The impact of sporting success on university reputation

The effect of sporting success
on overall university reputation:
A report for University of East
London Sport
Daniel Fabry
Summer 2015
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Table of contents
I. Introduction 3
II. Methodology 6
III. Findings 9
IV. Recommendations and implications 22
V. Conclusion 27
VI. References and appendices 29

I. Introduction
The differences between the American collegiate athletics system and the British
university athletics structure are very different, both in scale and in popularity. On one
side of the Atlantic, we have a system that is almost unbelievable in scope when one
takes into account the sheer amount of spectators, including giant television audiences,
and money generated off of the performances of 18 to 22 year-olds, many of whom are
not compensated in any way. From 100,000 spectators at American football games to
the estimated $9 billion gambled on the annual March Madness basketball tournament,
it’s safe to say major NCAA sports are on par with major professional leagues in terms
of audience and revenue (Braverman, 2015).
On the other side of the Atlantic, however, we see a system that is very much in
its infancy in terms of popularity and exposure compared to its American counterpart.
The main American governing body, the NCAA, has around 1,100 member institutions,
while the NAIA, the NCAA’s only real competitor, supports 248 schools (NCAA; NAIA,
2015). BUCS, British University and College Sports, only supports about 170 universi-
ties and colleges (BUCS, 2015). While a big part of this discrepancy is obviously due to
the large difference in population between the two countries, the ratio of citizens per
university that support a sports program is still quite far apart. Taking into account that
approximately 320 million people live in the United States, that means there is one
school fully supporting intercollegiate athletics for approximately every 237,388 people.
The UK having a population of about 64 million means that there is one university sports
program for about every 376,470 citizens.
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So the question becomes: what causes this difference in numbers of schools
supporting sports in these otherwise very similar countries, both economically and cul-
turally, and what can British universities do to beneﬁt from sport in the same way that
their American brethren do?
Major spending on intercollegiate athletics is something that is quite common in
the United States sporting culture. Any major NCAA program knows that money is the
key to having the best facilities, the best coaches, the best trainers, and therefore the
means to attract the best recruits who will help you win and make even more money. In
the 2012-13 school year, 54 public universities in the United States spent over
$50,000,000 on their athletic departments (USA Today, 2013). It is unknown how much
private schools spent, but there are plenty of them that must spend nearly as much as
public schools to be as competitive as they are. Private universities and colleges won
46 out of the 90 national championships awarded in the 2013-14 school year (NCAA,
2014). This does not happen without a comparable amount of spending.
It can be wondered if all of the insane spending is worth it to the university as a
whole. Does the anthropology department beneﬁt from the basketball team making the
NCAA Final Four? Do research departments earn more government grants if the foot-
ball team is playing in a big bowl game? Does a brand new stadium increase atten-
dance at events, both by students and the community? How does intercollegiate team
success affect student morale, retention rate, and pride upon graduation? Does a great
sporting season affect the amount and quality of applications that a school gets in the
following years? Does an increase in spending necessarily equate to success? How can
this info be applied to the university sports system in the UK, if at all?
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In this study, I will show how much of a difference sporting success, or even the
mere presence of a full sporting program, can have when it comes to the overall outside
view and reputation of a university. I will do this with not only secondary research done
mostly in the United States, but also with a survey designed to show how much of a fac-
tor sport has on a potential student or student-athlete choosing one school over another.
I will also demonstrate how the University of East London Sport department, along with
other British universities, can learn from the way that American universities have pro-
moted and grown their sporting culture into a cultural phenomenon. Being able to
demonstrate that the British university system can benefit in similar ways will hopefully
convince school boards and other funding bodies, including Sport England, to continue
to support intercollegiate and intramural sport on university campuses.
I will start in section II by discussing the methodology for my research, which will
begin with my secondary research findings. These studies will be mainly based upon
the North American sport model as it has been established for much longer. This will
demonstrate how the two countries’ systems differ and also lay a good foundation for
the findings when it comes to my primary research. My primary research will be a sur-
vey of people who have attended university in either the United States, Canada, or the
United Kingdom and the aim will be to determine how much of an effect, if any, sport
had on their decision to attend a certain school. Section III will include these findings
from both types of research, including going into more detail about survey results and
how they translate to the British university culture.
Section IV will include recommendations and how to implement them based on
the findings of both the primary and secondary research. This will include examples of
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what American universities have done to maximize their schools’ successes in sports to
benefit their university as a whole. While acknowledging cultural differences in between
the two countries, I will advise the UEL Sport department as to how to move forward in
growing a program that has already seen massive growth since its recent inception.
This section will include specific strategies and ideas on how to maximize the potential
of UEL Sport, some based off of tried and successful promotions in North America,
along with some new ones that can be customized for the British sporting market. From
there, section V will conclude the report with some closing thoughts about the current
state of British sport and where it can go in the future.
