ABOUT ROBERT

Early in his career, his ability to share and analyze statistics brought him the nickname “Stats” and it has stuck ever since in high school and college athletics circles nationally. Now bringing his statistics mindset to revenue generation verticals and using the skills learned from working for and alongside over 15 Division One Athletic Director directly and for the one of the nation’s premier high school sporting departments, he is able to help shape your sports organization, entertainment entity or business into a more fiscally friendly unit that will produce new revenues and reach a broader audience. 

Sampson currently serves as a consultant in the Nashville area. 

Previously, Sampson was an Assistant AD at MTSU, focusing on annual giving efforts that saw substantial growth during his time with the Blue Raider Athletic Association and serving as a member of the women’s basketball staff. 

Sampson’s efforts with the basketball staff resulted in a 28-5 record and an NCAA Tournament appearance during the 2022-23 season. His role includes promoting the program to a national audience, donor relations and team logistics.  The team earned a national ranking for five weeks during the season, a first for the program in nearly a decade. In addition, the national ranking allowed the school to earn an invite to the USA Basketball 3X Nationals in 2023. 

Before joining the basketball staff in an administrative role, Sampson had already left a major mark on the FY23 books, posting 27.0% YOY growth in annual giving efforts between July and November and 67.9% growth over the five-year average for July through November giving. Overall, the department saw 305.7% growth YOY overall and YOY growth in 10-of-12 months during FY22, including eight months with 100% YOY growth. Despite limited or no fundraising staff in place for nearly six months prior to his arrival, Sampson's efforts allow the program to recover from being down over $398,955.55 YOY after nine months to even by the end of the fiscal year. 

Sampson has worked with NCAA Division I athletics departments in three Power Five conferences and six conferences overall, including work during his career in revenue generation, fundraising, team operations, gameday operations, ticketing, licensing, social media and communications.

Previously while at Eastern Kentucky, Sampson focused on growing revenues across multiple verticals, including notable success in fundraising and ticketing revenues.

Within the first six months of the 2022 fiscal year, controllable revenues increased over 75% over FY21 and by over 55% of FY19 and FY20 numbers, highlighted by strong football ticket sales, setting new season ticket records for men's basketball and women's basketball for the 2021-22 seasons and impressive development success for the department.

Revenues for men's basketball ticketing in 2021-22 increased by over 110% over the 2019-20 season with overall season tickets sold increasing by over 150% over 2020-21 and over 140% over 2019-20. The creation of a new corporate ticketing program and new pricing structures helped create over 650 new season ticket holders for the basketball program.

Football ticket sales in 2021 increased 36.8% over the 2019 season and 24.9% over the 2018 season while posting the highest season ticket revenues overall since the 2008 season. The program finished the regular season ranked in the top 10 nationally in FCS attendance.

In the first five months of the 2022 fiscal year, giving to the EKU Colonel Club and EKU’s sport programs surpassed the total for the entire 2021 fiscal year. It mirrored the success the program saw through the FY21 year when the program closed out the year with growth of 6.2% over FY20 and 11.2% over FY19 among cash giving plus a 16.9% growth over the 10-year average. The Colonel Club and overall department giving saw triple-digit year-over-year growth in six of the final seven months of FY21.

The department saw massive growth in funds raised on EKU Giving Day in 2021, growing total funds raised by over 1400% and increasing the total number of gifts by over 360% during the April event. It came on the heels of a strong start to fundraising efforts during the 2020-21 academic year, showing increase of 200.7% between January 2021 and March 2021 and 261.2% between December 2020 and March 2021 over the previous calendar year. Monthly giving between December 2020 and April 2021 saw increases over at least 60% over the 10-year average for the equivalent month with four of those five months showing increases of over 118%.

Working closely with the Office of the President, Sampson led efforts to create the new Colonel Courtyard and President’s Tailgate for football gamedays that facilitated campus-wide engagement opportunities across campus between departments and athletics. Sampson worked with deans across campus to promote gameday engagement opportunities for each college. Extensions of that work with Office of the President and other senior level leaders on campus included regional engagement with Chamber memberships/bodies and government officials. Sampson also helped launch the inaugural Opportunity Bowl in 2020 at EKU.

