Athletics Investment in Shifting Enrollment Patterns

Athletics and Enrollment

Universities, in the past, have invested in athletics, to grow their overall popularity in both enrollment and national presence. Although national championships do not have a great impact of number of students who enroll in college, we see some increase in enrollment. The data shows small and steady increases in enrollment throughout most years, even those not following a national championship. There are even instances of decreases in student enrollment. Enrollment however seems to be controlled by the university and who they accept. Universities with proven athletic success, tend to be more selective in who they allow to accept into the university. They are able to do this because of the increased amounts of applications they receive. Universities with college basketball success tend to utilize the increased selectivity, whereas universities with football success tend to increase enrollment. Studies have found evidence that national championships do have a positive impact on the quality and quantity of applications submitted to the university. To research these connections I have chosen to analyze data from 1970-1990. I believe this time frame will give me enough usable data to prove my hypothesis. In particular I have chosen to use the 1976 national championship banner as my micro history item. To most people, especially Indiana Hoosier fans, national championship banners represent the utmost success from their respective years. In particular, the 1976 banner demonstrates this success even more due to the fact that team was the last to go undefeated and win the national title.

Winning and Enrollment

Among the schools I wished to examine, three of them (Indiana, UCLA, and Kentucky) won at least one national championship in the 1970’s. Indiana University and the University of Kentucky won a single championship while the University of California Los Angeles won five. Each school saw a slight increase in enrollment in the year following their championship. However, we see enrollment figures continue to rise and fall throughout the next several years. The similarities between the rise and fall of enrollment shows us that national athletic success does not directly affect student enrollment. Similar patterns can be seen by universities who won national championships in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Universities like Indiana, Duke, and North Carolina proved to demonstrate the same type of pattern following their success throughout the 20 year span. Evidence comes directly from the enrollment data history provided by each university. Research has shown there is indeed a connection between university success in athletics and quality and quantity of undergraduate applications. While this is true, there is no consistent pattern that shows an increase in student enrollment. Again, this can most likely be explained by the university limiting the number of students they choose to accept. Only a handful of universities allocate the resources for their team to reach the level of athletic success needed to see increased quality and quantity of applications. For basketball teams, it is going to the NCAA tournament and competing for a national championship. However, this cannot be achieved if the university does not devote a considerable amount of resources to that athletic program.

Popularity

Winning on a national level has proved to bring a university into the national spotlight. If a university is very successful in a given year, they are more than likely going to be mentioned more throughout all media platforms than their less successful counterparts. College athletics are now more than ever dominate the mass sports entertainment spectrum. The NCAA tournament generates more money than practically all other sporting events. With the amount of media exposure each team receives, they are able to market their brand more than ever. The Basking-in-reflected-glory theory suggests that people love to identify with a winner. Simply put, people desire to be affiliated and follow a team with proven success. Winning enhances the universities brand, and gives them the national exposer they desire. Each school displays their’ successes in a variety of ways.

Digital History Item

Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, IN, houses five national championship banners that represent the universities success from that given year. The year on each banner tells fans the particular season in which the Indiana University basketball team won the NCAA basketball national championship. Winning a championship illustrates that the team won the end of the year tournament and is considered that year’s basketball champion. The 1976 championship banner represents the last undefeated team in college basketball to win the national championship. The banners are just one way Indiana University displays its’ many successes.

Digital Portion

From using digital methods such as text mining of newspaper articles, one can find similarities and differences in how the media views different teams and athletic programs. In particular, one can examine how many times a university is mentioned comparted to another. These stats can give us a better understanding of how “popular” each university is. A university that is mentioned more times in the media, is expected to be the more popular university. Text mining can be done to analyze the amount of times a university is mentioned in print media. The more a school is mentioned, the higher the probability is that the particular school has seen an increase in the quality and quantity of undergraduate applications. One way to analyze how popular a university is, is to do brief searches of popular newspaper outlets. Using the Proquest resource, a simple search of “Indiana University basketball” will lead to all the newspaper articles in which those words come up. Those statistics can then be compared to searches of other universities.

In the past, universities invested in athletics to increase the popularity of their institution. While success in athletics does not directly translate to increased admissions, we however see an increase in the quality and quantity of student applications. This ensures higher quality students enter the university and increase the school’s academic reputation. Athletic success increases the popularity of the university. They do this through the national media. The better a school performs, the more national attention they will receive. Any school that wishes to increase their overall popularity, as well as the quality of their institution, should invest in athletic programs.

In an ideal world, if I had access to unlimited time and resources, I would examine much more newspapers through the Proquest website. I would look at a much larger time frame, and examine trends in both college basketball and college football. With the help of an assistant, I could look at even more newspapers and more athletic programs. In five hours of work, my assistant and I could probably cover two or three different universities. I would examine the papers and try to get a feel for the theme and moods presented. This would give me a better understanding of how the both the public and the media viewed the teams in years of success as well as losing seasons. If I wanted to dig even deeper, I would also want to examine different types of sports media. With a drastic rise in both television and online media, there is now more than ever more sources to get news. These methods would give me a broader range and could potentially confirm my findings in print media.

Results

To get some results for my study, I examined several articles regarding both “Indiana University Basketball” and “Uiversity of Southern California Football”. For each search, I analized a few articles for several years both before and after winning a national championship. The results I got after examining these articles are rather vague, and do not fully support my hypothesis like I hoped. After a closer examination of the articles, I found much more media attention was given to the coaches of each team. It was my hopes that I could have found more articles concerning the state of the team. I did have some success however, in seasons resulting in national championships the articles had a more positive theme. There were few instances on negative articles. Most of hits I got on the Proquest Historical Newspapers website spoke of the recent successes of each team. As I said earlier, in an ideal world I would have unlimited time to filter my results. Most of the articles I came across had little to do with the actual status of the teams. Below is a brief illistration of the results I found using a sentiment analysis of multiple newspapers. When reveiwing the results, keep in mind that IU won a national championship in the 1975-1976 season. Also, USC won championships in both 1972 and 1974.

Bibliography

Indiana University Institutional Research and Reporting, https://uirr.iu.edu/doc/facts-figures/enrollment/historical/headcount/fall_term_heads.pdf

Devin G. Pope and Jaren C. Pope Source: Southern Economic Journal The Impact of College Sports Success on the Quantity and Quality of Student Application:, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Jan., 2009), pp. 750-780 Published by: Southern Economic Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27751414 Accessed: 26-03-2017 18:54 UTC

James M. Gladden, George R. Milne, and William A. Sutton, A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Brand Equity in Division I College Athletics, Journal of Sport Management 1998 12:1, 1-19

Toma, J.D. & Cross, M.E. Research in Higher Education (1998) 39: 633. doi:10.1023/A:1018757807834

Cialdini, R.B., Borden, R.J., Thome, R.J., Walker, M.R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L.R. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three football field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34,366-375.

Proquest Historical Newspapers. Searches include: “Indiana Univeristy Basketball” and “University of Southern California Football”