Does a successful athletic program benefit Universities?

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A successful athletics program can have some impact, as a marketing tool. That said, people are in this thread are overstating said impact.
Possibly, but Shalala rightfully gets credit for bringing a ton of money in, and you have to know she was pointing out our championship in 2001 and the stolen one from 2002.
 
What facts? I showed you the numbers. Alabama has been winning for over a decade, winning in a way none of us have ever seen before, and they are still over 300 schools behind Miami. Go look at the top 100 of the WSJ rankings, a lot of those schools haven't won anything in football in decades, if ever. In fact, a lot of those schools don't even try to play FBS football or D-1 sports in general. Outside of Michigan, Texas, and Florida, schools with such large alumni/donor bases that they can easily be top tier in both areas, a lot of schools in that top 100 nationally are schools that are also rans in athletics, if they even try to participate. Why? Because to quote the late Beano Cook "You can bankrupt yourself trying to win in football. You can completely destroy a school by going all in in football". College athletics, especially at the higher level basically requires insane fundraising, fundraising that gets spent down to the penny by the department. That's why a school like Texas, who actually cuts a check back to the University is so rare.

By the way, for those saying "Well those applications create interest". Yes, it does, and you can fudge your acceptance numbers by having a ton of kids you'll never accept apply, which makes you look selective. USNWR has that in their ranking algorithm, which again doesn't measure a **** thing about what goes on in the classroom. They also include alumni giving, which again, doesn't mean a **** thing in regards to academic rigor.

Someone earlier pointed out Clemson as some kind of case study.

Clemson's rank is 189th. They were a regional school before they started winning, they are still a regional school.
Auburn is 243rd.
LSU is 264th


Amazing how winning and success hasn't done much to lift those schools, while schools like Northwestern and Syracuse continue to be near the top, despite barely being relevant in football for decades on end.
How about you read any of the articles I posted in the OP. The evidence is irrefutable but you for whatever reason think you are smarter than everyone else and want to die on this hill.
 
A successful athletics program can have some impact, as a marketing tool. That said, people are in this thread are overstating said impact.
That's very much a relative term you just threw out there. The facts are people love the latest and greatest and big business and University football teams are no exception to the rule. This stuff has been looked at and overanalyzed for decades now. A brief history is in order.


Most sports fan knows about the “Flutie Effect.” Named after Doug Flutie, the Boston College quarterback who successfully threw a Hail Mary to beat Miami in a nationally televised game in 1984, the general idea is that college applications surge following athletic success.

The examples are virtually endless. Boston College saw a 30% jump in applications for the two years after Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary in 1984. Applications jumped 13% at Auburn after Cam Newton led them to a BCS national championship victory in 2011. And even Florida Gulf Coast saw a 27% increase in applications after advancing to the sweet 16 as a No. 15 seed in 2013.

Alabama is no different. When Nick Saban arrived at Alabama in 2007, they had a total enrollment of about 25,000 students.

That number has increased to almost 40,000 now, representing a 60% jump in enrollment and significantly outpacing the 10% increase that the average U.S. public college has seen over the same time period. An increase in total enrollment is great. It brings more money, more attention, and hopefully, more prestige to a university.
 
Possibly, but Shalala rightfully gets credit for bringing a ton of money in, and you have to know she was pointing out our championship in 2001 and the stolen one from 2002.
The kind of people that write huge checks to Universities for the academic side don't care that much about what the team does.

A University is like a family on a food budget. College athletics is that 200 dollar bottle of wine you keep in the pantry or some high end scotch. Yes, it's nice to have when company comes over, but you don't want to blow your entire food budget on it. Schools like Alabama, Clemson and others have an empty pantry, but that super nice bottle of wine. Miami has Dewar's, but a full pantry.
 
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The kind of people that write huge checks to Universities for the academic side don't care that much about what the team does.

A University is like a family on a food budget. College athletics is that 200 dollar bottle of wine you keep in the pantry or some high end scotch. Yes, it's nice to have when company comes over, but you don't want to blow your entire food budget on it. Schools like Alabama, Clemson and others have an empty pantry, but that super nice bottle of wine. Miami has Dewar's, but a full pantry.
It's possible to have both. All I said is you know she used it as a talking point. I didn't say it drove donations. It does raise the profile of the university, and that drives admissions, which allows more selectivity.