II. Methodology
As stated before, this project is the result of both primary and secondary re-
search. The reason for this is that most of the secondary research looking into collegiate
athletics is based on the North American model, mainly because in the UK it can be
considered in its infancy. My primary research, involving an online survey, was then de-
signed to supplement the secondary research findings with some real world opinions of
people who have had to make the difficult choice of where to continue their educations.
Using both of these in conjunction gave me a better understanding of how the different
issues can affect a university’s reputation as viewed from the outside as almost all you
ever hear about a certain school is based on success or failure on the playing field.
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Secondary research
In terms of secondary research, I knew going into this project that previous arti-
cles about British university sport would be tough to find, and it was. Using the UEL li-
brary and internet searches proved invaluable, however, when it came to finding papers
and studies about the American university sports system. Due to the massive amount of
money and attention given to the NCAA in particular, many scholarly articles have been
written about a huge array of issues when it comes to this topic. From determining if
sports success attracted more notable faculty, to trying to find out if a new football stadi-
um would be worth it, to looking into whether a major sports championship increases
the number and quality of applicants, there was no shortage of info on the American
system. Using these articles I was able to compare and contrast the different findings in
regards to each issue covered. Some showed that collegiate sports may not be the best
use of money for a university on a strictly financial basis, while others viewed the issue
in a more macroeconomic way by showing other benefits brought on by this spending.
Each study has its own pluses and minuses and these will be addressed in my findings
in section IV.
Primary research
For my primary research I did a simple, ten question survey directed at anyone
who once had to make a decision on which college or university to attend.
Participants:
The participants involved in this study included anyone who at one point
had to make a decision on which college to attend. The survey was completely volun-
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tary and no compensation of any kind was offered to the participants. Each participant
agreed to a waiver beforehand agreeing that any answers may be used in this project,
and this project only.
Instruments:
For the survey itself the free website Survey Monkey was used. The sur-
vey link was shared through several social media channels, including Facebook and
Twitter, and was shared by multiple people in order to minimize the effect my group of
friends, which most likely includes a much higher number of athletes than most
peoples’, had on skewing any potential results.
Design
The survey included a series of 8 multiple choice questions along with a
text box in order to explain any other opinions the participant had when it comes to the
effect of athletics on their decision. Special care was taken to not paint collegiate athlet-
ics in a positive or negative light and plenty of other non-sport options were given as to
why someone may have chosen a certain school.
Results
Results can be found at the end of Section IV following my secondary re-
search.
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III. Findings
Secondary research
I’ll begin with my secondary research in order to give some context as to how
North American collegiate sports is viewed in the academic community through studies
and reports. The first two articles I reviewed both attempted to find a connection be-
tween sporting success and university rankings. The first one is an article by Steven R.
Cox and Dianne M. Roden of Indiana University, Kokomo, entitled “Quality perception
and the championship effect: Do collegiate sports influence academic rankings?”, which
was published in in the Research in Higher Education Journal, volume six of 2010.
Cox and Roden set out to compare the U.S. News and World Report (from here
on USNWR) rankings with the results of major Division I national champions. They
looked at the change, if any, in the rankings from two years before to two years after a
school won a championship in men’s basketball or American football, which are by far
the highest profile championships to be awarded every year. The reasoning is that a
sports championship is the best advertisement for a university and that the publicity can
only drive people to want to attend a school known for winning. As they put it, major col-
lege sports “provide visibility and potentially play a key role in marketing the institution.
Successful programs that compete for championships effectively get free three-hour
commercials on national television (Cox et. al., 2010).” From there, Cox and Roden hy-
pothesize that this dramatic triumph on a national stage leads to an increase in the
number of applications, which will naturally lead to the school being able to be more se-
lective in choosing who it admits. Ideally, this leads to a school admitting a better than
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average quality of student than they were able to previously. Better students admitted
will naturally lead to a higher student retention rate, higher graduation rate, and a higher
quality of student going on to postgrad work. Also, being known as a winning school will
keep current students from transferring schools leading to an even higher retention rate,
which is a factor in school rankings such as the USNWR. After all, who wouldn’t want
their diploma to be associated with a winning culture?
Cox and Roden did end up finding a pretty significant jump in university rankings
two years after a championship. Schools that won the men’s basketball national cham-
pionship saw a mean jump of 7.47 ranking spots. An American football championship
resulted in a mean jump of 6.87 spots. These results are extraordinary when you take
into account that a jump that big could take decades through more natural means, like
trying to hire more prestigious faculty or being more selective in who to admit. The au-
thors do, however, point out that they could not find any significant increases in rankings
for schools that did not go all the way and win the championship. Schools who lost on
college sports’ biggest stages saw no real benefits in this way.
