Here’s what FanWord partners are doing with the time they save every week.

July 14, 2026

On average, college sports communications departments that use FanWord Assist save 7 to 10 hours per week.

Those are the numbers reported from the 215 schools and conferences that use our platform.

But those numbers only tell half of the story.

What actually happens to those hours? Where do they go?

Across our partner schools — from big-name Division I programs with large staffs to single-person small college operations — a pattern keeps emerging.

When communicators stop spending time on repetitive tasks like writing and editing hundreds of game recaps and creating other content from scratch, they can focus on other high-impact responsibilities. They fill that space with the work they always wanted to be doing but couldn’t reach. The work that makes programs stronger, communities more engaged, and athletes more visible — work that positively impacts a department’s larger strategic objectives, from recruiting and donor engagement to brand reputation and fan connection.

Or they’re able to head home before midnight.

Here are four examples of what that looks like in practice, backed by six FanWord Assist partners:

• University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane
• UT-Chattanooga Mocs
• Stetson University Hatters
• Florida Southern College Mocs
• Hamline University Pipers
• Kansas City Kansas Community College Blue Devils

1. They go deeper on storytelling.

Game recaps are important. And always will be. After all, they document what happened, and are often the only historical write-up of a game. But features, profiles, and long-form stories for athletes, coaches, and alumni are what build a department’s identity over time — and connect programs to the people who support, donate, and care about them.

This type of storytelling is usually the first thing that gets neglected when the year gets busy.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is one example of what’s possible when a communications team has room to go deeper. Meet The Mocs (meetthemocs.gomocs.com) is a dedicated storytelling hub — built on FanWord — that the department uses across multiple content categories and audiences.

Student-athlete features anchor the site:

• Kalifa Ford, a women’s basketball player who returned after pregnancy and went on a 27-game winning streak to earn All-American honors, tells her story in her own words.
• Chase Artopoeus, a transfer quarterback who documented exactly why he chose UTC over other options.
• Josh Jones, a walk-on who became a published NIL author and wrote about his unlikely journey.

These are stories that reflect the entire department’s mission back to donors, alumni, and the community. But Meet The Mocs isn’t just for athletes.

When UTC extended its apparel rights agreement with adidas — a deal Vice Chancellor for Athletics Mark Wharton described as putting the program at the top of the FCS in terms of apparel partnerships — the announcement came directly from Wharton himself, published on the platform.

Consistent storytelling on one platform carrying athlete profiles, introductions, and AD-level announcements — all telling the same story about what UTC Athletics is building.

At the University of Tulsa, Associate AD for Content & Communications Travis Rae used the capacity he gained back from FanWord Assist to expand into content his department had wanted to produce for years. With FanWord handling the first-draft volume, his team could spend more time on other valuable work that move the needle for program storytelling.

“We’ve focused on content plans to help promote our teams on social media and we’re trying to become more efficient on social because of the ever-changing world of collegiate athletics,” Rae said. “We know social media is the front door to our athletic department for our teams, and we want to showcase everything we can.”

At Kansas City Kansas Community College, Charlie Martin put the time toward something he’d been thinking about since taking the job: consistent, meaningful features on two-year college student-athletes who rarely get coverage beyond the box score. The games were being covered. Now the athletes, coaches, and their programs could get that same regular coverage through series like KCKCC’s Blue Devil of the Month.

2. They stop playing catch-up.

For understaffed departments, the backlog is a constant presence.

While the recaps do get written, they may end up shortened or published with less-than-intended time spent. Social media content from three weeks ago that missed the moment and never got published. A missed moment in college sports can mean missed revenue, fundraising, or recruiting opportunities — and a backlog of unfinished work creates anxiety and it shows all over a department’s digital footprint.

At Stetson University, a Division I department where two full-time and one part-time employee cover all 18 teams, the postgame process used to swallow whole nights. “A game day and post-game was a lot of diligent note-taking,” said Ryan Marks, Assistant Director of Communications. “It would usually take me a couple hours at least, if not more. We were actually hiring somebody to take notes at some point during the game because we were so hands-on with stats.” With FanWord, that process collapsed. Marks now selects the stats and players he wants to highlight and moves quickly from box score to published recap.

Haley Jung, Director of Sports Information Programs at Hamline University, covers 20 sports as the primary communicator. With FanWord Assist, she went from managing triage to managing a legitimate content calendar. The gap between what happens on the field and what got published online closed significantly with FanWord Assist.

“It saves me a lot of time and stress where I would normally be up until ungodly hours of the night after getting home from games to finish recaps,” she said.

Eric Willuweit at Illinois Tech used the additional capacity to start building out player bios across their roster, a project that had been on the list for two years but kept getting pushed for more urgent priorities. With recaps no longer eating the majority of their content hours, the longer-term project finally had room.