Can you have a great school and subpar football? Ivy League says yes. Can you have great football and a subpar school? Much of the SEC says yes.
 
It's possible to have both. All I said is you know she used it as a talking point. I didn't say it drove donations. It does raise the profile of the university, and that drives admissions, which allows more selectivity.

Can you have a great school and subpar football? Ivy League says yes. Can you have great football and a subpar school? Much of the SEC says yes.
Yes it is possible, but for that really nice bottle of scotch, you have to sacrifice some of your food budget. Some families have such huge food budgets, they can do both with no problem(Texas, Michigan,Penn State) Miami doesn't and barring someone in the family hitting the lottery, will likely never have that kind of budget.

Instead, Miami is thinking like Notre Dame, have a nice, but not spectacular bottle of scotch, but also have food to eat. The problem is that Miami does a **** poor job of recognizing a good, solid scotch. They go for the flashy bottle(Manny Diaz), instead of the solid, underrated brand(Bill Clark)
 
Yes it is possible, but for that really nice bottle of scotch, you have to sacrifice some of your food budget. Some families have such huge food budgets, they can do both with no problem(Texas, Michigan,Penn State) Miami doesn't and barring someone in the family hitting the lottery, will likely never have that kind of budget.

Instead, Miami is thinking like Notre Dame, have a nice, but not spectacular bottle of scotch, but also have food to eat. The problem is that Miami does a **** poor job of recognizing a good, solid scotch. They go for the flashy bottle(Manny Diaz), instead of the solid, underrated brand(Bill Clark)
I like Bill Clark too.

The problem starts at the BOT and it will be solved by hiring a strong AD. It's the same at every organization. A strong board and a weak C suite is a recipe for disaster.
 
UGA has passed Miami, in the US News and World Report rankings, the most useless rankings in existence. We've seen numerous times how those ranks can and do get gamed, mostly because the criteria has little to do with academic relevance or rigor. In other words, you are in the middle of a huge fundraising drive? You get bumped up. You play games with your admissions department to fudge your yield numbers? That's fine, here, have some rank points. I got curious and pulled up the Wall Street Journal rankings, you know, the ones formulated to do more than sell overpriced magazines and....


53: University of Miami

149th: University of Georgia

401-500: University of Alabama

By the way, of course a Bama centric rag would hype this up, they don't want to admit that their single minded emphasis on football actively screws over the 99% of the school that doesn't play, nor truly benefit from that program winning outside of having some fun fall Saturdays. Athletic departments love to push this narrative, because they need an excuse to justify their existence, although it's been shown time and time again that the elite schools are mostly out of the major college sports business. Think about it, outside of us, Southern Cal and Notre Dame, think of another top 100 private institution that has had consistent, championship level success in the sport in the last 40 years. Even when you look at the state schools that are well thought of in the top 100 of the rankings, they are few and far between. For every Michigan, for every Florida, there are bottom feeders like Clemson. Schools like Purdue and Georgia Tech are **** good, they are also rans in regards to sports. Ever notice that the top 100 institutions, look nothing like the AP Top 25? There's a reason why.
Totally agreed on the above.

It helped, but the impact has been overstated for decades by people who honestly don't have a **** clue what they are talking about, or are people that want to push a narrative.

Miami's rise as a school is more a result of the city's rise than the football program finding success. People forget that prior to the late 70s, the City of Miami and South Florida in general was closer to Birmingham, Alabama than LA, or NYC. There was little corporate money in the area, it was a place where old people came to die. As Miami started to expand(We can argue why the city started to expand, and whether that expansion was based on legal industries, hint: it wasn't), and corporations started viewing the city as the "Gateway to the Americas", people like Tad Foote and his development staff started getting their hooks into the corporations as the region's major University. They were able to fundraise based on that. That it happened to happen at the same time as the "Decade of Dominance" is coincidental. Frankly, there's a reason why Foote and Jimmy didn't get along, because Jimmy wanted Miami to be more of a jock school(Keep in mind, Jimmy spent the bulk of his collegiate coaching career coaching at places like OU and Arkansas), it made his life a lot easier, and Foote couldn't go along with that, because he had to answer to those donors and stakeholders that weren't going to go for that.

