Matt Larsen hit the ground running when he arrived as NDSU’s 18th director of athletics in October 2014, guiding important growth in facilities, fundraising, scholarships, budget and staff to position NDSU for continued success.
Larsen brought a keen business background to NDSU after 19 years at Stony Brook University in New York, where he was the athletic department’s chief financial officer and had direct oversight of the development and management of a $24.5 million budget.
At NDSU, Larsen balances a budget that has grown from $18 million to $31 million with increased spending in student-athlete facilities and scholarships, and new revenues through multimedia rights, corporate partnerships and annual giving. He was recognized as a NACDA Athletics Director of the Year in 2018-19 and 2024-25.
Larsen arrived at NDSU in time to complete the design and furnishing of the privately financed $50 million Sanford Health Athletic Complex, which houses the athletic department’s offices, locker rooms, training spaces, equipment services, and the 5,700-seat Scheels Center for basketball and wrestling.
In total, NDSU has built $115 million in new athletic facilities including an indoor golf short-game facility, a softball stadium, outdoor track and field complex, and a $54 million football training facility that houses an indoor practice field, an adjacent outdoor practice field with lights and artificial turf, and an operations center with space for locker rooms, meeting rooms, weight training, sports medicine and equipment.
As part of NDSU’s “In Our Hands” capital campaign, the athletic department raised more than $140 million of the university’s $520 million over a five-year period to support various athletic facilities and program needs. The athletic department’s endowments saw significant growth with scholarship endowments reaching $65 million and operational endowments growing to $45 million.
After committing NDSU to fully funding all 16 sports with scholarship increases in men’s track and field, men’s golf and baseball to the NCAA maximums early in his time at NDSU, Larsen has continued to develop a comprehensive financial support system for student-athletes in all sports, which includes full cost of attendance, academic performance awards, and name, image and likeness (NIL) opportunities.
Scholarships are supported by the Team Makers Club, which has grown to more than 4,000 members and $6 million dollars of annual support, and the Bison Pride Fund was established to increase annual giving and help cover the full cost of attendance with private dollars.
NDSU added the Graduating Champions Fund in 2024-25 to offer educational-related financial awards to all student-athletes based on academic performance. Supported by an endowment and other annual, private donations, the Graduating Champions Fund provided more than $1.5 million to student-athletes in its first year.
Larsen negotiated new television and radio partnerships in 2016 that included a $1.2 million TV contract for continued statewide coverage of Bison football and launched the new Bison 1660 radio station for year-round NDSU programming and daily talk shows.
In 2020, NDSU outsourced its multimedia rights to Learfield under a 10-year contract providing increases in annual revenue to the athletic department and expanded TV coverage of men’s and women’s basketball to a statewide audience.
An extension of the multimedia rights agreement with Learfield will include a new NIL business manager position to facilitate name, image and likeness opportunities for student-athletes, who also have opportunities to engage with business and individuals through the NDSU Exchange, The Green and The Gold Collective, and The NIL Store for custom marketing and merchandising.
Larsen reorganized the NDSU athletic department staff to include a new deputy director of athletics and positions for internal operations, event operations, compliance, nutrition and mental health while also separating the duties of the business and ticket offices. He and six other senior administrators serve as sport supervisors to provide coaches and student-athletes with a direct line of daily support.
Larsen’s administrative team implemented a new student-athlete code of conduct to guide the department’s more than 400 student-athletes. NDSU also launched the annual “Green and Gold Gala” to celebrate the program’s many academic and athletic accomplishments.
NDSU’s eight men’s and eight women’s sports combined for an impressive 58 conference championships, as well as seven NCAA football national titles during Larsen’s tenure. In the classroom, NDSU student-athletes averaged a 3.425 GPA from 2020 through 2024, set a semester GPA record of 3.512 in the fall of 2024, and had 55 percent of student-athletes make the Dean’s List with 3.5 or better GPA over those 10 semesters.
On the national scene, Larsen served as chair of the NCAA Division I Softball Committee for the 2021 season to close out a four-year term on the committee. He followed that with four years on the NCAA Division I Football Committee and served as chair in 2024. He has also been a Missouri Valley Football Conference representative on the FCS Regional Advisory Committee.
Larsen graduated from Stony Brook in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences. He was a three-year starting wide receiver for the football team and earned academic all-district honors as a senior in 1995. He earned a master of arts and liberal studies degree from Stony Brook in 1998 while serving as a graduate assistant coach for the football program and athletic facilities.
He and his wife, Kristen, have three children, Emily, Matthew and Rylee.