When you’re no longer chasing yesterday, you can actually plan for tomorrow.

3. They cover sports well.

For departments managing 15, 18, or 20+ sport portfolios, coverage equity can be a legitimate challenge. The sports traditionally seen as “revenue sports” (like football and basketball) get the most attention. The Olympic sports and smaller programs often get what’s left. Not because the school doesn’t care about them, but because time and resources are scarce.

Stetson made a deliberate choice about how to spend the capacity it got back.

“It would be simple to use FanWord to create additional content for the sports that receive the most attention,” said Richard Kilwien, Associate AD for External Operations. “However, one of the benefits of the platform is the ability to efficiently create content that benefits sports that might not receive as high of a level of service.” For sports like volleyball, men’s and women’s golf, and other programs that usually get just a box score, they started getting features and visibility that go beyond the final recap.

Florida Southern’s team used the time savings to push consistent coverage across programs that had historically been underserved. That consistency showed up in two ways: sport-specific accuracy and staff-wide consistency. Volleyball content sounds like volleyball, not a generic recap with the sport name swapped in. And even when a sport’s primary SID was unavailable, FanWord Assist enabled everyone to jump in and maintain the same voice and standard.

That led to quicker turnaround times and a cascading effect on campus.

“It’s allowed us to even break down [our equipment in] the gym faster,” FSC’s Clay Roe explained. “Which our facilities people appreciate in the mornings. And then we have all three courts available for our basketball teams doing shoot-arounds during the day.”

For many departments, coverage equity is also a social media problem. When a communications team is stretched thin, the content that goes out right after a game — when interest is highest — often gets cut or delayed. Getting time back means being able to consistently publish photos, social posts, and quick-hit content that drive fan engagement and program visibility at the same time.

And when coverage is consistent across all sports, it compounds. Coaches in every program know their athletes will be represented. Student-athletes have a digital record of their careers. And the department’s external presence reflects what it’s actually doing, rather than a version of itself that shows up most for the more popular sports.

4. They take a breath.

Not every hour saved gets redirected into a new project. Some of it just makes the job more sustainable.

Athletics communications is a profession with a genuinely high risk of burnout. The hours are long, the visibility is low, and the volume of work is relentless.

The industry is feeling it.

According to the 2025 CSC Member Survey, the average athletics communicator works more than 50 hours per week, with many reporting significantly more.

Turnover is climbing.

As CSC Executive Director Jason Yaman put it: “We’re seeing a lot of really talented, hard-working, good people leave the industry. How do we stem the tide in that direction?”

The answer isn’t ever a single solution, but tools that reduce the mechanical volume of the job are part of it.

For a solo SID or a small department that doesn’t have to hand-write eight recaps on a Saturday night, they’re pushing toward sustainability. They’re people who stay in the profession long enough to develop mountains of expertise, institutional knowledge, and relationships that benefit the entire department.

And for larger departments, it’s about scale and balance. Even just a few short years ago, departments had to choose between producing levels of content that outpace the competition and navigating the burnout that comes with it. Now, thanks to AI-powered platforms like FanWord Assist, communicators don’t have to choose. Even better, the increased output now positively effects other areas, like fundraising and alumni engagement, to support the department’s strategic goals.

The payoff is concrete.

Departments are saving the equivalent of nearly 30 to 40 hours per month and in the case of Stetson’s Ryan Marks, he feels it. “I get a lot more free time in my personal life, which is great,” he said. “That work-life balance can be a struggle, so anytime I can get a few hours back in my day, that’s always great.”

The hours have always been there.

College athletics communicators have never lacked expertise or ideas. They lack time.

The feature stories they want to write, the athletes they want to profile, the workflow improvements they want to build — those ideas exist in every department. They just don’t have the bandwidth to act on them.

FanWord Assist is built to change that equation. Not by replacing the communicator, but by clearing enough runway that the communicator can do the job they actually signed up for.

Ten hours a week sounds like a number.

What it looks like is a sports information director with time to write a feature on a senior athlete before her last season ends. A two-person department that finally has consistent coverage across all programs. A first-year communicator who’s building confidence instead of burning out.

What would you do with 10 hours back?

Want to learn just how much time you’d save?

Our time savings calculator will calculate your total number of sports to determine the amount of time you’d get back by using FanWord Assist over the course of the school year.
➡️ FanWord Assist Time Savings Calculator

Take a deep dive into our series of case studies:
➡️ Division I: University of Tulsa and Stetson University
➡️ Division II: Florida Southern College
➡️ Division III: Illinois Tech and Hamline University
➡️ NJCAA: Kansas City Kansas Community College

See what FanWord can do for your communications team: 
➡️ Request a demo using the contact form below
➡️ Reach out to our CEO directly to talk through your team’s workflow