Andrew Roberts joined the Southwestern Athletic Conference staff as Assistant Commissioner in January of 2019. In 2025 he was promoted to the title of Associate Commissioner for External Relations and Strategic Partnerships.
In his current role within the Conference Office he serves as the primary point of contact for league external relations, promotions, strategic partnerships, marketing, corporate sponsorship deliverables, media relations, event broadcast, and digital/social media. He also serves as the primary event operations contact for all league sponsored championships.
Directing the successful implementation of league corporate sponsorship agreements has been a primary focus of Roberts during his time working with the conference. He works directly with the league’s marketing operations to oversee all new corporate sponsorship deliverables while also securing and negotiating media buys for league events.
In the summer of 2025 the league announced the creation of SWAC TV, an exclusive streaming platform that delivers users league athletics content across all 18 conference sponsored sports. A total of 45 league football games are scheduled to be streamed on SWAC TV during its inaugural broadcast season.
One of Roberts’ additional key responsibilities consist of assisting the league with fulfilling its media rights agreements as well overseeing all logistics and planning related to SWAC nationally televised games with the league’s exclusive broadcast partner ESPN.
Roberts works directly with ESPN to identify scheduling opportunities for league regular and postseason broadcasts while working with event production, operations and talent for league broadcasts in the sports of Football, Men's and Women's Basketball, Baseball, Softball, Volleyball and Women's Bowling.
The league has broadened its overall coverage on ESPN platforms since Roberts joined the staff. In 2019 the for the first time in history all SWAC Men’s and Women’s Basketball tournament games were carried live on ESPN3. Another historic first occurred in 2021 when all SWAC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament games (14) were carried live on ESPN3 and ESPNU (Men’s Championship Final).
During the summer of 2021 the league's annual football media day was carried live globally on ESPN3 for the first time in history. 2021 SWAC Football Media Day also saw the most media attendees in history with over 200 media members participating in the event in-person and virtually.
Since joining the league, the Southwestern Athletic Conference has also seen tremendous growth across all conference digital platforms including a 50 percent increase in the league’s social media followings on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Roberts also oversaw a full athletics website redesign in the Winter of 2020 that led to a 75 percent increase in site page views in addition to adding sponsorship elements that bolstered league corporate partners overall visibility.
The Southwestern Athletic Conference currently ranks as one of the leaders amongst its FCS peers as it relates to its following on Twitter. In the Summer of 2020, the SWAC was recognized by Skull Sparks (social media impressions tracking service) as having a 6
th place ranking in the total number of impressions among all NCAA Division I conferences which ranked the league ahead of the Big Ten (7
th), Big 12 (9
th) and Big East (12
th).
In 2021, Roberts led the migration of the league’s digital platform (SWAC Digital Network) to YouTube which increased the potential reach of league digital content to over 20 million subscribers of the platform. He's also the primary point of contact for identifying and booking broadcast talent and overall production for all SWAC TV and SWAC Digital Network content. In celebration of the league’s 100 Year Anniversary Roberts also oversaw the rebranding of the conference with a new official logo, implementation of updated style guide standards and the production of new conference event signage.
Roberts has also assisted the league with expanding SWAC member institution brand awareness and overall exposure via its partnership with ESPN in the sport of football. In the Spring of 2021, the league announced a television package that included the most games scheduled to be carried across the ESPN family of networks in league history (16). Additionally, in 2021 for the first time in league history two SWAC football teams played live on ESPN (Southern at Jackson State).
Balancing the league office’s annual media budget was another key initiative led by Roberts during his first year with the SWAC. The conference was able to cut annual media related expenses in half while simultaneously diverting portions of allocated spending to cost effective, innovative initiatives that enhanced league credentialing systems, conference wide voting platforms, event programs, graphic design, and digital broadcasts.
Aside from his role in the league office Roberts has also assisted the NCAA with its championship events having previously served as a media coordinator (2016 NCAA Final Four) and a media press conference moderator (2021 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament).
In addition, Roberts participates in annual NCAA workshops and meetings throughout the year while serving as the league's primary point of contact for the NCAA's Media Coordination Staff.
Roberts arrived to the league office after working with the Texas Southern University Athletics department from March of 2012 to January of 2019. In his role as Director of Sports Information at TSU he assisted with a variety of duties, including coordinating media interviews, overseeing the compiling of in-game statistics and producing athletics publications and digital content consisting primarily of social media/web graphics, media guides, game day programs and game notes.
Roberts also supervised the maintaining and updating of content on Texas Southern’s Official Athletics Website
www.tsusports.com. In addition to his day-to-day duties Roberts was instrumental in the increasing of social media followership for TSU Athletics’ Twitter and Instagram accounts.
Under his direction TSU’s Twitter followers quadrupled and in the fall of 2018 the Tigers’ following on Twitter surpassed the 20k mark. In 2018 HBCU media rankings for Athletics Department’s Twitter accounts ranked Texas Southern’s Twitter account as one of the top five accounts in the MEAC and SWAC highlighted by a second place ranking within the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
Roberts joined TSU after a three-year stint at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. While at UAPB Roberts assisted the department with marketing and development for all 16 sponsored sports at the University as well as marketing the entire athletic program to local businesses and corporate sponsors in efforts to generate revenue.
He also served as a member of the athletic department's executive staff serving as the Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Information. In addition to his marketing and media relations duties, Roberts was the lead department game operations administrator for all Golden Lions athletic home events.
Enhancing the graphics development and marketing areas of the program were key components to the growth of the UAPB Athletic Department during Roberts’ tenure. UAPB launched a redesigned athletics web page in 2011 (
www.uapblionsroar.com) which still serves as a “one-stop-shop” for all information pertaining to Golden Lions Athletics.
Roberts was honored as the 2024 Charles "Chuck" Prophet Wagon Master Award recipient for his exemplary years of service to the Southwestern Athletic Conference. That same year he was also named the 2024 HBCU Sports Conference Media Relations Director of the Year.
In 2025 Roberts was named the HBCU Sports Conference Media Relations Director of the Year for the second consecutive year.
Roberts began his career in athletics with the Prairie View A&M University Athletics department in 2003 serving in variety of roles including student assistant, graduate assistant, and Assistant Sports Information Director.
He completed his undergraduate degree in communications and marketing, while earning his masters in counseling.
Roberts is also a former member of the Black College Sports Information Directors Association (BCSIDA) and a current member the National Association of Collegiate Director of Athletics (NACDA).