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"Big Collegiate Sports" vs All
Other Sports
This page will accumulate information on
the costs (and losses) of maintaining "big collegiate sports" at the
expense of all others
RELATED STORIES:
Football's
unlevel playing field (Interesting - In 2003-04, three of college football's five biggest losing
programs were MAC programs.)
Florida
also tops Ohio State in profits (Ohio State football is a veritable cash machine, but
lavish spending leaves it with a modest profit margin by college football
standards.)
Sports_Professor's
Blog (Regression analysis, quantitative efforts, and research integrity
may be required.)
The headline below sounds good; however, read to
the end to find out what experienced university admissions managers have to say
about the effect of athletic success on school admissions.
by David Hirning
Quick, what do all these schools have in common: Duke
University, the University of Kentucky, UCLA, and the University of Kansas?
If you answered, "They all have famous college basketball
programs," go to the head of the class. These are fine universities, to
be sure, but to millions of people around the country they are simply known
as the mighty Blue Devils, Wildcats, Bruins, and Jayhawks. All have won
multiple national championships and are regulars in the NCAA postseason
basketball tournament, an event so popular it is known simply as March
Madness.
But does athletic success translate into more and better applicants to the
school? Can a university turn a top ranking in Sports Illustrated
into a lofty rating in U.S.News & World Report? Well, yes and no.
As the following stories show, athletic glory can give a school a burst of
good publicity, but in the long term it is academic excellence that matters
to most students (and employers).
Champions in two major college sports
This sports-publicity phenomenon was highlighted when
the University of Florida won both the NCAA football and men's basketball
titles in the last year. This unprecedented feat generated a tidal wave of
media coverage and accolades for the school.
"We don't have any empirical evidence showing that athletic success
leads to an increase in applicants," says Zena Evans, admissions
director at the school. "But any type of national exposure such as
championships can have a positive impact on applicants. Sports tend to get
more publicity than other types of events because they cut across a variety
of different parts of society."
Evans notes that applications this year total more than 25,000, a 9 percent
increase over the previous year and the largest number the school has
received in "quite some time." The jump has forced her staff to
put in some long hours, perhaps one of the few groups at the university that
isn't completely happy with all the attention.
Cinderella story
At the opposite end of the spectrum from Florida is
George Mason University, a school of about 29,000 students located in
Fairfax, Virginia. A year ago, most people outside the area probably knew
little about the school or hadn't even heard of it. As for sports, George
Mason was about as far from an athletic powerhouse as you could get.
All that changed on March 26, 2006, when the school's basketball team beat
the University of Connecticut to reach the Final Four. Suddenly, everyone
was talking about the Patriots, a huge underdog and great story. The
national media and millions of college basketball fans clamored for details.
Everyone wanted to know, Exactly where and what is George Mason?
Although the team didn't win the national title--losing to Florida in the
semifinals--it created a flood of good publicity for the school. In
particular, head coach Jim Larranaga became a tireless ambassador for George
Mason, talking up the university at every opportunity.
"I owe a big debt to Coach Larranaga," says George Mason
admissions director Andrew Flagel with a laugh. "The Final Four brought
our school an incredible amount of publicity, which gave us more name
recognition with potential students. It also gave our students a lot of
pride and excitement." Flagel says applications have gone up a whopping
24 percent in the year since the basketball team's magical run.
The Flutie Effect
Flagel and several other admissions directors around
the country call such a publicity windfall from sports "the Flutie
Effect." This refers to the surge in attention that Boston College
received in 1984, when the school's football team pulled off a miraculous
comeback in a nationally televised game against the University of Miami.
Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie went on to win the prestigious
Heisman Trophy, and suddenly the college was the talk of the country.
Although Boston College received a big boost in applications from all the
hype, some of the same officials noted that the following year the number of
applications went right back down again.
"The Flutie Effect is actually kind of a myth," says David L.
Warren, the president of the National Association of Independent Colleges
and Universities and a self-professed sports fan. "It's often just a
one-year bump in applications, and it also doesn't increase the quality of
the applicant pool. Ultimately, it doesn't change the profile of the
institution."
