Michael Alford - Vice President and Director of Athletics - Staff Directory

Staff Directory

Michael Alford

Title:
Vice President and Director of Athletics
Email:
Phone:
850-644-1079

As he approaches his fifth academic year as Vice President and Director of Athletics at Florida State University, Michael Alford has earned an impeccable reputation as one of the most visionary and effective leaders in collegiate athletics.

In four years of leadership of Seminole Athletics, Alford has deftly steered FSU through some of the most significant moments in its history. Through it all, he has provided dynamic leadership and transformative vision that has enabled the program to stand on firm footing as a national leader amidst the most turbulent period in the history of college sports.

The opening of the refurbished Doak Campbell Stadium and the Dunlap Football Center and the successful settlement of issues that have bolstered FSU's relationship with the Atlantic Coast Conference stand as testimony to Alford's skilled legislative advocacy for Seminole athletics on the conference and national levels. Alford has been in the center of a multitude of challenges at an inflection point in FSU's proud athletic history.

None of it would have been possible without the unparalleled alignment of FSU leadership, reflecting the institution’s confidence in Alford and his successful collaboration with FSU President Dr. Richard McCullough, FSU Board of Trustees Chairman Peter Collins, and the entire FSU community. That confidence has created valuable stability for Seminole Athletics, signified by a four-year contract extension for Alford completed in the summer of 2024.

Michael Alford

Through it all, FSU has enjoyed a resurgence of competitive excellence across the spectrum of sports teams as Alford has helped position Seminole athletics among the nation’s elite in terms of competitive excellence. Alford emerged as one of collegiate athletics’ leaders while remaining true to his primary objective – an unwavering commitment to student-athlete welfare.

That commitment produced measurable results by every metric within a solution-oriented, positive culture that places the student-athlete first in all pursuits. It’s evidenced, in part, by his direction of more than $500 million for projects to improve athletic facilities and fields over the last four years.

Alford is equally committed to the success of the student in the classroom resulting in the strongest consistent academic performance in athletics department history. FSU student-athletes established an all-time best cumulative grade-point average of 3.338 as a department in Spring 2025, continuing a trend of unsurpassed classroom performance over the last three years. That trend began in Fall 2022 when FSU’s cumulative GPA for all student-athletes eclipsed the 3.2 mark for the first time. The trend continued with a new record GPAs every successive year. During the Fall 2024 semester, every FSU team finished the term with a GPA of 3.0 or higher and all but one squad reached that level in Spring 2025.

Alford’s leadership has laid the groundwork to have FSU poised to be nationally elite in every sport. Eighteen of its 20 teams have advanced to the postseason both of the last two years with FSU finishing 12th in the 2023-24 Learfield Director's Cup standings measuring overall competitive excellence, the program's highest place since the 2018-19 academic year.

Forging immediate impact has been a consistent hallmark of Alford’s versatile administrative career with a variety of championship organizations including serving as CEO and President of Seminole Boosters, Inc. in 2020-21 before he was named to his current position on December 9, 2021. Under Alford’s leadership, Seminole Boosters added more than 2,000 new annual members, raised $15 million towards a new football operations center bringing the total commitments to over $55 million, and conceived and launched concepts to dramatically improve the fan experience at Doak Campbell Stadium.

Alford’s tenure has featured an enhanced commitment to FSU’s already significant investment in the success of both female and male athletes. In addition to onboarding a women’s lacrosse team that debuts in early 2026 - and building a new stand-alone women’s lacrosse stadium - the last three new competition facilities built by FSU have been for women’s sports: beach volleyball, soccer, and softball. FSU also is planning a new beach volleyball competition and operations facility, which will include team building with coaches’ offices, home and visitor locker rooms, a team lounge, an auxiliary training room, an equipment room, and other features.

The 2023 MLK Community Champion Award honoree by the MLK Foundation of Florida Inc. and the Civic Council of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, Alford has prioritized enhancing FSU Athletics' positive role in the community.

FSU’s competitive successes are fueled by financial investments in student-athletes. That investment into female student-athletes sets the pace in the ACC and ranks among national leaders across the board. Overall budgetary support for women’s teams ranks among national leaders with several women’s teams leading the ACC in overall budgetary support. Florida State’s longstanding commitment to women’s sports was also evidenced by the beginning of the “Elevate Champions” campaign in 2023, a five-year fundraising goal intended to provide $75 million of financial support for facilities, athletic scholarships and Coaches Clubs specifically for FSU’s women’s teams.

Over three decades in intercollegiate athletics and professional sports, Alford has held positions with the Dallas Cowboys, the University of Alabama, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Southern California, the Cincinnati Bengals and at Central Michigan University, where he served as Associate Vice President and Director of Athletics at from 2017-20.

At Central Michigan, Alford led the most successful fundraising period in its athletics history. Alford hired eight coaches at CMU, four of whom went on to win conference coach of the year honors in their first two seasons. He also guided the renegotiation of CMU Athletics’ apparel contract which resulted in a 600 percent revenue increase; spearheaded an all-time high in Chippewa Athletic Fund memberships; and oversaw the department’s fundraising record in 2018-19 by eclipsing by 50 percent the mark set in 2017-18. He also spearheaded the fundraising and project oversight for the Chippewa Champions Center completed in 2021.

From 2012-17, Alford was the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Development and Administration at the University of Oklahoma where he oversaw the Sooner Club, the principal fundraising arm of OU Athletics. Alford led the Sooner Club to records for annual giving and memberships while also playing an integral role in the $160 million capital campaign for the renovation of the Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium and the university’s football facility. Alford also provided administrative oversight of the men’s basketball program (which advanced to the NCAA Final Four in 2016), the men’s tennis program (which finished as runners up for the NCAA Championship three times) and the Sooners' women’s tennis program.

Before joining Oklahoma, Alford was Senior Director of Corporate Partnerships and Sales for the Dallas Cowboys (2008-12). With the Cowboys, he cultivated corporate relationships that resulted in more than $400 million in contractual revenue for the club while managing all aspects of programming for Cowboys Stadium.

Prior to joining the Cowboys, Alford was the General Manager of Crimson Tide Sports Marketing at the University of Alabama (2004-08). Responsible for the management of media rights for Alabama Athletics, he provided oversight for all aspects of sales and marketing, including corporate sponsorships, radio and television, sports marketing, and web-based revenue. He was also involved in contract design and negotiations, hiring of coaches, and the management and enhancement of ancillary revenue streams – including licensed apparel, merchandising contracts and concessions.

Earlier, Alford worked at ABC Broadcasting in Los Angeles, where he provided oversight of sports sales for both the Anaheim Angels and Los Angeles Kings radio networks. Before ABC, he was Associate Athletics Director at the University of Southern California, where he oversaw all aspects of marketing, corporate sales and media contract negotiations.

Alford’s first position in professional sports was Corporate Sales Executive with the Cincinnati Bengals. In that role, he was actively involved in all facets of the planning, construction and corporate sponsorship for Paul Brown Stadium. In addition, he provided oversight for Ticket Marketing, Group Sales and Hospitality. His first position in Intercollegiate Athletics was at the University of Cincinnati as Assistant Director of Marketing.

Alford played baseball at Mississippi State before transferring to the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB), where he earned a bachelor’s degree in communication in 1993. He received a master’s degree in athletics administration from the University of Arkansas in 1995.

Alford’s wife, Laura, is a former collegiate volleyball student-athlete at the University of Hawai’i and a former Division I head volleyball coach. The Alfords have three daughters: Audrey, Ashley and Anna Leigh.