Prior to arriving in Richmond, Sampson served as the Director of Strategic Initiatives with Purdue Athletics where he focused on the growth and success of $40 million in revenue verticals by exploring new revenue streams, improve upon current revenue opportunities and assisting in special projects. Sampson’s focus’ included efforts with licensing, team store partner, venue usage, in-game experience, convention and visitor bureau relationship, concerts, on-campus golf course, game-day tailgates and parking while gaining notable exposure in areas such as concessions, apparel/supplier contracts and contract negotiations/evaluation.

Overall department revenues finished the year at 106% of budgeted goal for 2018-19.

His involvement in Purdue’s licensing program and new Team Store partner helped secure a 72% increase in Team Store revenues in 2018-19. In addition, Purdue’s licensing revenues increased by 19% during the 2018-19 academic year, surpassing budgeted goals by $125,000.

He was also a key player in the athletic departments renewed focus on golf at Purdue in 2019, helping the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex improve revenues by over $200,000 to a new record of $2.07 million through a focus on merchandise sales, marketing efforts, new food and beverage partner, staffing needs evaluation and identifying new revenues – including increase in facility usage and academic class offerings.

In addition, he played a major role in the coordination of administrative efforts for Purdue’s appearance in the 2018 Music City Bowl in Nashville. It marked Sampson’s sixth bowl game since the start of the 2012 season in a media relations, team operations or administrative role. He also assisted in planning efforts for Purdue’s run in the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

Sampson previously spent two seasons under head coach Jeff Brohm as the assistant director of football operations at Western Kentucky in 2016 and as the director of internal relations at Purdue in 2017.

Efforts at Purdue in a team operations and administrative role helped guide the Boilermakers to one of the nation’s most impressive attendance turnarounds. From 2016 to 2018, Purdue football had its home attendance grow nearly 50 percent, the best mark in the nation - from 34,451 to 51,120. Purdue was the only school to see its average increase by 3,000 fans from both 2016 to 2017 (nation-best 13,433) and from 2017 to 2018 (3,236). In 2017, the Boilermakers attracted two capacity crowds of 60,716 at Ross-Ade Stadium - for the Ohio State and Iowa games - a first since 2007. Overall, football revenues grew by over 75% from 2016 to 2019 with growth of over $7 million between 2016 and 2019 totals.

A native of Lexington, Kentucky, Sampson spent the 2015-16 school year at TCU, working in the media relations office with the women's basketball and football programs. The football team finished in the Associated Press Top 10 in 2015. During a prior three-year stint in WKU's media relations office from 2012 to 2015, Sampson helped reenergize the image of the women's basketball program, promoting four All-American selections and seven conference player or coach of the year honorees for Michelle Clark-Heard. The Lady Toppers won two conference tournament championships, made two NCAA Tournament appearances and earned the program's first Associated Press ranking since the 1997-98 season. Sampson also worked closely with the football program under the direction of head coaches Bobby Petrino and Brohm.

Sampson earned a bachelor’s degree in Integrated Strategic Communications from the University of Kentucky in 2009 and a master’s degree in Sports Administration from EKU in 2011. While at Kentucky, he worked with the media relations office, as a manager for the women's basketball team and coach Mickie DeMoss in 2006-07, a staff assistant for the men's basketball team in 2007-08 and 2008-09 and worked closely with current Murray State AD Kevin Saal in event operations.

Sampson also spent time growing the brand of athletics at Louisville's Trinity High School on a national level. Under the guidance of head coach Mike Szabo, Sampson played a key role in establishing the Trinity boys' basketball program as a state power, national name and eventually helping the school claim the 2012 KHSAA Sweet 16 for the first time in program history. His work with the school's football program resulted in "Sports Illustrated," Scout.com and Rivals naming the team national champions in 2011.

Sampson attended CALS 2021 in New Orleans, CALS 2022 in Nashville, Tenn., and CALS 2023 in Charlotte. Collegiate Athletic Leadership Symposium (CALS), an invitation-only event, is a unique event designed to equip athletic administrators with both practice knowledge they can apply immediately in their current position as well as skills they can use when pursuing future career goals. CALS gives attendees the opportunity to connect with some of the most influential AD's, search firm executives, and thought leaders in college athletics.