Warren admits that some schools can sustain their increased popularity if
their sports team stays at a high level and continues to generate publicity.
He cited Gonzaga University, a small Jesuit school in Spokane, Washington,
that saw its men's basketball team rocket to prominence in the late 1990s.
"Gonzaga's president has done a great job of using the basketball
success to raise his school's visibility," Warren says. He also notes
that the corresponding big jump in revenue--both from the team itself and
from increased alumni giving--allowed Gonzaga to build a swanky new
on-campus arena.
The rise of the Blue Devils
Another notable exception to the Flutie Effect
occurred two decades ago at Duke University. Duke, located in Durham, North
Carolina, was a well-known regional school at the time but lacked national
name recognition. Then its basketball team, under young coach Mike
Krzyzewski, made it to the NCAA Final Four six times from 1986 to 1992,
including two consecutive national titles. Suddenly the Duke name was all
over the national media, and high school students everywhere took notice.
"We've looked at this, and there does seem to be a related pattern
between the rise of the basketball program and increasing admissions in the
late 1980s," says Duke director of admissions Christoph Guttentag.
"It definitely increased our visibility. Now when we go to high schools
in North Dakota or Nevada or wherever, the athletic reputation is part of
what people know about us."
At least one high school guidance counselor has noticed the same thing,
citing Duke in particular. "I think the whole March Madness thing has
an effect on how students learn about different schools," says John
Vandermolen, a counselor at a high school in Bellevue, Washington. "The
schools in the tournament get so much publicity that it raises their profile
with students."
But Vandermolen and many of the admissions directors also say that athletic
success can only do so much. It may draw attention to the school, but it
doesn't make it better academically, which is the main factor that students
look at when choosing a college. In other words, it can get a school into
the conversation, but it doesn't seal the deal.
For confirmation of this, we may want to check back with George Mason
University in a few years. This season the basketball team fell one win
short of returning to the NCAA tournament. The clock may have struck
midnight for this Cinderella story, but it remains to be seen if the same
can be said for the school's future applicant pools.
About the Author
David Hirning is a freelance writer specializing in
educational issues. He worked for 15 years as a journalist and as an editor
for Encarta Encyclopedi
By Michael
Spinner
The debate surrounding Title IX is over. It's dead. It's long lost…and
nothing is going to change. As we learned this week with the University of
Oregon adding Women's Lacrosse as a varsity sport, the positives the law has
brought will continue. However, the negatives will as well. The University of
Oregon will never add men's lacrosse at this rate…nor will most Division I
schools.
There was, recently, a golden opportunity to create change that would have
been nothing short of wonderful in the college athletics world. It was called
the "Commission on Opportunity in Athletics" and for opponents of
the current interpretation of Title IX, it was a dream come true. 15
"experts" from the worlds of politics, athletics, and education; a
national tour where forums were held to express opinions on ways to change the
law that has done so much good yet so much bad at the same time; and a genuine
vote that would result in a recommendation to the Secretary of Education Rod
Paige on how to change the law.
It was all just a tease.
In the end, nothing was accomplished. While the panel did make some smaller
recommendations to alter Title IX, when it came to creating bona fide change,
the panel did nothing. In fact, the final vote for widespread reform that
would have caused a major controversy (but still accomplished something good)
ended in a 7-7 tie…the tie occurring because Commissioner Lisa Graham Keegan
was not present for the vote.
Commissioner Lisa Graham Keegan and Secretary of Education Rod Paige
How convenient.
So, the panel literally did nothing. They left the room on the final day with
no sweeping changes, no hope for sports such as men's lacrosse that have
suffered as a result of Title IX, and really all that we know for sure is that
Title IX is important to maintain but equally important to alter.
In other words, nothing has changed.
