General | 11/14/2024 9:00:00 AM

DOVER - Dr. Alecia Shields-Gadson named Drew Ingraham Deputy AD for Operations on Wednesday, November 14. "I am truly grateful and honored for the opportunity to join Delaware State Athletics," said Ingraham 
"I want to thank Dr. Alecia Shields-Gadson for providing me with the opportunity to serve our student-athletes, alumni, donors, and campus community while exploring ways to enhance the Hornet brand locally, regionally, and nationally."

In addition to other responsibilities, Ingraham's role at Delaware State will be to provide oversight of external facing areas and game day operations, while assisting with capital projects and athletic facilities transformations.

Ingraham, comes to Delaware State after serving on the Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics' Executive Staff as the Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Affairs and Revenue Generation, overseeing all marketing, ticketing, communications, and creative services.

During his time with Furman, the Paladins saw significant ticket sale growth resulting in a 31% increase in football season ticket revenue, with an overall growth of total football ticket revenue by 21%. Additionally, he led efforts resulting in a total ticket revenue of 21% for women's basketball and 45% for men's basketball.  

He led the planning and implementation of a social media growth campaign that yielded a 27% increase in Facebook engagement, 18% increase in Instagram engagement, and a 62% growth in X (formerly Twitter) engagement for the Furman Paladins main accounts.  

Heavily involved in the Furman Paladin capital projects, Ingraham served on the 40-million-dollar Timmons Arena renovation oversight committee and oversaw capital improvement projects for both men's and women's basketball locker rooms and offices. Managed the expansion of premium seating renovation at Paladin Stadium and was the project manager for capital improvement projects at the Mickel Tennis Center to include, but not limited to complete locker room renovations, court resurfacing, and installation of streaming service to all 16 courts.  

He also enhanced third-party partnerships and support by negotiating a ticket office management and outbound ticket sales agreement with Taymar Sales U, spearheaded the service contract, service agreement, and implementation of Ticketmaster, and negotiated the extension with the Furman Paladin's flagship radio partner The Fan Upstate of Audacy, Inc. Additionally, Ingraham was the liaison and director of fulfillment for Van Wagner Sports and Entertainment, Furman Athletics' multimedia rights holder.

Administratively, Ingraham held sports supervision for men's basketball (2023 NCAA Tournament participant), women's basketball, women's tennis (2022 Southern Conference champion), and men's tennis.

Ingraham worked at Texas Tech from 2018 - 2022 where he oversaw three operations within the Red Raider athletics department — communications, promotions & fan engagement, and recently created creative services — with a combined staff of 16 full-time employees.

He coordinated the planning and execution of Red Raider football and men's basketball game day, as well as year-round promotional efforts for all 17 programs.

Ingraham directed marketing efforts in football that generated $16.7M in revenue for the 2018 & '19 seasons and constructed and implemented marketing/ticket sales plans that added 8,837 new season ticket accounts over those two campaigns.

Ingraham led marketing and outreach strategies for Red Raider Basketball that netted a 12 percent increase in student attendance and a 16 percent increase in overall attendance for Red Raider hoops during the 2018-19 season, and a 2019-20 basketball campaign that averaged 14,057 fans.  For the 2021-22 season, Texas Tech netted a program record 8,150 season ticket holders.  He also crafted marketing and sales strategies that played a vital role in a four-year, season ticket sellout for Red Raider baseball.

A member of Texas Tech's senior athletics team, as well as the department's "Beyond Verified" committee overseeing Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), Ingraham has played a central role in the tremendous growth in Texas Tech's social media accounts that recently topped 1.3 million combined followers, including the fifth highest TikTok college athletics account in the nation with over 100,000 followers.

Through his social media initiatives, the Red Raiders netted over eight million interactions and almost 30 million video views across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

In addition, he managed Texas Tech's Athletics strategic fundraising relationship with CaringCent College Athletics.

Prior to his tenure at Texas Tech, Ingraham served as associate athletics director of marketing & fan engagement at the University of New Mexico from 2014-17, where he was heavily involved in all aspects of ticket sales, marketing, and social media strategy development and execution.

He spent over six years (2007-13) as associate athletics director for marketing & operations at Montana State University, in Bozeman, his hometown.

He began his collegiate administrative career as an external athletics marketing manager at Colorado College in 2005.

Ingraham majored in English and secondary education at Boston College, from which he earned his bachelor's degree in 2001.  He added a Master of Science in physical education/sports administration from Springfield (Mass.) College in 2004, a 2017 graduate of the Sports Management Institute as well as a 2024 member of the NACDA Senior Administrators Mentoring Institute.

Drew and his wife Elaina share a daughter Avery and a son Zeke.  The Ingrahams could not be more excited to become part of the Hornet Family.