“The Faculty Flutie Factor: Does Football Performance Affect a University’s US
News and World Report Peer Assessment Score?” by Mulholland, Tomic, and Solander
(2010) is a study designed to see how other schools’ faculty view universities who have
just won major championships. The study is named after Doug Flutie, an American foot-
ball quarterback who led his Boston College team to a shocking upset of the highly-
ranked and defending national champion University of Miami in 1984. The “hailmary”
final play to win the game is still shown countless times a year as an example of one of
the greatest plays in NCAA football history. “The Flutie Factor” is the term coined to de-
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scribe the bounce in applications after a major sporting success as Boston College re-
ported a thirty percent increase in applications in the two years following the upset of
Miami. This kind of increase is considered a common occurrence in these situations.
The difference between this study and the Cox and Roden one is that it looks at
changes in the way that schools are voted in the peer assessment portion of the US-
NWR, which indicates how other schools’ faculty and administration view that school,
compared to the number of votes a school gets in the Associated Press and USA Today
Coaches’ polls for college football rankings.
Mullholland, et al, note that other studies have found correlations between foot-
ball success and more applicants, higher test scores for those applicants, greater reten-
tion rates, and greater levels of donations from alumni, while acknowledging the ongo-
ing debate of the ﬁnancial strain these huge athletic departments can have on their uni-
versities. The study sets out to determine how college administrators and faculty as a
whole view sports on campuses. This is an important statistic because the USNWR
rankings counts the peer assessment score as twenty-ﬁve per cent of the score used to
determine the overall ranking. Do they associate sporting success with overall adminis-
trative excellence or with an expensive distraction that takes valuable resources from
academic pursuits?
The results of the study paint a promising picture when it comes to sports per-
formance and its effect on how other schools’ view a learning institution. Mulholland,
et.al, found that the increase in peer review score from gaining an extra 270 points in
the Associated Press Football Coaches poll correlated with the same increase that a
university receives when its average 75th percentile SAT (American standardized test
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for college admissions) admitted goes up 40 points. For example, gaining that extra 270
points means your school, which normally has a 1210 75th percentile admission rate,
raises your school’s peer review score to be on par with a school which normally has a
1250 75th percentile admission rate. This is nothing to scoff at. Universities work for
years to be able to admit only the highest quality students and if one good year can in-
crease a school’s academic reputation by that much then sports may be a bigger factor
than previously thought. The study also looked at whether an upset over a favored team
the previous season caused any signiﬁcant movement in peer assessment scores and it
did not as far as they could tell. Mullholland, et. al, are careful to note that this does not
mean that schools should add Division I football in order to achieve a rise in academic
rankings, as it is very hard to ﬁeld a competitive team and almost all major athletic de-
partments are at best revenue neutral and most lose money overall.
The previous study discussed moderate upsets and concluded that they probably
do not have an impact on a school’s peer review score, but what about recent athletic
success, including big upsets, having a factor in the number of applicants a school has?
Michael Trivette of Appalachian State University saw the perfect opportunity to examine
this question due to his school’s sudden string of athletic success in the mid-2000s. Ap-
palachian State is a school of about 18,000 students in rural North Carolina that com-
petes in Division I sports. The football team, however, was a member of NCAA Division I
FCS football, or the so-called “Championship Subdivision” at that time. This means that
the football team was in the second tier of programs and did not participate in the Bowl
Game system that all the most famous football schools participate in. This obviously
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means that the school did not get a great deal of national attention when it comes to
their exploits on the football field. One big game, however, can change that dramatically.
The first couple of weeks of the college football season is oftentimes a pretty
bland time on the American sports calendar. There is usually one or two big out of con-
ference match ups pitting two very good teams against each other, but the majority of
games feature powerhouses inviting lesser known and inferior opponents to their stadi-
um to pile up a couple of wins before their conference seasons start. The smaller
schools agree to do this because they have no real shot at bowl games anyway, but
also because the larger schools will pay a team a small fortune to come and fill up their
stadiums. These payments are routinely in the $500,000 to $1,000,000 range and can
be valuable to the home teams as it can bring in millions of dollars in game day revenue
and could possibly be the difference between making a lucrative bowl game or not in a
mediocre season (Mayyasi, 2013). And for a low-level program, a $1,000,000 day can
be the difference in building that new facility or hiring that much-needed new strength
coach.
These games do occasionally come back to bite the favorites in the end, and the
most famous example of that is the match up of the University of Michigan vs Ap-
palachian State in 2007. Appalachian State was no joke of a program going into the
match up, they were after all, back to back FCS champions in 2005 and 2006 and were
the number one ranked team in the FCS going into the 2007 season. Michigan Wolver-
ines football, however is one of the most legendary programs in college football history.
