series and makes regular appearances on other industry broadcast programs and publications. Katie works closely with her clients and enjoys bringing solutions to them that improve their operations and redirect their limited resources to the things that matter most. Certified in Lean Six Sigma, she helps her clients create efficient, thorough and sustainable systems for long-term success.

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