14 ms·

With respect to the sports, the association of sports with universities is a historical quirk of the United States and partially an extension of what we inherit

by JackFr 4y ago

With respect to the sports, the association of sports with universities is a historical quirk of the United States and partially an extension of what we inherited from the British system. That being said —- two further points: The budgets of public universities sports teams are to a large extent driven by the people who pay for them, that is taxpayers. The people of Alabama, Texas, Ohio and Louisiana very much want competitive sports teams and are happy to pay. The second is that a competitive sports programs can drive a university’s national profile. Two cases in point are the University of Connecticut whose academic profile, endowment and selectivity all improve dramatically as they became a basketball powerhouse, and Gonzaga University a small Jesuit school in Spokane had applications go up more than 300%, academic standards rise and their endowment more than double as they grew into a national basketball powerhouse.

cma 4y ago
> The second is that a competitive sports programs can drive a university’s national profile. Two cases in point are the University of Connecticut whose academic profile, endowment and selectivity all improve dramatically as they became a basketball powerhouse, and Gonzaga University a small Jesuit school in Spokane had applications go up more than 300%, academic standards rise and their endowment more than double as they grew into a national basketball powerhouse. These are still possibly negative sum academic acheivements though, some other universities necessarily dropped in the positional ranking and nearly all diverted more to sports.
csa 4y ago
> The people of Alabama, Texas, Ohio and Louisiana very much want competitive sports teams and are happy to pay. Iirc, the Texas and Alabama sports programs are self-funding and (when I last looked at it) contributed some amount of excess revenue to the university. Specially, the football and basketball programs are profitable at these schools, and these profits fund all of the other sports programs. I haven’t read a good research study on how sports performance impacts applicants and donations (esp. from alumni). That said, I know that admissions profiles at Alabama have gotten stronger (better grades and test scores) since Saban (a winning football coach) has been there, ostensibly due to an increase in the number of strong applicants from out of state.

by JackFr 4y ago

cma 4y ago

> The second is that a competitive sports programs can drive a university’s national profile. Two cases in point are the University of Connecticut whose academic profile, endowment and selectivity all improve dramatically as they became a basketball powerhouse, and Gonzaga University a small Jesuit school in Spokane had applications go up more than 300%, academic standards rise and their endowment more than double as they grew into a national basketball powerhouse. These are still possibly negative sum academic acheivements though, some other universities necessarily dropped in the positional ranking and nearly all diverted more to sports.

csa 4y ago

> The people of Alabama, Texas, Ohio and Louisiana very much want competitive sports teams and are happy to pay. Iirc, the Texas and Alabama sports programs are self-funding and (when I last looked at it) contributed some amount of excess revenue to the university. Specially, the football and basketball programs are profitable at these schools, and these profits fund all of the other sports programs. I haven’t read a good research study on how sports performance impacts applicants and donations (esp. from alumni). That said, I know that admissions profiles at Alabama have gotten stronger (better grades and test scores) since Saban (a winning football coach) has been there, ostensibly due to an increase in the number of strong applicants from out of state.