Markus Schreyer has always taken a bit of a blank canvas approach to his career.
There’s a layer of creativity required in roles that have spanned from Hilton and Starwood Hotels to senior leadership at Marriott. Hospitality, after all, necessitates flexing one’s imagination.
But after 25 years in the hospitality business, Schreyer — the recently minted CEO of Vanderbilt Enterprises — is putting his mind and that approach to the task of boosting the Commodores’ bottom line.
“Probably 95% of my roles in my career, I started on a white piece of paper, a white canvas and was asked to rethink a business,” he said. “That’s kind of what [Vanderbilt AD Candice Storey Lee] asked me to do here.”
How and why Schreyer wanted to leap headfirst into the chaos of college athletics is a broader discussion. Opportunity is part of it. Innovation, too.
Schreyer was hired in May to head up Vanderbilt Enterprises, an amalgamation of the school’s revenue-generating arms outside of the academic side of the university (including athletics). The idea was to better position Vanderbilt for the increased financial pressures higher-ed and athletics face.
“Everybody has to get ready for the new world, and you have to set aside all paradigms and develop new ideas,” Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said in May. “It’s going to be an era where disruption will be needed and will be rewarded.”
What that’s led to — along with a football program that has evolved from SEC doormat to a top-10 ranking in the AP Top 25 this fall during coach Clark Lea’s tenure — is a new-look revenue machine that Schreyer and the school’s senior staff have already seen bear fruit.
Schreyer projects food and beverage revenue to nearly double this year at FirstBank Stadium. Merchandise is on track for a 150% increase. Sponsorship and licensing revenue — which incorporates the athletic department’s deal with Learfield — is also slated to nearly double.
“This isn’t just a project to amplify the athletic department; it’s one to amplify the entire university,” said Dany Berghoff, head of North America for CAA Executive Search, which assisted Vanderbilt in landing Schreyer. “As we kind of thought about who is going to be that partner to not only amplify the overarching athletic department, but also was going to be able to leverage what he was able to do from a commercial perspective and a business building perspective in athletics … that’s why Markus was such a great choice.”
That Vanderbilt is enjoying early success in Schreyer’s time on campus is as much a reflection of the building blocks that were laid in place over recent years as his brief tenure.
Lee’s time as athletic director, along with Diermeier’s arrival from the University of Chicago in 2020, coincided with the completion of the Huber Center basketball operations and practice facility, along with massive renovations to the north and south end zones at FirstBank Stadium. The stadium projects included adding 20 suites and 1,000 club seats as part of the Commodore Club, loge boxes and a new video board.
Those efforts dovetailed with the fundraising campaign “Vandy United,” a recently completed $300 million effort that helped pay for the projects.
The school also launched the “Dare to Grow” campaign in 2023, a $3.2 billion undertaking that touches myriad pieces of the university’s academic side and is designed to reinvest in its future.
That kind of backing brings opportunity. Schreyer said the school is exploring ways to better monetize those improved facilities through things like concerts (obviously a different kind of challenge in a city with musically inclined venues like Nashville).
“You see a lot of universities that are extremely strong in academics or extremely strong on the field, but we are doing both,” Schreyer said. “How can Vanderbilt Enterprises support? No. 1 is revenue generation. New business models. Everything beyond the academic revenue. It’s about growing our audience here in Nashville, but also national, international and thinking about making Vanderbilt a household name.”
Schreyer almost sighed in reliving his alarm ringing at 4 a.m. on Oct. 25 in preparation for ESPN’s “College GameDay.” He departed for campus by 5:30 a.m. to be on-site for the show’s first appearance at Vanderbilt in 17 years.
At the time of the last “College GameDay” broadcast in Nashville in 2008, Schreyer was on the verge of changing jobs from a lengthy run at Hilton to a new role at Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Many more years in the hospitality space followed.
And yet here Schreyer is, in the center of Vanderbilt’s aggressive and bold plan for driving revenue to help fund the increasingly costly proposition of fielding competitive college athletics programs.
Not exactly straightforward. Then again, nothing ever is.
Three questions with Markus Schreyer
Why were you interested in the job?
“What really convinced me for that position is the vision of Chancellor Diermeier here at Vanderbilt University. From the first conversation we had in that search process for the CEO role, when you think about industry leadership, we want to be the best in whatever we do.”
How would you describe the role of Vanderbilt Enterprises?
“It’s really about embracing both [academics and athletics]. You see a lot of universities that are extremely strong in academics or extremely strong on the field, but we are doing both.”
How is sponsorship helping the mission of this new entity?
“If you work with us in athletics, you also want to work with us in research, student development and our labs. If you’re coming through education, then how can we again play the full spectrum of the university? That’s exciting.”
