Dan Butterly is a nationally respected leader with more than 30 years of experience in Division I conference administration. His career has been defined by student-athlete advocacy, hands-on leadership, strategic growth and a willingness to make bold decisions in periods of change. Named commissioner of The Big West on May 4, 2020, he began his tenure on July 1, 2020, during one of the most disruptive periods in the history of intercollegiate athletics. Since then, Butterly has guided The Big West through significant transformation—strengthening the conference’s national profile, expanding opportunities for student-athletes and ensuring its member institutions have a meaningful voice in the future of Division I.
Working alongside The Big West Board of Directors, campus leaders and conference staff, Butterly helped modernize the conference’s operations and establish a clear strategic direction centered on competitive excellence, institutional collaboration and the student-athlete experience. He led comprehensive updates to the conference’s governance, financial systems, human-resources practices and sportsmanship policies while creating a culture grounded in transparency and communication. His weekly publication, This Week in The Big West, keeps presidents, athletics directors and campus leaders informed about the rapidly changing national landscape and the issues shaping the conference. His leadership style combines executive presence and direct engagement with an ability to build consensus and translate strategy into action.
A defining achievement of Butterly’s tenure has been the dramatic expansion of The Big West’s media presence. He negotiated a landmark agreement with ESPN that increased annual conference productions from approximately 60 events to more than 1,200 while generating a sixfold increase in media-rights revenue. The partnership created unprecedented national exposure for Big West institutions and made regular-season and championship competition available to fans across the country. Butterly also created The Big West Radio Network, which provides basketball championship coverage through SiriusXM and Westwood One, and helped develop additional linear and digital programming to showcase the conference, its institutions and its student-athletes.
Butterly has also elevated The Big West championship experience. He led the return of the conference’s women’s and men’s basketball championships to the Las Vegas Valley and negotiated the move to Lee’s Family Forum in Henderson, Nevada, where The Big West staged the first sporting event in the venue’s history in March 2022. The agreement has since been extended through 2030. Under his leadership, The Big West added championships in women’s volleyball, baseball and softball, introduced men’s water polo as a conference sport and expanded broadcast coverage across its championship portfolio.
Strategic membership growth has been another hallmark of Butterly’s leadership. After welcoming UC San Diego and Cal State Bakersfield as full members at the outset of his tenure, he led an expansion process that brought California Baptist University, Sacramento State University and Utah Valley University into The Big West beginning in 2026–27. He has also advanced affiliate partnerships designed to protect automatic qualification, strengthen Olympic-sport competition and preserve meaningful championship opportunities throughout the West.
Butterly has consistently placed student-athletes at the center of conference decision-making. He helped establish Big West Undivided, the conference’s first standing committee focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, with student-athletes serving alongside administrators and coaches. He and the conference staff also developed education, disclosure and monitoring resources to help member institutions and student-athletes navigate the changing name, image and likeness environment. His broader leadership philosophy emphasizes service, integrity, accountability and the belief that the strongest decisions are made with—and not merely for—the people they affect.
At the national level, Butterly stepped forward during a period of constitutional reform and structural change to ensure The Big West and similarly situated conferences had representation in the rooms where consequential decisions were being made. He served on the NCAA Division I Council from 2021–25 and on the Council Coordination Committee, the Council’s executive body. From September 2025 through September 1, 2026, he served on the NCAA Division I Cabinet and its Cabinet Subcommittee. Butterly also served on the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee from 2021 through September 1, 2026, including as vice chair beginning in 2022 and chair from October 2024 through the conclusion of his term. His additional NCAA service has included the Men’s Basketball Competition Committee, the NIL Working Group, the Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee Administrative and Legislative subcommittees, and the College Basketball Academy Working Group.
Through the Collegiate Commissioners Association, Butterly served as vice president for Division I from 2022–25 and chaired both the association’s non-FBS football and non-football conference groups. He also led a coalition of conferences that lacked representation on key NCAA governing bodies, advocating for broader participation and voting equity within Division I. His work reflects a long-standing commitment to protecting access, opportunity and broad-based athletics programs while helping college athletics develop a more stable and sustainable national framework.
Basketball has been a central thread throughout Butterly’s career. Before joining The Big West, he spent more than two decades at the Mountain West, ultimately serving as senior associate commissioner and the conference’s primary administrator for men’s basketball and the women’s and men’s basketball championships. His portfolio included scheduling strategy, officiating, instant replay, game management, broadcast coordination, data and analytics, sponsorships, licensing and championship operations. He worked extensively with national and regional media partners, including CBS, Fox and NBC Sports Network/Comcast, and with corporate-rights partners including Learfield and JMI Sports. The Mountain West Basketball Championships became nationally recognized as a first-class event, and Butterly’s work on competitive-improvement strategies helped lay the foundation for the league’s later basketball success.
Butterly began his conference career at the Missouri Valley Conference, joining the staff as a marketing intern in 1993 and advancing to assistant commissioner. He directed marketing, sponsorship, licensing and championship promotion; helped lead the conference’s rebranding as “The Valley”; and managed the men’s basketball championship during a period of substantial attendance and revenue growth. Across his career, he has administered more than 70 conference and NCAA championships and exempt tournaments and served in leadership roles at NCAA championship events, including the 2012 NCAA Women’s Final Four and multiple NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship first- and second-round and regional sites.
A native of Washington, Illinois, Butterly earned his bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University, where he began his athletics career as head basketball manager under Bob Bender. He earned a master’s degree in sports administration from Ohio University and was selected by his peers as the program’s Outstanding Graduate Student. His honors include Illinois State’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award, induction into the Washington Community High School Hall of Fame and the Illinois State University
College of Applied Science and Technology Hall of Fame, and the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ 2026 Cliff Wells Appreciation Award.
Butterly and his wife, Alaine, also an Illinois State graduate, reside in Colorado Springs. Their daughter, Jessica, is an Ohio University graduate who currently works for The Team (formerly Wasserman) and is pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Florida.