TicketsNow in his seventh year as Director of Athletics at the University of Cincinnati, John Cunningham has guided the Bearcats through one of the most transformative periods in department history, positioning Cincinnati for sustained success since taking the helm in December 2019.
Some of the many highlights of his tenure include guiding the Bearcats into the Big 12, opening the $134 million Sheakley Indoor Practice Facility and Athletics Performance Center as part of a landmark $100 million Day One Ready fundraising campaign, securing a new apparel deal with Nike and Jordan Brand, serving as the administrative oversight for the first-ever Group of Five team to advance to the College Football Playoff and overseeing the baseball team’s record resurgence under head coach Jordan Bischel.
Last spring, Cunningham also brought Cincinnati’s multimedia rights representation (MMR) in-house by establishing Cincy Sports Partners. The department serves as the Bearcats’ corporate sales and sponsorships home for student-athlete NIL, unique fan experiences, local broadcasting and much more.
Additionally, Cunningham expanded the Bearcats' in-house communications and creative unit, The Agency, providing the resources needed to scale content production in support of NIL initiatives, corporate partnerships and fan engagement.
In his first few months on campus, Cunningham led the Bearcats’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and created the Next Level Success Fund to provide the necessary resources to achieve competitive success and crucial support for UC’s student-athletes.
In 2021, Cunningham spearheaded Cincinnati’s charge to join the Big 12 and launched the $100 million Day One Ready Campaign initiative. The Day One Ready Campaign raised money in the areas of student-athlete wellness, signature facilities and operational resources to compete for championships in the Big 12, which Cincinnati officially joined on July 1, 2023.
The centerpiece of the Day One Ready Campaign was the Indoor Practice Facility and Performance Center, which broke ground in May 2023. The state-of-the-art complex features a 100-yard football field, brand-new weight room, fueling station and sports medicine offices over more than 200,000 square feet.
Cunningham restructured his leadership team to provide a new focus on internal and external operations, tapped Jerrod Calhoun, an established winner and top candidate in the cycle, to lead the men’s basketball program in 2026, hired two-time conference coach of the year Scott Satterfield to guide the football team, and brought UC alum Katrina Merriweather back home to coach women’s basketball.
He also added head coaches Bischel (baseball), Erica Demers (women’s soccer) and Aimee Ponte (women’s golf) to guide Bearcats’ programs during the 2023-24 academic year. Bischel proceeded to guide the Bearcats to consecutive NCAA Regionals for the first time ever in 2025 and 2026.
Unprecedented Success on the Field and on the Course
The Bearcats’ football program found unprecedented success in 2021, winning a school-record 13 games and a second consecutive American Athletic Conference Championship en route to becoming the first non-“Power Five” team to participate in the College Football Playoff.
UC football boasts two conference titles and 23 NFL draft selections since 2020.
Additionally, the Cincinnati men’s golf program, led by head coach Doug Martin, has found its most success in program history in recent years, culminating with the Bearcats’ first-ever NCAA Regional Championship appearance in 2023 and Ty Gingerich’s individual Big 12 Championship in 2024.
Cunningham has also embraced the changing landscape of college athletics, fully embracing Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) by creating IMPACT, a comprehensive NIL development program. The Bearcats have been bold and innovative in the NIL space in recent years, partnering with Kroger on the nation’s largest female-only activation as well as Jason and Travis Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, to host a live event in 2024 where a significant portion of ticket sales supported NIL. Additionally, Cincy Reigns, the official NIL partner of UC Athletics, collaborated with Rhinegeist to create Cincy Light - the country’s fastest-growing craft light lager.
In 2024, Cincinnati’s IMPACT program was named the nation’s Best Institutional Program at the NIL Summit in Atlanta.
UC Creates New Departments, Sets Academic Records
Cunningham has championed the 360 student-athlete experience, identifying and pouring money into resources that directly benefit the student-athletes, including launching the department’s first-ever Sports Psychology Department and creating the Performance Nutrition unit, while prioritizing student-athlete mental health and wellness. He also hired Deputy AD/Chief of Staff Brad Pike as UC’s first-ever Senior Associate AD for Health and Wellness and added Senior Deputy AD John Daniel.
UC has reached exceptional heights in academics under Cunningham, as well. In the fall of 2025, Bearcats student-athletes achieved a record overall GPA of 3.54. Heading into the fall of 2026, Cincinnati has 36 consecutive semesters with a cumulative athletics department GPA of 3.0 or above.
Through the 2023-24 school year, Cincinnati ranked No. 1 in the Big 12 and sixth in the nation in Graduation Success Rate at 96%.
In 2022, six student-athletes collected Academic All-America accolades.
Cunningham Served as Deputy AD at Minnesota and Syracuse
Before leading the Bearcats, Cunningham served as Minnesota’s Deputy Athletics Director for Administration from 2016-19, overseeing the day-to-day administrative operations of the department, working with all 25 Gopher programs and external units, as well as serving as sport administrator for football, men’s basketball and men’s golf.
He was part of the fundraising and implementation of the Gophers’ Athletes Village, a privately-funded project of $166-million which added more than 338,000 square feet of new academic, leadership, nutrition, practice and team support space for all sports.
Cunningham joined the Minnesota staff from Syracuse, where he also served as the Deputy Athletics Director for Administration from 2015-16.
Prior to his tenure at Syracuse, Cunningham worked at Boise State University from 2011-2014 as the senior associate athletics director for external relations and executive director for NCAA Compliance.
Boise State and TCU Bolster His Resume
At BSU, Cunningham was promoted to senior associate athletics director for external relations in 2014 after leading the NCAA Compliance program for three years. As the head of external relations, Cunningham led the operations of Boise State’s development, marketing, media relations and ticket offices. He was also the sport administrator for men’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, and men’s tennis.
Prior to his appointment at BSU, Cunningham worked at Texas Christian University for five years in the compliance field. He was hired by the Horned Frogs in 2006 as the assistant director of compliance and followed up a year later with a promotion to director of compliance. In 2011, he was promoted again to assistant athletics director for compliance. In that position, he was responsible for a comprehensive rules education program and provided rules interpretations for athletics staff, coaches, student-athletes and university officials.
Love for Sports Traced Back to Youth in Lincoln
Cunningham started his career in collegiate athletics as the compliance coordinator at the University of Maryland. While in law school, he was a compliance intern at Maryland for two summers.
A 2001 TCU graduate, Cunningham received a law degree from the University of Nebraska’s College of Law in 2005.
A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, he developed his love for college athletics by following his hometown Cornhuskers as a kid.
Cunningham and his wife, Caitlin, have two sons, Gus and Hank.