Think you have what it takes to be an Athletic Director today?

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

We have thousands and thousands of new readers who have signed up for Extra Points over the last few months. These folks might not be aware of one of the cooler perks of a full Extra Points subscription…access to Athletic Director Simulator 4000.

This is not a joke or a meme. It’s a real computer game that we built back in 2023. In ADS4000, users take control of a low-major D-I athletic department, and are tasked with handling various scenarios that an actual AD might face. You’ll need to balance your budget, try to grow your Directors Cup ranking, and maintain popularity with fans and administrators.

Here, I’ll give you an example. Here’s a question that popped up when I loaded the game as a “Low-Major FCS Football Program in Texas”

Your state cattle association has reached out, asking to book a regional livestock show in your arena over the winter. It would require your basketball teams to play on the road for two weeks, but it would also bring in a very significant payday. What do you do?

A) Come back and ask for more money, since reserving the arena during basketball season would be especially disruptive?

B) See if they're willing to book the arena during the spring or summer at a discounted rate, when fewer athletes need to use it?

C) Tell the cattle association thanks, but no thanks. No paycheck is worth potentially disrupting your athletic scheduling?

D) Cash the check. You'll schedule all your guarantee games during that run, so it won't even be THAT disruptive?

I’ll go ahead and spoil this for you guys. There isn’t actually a right or wrong answer. Depending on your playthrough, all four of those options could deliver a positive or negative outcome. In real life, administrative decisions usually aren’t so cut and dry where one answer is always right or wrong. Each answer might not be equally likely to generate a positive outcome, but all four could.

All four of them could also fail. One of the failure responses involves cow crap. Maybe more than one.

If you do well managing your resources under this kind of uncertainty, you can get promoted to a Mid or High Major, where you’ll have different resources, but different problems. If you do poorly, you’ll get fired. Womp womp.

But hey, don’t feel bad. Being an AD is really hard, and lots of ADS4000 players get fired. I get fired sometimes. Shoot, I’ve played this game with actual athletic directors and watched them get fired.

I know of multiple sitting ADs who have played the game over the last year or so. But the game is also enjoyed by thousands of non-industry professionals. It’s also used in multiple college classrooms, at places like Michigan, Minnesota State, South Carolina and Nebraska-Kearney, as an object lesson for Sports Management departments.

Anyway, the game was originally built in 2023, and then substantially refreshed last year. Since then, we’ve tweaked around the edges a bit, adding new questions here and there, fixing typos, adjusting probabilities, but nothing too major.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve tried to steal some time away from reporting, editing, and updating Extra Points Library to do some more meaningful updates to ADS4000. I’ve replaced outdated questions, rebalanced a lot of questions, added new probabilities or answers depending on what type of school you’re running, and added many new scenarios for the low, mid, and high major programs. If you haven’t touched the game in a few months, you should see something new if you play once or twice.

So I figured, why not run another contest?

Last May, we ran a ADS4000 high score challenge, and the feedback we got from readers was that they really enjoyed it. So let’s try it again!

Whoever posts the best score (combined variable ranks at the end of a run) will win a) the right to add two questions of their own to ADS4000, b) the right to pick an Extra Points topic in April and c), a fabulous Extra Points #swag #pack full of mystery prizes

Here are the rules:

• The contest runs until 5:00 PM CST on Wednesday, March 12

• The winning username will have the highest composite score between budget, support and Directors Cup ranking, per the game’s Leaderboard at 5:00 PM CST on Wednesday. If there are ties, I will pick a username at random.

• I will reach out to the winner that evening via email to confirm, and to get an address so we can mail out their prize

What’s in the swag pack? Well, it includes a patch, just like the one we used for our sick Extra Points Bowl blazers. It’ll include some stickers. And it will also include some mystery prizes. Might be books from my research library. Might be gift cards from Extra Points sponsors. Maybe my kids will draw a comic or something. Who knows! The only way to find out is to play.

How do you play ADS4000?

ADS4000 is a browser-based game, optimized for desktop performance. It will run on a PC or Mac, and in every browser type we’ve tried, although there are probably some we haven’t tried. It technically works on mobile devices, but you may run into performance issues or missing text. I’m sorry! It’s really built for desktop machines.

Access to ADS4000 is limited to our premium subscribers.

But good news! We’re running a SALE on premium subscriptions.

Through the next week, you can save 25% off a monthly Extra Points subscription by using this link. The discount will lock in your discounted pricing for six months. If my math is correct, that’ll take you right up into the Fall athletic season. The sale will end on March 12.

If you’re an existing monthly EP subscriber, shoot me an email and I can get you moved to the discounted pricing on an annual subscription if you’d like.

See a bug?

I’m a reporter, not a professional software developer, and as we continue to layer updates on legacy code, bugs are bound to happen. If you see a typo, game balance issue or bug, drop me a line at Matt @ ExtrapointsMB dot com, and I’ll work to get it fixed ASAP.

Are you a software developer who loves ADS4000 and has suggestions on how to make the game even better? Or who wants to help make it better?

I’m all ears. We’ve been very focused on improving and developing Extra Points Library over the last few months, but have ambitious ideas for ADS4000…and just aren’t sure the best way to execute those. If you have ideas, I’d love to hear from you.

Where do I go to play the game?

Well, if you’re an Extra Points subscriber, the link to the game is just behind this paywall.

If you haven’t played the game before, a quick note: The log-in credentials for ADS4000 are not the same as they are for Beehiiv. You can use whatever email and password you want to log in…the log-in system is just to track high scores. But you will need to "register” an account if you’ve never played the game before.

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