Wolverine football dates back to 1879 and its history includes 11 National Champi-
onships and 42 Big Ten conference titles. Going into the 2007 season, they were com-
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ing off of an 11-2 season, which included an appearance in the prestigious Rose Bowl,
and ranked number five in the FBS rankings (University of Michigan).
What happened that day has been talked about every college football season
since. Appalachian State came into “The Big House,” as the Michigan stadium is called
due to its 100,000-plus seating capacity, and upset a home team that was so heavily
favored that Las Vegas sports books did not even offer a betting line for the game (Wet-
zel, 2007.) The game was tight throughout and ended up being decided dramatically on
a blocked field goal with just six seconds remaining. It is considered to be the biggest
upset in modern college football history and was the biggest story in not only sports
media, but in the country for a couple of days.
This all came at what can be described as a perfect storm of sporting success for
the university as a whole. The football victory came after the school’s most successful
basketball campaign ever, which earned them regional attention and their first ever in-
vite to the season-ending NIT basketball tournament (Trivette, 2008.) This paper set out
to find exactly what, if any, were the effects of this recent sporting success on the Uni-
versity as a whole, namely did it attract more applicants?
What Trivette found was a pretty dramatic increase in the number of applicants
over previous years. According to his report, as of November 9, 2007, just over two
months after the huge Michigan upset, Appalachian State’s admissions office reported
having 8,218 applicants for undergraduate admission for the following school year. This
was up 24.42% from the previous year at the same time. The most likely explanation for
this anomaly is the immense publicity the school received following that one game of
American Football. This logic is backed up by the survey that Trivette conducted on the
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incoming freshman of the previous year. Out of 75 Appalachian State freshman, 25.3%
agreed that “the success of the athletic programs at Appalachian State University influ-
enced you to apply for undergraduate admission.” That number matches up very well
with the increase in overall applications.
Trivette also cited previous examples, including George Mason University, which
saw their undergraduate applications quadruple after its men’s basketball team made a
Cinderella run to the NCAA Final Four in 2006, and another study found that just having
a player in the top five of the Heisman Trophy voting, the award given to the nation’s top
college football player, led to an average 6.59% spike in applications.
Another major issue when it comes to expanding a university’s sports exposure is
its facilities. There has been massive debate over the years about how much money is
appropriate to spend on new facilities for both intercollegiate and professional sports
teams. A lot of the debate comes down to the issue of public financing, or using tax
payer dollars to offset the cost of the new or renovated stadia. Joel G. Maxcy and
Daniel J. Larson looked at these and a host of other issues in their study “Reversal of
Fortune of Glaring Misallocation: Is a New Football Stadium Worth the Cost to a Univer-
sity?” In the study, Maxcy and Larson examined the trend of new football stadiums be-
ing built for major college teams in the last decade or so. Citing many studies for these
and previous projects over the last twenty years or so, they acknowledge that building a
glistening new facility is at best a mixed bag when it comes to benefits and hindrances
for the university going forward. While many studies acknowledge benefits, such as in-
creased media exposure and the ability to attract better recruits, financially it is usually
only beneficial to a university in the very best case scenario revenue-wise.
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One such study acknowledges that all these products are designed to market the
school to its main demographics, potential students. Ideally, these new facilities will lead
to a better product on the field and, therefore, a more attractive university experience for
students and prospective students. According to Maxcy and Larson, having success in
the major collegiate sports will generate the majority of media coverage a university re-
ceives. They cite a book by Clotfelter (2011) that showed 87% of the mentions of elite
football conference members in the New York Times in 2007 were sports-related. Only
the very elite academic institutions, such as Ivy League schools, garnered more men-
tions from non-sports related stories than ones that were.
Both college administrators and major pro sports teams often point to the poten-
tial economic benefits a new stadium can bring to an area when campaigning for public
funding. This argument is used all across the States to gain public support for referen-
dums and city council votes, but it is one that rings hollow upon further examination.
Maxcy and Larson used this premise to examine the money that Colorado State Univer-
sity was planning to spend on a new football stadium of their own. After examining the
project as a whole, including both tangible (revenue, increased applications, more peo-
ple visiting campus) and intangible benefits (improved reputation and school spirit), the
authors conclude that any net benefit to the campus or the community as a whole would
be small even under the most optimistic of outcomes, and in many cases may be an
unnecessary drain on valuable resources. This is mainly due to the fact that there’s no
such thing as a “sure thing” when it comes to sports. If every school could just throw
enough money at its sports program and turn it into one of the legendary programs. So
many variables exist in sports, however, that there is no real way to assure your school
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or organization success both on and off the field just by spending more and more. A lot
of the potential benefits cited in the Colorado State study were dependent on the foot-
ball program attracting enough attention to be invited to a major revenue-generating
conference. This is the farthest from a sure thing, however. From apathetic fanbases to
your future success being dependent on the whims of 17 year-olds deciding where they
want to play (and party) for the next four to five years to famously fickle coaches leaving
for greener pastures, the world of sport is a crap shoot on a grand scale and just build-
ing a shiny new stadium doesn’t guarantee any sort of meaningful success.
