Kim Mulkey to Rutgers? LSU ties and NIL strategy make the idea worth exploring

Kim Mulkey to Rutgers? LSU ties and NIL strategy make the idea worth exploring originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

When a historic program opens, speculation often begins with the biggest names. That reality now faces Rutgers.

After athletic director Keli Zinn moved on from head coach Coquese Washington, the Scarlet Knights found themselves conducting only the third coaching search for the program in more than three decades.

With that rarity comes an obvious question. Could Rutgers at least explore the possibility of hiring Kim Mulkey?

On the surface, the idea sounds unrealistic. Mulkey has LSU positioned as one of the premier programs in the sport and signed a massive 10 year, $32 million contract extension in 2023. She earns close to $3 million annually and continues to recruit at an elite level in the SEC.

Mulkey’s career has also been rooted in the South. She starred as a player at Louisiana Tech before building Baylor into a national champion and eventually returning home to Louisiana to lead Louisiana State University.

Moving to the Northeast at this stage of her career would represent a dramatic shift.

Still, Rutgers has a few unique threads that make the conversation at least worth acknowledging. The most obvious connection is leadership.

Athletic director Keli Zinn arrived in Piscataway last summer after serving as executive deputy athletic director and chief operating officer at LSU. During her time in Baton Rouge, Zinn helped oversee external operations and was instrumental in advancing the Tigers’ name, image and likeness strategy as LSU emerged as one of the most visible athletic departments in the country.

The school often refers to itself simply as “The Brand,” a reflection of its national prominence across multiple sports.

Zinn worked directly inside that ecosystem. Now she is attempting to build something similar at Rutgers.

Another development suggests the Scarlet Knights may be thinking more aggressively about the future of their athletic department. Rutgers recently created Scarlet Knight Enterprises, a new for profit arm designed to oversee multimedia rights, corporate partnerships, ticketing strategy and NIL initiatives, as reported by Amanda Christovich. Former NCAA executive Oliver Luck will serve as chairman of the board.

In the modern college sports landscape, where NIL resources often dictate recruiting power, that type of structure signals Rutgers wants to compete differently moving forward.

There is also a financial reality Rutgers cannot ignore.

Since joining the Big Ten Conference in 2014, Rutgers has reportedly operated at significant athletic department deficits. Even if the school were willing to invest heavily to restore women’s basketball to championship relevance, success in the sport alone would not dramatically change the department’s financial outlook.

Women’s basketball, even at the highest level, rarely functions as a direct revenue driver compared to football or men’s basketball.

But success can still elevate a department’s profile, strengthen donor engagement and reinforce the overall brand of an athletic program.

That philosophy is one Zinn understands well from her time at LSU.

There is also a geographic advantage Rutgers has rarely fully leveraged. Located just outside New York City, the Scarlet Knights sit within reach of Madison Avenue, one of the global centers of advertising, media and corporate marketing. In the NIL era, that proximity could offer unique opportunities for student athletes looking to build personal brands and secure endorsement partnerships.

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Rutgers has not always operated with that mindset.

But the combination of new leadership, evolving NIL infrastructure and access to one of the world’s largest marketing hubs could change the conversation about what the program can become.

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Whether that would ever be enough to lure Mulkey away from LSU remains a long shot.

Still, coaching searches often begin with ambitious questions. For Rutgers, a program searching for its next era, it may be worth asking one of the biggest.

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