Dr. Shalala came along and continued what Foote and his staff had done, although she took it to a higher level, because she was able to use her immense political connections to forge new donor paths, there's a reason why the lady was able to raise BILLIONS for the University. Plural. BILLIONS.

People like the Millers aren't writing seven, eight and nine figure checks to the University, based on whether some random dude caught a pass, or tackled someone.
You're right about a lot of this, but the point that others are making is that kids are more likely to consider, apply, and enroll at schools with highly competitive athletics programs. It's a positive for exposure and campus culture. I don't think the point is even arguable.
 
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Totally agreed on the above.


You're right about a lot of this, but the point that others are making is that kids are more likely to consider, apply, and enroll at schools with highly competitive athletics programs. It's a positive for exposure and campus culture. I don't think the point is even arguable.
It's a positive(as a marketing tool) but you read what a lot of these posters are saying and that isn't the argument. They want to be Alabama so bad, they are drastically overstating the importance of college sports. If having a competitive athletics department was the end all be all, the Alabama wouldn't be ranked behind hundreds of schools that barely have athletic departments.

Miami should have a well managed, competitive athletic department(if you are going to do something, at least try to be decent at it) but let's not pretend that the school can't survive and thrive without it.
 
I like Bill Clark too.

The problem starts at the BOT and it will be solved by hiring a strong AD. It's the same at every organization. A strong board and a weak C suite is a recipe for disaster.
Blake has to go. That said, there's a ceiling, thanks to how the sports world has changed. I'm fine with Miami being a 9-11 win per year team that wins the Coastal most years and sneaks into the playoff every once in awhile. Our fanbase wants the Decade of Dominance and that's not happening, unless someone steps up and spends heavily. Even then, it's likely that it gets found out.
 
What facts? I showed you the numbers. Alabama has been winning for over a decade, winning in a way none of us have ever seen before, and they are still over 300 schools behind Miami. Go look at the top 100 of the WSJ rankings, a lot of those schools haven't won anything in football in decades, if ever. In fact, a lot of those schools don't even try to play FBS football or D-1 sports in general. Outside of Michigan, Texas, and Florida, schools with such large alumni/donor bases that they can easily be top tier in both areas, a lot of schools in that top 100 nationally are schools that are also rans in athletics, if they even try to participate. Why? Because to quote the late Beano Cook "You can bankrupt yourself trying to win in football. You can completely destroy a school by going all in in football". College athletics, especially at the higher level basically requires insane fundraising, fundraising that gets spent down to the penny by the department. That's why a school like Texas, who actually cuts a check back to the University is so rare.

By the way, for those saying "Well those applications create interest". Yes, it does, and you can fudge your acceptance numbers by having a ton of kids you'll never accept apply, which makes you look selective. USNWR has that in their ranking algorithm, which again doesn't measure a **** thing about what goes on in the classroom. They also include alumni giving, which again, doesn't mean a **** thing in regards to academic rigor.

Someone earlier pointed out Clemson as some kind of case study.

Clemson's rank is 189th. They were a regional school before they started winning, they are still a regional school.
Auburn is 243rd.
LSU is 264th


Amazing how winning and success hasn't done much to lift those schools, while schools like Northwestern and Syracuse continue to be near the top, despite barely being relevant in football for decades on end.
and Notre Dame, Stanford?..
 
and Notre Dame, Stanford?..
Stanford hasn't been relevant in football on a national level for most of the last half century. They have had runs of success, bit they can't sustain it or cash in for titles. Stanford puts most of their resources into the Olympic sports, which our fans dont give a **** about. Notre Dame is similar to Miami, but they finally made a good hire in Kelly. Even then, they have a ceiling.
 
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Stanford hasn't been relevant in football on a national level for most of the last half century. They have had runs of success, bit they can't sustain it or cash in for titles. Stanford puts most of their resources into the Olympic sports, which our fans dont give a **** about. Notre Dame is similar to Miami, but they finally made a good hire in Kelly. Even then, they have a ceiling.
Fair enough, i was actually referring to the balance of Academia & Athletics.
They have handled it in a realistic manner..
 
