EVANSTON-New Northwestern athletic director Mark Jackson was asked what he learned from NFL Super Bowl-winning head coaches Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick during his time in the NFL at his introductory press conference on Tuesday. He had an answer ready to go.

“I think the one commonality amongst great coaches is a defined leadership philosophy,” said Jackson, who worked with Carroll at USC and Belichick with the New England Patriots. “They know who they are. They know what they're about.”

But Jackson didn’t describe who he was, and what his leadership philosophy is like, until after he was off the podium, in front of a small huddle of reporters. That’s when he told us about the Four Fs.

“[My leadership philosophy] is centered on my four F's,” he said. “Okay, so it's about family, faith, friendship and fun. Those are simple words, but they mean a lot to me.”

He went on to detail each one.

Family means that the athletic department not only feels like a family, but that it emphasizes “the same things that my wife and I are trying to raise our four children [with] in the four walls of the house.”

Faith is not religion and can mean different things to different people, he said.

“Faith is an attitude and approach and a positive outlook on the way we're approaching things. Especially now with all this change coming.”

Friendship refers to the relationship piece of the business, athletes building bonds with other athletes, and coaches building bonds with players that will last a lifetime.

“I want standing room only at my funeral,” he said with a smile. “I want everybody to be a recruiter. I want everybody to be a fundraiser.”

Then, lastly, there is fun, which refers to the fun of helping impact athletes’ lives between 18 and 23 years of age – “What’s more fun that that, right?” he asked – as well as the competition of sports.

“Fun, to me, is the relentless pursuit of a competitive edge in everything that we do. Whether it's this interview or whether it's whatever meeting I have next, I want to have a competitor's mindset,” he said.

Those four Fs are catchy, easy-to-remember guiding principles. But if there was a fifth one for Jackson that became evident on Tuesday, it would be “revenue generation.” That phrase came up several times during his press conference.

It doesn’t start with F – maybe we can call it finances – but it was a dominant theme.

Jackson, who spent the last nine years as athletic director at Villanova, talked about the “seismic change” college sports are currently experiencing: “The advent of the transfer portal, unlimited transfer opportunities for student athletes, mounting antitrust litigation, proposed congressional legislation and the House settlement currently under review by the federal courts.”

Not to mention the hundreds of millions in television contractors afforded to conferences such as the Big Ten.

MORE ON JACKSON: New Northwestern AD has plenty of football experience

So Jackson sees his job as increasing revenues through the current streams that they have, as well as developing new ones. He pointed to the building of the new Ryan Field, which is scheduled to open in 2026, as a prime example. He wants to run it like a business and maximize every dollar of revenue they can wring out of it.

“I think we have to think innovatively, creatively,” he said. “As I told our department today, everybody becomes a fundraiser. Everybody becomes a recruiter…

“The way we think about our current revenue streams and building those, but also creating new ones. And when you're building one of the best, if not the best, college football stadiums in America, that provides a wealth of opportunities to maximize revenue, enhance the fan experience and hopefully change the way we look at college athletics.”

Just a few years ago, college athletes weren’t allowed to be paid. Now, with NIL, they can earn millions. The entire industry is scrambling just to keep up.

“It's no secret, college athletics is a broken financial model,” he said. “You know, most programs don't generate revenue, net positively, right?

“So, the way we look at the structure of our department is something we're going to spend a lot of time on. I think none of us got in this business, at least at my age, to think about generating revenue like a business 24/7.”

But that’s what college athletics has become. It’s a big-time business that requires it to be run like one.

That will require some changes to the current structure within the athletic department, Jackson said. He was asked what lessons he learned from the NFL – he worked with both the Patriots and (now) Las Vegas Raiders in his career – that could carry over to his current post.

You might guess his first answer.

“The objective [in the NFL] is the bottom line to generate revenue,” he said. “And whether that's meaning winning games, correlating with the generating revenue, or selling tickets generating revenue, or marketing generating revenue, that's the mission and objective of each and every one of those organizations. Like I said earlier, [athletic departments are] not built that way.”

But Jackson wants to rebuild the department that way in this brave new world of college sports. Jackson’s press conference was held at Welsh-Ryan Arena, Northwestern’s beautiful new basketball arena that opened in 2018. The Walter Athletics Center is a state-of-the-art practice facility that also opened that same year. The $800 million Ryan Field will be in place in two years.

So Jackson may not have many capital projects to tend to right away. Instead, he can focus on restructuring the athletic department to respond to the current business model.

“That's why we have to look at our department differently,” he said. “The structure of our department needs to be examined so that we're maximizing revenue streams. [There’s that term again.]

“The way we look at this stadium, Pat Ryan Jr., [son of megadonor Patrick Ryan] and I have spent a lot of time over the last three or four days examining the plans, giving me an education and understanding of the way that that stadium hopes to generate revenue, provide a fan experience. We're looking at it in a very innovative way, much like an NFL organization on how we're gonna structure that.

“So we'll think outside the box. I'm not gonna say there's gonna be a major dramatic overhaul, but I think there are changes coming to the way we operate on a day-to-day basis.”

There’s a new boss in the Northwestern athletic department. And he means business. Literally.

More to come from WildcatReport.