When it comes to a politically charged atmosphere where controversial
decisions could lead to swing votes to bring a different party to power,
nobody knows how to make non-actions look more meaningful than the Federal
Government of the United States of America. In this case, political leaders
may applaud the Commission for its efforts, and President Bush may speak
openly of his opposition to the current interpretation to Title IX, but
nothing is going to be changed. The courts won't touch Title IX, neither will
the government. Do sports such as men's lacrosse have any hope? Not on this
battlefield.
It's time to give up or define the new strategy; find the high ground again.
The Commission did bring to light the one aspect of college athletics that may
very well be the true stumbling block for the expansion of men's lacrosse. The
Title IX route did not work, men's lacrosse now has a new war for expansion to
fight against a new enemy…
Football.
More specifically, the forums held by the Title IX panel brought to light the
fact that overspending by Division I athletics departments is nearly every bit
as much to blame for the elimination of many men's sports and the lack of
expansion for men's lacrosse as Title IX. Many who testified pointed to the
outrageous amounts of money spent at big-budget Division I schools for sports
that ultimately lose money. Even the elite Division I institutions that send
football teams to bowl games lost money on the very post-season venture that
they are competing for and one member of the panel even said that some of the
BCS bowl teams lost money despite going to the biggest of bowl games. It's
hard to believe but between recruiting, travel, and equipment expenditures, a
football program can draw in upwards of 100,000 fans a game and still lose
hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Just incredible.
And for smaller Division I football schools, the losses are just as bad.
Recently, three members of the MAAC Conference (St. John's, Fairfield,
Canisius) dropped their football programs in cost-cutting efforts. St. John's
used this opportunity to specifically begin a men's lacrosse program and
Canisius has significantly upgraded the status of men's lacrosse at that
school. One must wonder how many other schools out there could add men's
lacrosse if only they saw the light.
Will lacrosse pundits out there convince schools to drop football to add
lacrosse? Probably not. Could a few economists "educate" school
administrators about how sports such as men's lacrosse are far more
financially feasible than football? Maybe.
It's plain and simple to see how much colleges can save by removing football
and adding lacrosse:
-
Tuition: The NCAA allows up to 88 football
scholarships to Division I schools with many offering between 40-65.
Basically, colleges do not make a dime off of tuition dollars for
football, and when you add to the mix the cost of recruiting a football
player (flying a recruit to campus, flying to a home town for a home
visit, etc.), schools actually lose quite a bit of money right up front on
their football players. For lacrosse, with the NCAA scholarship max at
12.5 (with most Division I schools offering less than that), schools tend
to make quite a bit of money off of their lacrosse players right up front.
And while official visits and home visits do happen in men's lacrosse, the
number and frequency are not nearly as massive as football.
-
Staff: Here's where some money is saved. Division I
Football National Champ Ohio State has more than 20 full-time members of
its coaching staff. Defending Division I Lacrosse Champ Syracuse has
three. If the National Championship is the goal of an institution, it
seems that lacrosse is a far more financially feasible possibility.
-
Travel: Granted, the expansion of men's lacrosse
would mean more travel for lacrosse programs, the massive amount of travel
for football programs is simply overwhelming. When football programs
travel to a game, they bring the immediate team and an entire entourage of
administrators, support personnel, etc. Lacrosse travel requires maybe an
SID and most Division I teams make most of their trips on buses.
St. John's, Fairfield, and others including the Big Ten's University of
Minnesota can attest that football is an institutional investment that can
lose lots of money. While lacrosse is certainly not a college cash-cow, it is
far more financially feasible and every bit as exciting as football. It may
just be a matter of making the information public.
Those who blame Title IX for the lack of expansion in NCAA men's lacrosse have
a valid point, but there is no longer a venue to fight Title IX. That war is
over. It's time for the next chapter in the fight for men's lacrosse, a new
battle over the use of what are limited resources for college athletics
programs. When it comes to gender-equity, there are not many willing to listen
to reason. When it comes to saving money, there are very few who will not.
Perhaps it is time to start talking about this new battle a little bit more.
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DROPPED
TEAMS
2006
Women's Lacrosse Team
Swimming
and Diving
and
Track
and Field
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