Primary research
As explained in section II, my primary research consisted of a simple, nine ques-
tion survey meant to find out how much of an effect previous school sporting success or
potential school sport participation had on the participants school decision. The full text
of the survey and results can be found in the appendix, but I will go over some results
relevant to what I learned through the secondary research articles and studies.
After 20 days of being live online, the survey got responses from a total of 81
people, which was more responses that several of the studies previously cited. After the
permission waiver, the first question asked the respondent to divulge what country they
attended their undergraduate courses in, 72 of the 81 (88.89 per cent) people went to
school in the United States or Canada at a total of 39 different schools, while seven at-
tended school in the UK (8.64 per cent), all of which went to UEL, and two answered
“Other” (2.47 per cent). This is a good thing in that it shows again how much, or how lit-
tle, the North American athletic system can influence where students choose to continue
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their educations and also to use some of the ideas and trends in that market that works.
This is also a bad thing, however, in that it may limit the conclusions we can make about
appealing to the British schooling market. The mix of where respondents went to school
was also a good mix of major athletic schools and schools that have lower level pro-
grams, or sometimes no sports offered at all. Thirteen of the American schools with par-
ticipants compete in “major” conferences in either football or men’s basketball, while the
others range from “mid-major” conferences to lower divisions of the NCAA or NAIA. This
will be good to provide a good comparison of why people choose schools where sport
is, historically, not a major factor.
The ﬁrst thing I looked at in my analysis is the difference, potentially, between the
North American students and those from the rest of the world when it comes to how
closely they related sports and where to attend college. Here are some results:
North American students:
• 56.94% of respondents claimed they were either “generally knowl-
edgable” or an “expert” on their schools sporting reputation before decid-
ing to attend.
• 15.28% claimed to know “nothing” about their chosen schools sporting
reputation.
• 61.11% said they participated in either intercollegiate or intramural sport
while attending campus.
• Of those who chose not to participate in on campus sporting offers,
60.7% stated they’re simply “not interested in sports.”
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• Of the ten factors offered, “intercollegiate success or reputation” ranked
second behind only “location” as the number one reason to attend a
school with 15.28%.
• 48.6% of the North American respondents put “intercollegiate success or
reputation” in their top five of deciding factors.
• 50% of respondents said the “pride” they have in their alma maters has
been positively affected by sporting success since they graduated.
• 70.42% said they have a “more favorable opinion” of a school that is
“traditionally very successful in sports.”
I also provided a text box with the prompt “If you would like, please add any
comments you have regarding your opinions of the relationship between educational
institutions and sports programs.” Here are some quotes picked out of the North Ameri-
can responses:
“It definitely helps to have successful athletic programs because it draws
attention to the school. The Ivy Leagues will always be the best, but not every-
one can get in. So once those schools are off the table, I started looking at
schools I was familiar with. And ones I was familiar with were the schools I saw
represented in the NCAA tourney every year or the ones constantly in high pro-
file bowl games.”
“The programs add to the draw of the university. It's not everything, but it's
fun to be associated with a good team.”
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“Looking back, would've been great to go to a big ten, acc or sec school.
Being huge into sports, i never realized or thought about attending games or
maybe even trying out. Shame.”
“Developed crazy school pride while on campus. Hoosier for life!”
“A good sports program allows the alumni to stay connected with the
school and each other long after graduation, and thus increases the likelihood
that each alumnus will donate to their alma matter.”
Not all of the responses were positive when it comes to athletics, however:
“I respect that they are important to many people, but they are not impor-
tant to me.”
“I feel that intercollegiate sports are a tremendous waste of money for
most schools. It detracts from the quality of education and occupies an unrea-
sonable amount of thought for most alumni.”
“As a person who attended college as an adult after military service,
sports meant nothing to me.”
So, as you can see, sports can have a very positive impact on how a potential
student view a university, both positively and negatively, even in the United States with
the most powerful and inﬂuential collegiate sport system on earth.
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British students:
• 44.44% said they were only knew “a little bit” about their chosen school’s
sports programs while 55.55% said they were “generally knowledgable”
or an “expert” before attending.
• 14.29% of respondents said they did not participate in sport on campus
because they weren’t “aware of opportunities.”
• 77.78% said that they think more highly of a school with a successful
sports reputation.
