Austin Christensen serves as the Director of Athletic Communications at the University of Idaho, where he leads communications efforts for Vandal football, women’s basketball, women’s tennis, and the Idaho Athletics communications intern program. He is also the primary publisher for @Idaho_Vandals and @idahovandalsfb on all platforms, and the primary manager of GoVandals.com. Since joining the Vandals in early 2025, Christensen has driven one of the most significant digital-branding surges in the Big Sky Conference. He oversaw the content creation and social media campaign for the nationally recognized Fightin’ Taters rebrand, generating over $7 million dollars in earned media value, leading Homefield Apparel in sales upon launch, and reaching an audience of more than 200 million people. Shortly after his arrival in Moscow, Christensen served as the Assistant Media Director for the 2025 NCAA Women’s Basketball Super Regionals, coordinating more than 200 volunteer shifts.
Christensen has engineered a dramatic rise in Idaho’s digital footprint. In less than a year in Moscow, Christensen led the accounts to garner 50 million impressions, and accumulating 1 million interactions. In that same time frame, he oversaw an increase of post impressions on Instagram and X by 20,000%, post reach by 8,500%, and comments/replies by 5,800%. He developed a new strategy for Idaho’s YouTube presence, giving more variety in content, which resulted in viewership growth of more than 1,000%, watch-time gains of 758%, and a 544% increase in subscribers.
Prior to Idaho, Christensen served as Associate Director of Athletic Communications at Clemson University, where he was the primary contact for women’s basketball. During his time with the Tigers, he helped transform the Tigers’ digital presence by increasing social media engagements by 119%, weekly interactions by 114%, and video views by 96% year over year. Clemson’s Instagram following grew by 44%, becoming the sixth-fastest growing account in the nation, and his work generated tens of millions of impressions and engagements—valued at roughly $500,000 in social reach.
No stranger to the Big Sky Conference, Christensen spent four years at Weber State, directing creative content for all six ticketed sports while serving as primary contact for softball, volleyball, and women’s basketball. Under his leadership, Weber State football’s social channels ranked as high as third in the nation in engagement, and both softball and volleyball grew their social followings by more than 60%.
Christensen began his sports media career working NBA and college basketball broadcasts for the Utah Jazz and other teams, ultimately serving as executive producer for Jazz radio broadcasts on the organization’s flagship station. A United States Air Force veteran, he was an honor graduate from Basic Military Training graduated with honors as a Chinese linguist from the prestigious Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.
He manages the Athletics Communications interns and has transformed the internship program to help student-workers be job ready upon their graduation.
A native of Salt Lake City, Christensen graduated summa cum laude with his bachelor’s degree in applied management from Grand Canyon University. He is fluent in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese. He lives on the Palouse with his dog.
