NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua, who was a punter for the Fighting Irish football team, was named athletics director for Notre Dame, effective in 2024.
Bevacqua will join Notre Dame as special assistant to the president of athletics in July and will succeed Jack Swarbrick when he steps down in 2024.
Bevacqua is the third senior executive to leave Comcast-owned NBCU in less than three months. NBCU CEO Jeff Shell was fired because of an inappropriate relationship with a CNBC anchor in April. Ad Sales Chairman Linda Yaccarino left in May to become CEO of Twitter.
In a memo to staff, Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCU Television and Streaming, said Bevacqua was leaving the company to “take his dream job” at Notre Dame.
“Anyone who knows Pete will tell you that other than his family, Notre Dame is his next greatest love, and now he has been given the opportunity to have a huge impact on their stories sports program and the institution in general," Lazarus said.
Bevacqua’s direct reports at NBC Sports will report to Lazarus for the near term, the memo said.
Bevaqua joined NBCU in 2018 as president of the NBC Sports Group and was named chairman in 2020. He graduated from Notre Dame magna cum laude in 1993.
NBC has had a special relationship with the Fighting Irish, making an unprecedented deal to carry Notre Dame home football games starting in 1991. NBC’s current deal with Notre Dame–paying the school a reported $22 million a year, runs through 2025.
College football has gone through a number of changes with schools forming larger and larger conferences. NBCU last year made a deal to carry some Big Ten college football games and there has been talk of Notre Dame football, which is currently an independent, joining the Big Ten.
"At this time of great chaos and disruption in college athletics, it will be invaluable to have Pete join Jack and me in charting a future for Notre Dame athletics that allows our student-athletes to play at the highest level, enjoy a full student experience and earn a Notre Dame degree,” said Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins.
“Having come to know Pete over the years in his work at NBC Sports, I’m looking forward to welcoming him, his wife, Tiffany, and their children — Samantha, Arthur and Jake — to our campus community,” Jenkins said.
Before NBCU, Bevacqua was CEO of the PGA of America from 2012 to 2018. He earlier served as global head of golf at Creative Artist Agency, chief business officer for the USGA and managing director of the U.S. Open Championships. He began his career at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
“This is an unbelievable honor for me and a dream come true. With the exception of my family, nothing means more to me than the University of Notre Dame,” Bevacqua said. “As a Notre Dame alum, I have a keen understanding and deep appreciation of the lifetime, transformational benefit our student-athletes receive in a Notre Dame education, one that is unique and unlike any other institution in the world. I am so grateful to Father Jenkins, the Board of Trustees and, of course, Jack Swarbrick. Jack has become a true friend over the course of the past several years and I am looking forward to working alongside him and learning as much as I can from the person I admire and respect the most in college athletics.”