Quotes from British students:
“Sport can strength the identiﬁcation with a university but means
also extra stress. Unless you are not an athlete it is not a main criteria for
students to choose a university(my opinion).”
“I think a culture of sport is very very important for any institution.”
As you can see from the results, students who study in the British system clearly
enjoy sport as well. More work is deﬁnitely needed to explore these sentiments as my
British responders were limited in number and there’s a high probability that most of
them were or are athletes themselves due to the limited reach of sharing a survey. Nev-
ertheless, I believe these results show that there is great potential for the expansion of
the British collegiate sport system.
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IV. Recommendations and implications
Based on the results of the survey in both North America and the UK, it’s clear
that a good portion of potential students are indeed interested in higher level sport past
their high school days. The challenge to athletic departments is to maximize this interest
to not only improve student lives but also to use it to attract potential future students.
How this can be accomplished is something people spend careers studying and at-
tempting. I’ll begin with my recommendations starting big picture and then working down
to individual circumstances. UEL Sport can deﬁnitely play a big part in the future of
BUCS by not only competing and continuing to add sports but can also bring things to
the table as far as the master plan for BUCS growth.
Increased exposure
The main goal for BUCS as an organization, at this point, should be to increase
exposure to a broader audience than they are receiving right now. If I was a normal citi-
zen I feel like I would have no idea that such a system even existed in the UK. You nev-
er see BUCS competitions on TV or in the media as far as I can tell. The NCAA, on the
other hand, is an industry to itself that rivals the major professional sports leagues when
it comes to media exposure. This is obviously the result of decades and decades of a
much more prevalent collegiate athletic system, especially in the southern part of the
United States, where most cities aren’t big enough to support professional teams but
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major collegiate programs thrive, usually on the back of a massively popular American
football team.
While the sporting culture in the UK is very different, there’s no reason that BUCS
can’t start small and build up a following through new media channels. Broadcasting
more events online and targeting the most likely potential audiences, such as teenagers
who play that sport through clubs, can only help BUCS gain a more advanced reputa-
tion from the ground up. We’re lucky enough to live in an age where voices from outside
the traditional major media groups can be heard on a very large scale quite cheaply. As
of the beginning of August 2015, the BUCS YouTube channel had less than 300 sub-
scribers and its most-viewed video ever had just over 13,000 views in two years. This is
simply not enough for an organization looking to grow both domestically and interna-
tionally. Sky, BT, and the BBC are probably not knocking on BUCS’ doors anytime soon,
so taking advantage of cheap, effective ways of spreading their message to a wider,
and potentially worldwide, audience should be a top priority.
New sports
Focusing on new sports at younger age groups could also be a huge boost to the
organization as a whole. In the sports media in the UK, almost all you ever read about is
football, rugby, cricket, and tennis. These are the four traditionally “British” sports as far
as an outside observer can tell, and while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that,
this doesn’t lend itself well to an organization that supports more than 50 sports. Veering
children at a younger age to a more varied sporting experience can help them see that
there is more out there than just these four sports. For example, both NCAA volleyball
142946923

and lacrosse have grown by leaps and bounds over the course of the last 15-20 years.
So much so, in fact, that the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship match
is played yearly in sold out 15,000+ seat arenas while the Division I men’s lacrosse
championships attract big enough crowds to be played in NFL stadiums. Both of these
phenomenons can’t help but attribute some of this success to the explosion of involve-
ment at the youth ages.
Whether it be lobbying Sport England to increase youth funding in the “non-big
four” sports or simply getting coaches and athletes out into the community to work with
younger athletes, there are a lot of ways to grow a sport from the grassroots level. A
sport needs a “culture” to grow and that usually starts with a younger generation adopt-
ing the game. If BUCS wants to continue expanding it needs to help develop these non-
traditional sports at a young level and offering scholarships in these newer sports can
incentivize young athletes to expand their sporting horizons. The strategy for what
sports to focus on can be any number of things, however, I believe that it should be fo-
cused on the UK’s massive immigrant population. For example, the UK, and the London
community especially, has a very large Polish population that was recently estimated at
140,000 (Wall, 2015). Volleyball is a huge draw in Poland, especially coming off the
heels of their men’s national team winning the 2014 FIVB World Championship, a tour-
nament that was hosted in Poland in front of huge crowds. There are plenty of other
immigrant populations with their own traditionally popular sports that can also be pro-
moted.
Thinking internationally
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A big plus that BUCS can offer students is the prestigious, world-renowned uni-
versities that the UK has. Three of the top ten universities on earth are in the UK, ac-
cording to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and many outside of
that are still known worldwide. These universities routinely draw the best talent in the
classroom from all over the world, there’s no reason it can’t draw the best talent on the
playing field as well. Obviously, this would need to be coupled with a dramatic increase
in scholarship money available as the UK is not a cheap place to work or study. Again,
in this instance it may take some funding help from Sport England or partnering with
another sponsor in order to raise more funds. Since the level of alumni donations for
sport is almost completely absent in the UK sport market, developing this will only be
possible with a generation or two with of heavy growth in both BUCS and individual uni-
versities. Recruiting the best athletes internationally can only help raise BUCS’ profile.