No debate. Zero. Success on the football translates to positive revenue growth for any school. The UM simpletons want to argue that? Lol, well there in lies one of many problems.
#Dumbasses
 
Stanford hasn't been relevant in football on a national level for most of the last half century. They have had runs of success, bit they can't sustain it or cash in for titles. Stanford puts most of their resources into the Olympic sports, which our fans dont give a **** about. Notre Dame is similar to Miami, but they finally made a good hire in Kelly. Even then, they have a ceiling.


Stanford University has the third-largest endowment (27.7 billion before the pandemic) among all American universities. Yet, when the COVID pandemic hit their AD immediately announced in early 2020 they were eliminating 11 of 36 sports from their athletics department as they adjust to the financial realities of the global pandemic upon college athletics.

For a university like Stanford, a Power 5 member of the Pac 12 conference, to evoke such sweeping changes at the first sign of the pandemic signifies just how financially grave the current and short-term future outlook is for college athletic programs and the revenue available to maintain them.

Football success is very, very important to one and all in the grand scheme of things.
 
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Just as the Bama message boards think its laughable to discuss UM football in the same vein as Bama football, so to should a UM message board think it is laughable to discuss Bama academics. There is no comparison. I’m sauté there are smart kids at Bama who are on academic scholarship, but the average student at Bama was not a good high school student. Want proof. At my kids’ high school in Atlanta, the kids who cannot get accepted into any other 4 year university go to Alabama.

UGA is a legit academic competitor to UM. I know kids who applied to both schools. UGA’s advantage and why it’s improved so much is that the Hope Scholarship and Governor’s Scholarship have made it almost free to attend. As a results lot of great Georgia high school students remain in state for college.

None of this has anything to do with the football team. Sports are a nice diversion for good students.
 
Just as the Bama message boards think its laughable to discuss UM football in the same vein as Bama football, so to should a UM message board think it is laughable to discuss Bama academics. There is no comparison. I’m sauté there are smart kids at Bama who are on academic scholarship, but the average student at Bama was not a good high school student. Want proof. At my kids’ high school in Atlanta, the kids who cannot get accepted into any other 4 year university go to Alabama.

UGA is a legit academic competitor to UM. I know kids who applied to both schools. UGA’s advantage and why it’s improved so much is that the Hope Scholarship and Governor’s Scholarship have made it almost free to attend. As a results lot of great Georgia high school students remain in state for college.

None of this has anything to do with the football team. Sports are a nice diversion for good students.
And yet the discussion is still about how athletic success in football translates to financial success for the entire University. It's still big business and it is still about making money. Feelings of academic superiority aside.

For the University of Alabama, it isn't just that student attendance has increased exponentially. But the type of student matters much more than just a number. And translates into cold hard cash.

Not only has Alabama increased its annual enrollment by about 60%, but the overall composition of its student body has significantly changed also. For example, when Nick Saban arrived in 2007, the majority of Alabama’s freshmen class was composed of students paying in-state tuition. Today, only about 40% of the university students are from Alabama, with over 56% coming from elsewhere in the United States, and the remaining 4% is international.

That’s important for several reasons, but mostly financially. Alabama’s out-of-state enrollment increased from about 12,000 students in 2011 to more than 22,000 students in 2020.

Those students pay about 3x more in annual tutuion than an in-state student — $30,000 vs. $10,000 — which means that 10,000 additional students paying $20,000 annually is worth about $200 million to the universtiy (10,000 x $20,000 = $200M).

Fact is, Alabama will cover a portion of that through scholarships, like everyone else, but even if you take 50% of it away, that’s still $100 million. Also, don’t forget that students pay tuition annually, meaning that Alabama now reaps this ~$200 million benefits every year regardless of its athletic performance.
 
If you knew some of the people who you’re lecturing to on here on certain things, it would be even more entertaining.

I don’t know shît about Clemson but since I threw it out there, I looked - their applications increased 86% between 2008-2018. Is that par with every other school? As for Bama, like Clemson, the interest in those schools is definitely up with their programs. Doesn’t mean they’ve capitalized on it academically.
Lol at academic rankings. School names don’t really matter as much outside of the top schools. If two people apply for the same job with the same skill set and experience with the big difference being one went to Miami and the other to Alabama, I can guarantee the academic ranking of those schools doesn’t even factor into the hiring decision. Now if one of them went to Harvard or duke, that’s a different story.
 

Does a successful athletic program benefit Universities?​


this is like asking if a great set of **** benefits a woman ! of course it does !
 
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