Suggestions for UEL
Sticking with the international theme first, UEL does a fairly good job of recruiting
overseas. From the United States and Canada to Iran and Germany, a good percentage
of athletes on campus come from someplace other than the UK. Expanding on this base
is something that could lead to very positive growth for UEL Sport, especially in sports
that haven’t quite reached maturity here in the UK, such as volleyball or basketball.
Teaming up with a North American university or an organization such as TeamGleas,
which works to connect American students with sport scholarship opportunities in the
UK, could pay huge dividends not just in BUCS standings, but also by getting the word
out about the program and university as a whole.
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UEL should have a huge advantage when it comes to recruiting just based on the
fact that the school is in London. Speaking personally, I was deﬁnitely attracted to the
fact that I would get to live in London for a year if I chose UEL, while the other schools I
was speaking to were in more remote areas of the UK and would not offer the same ex-
citement or opportunities that one of the world’s most prominent cities could offer. While
it is a very expensive proposition living here, I believe all the things I have experienced
in this city made it worthwhile while people I’ve spoken to from other universities have
expressed their boredom with where they chose to attend. Really pushing the fact that
UEL is in one of the world’s most visited and inﬂuential cities could separate UEL from
the rest of the UK university pack.
While recruiting internationally should help UEL in the near term by improving
BUCS teams and moving the school up the point standings, it’ll be what UEL does in the
UK market that will set the foundation for longterm success. Using the international
scholars to improve sports in the short term can provide a big boost to the image of UEL
sport, which can then be used to promote the school to more local athletes. Especially
in the developing sports, such as volleyball and basketball, having some tangible results
to recruit with can only help the cause on a local scale, even if those wins are earned by
non-UK athletes. Since club sports are not as prevalent as in the North American mar-
ket, partnerships with local schools and community sport clubs can be used to expose
young athletes to the opportunities that UEL offers and be developed into a de facto
feeder program for the top level teams.
Another aspect that seems to be lost on British university athletics is giving your
school and their supporters a brand to identify with. Every school with sports in the
142946926

North American market has some sort of mascot or team theme that allows the athletes,
students, and regional residents to form a bond with. Everything from the colors and
symbols they use to the brand of equipment they wear and school’s fight song are part
of the culture of a certain program. These things become instantly recognizable to peo-
ple with any knowledge of that country’s culture and universities put a lot of time and
effort into cultivating a unified identity. It really is amazing to see the way that fans of a
certain university or team get behind that team identity and embrace it as a part of their
lives. From wearing team branded clothes to decorating entire buses in team colors and
logos to tailgate in, the biggest university sports teams have followings that would rival
that of a NFL or Premier League team. These identities are then easily recognizable by
fans of opposing universities and rivalries can flourish and benefit both programs. British
universities can use these same techniques to build up fan bases from this generation
onward.
V. Conclusion
While it will definitely be an uphill battle for British universities to emulate their
North American counterparts in terms of revenue and media exposure, there’s no rea-
son that they can’t create a similar culture within their own schools. Brand identity and
new sport development can be key to the growth of sport in the UK. Giving kids a goal
to shoot for besides getting picked up for a major football club’s junior academy could
be a huge boon for universities. As I have shown, sporting reputation can definitely play
a factor in the way a university is viewed by potential students. Turning these potential
142946927

students into active fans and then, hopefully, proud alumni can make all the difference in
the world when it comes to taking a university to the next level on not only a sport level
but as a whole.
(7,077 words)
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VI. References
Braverman, B. (2015) Here’s how much Americans will bet on March Madness.
Available at: http://www.theﬁscaltimes.com/2015/03/16/Here-s-How-Much-Americans-
Will-Bet-March-Madness (Accessed: 5 July 2015).
BUCS (2015) About us. Available at: http://www.bucs.org.uk/page.asp?
section=16983&sectionTitle=About+Us (Accessed: 30 June 2015).
Clotfelter, C. T. (2011). Big-time sports in American universities. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Cox, S., Roden, D. (2010) ‘Quality perception and the championship effect:
Do collegiate sports inﬂuence academic rankings?’, Research in Higher Education
Journal, vol 6, 2010: pp 4-14.
Larson, D., Maxcy, J. (2015) ‘Reversal of fortune or glaring misallocation: Is a
new football stadium worth the cost to a university?’, International Journal of Sport Fi-
nance, 10, pp. 62-86.
Mayyasi, A. (2013) The $1 million reason the college football season starts with
blowouts. Available at: http://priceonomics.com/the-s1-million-reason-college-football-
season/ (Accessed: 30 June 2015).
Mulholland, S., Tomic, A., and Sholander, S. (2010) ‘The Faculty Flutie Factor:
Does Football Performance Affect a University’s US News and World Report Peer As-
sessment Score?’, MPRA Paper, no. 26443.
NAIA (2015) Member schools. Available at: http://www.naia.org/ViewArti-
cle.dbml?ATCLID=205322922 (Accessed: 5 July 2015).
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NCAA (2014) 2013-14 National Champions. Available at: http://www.ncaa.com/
news/ncaa/article/2014-01-25/2013-14-ncaa-national-champions (Accessed: 6 July
2015).
Trivette, M. (2009) ‘The Effects of Increased Intercollegiate Athletic Success on
Undergraduate Applications for Admission’, Available at: http://www.appstate.edu/
~mt54813/documents/Trivette_Admissions.pdf (Accessed: 21 June 2015).
USA Today (2015) ‘NCAA Finances’. Available at: http://sports.usatoday.com/
ncaa/ﬁnances (Accessed: 25 March 2015).
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Appendix
Survey results:
Conducted 15 June 2015 to 14 July 2015
Question 1: In what country did you attend/are you attending university or college?
142946931
United States or Canada United Kingdom
Other

Question 2: What college or university did you attend/are you attending?
School Number of respondents
American Military University 1
Ball State 2
Beloit 1
Binghampton 1
Carthage 1
Century 1
Colorado 1
Concordia 1
George Mason 1
George Washington 1
Georgia 1
Illinois 5
Illinois State 1
Illinois Wesleyan 1
Indiana 4
Iowa 2
Iowa State 1
IPFW 1
Kansas 1
Long Beach State 8
Marquette 1
Michigan Tech 1
Morningside 1
North Central 1
NEIU 1
142946932

Northern Illinois 13
Northwestern 1
Park 1
Pittsburgh 1
Purdue 1
Simpson 1
St. Norbert 1
Temple 1
UCB 1
UCI 1
UIC 1
UW Lacrosse 1
VIU 1
Wisconsin 1
School Number of respondents
142946933

Question 4: How much did you know about your school's intercollegiate athletics
(NCAA, NAIA, BUCS) reputation before applying and attending?
Question 5: Did/do you participate in athletics at your school, either intercollegiate or
club?
142946934
Nothing A little bit
Generally knowledgable Expert
Yes No

Question 6: If you answered no to the previous question, what would you say kept you
from participation in sports?
142946935
I answered yes Lack of opportunities
Wasn't aware of opportunities Not interested in sport
Lack of free time School was known for bad sports

Question 7: Please rank the following by how much of an inﬂuence they had for your
decision to apply to and attend your school, with the most important reason being num-
ber one and the least important being 10. (Results shown in percentage of responses to
rank.)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Intercollegiate athletic success 14.8
1
8.64 9.88 12.3
5
6.17 8.64 12.3
5
9.88 7.41 9.88
On campus athletic opp/facili-
ties
17.2
8
14.8
1
7.41 4.94 8.64 8.64 6.17 9.88 13.5
8
8.64
Quality of faculty 7.41 12.3
5
14.8
1
14.8
1
13.5
8
18.5
2
8.64 6.17 2.47 1.23
School rankings 8.64 11.1
1
8.64 11.1
1
17.2
8
12.3
5
12.3
5
7.41 3.7 7.41
Location 16.0
5
20.9
9
16.0
5
8.64 8.64 8.64 2.47 7.41 7.41 3.7
Affordability 8.64 12.3
5
12.3
5
13.5
8
8.64 13.5
8
7.41 6.17 6.17 11.1
1
Ability to get admitted 7.41 6.17 8.64 13.5
8
16.0
5
11.1
1
25.9
3
4.94 4.94 1.23
Parents or other family attend-
ed
3.7 6.17 8.64 4.94 4.94 3.7 9.88 16.0
5
22.2
2
19.7
5
Non-sport opportunities 8.64 4.94 3.7 6.17 8.64 6.17 4.94 17.2
8
17.2
8
22.2
2
Friends going there 7.41 2.47 9.88 9.88 7.41 8.64 9.88 14.8
1
14.8
1
14.8
1
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Question 8: If you have already graduated, has athletic success since you graduated
positively affected your "pride" as an alum?
Question 9: Putting rivalries aside, would you say you generally have a more favorable
opinion of a college or university that is traditionally very successfully in sports?
142946937
Haven't graduated yet
My school has had little or no success
My pride has always been strong
A little bit
A lot
No, I think less of them Not sure
Yes

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